#though i’m not very optimistic
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the-travelling-witch · 1 year ago
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You take ur rest!! Take a nap if u can! Or a hot bath those are always nice
i actually am not really a nap person, no matter how tired i am, i just never take them + we currently don’t have warm water, so a hot bath isn’t an option either ㅠㅠ i wish it was though, i need one
thanks for the suggestions though, it’s very thoughtful of you >///<
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rolandkaros · 2 months ago
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no, you are right! karo for any slam in her long career. WTA BEIJING TITLE COMING SOON!!
i fear she will get her ass handed to her in the semis but i do like your attitude anon
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clegfly · 1 year ago
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I hate how the fandom just assumed hero and Mari are extroverts. Like they have four friends and three of them are their little brothers’ friends
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exopelagic · 5 months ago
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this election feels so hollow even though it’s likely ostensibly gonna be a good outcome. labour really just sucks fucking ass rn huh
#if the tories lose bad enough to make lib dems the opposition though… a guy can hope#I think it’s the fact that this is the first general election I can vote in that’s making me lose my mind a little here#I have done basically nothing but read today. I DO know a whole bunch more abt voting systems and the nightmare the tories have been now tho#I’m just kinda like. okay so what happens next? bc labour WILL do some decent shit but they also. fucking suck.#planning to look into the local green party once I’m back at uni bc I could actually do stuff there#I think I’m just dealing with a little bit of whiplash going from doing a biology degree where Everything is about climate change#like unambiguously it gets brought up in every topic (I DO focus on ecology and agricultural stuff and not like genetics but still)#clear consensus from literally everyone you talk to that shit has to happen right the fuck now.#it’s not even like I’m unaware of the state of policy rn I KNOW it’s a nightmare to do anything but we at least TALK about it#and then this election where it’s barely a footnote. biggest thing is the sewage dumping everyone’s talking about and yeah fucking finally#but is that all you’ve got?? the labour manifesto is bleak. it has a section and the stuff they’re proposing isn’t bad but it’s so little#and yeah no they’ve changed the official line on the manifesto to ‘make Britain a clean energy superpower’#I SWEAR it was different a few days ago#maybe I’m being pessimistic bc their plans for clean energy if they actually do them could be huge especially if they manage it by 2030.#it’s just that I know what the targets are and they’re already pulling back on shit like EVs bc of the shift right and I am So Tired#two party politics is a curse. as much as reform is an actual nightmare them getting a decent vote share might actually be the thing that#gets people talking abt proportional representation again bc they are nothing if not good at being loud#did you know we had a fucking referendum in 2011 bc what the fuck. and it went SO BADLY even though people generally supported it#god idk I think I’m once again being naively optimistic about people and election coverage has been very good at knocking me down a bit#people generally are good. I have to believe this. but man the british public is making that really fucking hard#genuinely I think a good chunk of that is down to first past the post driving politics to be divisive and aggressive#like is it the only problem? fuck no. but it’s definitely poisoning the way this shit goes bc when all the parties do is jab at each other#what are we actually doing here#idk I’m gonna stop now but this is taking up a ridiculous amount of bandwidth rn I can’t wait for it to be over#already dreading what the next election could look like in 4 years if starmer continues to suck ass bc I don’t trust him to not like at all#luke.txt#I said i was done but I just looked at the lib dem manifesto and oh my god it’s actually pretty good on this? holy fucking shit
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undyinglantern · 8 months ago
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when you’re so shit at Spanish that it literally doesn’t even occur to you how to pronounce this word until looking at the wiki 👍🏼
#though the most I’m familiar with the word when it comes to starting a car [insert all the times ive heard family say they have to#'arrancar el carro']. and like I know nothing about cars so bare with me in the way I’m gonna explain this but#when the engine won’t start so you open the hood and connect wires from the car that won’t start to one that works fine#anyways also very stupid of me considering I HAVE heard the term espada in terms of this series before#now I’m curious how arrancar is gonna be pronounced once I get that far#bc I was trying to guess and in my head I kept going Aron-kur(?)#but like knowing how 2000s anime pronounce jp works I wonder if they’ll butcher esp one too#are they gonna say ah-rahn-kar properly? cmon there’s a half Mexican guy in the series you can do this#<-(Falsely optimistic)#BUT ALSO IN MY DEFENSE i had never actually heard the word sword (espada) irl growing up#but my understanding of spanish is all sorts of fucked up tbh#like the first time i had champurrado i freaked out wtf i was getting this thick chocolate drink and not a hard giant cookie (champurrada)#my parents never said chancla they said chancleta#i had no idea a chicote was a whip until i looked it up later in life. i thought it was a belt which just happened to be made of leather..#saying as someone whos parents didnt threaten them with a belt or sandals but A FUCKING WHIP. APPARENTLY.#papote instead of pajilla (later found out i was mispronouncing even that my whole life bc its actually pOpote)#and pelo colocho instead of chino are the other 2 big commonly spoken differences
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waywardstation · 2 years ago
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Most likely my past post of 2022, wow!! I’m very much looking forward to what’s in store for this blog for 2023!
Look out for several fics coming soon! I tried to get one last request fic out tonight before the year ended, but that won’t be happening sadly, what with it being 12 minutes till the new year here. It’ll be out tomorrow though! And another one for the Minutes series will be following the next day, one I’ve wanted to write on my own for a while ^^
I also tried to get the holiday fic out in time this year, but that one has just been incredibly difficult to write, and it has not been cooperating at all. It’s coming, but I don’t know when!!
New chapter of HFBE is just about ready for beta reading too, so very much looking forward to jumping on that again too ^^
Well, happy new year everyone!! Let’s have a great 2023 ^^
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merlinsear · 3 months ago
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Two days of school and I’m exhausted, and I haven’t even started teaching real lessons yet. I don’t know how I’m going to make it to my next four day weekend.
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chibipandaao3 · 3 months ago
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I hope they announce a show where First is an actual lead…
He was so wonderful in The Eclipse, and then sidelined in absolutely everything that has come since…
“He was a lead in Only Friends!” No he wasn’t. He wasn’t a main character, he was the love interest to a main (adjacent) character. Which sucks because Sand was, by far, one of the most interesting characters in that show and yet no one cares… which is tragic lol his character is so much more interesting than Ray (imo) but under used.
I just want First to play a lead. Preferably, with an actual flushed out back story.
I’m not trying to disregard Khao’s acting either - he’s great. Both he and First are wonderful. I just wished it was more balanced. I also wish they’d get to play different characters because this is the 3rd show where they (with some glaring differences I know) play very similar characters.
Procrastination rant over 😅
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aemondsbabe · 5 months ago
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Deliverance
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summary: following your nephew's death, you find aemond in need of comfort. as his older sister, who are you to deny him?
pairing: aemond targaryen x sister!reader
warnings: mature/explicit, 18+ (minors dni!), no use of y/n, afab reader, canon typical incest, mentioned canon death, infidelity technically but reader's husband is cool with it and understands that she comes from a weirdo family cough cough incest cough, lactation kink, hurt/comfort, piv sex, unprotected sex, cockwarming, titty sucking, angst but happy ending, otto cameo ew, let me know if i missed anything!
word count: 7.4k
a/n: *slams fist on table* i need for him to suck on my boobie
likes, comments, & reblogs are very appreciated but never required!
gif creds to @feodor-dostoevsky
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“Shall I fetch Maester Orwyle once we return to your chambers, Princess?” Your handmaiden, Edyth, questions as the two of you make your way up one of the many winding staircases in the Red Keep – each step making you wince. 
“Yes, please,” you sigh, ever grateful that she had always seemed to have a knack for predicting your requests before you had the chance to voice them, “Perhaps tell him to prepare some of the same soothing balm he gave to Helaena?” 
“Of course, Princess,” Edyth nods, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips, ever the optimist, “I believe it should help with your aches, I remember it seemed to help the Queen after…” She trails off, breath hitching in her throat.
A heavy silence seems to fall over the two of you, the same that had been blanketing the entirety of the palace for the past few days. You swallow thickly, battling against the lump suddenly growing at the back of your throat and merely nod your head in simple understanding, offering her a tight-lipped smile, “I’m sure it will be of great help, Edyth, thank you.” 
Ever since… it had happened, the Red Keep feels as if it’s made of eggshells, like one small gust of wind could knock it right over. Everyone’s so on edge, terrified of saying too much or too little, the wrong thing at the wrong time. The stress of it all seems nearly suffocating, though you still have a feeling the worst was yet to come. 
Suddenly, someone calls your name from behind you and you turn, smiling once you see your grandsire striding toward you.
“A raven arrived earlier from Gwayne,” Otto explains, deep voice carrying down the empty hallway, “He’s reached Oldtown safely, everything seems to be well there.”
“Oh, wonderful,” you nod, grateful for news of your husband.
“Indeed,” he continues, “Daeron seems to be in good spirits, happy to come home; they’re to depart tomorrow, as scheduled… forgive me, I meant to tell you before supper but it seems to have slipped my mind.”
“Everything has been so hectic of late, please don’t trouble yourself. He arrived safely and will be back all the sooner for it, that is what matters.”
“Of course,” Otto nods, glancing out a nearby window, “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve been ordered to attend to His Grace,” he says gruffly, a wry smile on his lips, nodding in the direction of Aegon’s chambers.
You nod at the mention of your twin, brows pinching together with worry. “Be… patient with him, grandsire, please,” you beseech, chest heaving with a soft sigh, “I spoke with him earlier this morning, he’s… well, he’s not himself.”
“Are any of us anymore, I wonder,” Otto mutters, fixing you with a tight smile before taking his leave, striding quickly down the hallway. Your brows furrow at that, you can’t help but throw Edyth a questioning look before the two of you continue toward your chambers. 
“Seven Hells,” you grumble, quickly bringing a hand to your breast as you climb another, blessedly shorter, set of stairs, “Perhaps check the nursery first, yes? Daena may be stirring still…” You know better, even as the words leave your lips. 
Your daughter has finally begun sleeping soundly through the night recently and while that is cause for celebration, you certainly won’t miss the past eight moons of late night feedings, your poor breasts are paying the price – your body not yet caught up with the lessened need for milk. 
“Yes, Princess,” Edyth replies with a little nod, walking alongside you.
The two of you are almost at your chambers, finally turning onto the hallway where the family apartments are housed, when you hear it – a muffled, barely there cry. The sound makes you pause in your tracks, head swiveling, unsure of exactly where it came from and it’s then you notice that the door to Aemond’s chambers is ajar. 
That in and of itself is strange indeed, your little brother valued privacy above all else, so you stride over only to pause at the entrance, hand poised midair as you reach for the door handle. Your heart clenches when another soft sob pierces the quiet of the hallway – a mournful little noise, one you’d expect more from Aegon. 
Turning back to Edyth, you lead her a few feet from the door, knowing Aemond would hate it if he knew someone, anyone aside from you, had overheard him. “Go to the nursery,” you instruct, making sure to keep your voice low, “Make sure Daena is well, then you’re free for the evening.” 
“But, princess, what about –”
“Nevermind it,” you murmur with a shake of your head, “I’ll send for the maester later myself.”
With a nod, she scampers off further down the hallway, leaving you alone by your brother’s door. Stepping back over toward the threshold, you bite at your bottom lip, wondering if you should go in at all – if it would be more merciful to simply pretend you hadn’t heard anything at all. 
But then it happens again, another pitiful sob sounds from beyond the cracked door and you’re unable to help yourself – Aemond had always come to you with his troubles when he was younger, surely now would be no different. With a little breath, you push the door open just enough to slip through it and thank whichever Gods may be listening when you’re able to press it closed with hardly a sound. 
Peeking around the screen your brother has beside the door, it feels as if your heart shatters in your chest. He looks so… small, so fragile, the complete opposite of the towering, formidable man he’d become in recent years. It’s clear he didn’t hear you come in as he stays seated in a chair near the door, his back to you; his shoulders shake with gentle cries while he hunches over, head cradled in his hands. 
The disarray of his normally spotless chambers startles you once you let your eyes flit over the space – papers are strewn about all across the low table he keeps in the little sitting area, some scattered across the floor, crumpled up, or ripped to pieces. His bedsheets are halfway ripped from the bed and lie in a pool at its foot, along with the remnants of a candle, now merely a translucent puddle on the dark stone floor. 
Taking a step forward, you softly call his name, trying your hardest to keep your voice as low and soft as possible, though you’re hardly able to get the first syllable out before he bolts up from the chair with a strangled gasp and spins toward you. 
“Oh, Aem,” the words fall past your lips in a soft sigh, pulled from you by the startled expression on his face – eyes wide with the fear of being caught so vulnerable. His sapphire eye seems to sparkle with just as much emotion as his pale purple one. 
“Sister, I –” He starts, hastily wiping his hands over his cheeks, chest heaving while he tries to calm his harsh breaths, but you’ll have none of that.
“Shh, whatever excuses you have, I’ll not hear them,” you murmur, quickly walking the few feet over to him and enveloping him in a tight embrace, just as you used to do when he would come crying to you about the tortures Aegon or your nephews put him through in their youth.
Your brother stays stiff in your arms for a moment, tense and wary, though he slowly relaxes as you rub a hand over his back, smoothing out his long hair. You yourself relax once he finally winds his long arms around you and rests his chin on your shoulder with a soft sigh, the tension in his shoulders finally releasing. 
“Tell me what distresses you so?”
“I… Jae– the boy,” he stammers, stumbling over his name. You understand, just saying your little nephew’s name seems to somehow make the pain of the loss even worse. Yet, something in your gut tells you there’s something else going on, that Jaehaerys’s death is not the only thing causing your brother such anguish.
“Aemond…” you gently press, bringing a hand up to cup his cheek as you pull back just enough to meet his gaze, “I cannot help if you won’t tell me–”
“Tell you what?” He counters, tone growing too defensive too quickly, “My nephew’s death brings me sorrow, sister. The loss of a young child is a… distressing thing.”
“You know that’s not what I mean!” You counter, trying desperately to keep your voice calm, even when Aemond backs away from you with an exasperated sigh. You’re no stranger to this game – ever since he lost his eye, your brother has guarded his emotions carefully. Getting him to speak honestly about them was about as hard as keeping a bottle of Dornish wine from Aegon’s grasp. 
He gives you a sidelong glance as he paces about the room, lips pressed into a thin line, jaw clenched. Worry only blooms brighter in your chest the longer you watch him; so agitated and so guarded, closed off like an abused animal. 
“It… it’s nothing,” he mumbles finally, voice short and clipped, “Nothing important, sister, I assure you.”
Unconsciously, you wring your hands worriedly, heart clenching; you want nothing more than to reach out and comfort him, yet you know from experience that it was better to let Aemond come to you. 
“Well, surely it cannot be nothing if it has upset you so, sweetling.” 
His nervous pacing comes to a screeching halt at that and he squeezes his eye shut, fists clenched at his side – his whole body tense like he’s trying desperately to keep some invisible dam within himself closed. 
You reach a hand up instinctively when he bites at his bottom lip and turns his head away from you, shoulders shaking with silent sobs. “I–,” he croaks, the tightness in his voice makes your breath hitch in your throat; every maternal cell in your body is screaming at you, pleading with you to hold him, “I don’t w-wish to burden you.”
“Baby brother,” you sigh, finally going to him, practically running the few feet over to where he stands. Your arms encircle him instantly, pulling him into a tight embrace – one hand rubs over his back while the other cups the back of his head, holding his face against the crook of your neck, “You could never be a burden to me, never.”
That seems to break him and he gasps, breathing warm against your neck, before he finally lets go and his shoulders heave with sobs while his hands cling to you desperately, fisting into the fabric of your gown like he’s afraid you’ll disappear. A tightness grows at the back of your own throat, not used to seeing him be this raw, this open, in what feels like lifetimes. It breaks your heart to think he’d been holding all of this in, determined to be the strong, silent soldier like everyone expected, while he dealt with such sadness all alone. 
“Shh, shh, Aemond, you’re okay,” you murmur gently, eyes widening when he sags against you, his knees giving way only for a second. “Here, come,” you instruct, taking one of his hands in yours and leading him to the small seating area in his chambers. You urge him to sit on the sofa he has there before joining him yourself, a bit surprised when he all but throws himself against you again – practically laying his head in your lap as he sobs, cheek pressed against your chest in a way that makes you wince from the tenderness still there, not that you’d ever scold him for it. 
“There, that’s much better, hm? Comfortable?” You ask, simply trying to draw him back to the surface. 
He doesn’t reply, something that doesn’t really come as a shock to you given how harsh his cries are, leaving him breathless against you. Deciding to let him get it out, you stay quiet, merely shushing him every so often as you run your fingers through his pearlescent hair.
After a long while, he seems to settle some and tears begin running down his cheeks silently rather than racking his body with savage cries; he lifts his head from your lap and rests it instead against your shoulder, gazing up at you as if you’re an angel sent from the heavens themselves. The intense tenderness with which he looks at you makes you blush, yet your brows furrow slightly at the darkness still there – lingering in the lilac of his eye. 
“I have… I have done something terrible.”
Your brother's murmured confession only serves to confuse you further and you shake your head slightly, heart clenching in your chest as you silently wonder what in all the Seven Kingdoms he could possibly mean by that. 
“Aemond,” you start, knowing not to pry – to let him tell you, “There is nothing you could ever do that would make me think any less of you.”
He stares up at you for a long moment, eye flicking across your face like he’s checking for even the barest hint of deception, yet he finds none – your words are true. 
“You… promise me you will not hate me.”
“I promise, sweet brother,” your brows pinch together at his words, wondering what could possibly be bad enough for all this, yet you can’t stop the corners of your lips from quirking into a sad smile at his request; that uncertain lilt in his voice reminds you so much of when he was younger, “There’s nothing you could do that would make me hate you. Nothing.”
“I…” He starts, pulling away from you as he sits up, sparing you one last glance before staring off into the fireplace, “I am the… the reason Jaehaerys is dead.”
“What?” The word is pressed from you, leaving your lips as little more than a breath. You stare at him as if he’d sprouted a second head, utterly perplexed. How in the Seven Hells could he have ever arrived at that conclusion? Taking one of his hands in yours, you lean a little closer, “Sweetling, what in the world do you mean?”
“They were here for me,” Aemond rasps, wincing as if the words themselves are painful, clawing at his throat on their way out, “They were… Gods, they were sent for me and – and when they couldn’t find me, they… H-He died because I was not here, because they could not f-find me…”
“Oh, my love,” you sigh, the backs of your eyes stinging as he presses himself against you again, tucking his head into the crook of your neck, “Aemond, you couldn’t have known, none of us did. You couldn’t have known…” You repeat, like saying the words again and again will make him believe them. 
“I s-should have,” he whimpers, voice breaking over a sob, “I should’ve k-known, I sh–should’ve been here…”
You hold him tightly, practically hauling him onto your lap as his tears leak over your skin, running into the valley of your cleavage like a river, though you pay it no mind. “Shh, sweetling, shh,” you murmur and press a soft kiss to his forehead, “It’s not your fault, dear one, it’s no one’s fault but the vile men who took him and our… our coward of a sister who ordered it done.”
He stays silent for a moment and you can feel the gears in his brain turning, working furiously as he tries to internalize your words, wanting desperately to believe them but unable to let himself. You sigh softly when you feel him shake his head against you, so determined to cling to guilt. 
“If… if I had n-not been at the…” 
“At the where, brother?” You press, clinging to anything you may be able to use to shift the conversation. 
“...The brothel…” he mumbles after a long pause, the words so muffled against the column of your neck that you have to strain to hear them. His words shock you, the complete opposite of anything you’d been expecting. You try your hardest not to let that show, even as a strange sense of jealousy wells up within you – a sense of possessiveness you’ve always felt for your little brother.
“Well, you… you are a man grown, my love,” you heart hammers in your chest, loud enough that you wonder if he can hear it, “If you wish to lay with–”
“I didn’t… I–” He stammers, clinging to you tightly as he shakes his head, an urgency in his voice you can’t quite place, “That’s not what, I… I mean, I–”
“No matter,” you cut him off, aching to see him so distressed, “Whatever you do there, sweet brother, it’s your… right to do it.” You struggle to get the words out, the sense of protectiveness rising viciously in your chest makes your throat feel tight. 
He lifts his head from your shoulder again and eyes you for a long moment – for what, you aren’t sure. It’s almost like he’s surprised not to be meant with disgust or contempt; you wish you knew why.
“It doesn’t matter,” he finally mumbles, glancing away from you, ashamed, “I should’ve been home… I should’ve been here to protect my family.”
“Aemond, please,” you sigh and sit up slightly, moving to cup his cheeks in your hands, wiping at his tears with your thumb, “It is not your job to protect us, we have guards for a reason… if anything, this atrocity is their fault but it is not yours, do you understand?” Your eyes bore into his as you speak, desperate to make him understand, to rid him of this misplaced guilt. 
“Do… do you still love me?” He asks after a long moment, voice so timid, so meek like he’s already preparing himself for your rejection, that it makes your heart twist horribly in your chest. 
Still, you cannot help but huff out a little laugh, lips lifting into a sad smile at the utter ridiculousness of the question. “You are my dearest brother,” you murmur, leaning forward to press a kiss against his forehead, letting your lips linger on his skin for a second, “Of course, I still love you, Aemond. I have loved you from the moment you came into this world and I shall never, never stop – the Gods themselves could not make me.”
The two of you are quiet for a moment, save for a small hum from your brother as he nods. His arms encircle you again and selfishly, you enjoy it – being this close to him again, like he was a little boy once more. He’d been all but attached to you at the hip before that dreadful night, following you about the Keep and telling you all sorts of tales about various histories of the Realm in that sweet voice of his. 
All of that had stopped that night and, at first, you had assumed that he merely thought himself a man grown afterwards – a man who had finally claimed a dragon, a man who no longer needed comfort from an older sibling. The sadness in his voice when he speaks again, muffled against your shoulder, tells you otherwise.
“Mother doesn’t love me anymore,” his voice is flat and detached as he breathes out the words, like he’s informing you of some tragic, unavoidable accident. 
“Aem, of course she does. She loves you very–”
“No,” he cuts you off, sitting up once more and shaking his head, “Ever since that business with Luke, I… she can hardly bring herself to look at me. She won’t speak to me outside of Small Council meetings and even then she tries not to, ‘tis plain to see.”
You open your mouth to say something, anything, but nothing comes, leaving you to swallow around the lump that grows at the back of your throat once again. What are you to say? He’s… Gods, bless him, he’s right, you’ve seen as much to know. 
“You are the only one who has never abandoned me,” he starts, eye sparkling in the candlelight as tears begin welling up within it once more, “Everyone else has left.”
“That’s not…” Your voice fades as you sigh, knowing that arguing with him now will do no good. Instead, you simply hold him tighter and brush a few stray locks of hair from his face. “I can promise that I shall never leave you, sweet brother.”
He grows quiet for a moment, slumping down against you until his head rests in your lap and his body curls up onto the sofa. Silently, you resist the urge to cradle him, to hold him against you as you do Daena when she wakes from a nap with a start, crying out from her cradle. 
He is a grown man, you remind yourself, yet it does nothing to stop the strange ache in your heart. 
“They all used to taunt me, surely you remember, when we were younger,” he mumbles, eye fixated on the fire crackling in the hearth, even as he clings to you, “First for not having a dragon, then for not having an eye.”
You hum in affirmation – you do remember it, sadly. You remember it all very well; he had slept in your chambers for a week after the incident with the pig, not wanting to be left alone at night with the memories of it. You remember having to hold him back at the table when Aegon had poked fun at his eyepatch during supper, about a month after his eye had been gouged out. 
You remember that night too, when he’d come to you with tearful apologies, murmuring sorries again and again for accidentally nicking your hand while trying to brandish a knife against his brother. 
“I have always been an outcast.”
A smile tugs at the corners of your lips despite the circumstances and you sigh softly, brushing your fingers through his long strands of hair, “I quite like you being different… perhaps if you weren’t, we wouldn’t be as close, hm?”
Aemond goes quiet at that, stills in your lap with a little sigh before simply burrowing against you even more, curling in on himself tighter. 
A soft coo leaves your lips, strands of his long hair passing between your fingers like silk. “What say you stay with me tonight, yes?” You offer, the thought of him in the dark carrying all this alone grief makes you feel ill, “We could even cuddle, if you like? Just as we did when you were younger.”
A short beat of silence later, all you get is a little, “Yes, please,” mumbled against your abdomen. 
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“I don’t deserve you,” he murmurs later, the two of you finally lying together atop your bed, cuddled closely against one another just as you’d promised. You’d each taken time to get ready for bed and Aemond seems a little better for it, no longer as distressed and teary now that he’s had the time to collect himself. 
Your hand carefully cups the side of his face that isn’t pressed against your pillow, that isn’t buried in the crook of your neck, as an astonished huff of laughter escapes your lips as they curve into a sad smile, your brows furrowed. “Why in the world would you think such things?” Even as the question is whispered into the quiet of your chambers, you know the answer – Aemond has always been this way, always one to reject comfort, even when it is so freely given, even when he himself seeks it out. 
If only he could see himself as you do. 
“I… I have done so many shameful things, sister, I…” His voice breaks when he cuts himself off and you can feel him tense in your hold, “‘Tis the simple truth, I don’t deserve you.”
You hum softly, combing your fingers through his hair while you mull over his words, silently wondering why he has always been like this – why you have always felt so unworthy of softness and kindness and love. 
“Well, it is not my truth,” you murmur after a moment, eyes flicking over the long line of his body, hidden by your silken bedsheets. In the time each of you had taken to ready yourselves for bed, you had changed into a nightgown and he into a simple nightshirt, leaving your bare legs to tangle together, “Would you like to know what I think, my love?”
You feel him inhale against the crook of your neck, sucking in air like he’s steeling himself for disappointment, yet he still lifts his head and peers up at you. His lilac eye searches your face for a long moment, looking for even the smallest indication of displeasure in your features, only to find none. 
Seemingly satisfied with his assessment, assured that surely whatever you were to say would not hurt him too badly, he nods. 
Sitting up just enough to better see his face, you look at him with nothing but adoration as the two of you rest shoulder to shoulder, backs against the headboard. “I believe you deserve every kindness in the world, Aemond. And I believe even that would be too little,” your voice is hardly a whisper when you speak, like this is the deepest of secrets meant only for his ears, “You deserve nothing but happiness, sweet baby brother.”
He stares at you for a long moment, eye wide and glassy while his chest aches as your words seep into him like a soothing balm. You can see his Adam’s apple bob in his throat as he swallows, eye squeezing shut for a moment while he processes your words – so sweet they nearly stung. 
A soft coo bubbles from your lips when you see his chest rise and fall rapidly beneath the linen of his nightshirt, and you lean into him all the more when one of his hands reaches out and grabs one of your own, squeezing it like it’s a lifeline. 
“Shh,” you soothe, giving him a sad smile when his eye finally opens again, gaze immediately finding yours, “Sweet boy.”
He lets out a shuddering breath before looking away from you once again, mind reeling. Not knowing what to do, overcome with so much emotion his heart feels as if it’s adrift at sea, he brings your hand up and presses a soft kiss against your knuckles before holding it to his cheek and sucking in another little breath as his bottom lip trembles. “Please don’t ever leave me,” he whispers finally, voice tight and hoarse. 
Cupping his face, you caress your thumb over the scar beneath his eye softly and lean over just enough to press a soft kiss against his cheek. “I will never leave you, Aemond, I swear it.”
He shudders once more before letting out a shaky breath, eye filled with a wild desperation. Before you can register the movement, his hands are suddenly gripping at your waist and hauling you onto his lap, your legs on either side of his, as he buries his face into the crook of your neck once more, apologies already muffled against your skin. “I-I’m sorry, I – Gwayne will… will hate me but –”
“Shh, sh, sh, sweetling,” you murmur, despite the small, barely audible gasp that leaves you at the sudden movement, so wholly unused to this as half of you tries desperately to comfort you while the other half wonders if you should put a stop to this, “Gwayne knows, my love, he… it’s okay, he knows.”
A sob is wrenched from Aemond’s lips, warm against your neck, but he nods nonetheless, sighing when you begin carding your fingers through his hair once more, smoothing out the long, pale strands. Slowly, he relaxes again, arms wound securely around your waist while his breath evens out. 
You’re about to say something else, though your breath hitches in your throat when he begins peppering your neck with soft, chaste little kisses – feather-light down the column of your neck. He stops after a second, noticing you tense up on his lap, eyes wide as a million thoughts swirl in your mind: Is this okay? Should you stop this? This is your precious baby brother, the one who used to cling to your skirts when he was sad, who used to come to you in the night when he woke from a nightmare… 
He leans forward once more and nips at your earlobe, making your heart stutter in your chest, “Can… can I try something?”
Your head reels at the sudden change in his touches, needier now, though for an entirely different reason, yet still your mind reels – piqued with curiosity. “What is it you wish to try?” You question after a moment, voice scratchy from the sudden dryness at the back of your throat. 
Silently, Aemond relishes this; something about you, you his normally strong and carefree older sister, being this flustered because of him makes his heart flutter in his chest. Dipping his head, he resumes pressing soft kisses against your skin, though they linger now – teeth nipping before he soothes the small bites with a swipe of his tongue, drawing ever closer to the pulse point in your neck that beats so wildly he can feel it beneath your skin. 
“Aemond!” You all but wheeze when he suddenly grabs at your hips, his own firmly bucking up against you. A shock goes down your spine at the evidence of his arousal pressing against you, two thin layers of fabric doing precious little to mask the feel of it. Again, you tense up, practically jumping out of your skin as you pull back just enough to gaze down at him, your eyes wide, blinking rapidly, as they search his. 
This was the last thing you expected tonight, the last thing you’d expect from him at all. “Wha – I…” You stammer, dumbstruck while worry and uncertainty cloud your mind. 
Aemond shushes you now, long fingers squeezing at your bare thighs now that your nightgown has ridden up enough to reveal them. “It’s alright, it’s alright,” he murmurs, rubbing his thumbs soothingly against your skin, “Do you trust me…?”
Your throat bobs as you swallow thickly, heart hammering in your chest. You should be the one comforting him… what in the Seven Hells has happened? Is… is this the comfort he needs now?
Even still, you nod your head at his question; of course you trust him, you’d trust him with anything… even this. 
A smile grows on his lips when you acquiesce, a pleased glimmer in his eye when he lifts his hands to your hips again, his grip firmer this time. “Good… good, sweet sister,” he hums lowly, rutting his hips up against you once more, lilac eye watching you with keen interest. 
“A-Aem…” You gasp once more, the feel of him against you so intense it sends a shiver down your spine, even when your brows furrow as your eyes flutter, threatening to slip shut. His movements press a small whimper from your lips and you can feel the sting in your cheeks as they flush, chest heaving while your hands grab tightly at his shoulders. 
The smug look on his face slowly morphs into one of wonder and his eye flits over your face greedily, like he doesn’t want to miss a single second of seeing you like this – already so strung out over him. 
He moves again, the feeling of your soft core pressing against his growing length through the thin linen only serving to drive his urges further. “Gods, you look so beautiful like this…” He murmurs, in awe at having you like this, and all to himself. Unable to help himself, he leans forward yet again and pulls you closer as his lips settle once more against your neck. 
Instinctually, your head tilts to the side, giving him room to kiss over your skin. His movements against you cause you to shiver in his grasp, even if a small part of you was still uncertain, hoping this wouldn’t change your relationship with him for the worse. 
The slow grind of his hips causes his nightshirt to eventually ride up his legs as well, and you gasp anew, jumping once more when his length suddenly presses against your center, unhindered by fabric. 
“Feel what you do to me?” He purrs, letting out a low groan of his own. 
For a moment, all you can do is stare at him, lips parted ever so slightly while your chest heaves, silently wondering if this is truly happening. Almost imperceptibly, you nod your head, shuddering at the feeling of his cock pressed against you, already twitching. 
“L-Little brother,” you gasp, breathless already.
Aemond smirks at your response, your whimpers and soft gasps going right to his head. He grabs at your waist still, bucking against you in slow, almost teasing movements. A low, pleased hum vibrates him in his chest when he feels how wet you are against him – the heat radiating from your center nearly stifling. 
The longer this goes on, the more you can feel your resolve crumbling, any small bits left of you that wanted to put a stop to this slowly fading away. Distantly, you can’t help wondering if this is how it’s always been meant to be, if this was the only logical conclusion your paths could reach, the outcome of such a close bond. Perhaps, you have always been made for this. 
“Aemond,” his name falls from your lips in a soft sigh and you finally lean against him heavily, pressing your chest against his unthinkingly. “Shit!” You gasp only a second later, jolting as if stung by a bee, brought back to reality by the ache in your breasts. 
“Sister?” Aemond questions, freezing beneath you while he looks over your face, his hands rising to cup your cheeks protectively. 
You start to answer, to explain, when you feel a sudden tingling sensation at your chest and, judging from the look on your brother’s face, an explanation would be a moot point by now anyway.
“Gods grant me mercy,” he sighs, eye wider than you’ve ever seen it as he stares, near open-mouthed, at your chest. Glancing down, your cheeks flush at the sight of milk dampening the linen at your breasts, leaving it all but translucent. 
Again, you go to explain, only to stop yourself in your tracks when his tongue darts out, licking over his bottom lip. Your head spins when you notice his chest heaving as he stares at you with a nearly savage hunger, eyes fixed on your breasts like his universe has been narrowed down to a pinpoint. 
“Aemond?”
“Please,” he groans, swallowing thickly and licking over his lips once more, practically salivating. His eye flicks up to yours for only the briefest of seconds before zeroing in on your chest once more, “Sweet… sweet sister, please.”
Again, the energy in the room seems to shift, Aemond once again begging you for comfort, bowing to your whims. Quickly, you shush him while one hand threads into his hair once more as you bring his head back against the crook of your neck, settling him there while he groans against your skin, rough hands slowly trailing up your waist before halting at your ribs. 
Your other hand busies itself with snaking between the two of you and impatiently batting your clothes away before your fingers finally curl around his length, causing the both of you to let out soft cries. 
“Shh, sweetling,” you coo, chest heaving while you position him at your entrance, sighing as he desperately mouths at your neck, “I know what you need, I’ve got you.”
Again, twin moans fill your dimly lit chambers when you slowly sink down on him. Whimpers are punched from your lungs at the feel of him steadily filling you, his chest rumbling against yours as he groans deeply, hips jolting beneath you. 
“Gods,” you sigh when your hips are finally pressed tightly against his once more, panting and letting your eyes fall shut while you give yourself a moment to adjust. 
The feel of him borders on overwhelming – pressed so tightly inside of you, around you, the very air in your room filled with the heady, herbaceous scent of the bath oils you know he favors. You imagine he must feel the same as he trembles beneath you, fingers and hips twitching with barely contained desire. 
Finally, your need to comfort him, to protect him even from himself, rears its head again and you relish the breathy sigh that leaves him as you begin to move your hips. It’s a grinding motion, soft and gentle – what he needs now, to be treated with care. Still, the movements send shockwaves up your spine as the pale hairs at the base of his cock rub perfectly against your pearl, creating a delicious friction to spur you on. 
“So good,” he breathes, warm against your shoulder as he leans forward, kissing at your neck, “You feel so good, sister, you… you are s-so good to me…”
“Just as you deserve,” you murmur, combing your fingers through his long hair once more before your hands travel down to the hem of his nightshirt and you begin impatiently tugging at it, pulling it over his head and grinning at the soft, nearly petulant, whine he gives at having to separate from you even for a second. 
Still, some instinctual force seems to drive you, a need to feel his skin against your own, and you waste no time before pulling your own nightgown up and over your head as well, leaving nothing to separate the two of you. 
The groan that leaves him when your chest presses back against his own once more is like nothing you’ve heard before – a sound of the purest relief, like he’s found some oasis in the desert. His eye opens again and the rhythm of your hips stutters only for a second once it finds yours. The lilac is almost completely overtaken by black and yet, he still regards you as if you are an angel sent from the heavens themselves, stares at you with such reverence that your heart flutters in your chest. 
Something clicks for you then as he whimpers beneath you, his own hips beginning to buck up against your own as the lazy tempo you’ve settled into slowly starts to pick up. You understand, now, that this is merely another step, an added turn, in the so carefully balanced dance the two of you have constructed.
And if this is what he needs to be comforted, then you’re more than happy to give it. 
“My good boy,” sigh, moving against him with renewed vigor, grinning when he lets out a hitched moan, “Is this what you needed?”
“Yes, y-yes,” he nods, his eye never leaving your own as he ruts beneath you, the choppy movements only adding to the fire slowly building within your veins, “Please, sweet sister, please…”
You don’t need to ask to know what it is he means, nodding before he has time to stutter out another word, “Take what you need, my love.”
Another breathy groan sounds from him as he quickly descends onto your chest, tilting his head down and immediately capturing your sensitive nipple between his lips, one hand coming up to gently cup your breast, holding it steady. The feeling of relief that flows through you when he starts suckling is nearly disorienting, the dull ache in your breast slowly fading away with each mouthful of milk he pulls from you, greedily taking a few mouthfuls from one breast before switching to the other.
Your fingers stay anchored in his hair while your hips work against him, your high building more steadily within you now that your breasts no longer feel ready to burst. You pant as you gaze down at him, eyes half-lidded while you watch his lips move against you, lilac eye still fixated on you. 
Below you, Aemond is halfway convinced he’s died and somehow the Gods have seen fit to spare him the Seven Hells. His head spins as he drinks from you, the taste of you by far the sweetest, most decadent thing he could fathom. As the knot in his belly grows ever-tighter, his suckles become more greedy, frantic, not knowing whether you’ll allow him this pleasure ever again. 
“Please, f-fuck,” he sighs, the words punched from his lips as he pulls away from you just enough to speak, uncaring as dribbles of milk leak from the corners of his lips, staining your skin. His hips practically move on their own accord as he mindlessly grinds up into you, seeking out the warmth and safety he knows he shall only ever feel within you. 
Above him, you nod, swallowing thickly against the dryness at the back of your throat, cheeks flushed while you watch him unravel. Snaking a hand between your bodies once more, your fingers quickly find your sensitive, aching bud and rubbing at it with a practiced precision. 
“Gods, sweet little brother,” you breathe out, pleasure zapping down your spine. You frantically nod again, frantic this time, just as your high washes over you, “Come, Aemond… Gods, let go, little one.”
His suckles turn more into little biting nips while he gasps against you, trembling beneath you when he finally lets pleasure overtake him – eye squeezing shut at the feel of your walls clenching tightly around his cock. 
The warmth of him filling you only spurs you on more, your breaths ragged against his forehead while you feel yourself tense and relax again and again, grabbing at whatever parts of him you can reach. 
You each go still after a few moments, panting against each other. Aemond is practically limp beneath you, lazily nuzzling his face against your chest, satiated smile just barely tugging at the corners of his lips. Chuckling softly, you pepper his forehead in sweet kisses, relishing the contented hum he gives in return. 
When you go to get up however, intent on fetching a cloth to clean you both up with, he reaches for you with a small whine as he grabs at your thighs.
“Don’t, please,” he murmurs, brows furrowed when your eyes meet, “Stay…”
“You… you want to stay like this?” You question, your heartbeat quickening as he quickly nods, “You wish to stay –”
“Inside,” he finishes quickly, Adam’s apple bobbing when he swallows bashfully, cheeks flushed, “I… I feel safe like… like this.”
“Then you can stay, silly boy,” you answer with a grin, kissing at his forehead once more, “Here, let’s just…” You murmur, tilting your hips to the side ever so slightly, attempting to pull him with you.
Blessedly, he seems to understand and follows you willingly, allowing you to maneuver the two of you onto your sides. After a moment, you’re comfortable once more, each of you lying on your side and facing the other, one of your legs slung over his narrow hips to keep him pressed tightly within you. 
“Good boy,” you sigh softly, smiling when he shivers against you. 
The two of you stay like that for a while, your hands gently caressing his soft skin or running through his hair while you hold him against you. After a while, his lilac eye finally flutters closed and you can’t help but marvel at how much younger he looks like this – relaxed and spent while he lies against you, like the weight of the world has been lifted from his shoulders. 
After a while, he seems to grow restless again, nosing at your chest until he finds what he desires. You sigh softly as he pulls a nipple into his mouth once more, suckling at it contentedly while he peers up at you sleepily. 
“There you go,” you murmur soothingly, coaxing him to lift his head just enough for you to lay an arm beneath it, allowing you to caress his shoulders while your other hand cups gently at the side of his face, thumb sweeping over his soft skin. “Take what you need, sweet one,” you coo, smiling as he quickly returns his lips to your breast, “You’re safe, I’ve got you…”
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nereidprinc3ss · 3 months ago
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hourglass
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in which spencer disappears from fem!reader's life entirely for three months, right as it seems they were finally about to make things official. when he comes back they reunite, all the while knowing things can't be the same as they were.
18+ (smut, angst) warnings/tags: oh god so many. NOT canon compliant in the slightest, i make shit up, softdom!spence, nipple stuff prob, fingering, oral f receiving, piv sex, unprotected sex, pet names, tara mentioned, depression, mentions of trauma cause its the prison arc duh, passing mentions of alcohol, mentions of spencer losing weight, reader mistakenly thinks spencer tried to kill himself BUT ONLY FOR A SECOND, where is diana reid, nobody knows or cares, probably filming glee, optimistic ending a/n: haven't posted smut in forever but this wip required it and the angst was so angsty i just had to finish it. it was started in jan or feb and subsequently added to and changed months apart and then edited so the writing quality varies from section to section which i apologize for. originally based on good guy by julia jacklin... also the odyssey by homer? can't really explain that one you'll just have to see for yourself anyway byeeee ilysm!!! PLS tell me if you liked it! or if you hated it! but preferably if you liked it! MWAH! wc <12k
It’s been about three months since you last saw Spencer Reid.
About three months since you had an early Valentine’s Day celebration (even though you weren’t a couple) complete with champagne (even though he doesn’t usually drink) and slow dancing (even though you swore you’d be terrible and he spent the first ten minutes laughing at you as you stepped on his toes.)
About three months since you finally settled your head on his shoulder and let the warbling vinyl carry you somewhere distant as the two of you danced slow circles on the parquet floor for what felt like hours.
You’d have liked him to stay later that night. You’d have liked him to stay all night if you were being honest with yourself, but at 11:45 he gently pulled away and told you he had to go.
“Curfew?” you joked, the corner of your mouth lifting a little and you hoped you were hiding your disappointment well.
“Actually, I’m going down to Texas for a few days to speak with one of the leading doctors in experimental Alzheimer's and dementia treatment. I’m going to see if he can get my mom into a clinical trial. I leave early tomorrow morning.”
“Oh my god, that’s amazing, Spencer! What are you doing still here? You should be at home getting ready to go!”
A rosy blush stains his cheeks and he looks down at the ground, laughing that little self-deprecating laugh of his. It makes your heart dance to see him so happy, makes you want to wrap your arms around him and never let him go so that he knows how much you absolutely adore him—but you settle for an affectionate squeeze where your hands have come to rest on his biceps.
“I wanted to see you tonight because I won’t be here for Valentine’s Day... but I still really wanted to spend it with you,” he admits meekly.
If before your heart was dancing, it is now melting.
The dreaded ‘what are we’ talk has been lurking in the dark corners of every conversation you have with each other lately—at least, in your mind it has. What you have with Spencer is not easily defined, and near impossible to explain to your friends—you act like a couple, you go out on dates, he introduces you to his team like you’re his girlfriend without ever putting it into so many words—but this validation that your pseudo-relationship might be evolving is better than any flowers he could have gotten you (although the peonies he brought will look very nice on your bedside table.)
“Four whole days... what will I do without you?” you whisper, brushing a hand along his face, and your chest aches with the heavy truth of it—despite the fact that he often is gone for stretches about that length. They don’t ever start to feel shorter.
“Well, you can start by reading that copy of The Odyssey I annotated for you.”
“Depressing,” you admit. “And a little ominous, considering you’re about to embark on a hero’s journey.”
“I think you’ll like this one,” he smiles.
You chew on your bottom lip, looking up at him as you think.
“Give me something to look forward to,” you say, earnestly.
“I—well, honestly, I just really want to kiss you and I’ve wanted to for a long time now and, you know, if that’s something you’re maybe also interested in then we could, uh, figure out a time to—”
“You want to kiss me?”
“Wh—you couldn’t tell?” Spencer says, like he can’t believe it.
As if on reflex, you lunge up and capture his lips with your own. It obviously catches him by surprise, but when you lower from your tiptoes he follows you, pulling you in closer and holding your face in his hands.
It’s too natural, too right, to be exhilarating. There’s no rush of adrenaline—it's more like stepping into a hot bath or warming your freezing hands at a fire. Like pieces clicking into place. It’s a relief.
You breathe into it, letting more and more of yourself melt against him. He keeps coming back to you deeper and deeper like a rising tide, and you want more than anything to keep getting closer to him—but then he stops. He stays close enough for you to breathe his air, but dodges your kiss gently before supplanting it with a gentle one to the corner of your mouth.
“I really have to go,” he breathes, before moving away from your mouth to kiss your forehead and speak softly against your skin. “If I don’t leave now I’ll be here all night.”
Which is exactly what you want, and the implication does little to make you want him less. But you care about him too much to be so selfish.
At some point, his hands found their way into your hair, and you gently grab his wrists.
“Incentive for you to come home.”
Nearly three months since that night.
At first when he stopped answering texts, you’d assumed he just had too much going on down in Texas. Which you could understand—you knew how stressful this situation with his mother was.
Even when four days came and went without even an alert from him that he was back in town, you thought, okay, maybe he’s been called away on a case. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s disappeared because of his work. But even then, he’d at least text you enough information so that you would know he was alive. Now, radio silence.
So you tried not to be clingy. You tried to act like an adult, to focus on school and your life outside of Spencer, but when Tara Lewis cancelled your weekly meeting due to an “unforeseen work-related emergency”you called her immediately. Tara was something of a mentor, and it was she who had connected you and Spencer to begin with. You had met the other members of his team by that point, yes, but none who you knew as well as Tara.
When she had informed you that Spencer had been arrested in Mexico and was now facing prison time for murder, you laughed.
Laughed until you realized her end of the line was silent.
Realized it was not at all a joke.
In a catatonic state of tranquility, you asked her for more details. Beyond assuring you of his innocence, she couldn’t (or more likely, wouldn’t) provide them. Asked where he was now. Asked all the right things that made sense to ask.
Then you hung up and had a panic attack because Tara said something about 25 years and you saw Spencer evaporate from your future like an apparition.
Slowly, you felt him evaporating from your past, too. Those memories from the night he left, became visions of you swaying with a ghost. Holding nothing but light between your hands as you kissed the peony air of your apartment.
He doesn’t want to see you, she had said into the phone one night, her tinny voice cutting in and out. You’re not on his list of approved visitors.
“You asked him about me?” you had whispered, curled up on top of your made bed in the dark.
I tried. I’m sorry. I’ll call you when I know more.
All your days melded together like a muddied smear of paint. Suddenly you felt you had nothing to look forward to. No anchor, no goal. Yes, a PhD... and then what?
The only thing that punctuated one 24 hour period from the next was the time you spent crying because Spencer was in prison and he didn’t want to see you and by the looks of things you may never see him again. When you weren’t crying, you were thinking about how your life was a big cosmic joke. An unfortunate statistical anomaly that didn’t mean anything to anyone else, and that you couldn’t do anything about.
That copy of The Odyssey, which wasn’t even bound and instead was a thick stack of printer paper organized by a single black clip, became something of a manifesto for you—a tome that your poured over, reading and re-reading each note in the margins, each word beautiful and imbued with meaning because you knew Spencer had selected every single one specifically for you. You traced the letters reverently, because in a way this was the last thing he had said to you—about Lattimore’s faith to the original text, Merrill’s strict use of dactylic hexameter, the stylings of Wilson and Lombardo, and how he thought you would enjoy Hammond’s prose just as much as he did.
Day by day it was becoming more prophetic than fictional, and you allowed yourself to sink into madness. You would rather be a deluded zealot than be nothing at all.
He didn’t want to see you.
He might as well have been dead, for all that you were grieving him. And you started to hate him, because he wasn’t dead, but wouldn’t do you the kindness of proving it. Like a festering wound, scratched open day after day so as not to ever heal, you had to live knowing he was less than an hour away. So no, you weren’t exactly over it. You lived day by day, waiting for the occasional call from Tara to keep you updated on Spencer, but either she didn’t want to share much about how he was doing, or he had specifically barred her from doing so, because she was always sparse on the personal side of things. That thought actually lifted your spirits, because it meant he was at least acknowledging your existence in some tiny way.
But your routine was becoming more regular, and so you staid on top of your classes and your non-Reid related meetings with Tara once a week, and you learned to dip your toes into existential dread and the oily black pool of depression every night without ever fully submerging yourself. You learned hope, because it was pretty much all you had, and the BAU had confidence that they would get Spencer out one way or another so you did too.
So you didn’t really think about it when you missed a couple of calls from Tara some evening in May. You were preparing for finals and had way too much on your plate academically to think about anything else which was a welcome relief so you fully embraced it. I’ll call her back tomorrow, you think, as you clean up from dinner before going back to the living room where your textbooks and papers are completely covering every available surface. Maybe I have no idea what I’m going to do with my life after school, but I’ll be damned if I don’t even make it that far.
Hours later, well into the night, you’d all but forgotten about the calls. A knock at the door takes you a bit by surprise, and you frown as you stand again, tugging your Georgetown sweatshirt down over your shorts as you shuffle to the entrance of your apartment. You’re not expecting anyone, so you crack the door, peering around the edge of it.
And you couldn’t even consider trying to hide that shaky inhalation of dead air when you see Spencer standing on the other side.
Surely you’re hallucinating.
Surely this man in front of you who looks like he just got back from a day of work didn’t spend three months in prison pretending you didn’t exist.
He looks the same. Hair a bit longer, maybe—and gaunter even more than is normal for him. 
But it's him.
You can’t think about the apprehensive look on his face—you can’t think about the impossibility of him being here. You can’t think at all. Without your explicit permission, your body surges forward into his, and he’s real, and alive, and warm, and he is an anachronism in the hallway as he accepts everything you pour into the embrace, doesn’t flinch when you move your arms from around his waist to loop around his neck and back to his waist again with crushing force because you just can’t get him close enough.
“I’m sorry,” Spencer mutters into your hair, I’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry, he keeps saying, rubbing your back as you try to find a solid grip on the sleek material of his suit—try to gather all the pieces of him, already afraid he might fall apart and float away again.
“You—dis—disappeared,” you hiccup after an eternity, pulling away enough to look up at his pretty face. Tears blur your vision and darken the front of his jacket, bending the florescent lights so they form a kind of halo above his head.
Through the surreal haze you can see his throat bob.
“I know.”
He knows?
He knows?
You scoff.
“You have no fucking idea, Spencer. What the fuck is wrong with you? I—I'm—”
The hot anger is such a relief for a second, boiling the oceans of your despair into a wrathful, scorching fog, but as soon as you try to tell him how you feel, the barbed wire cuts into your throat again. You shove him away, skin burning where his hands had been.
“I’m sorry,” he croaks, hands hanging uselessly at his side. There’s that kicked puppy look about him—and it’s familiar, but now there’s more damage. You don’t know anything about his time in prison, you haven’t heard a damn thing, but beneath the glassy desperation in his eyes there is an unfathomable void that seems to be preventing him from being fully present—and you realize for the first time that he is different.
It chills you.
Before, you and Spencer shared everything. There wasn’t one part of his internal machinations that you didn’t understand, nothing you kept from each other. But as you study him now from a few feet away, you realize there might as well be a yawning chasm between the two of you.
He is so different.
Those eyes look deeper. No gears turning just behind the slashes of gold and brown anymore—only an endless dark corridor that goes places you will never go.
Gone is the perpetual boyish up-turn at the corner of his lips that always made him look slightly vacant in a way that you found incredibly amusing. Something you had been so fond of, even if you teased him.
He seems to have aged ten years—if not physically, then in demeanor. And now you feel like a little kid throwing a tantrum.
You cross your arms, suddenly unable to meet his eyes.
You’re embarrassed. And pissed. And relieved. Everything is worse and better. You want to fall back into his arms, but you have been jarred by the revelation that this might not be the same Spencer. It might not be the same relationship. You have no idea where you stand.
He says your name gently, with so much familiarity you’re briefly jerked into the past. It makes you wish you could look up to find him as he was three months ago. Wish this was just a bad dream. But that’s not fair to him.
“Sorry,” you mutter, studying the grey carpet fibers instead of looking at him.
“Don’t apologize,” Spencer says immediately, “you’re right. I don’t—” he clears his throat— “I’m being incredibly selfish. I shouldn’t have just shown up, I’ll just—I'll leave. I’m sorry.”
A silent moment passes.
You don’t look up as he turns and swiftly begins to move down the hall toward the stairway, leaving as quickly and silently as he had come, like a few bars of a song sighed in and away on a fleeting breeze.
Your bare feet are concretely planted, imagining him jogging down the steps and speed-walking away from your building—
And suddenly you’re sprinting after him, feeling like you might puke because Spencer was just here and you let him go again—and even though you’re still so mad and confused and hurt, the realization that he is leaving again makes the entire building spin and lurch.
“Wait!” You yell, almost wiping out as you run down the stairs and whip around corners in your slippery fucking socks. “Please, wait!”
The lobby is already empty as you spill out into it, and cold dread tightens around your neck like a fist as you shoulder your way through the double doors and right into Spencer.
“Please don’t leave again, you just—I'm sorry, I really need you to not go—” you blabber, lachrymose once more, gripping onto his forearms for dear life.
“I’m not going,” he breathes shakily. “I tried to leave because I think you were right and maybe I should and maybe it would be better for you but I can’t.”
“You can’t,” you agree, more sob than spoken word. He cups your jaw, then your cheeks, wiping tears and brushing away hair like he can’t figure out how to hold enough of you between his hands. The wild kaleidoscope of his eyes, bright and alive and real as he scans you desperately captures your attention enough to slow the tears to a trickle. He notices this and stares back, entranced.
A silent agreement is made, or maybe an inevitable fate is accepted—either way, something was set in motion three months ago and it matters to see it through. Spencer kisses you and you’re ready for it. You don’t need slow or tender. You need to feel how he feels. You need to know what he knows.
You sling your arms around his neck and he pulls you closer until you almost tip backward, chasing the bruising kiss even as you regain your footing. You want to drink him in and you do your best, breathing deeply as he kisses you deeper, backing you inside and toward the elevator.
“Is this okay?” he manages, only after blindly reaching for and mashing the up button on the wall panel.
Ideally it wouldn’t happen like this, but the world you live in obviously isn’t ideal and your personal situations as they coincide are far from ideal, so this is how it has to happen. But it’s hard to explain, and you’d rather not admit that this is so far from what you wanted for both of you and follow up with the fact that despite that you need him like you need water. So you don’t say a word as the metal doors slide open promptly. Instead you pull him in and let him press you to the chrome wall as he hits your floor button, and that very hand comes back to grab your ass like you didn’t think Spencer Reid capable of. It almost aches as his fingers dig into the flesh, but it’s a good ache because it means he’s real and he’s there.
You gasp as he hitches your leg up, arching into him. The shorts that you’re wearing leave very little to the imagination to begin with, but they become downright indecent like this.
Quickly the elevator stops and the doors hiss open. You don’t hesitate to pull Spencer by the hand down the hall. When you notice you left your door wide open, you don’t even care. Neither does he, apparently—once you’re inside he slams it shut, flipping the deadbolt while his eyes are glued to you like you’re already naked. Now Spencer is shameless in the way he drags his eyes over every curve, every place your clothes and hair are disheveled from his touch and eye-fucks you so obviously it makes your face warm. Three months ago Spencer would have at least been bashful about it when he met your eyes again, but this Spencer is far from apologetic as he pins you with his burning gaze once more. His hand stays stuck to the door like he’s holding himself back.
“Is this what you want?”
There’s an undercurrent of sorrow below the gravely arousal, like this isn’t what he wanted for the two of you either. But you’re both at the mercy of fate. This is all you have, and it might be all you can do for each other anymore. So you don’t need to say that, because he understands.
“Yeah. Yes, this is what I want.”
For just a second more he watches you from his place by the door, and there’s an unexpected softness to it. He looks at you the way he would have looked at you before. Like as long as he stays there he can entertain the idea of being that person again.
Need wins out quickly, though, and he surges forward. Immediately you’re caught in the riptide of him, helpless as he kisses you all the way to your bedroom.
He’s never been in here before. You find yourself glad it’s relatively clean—one of the pastimes you’d picked up in his absence was keeping everything tidy. It was something you could control.
A lamp glows at your bedside. You lean against the footboard of your bed, hands timidly behind your back and suddenly shy to have in him in your intimate space. Both of you set aside the heaving desperation long enough to catch your breaths, and for him to scan the room like he too is being forced to reconcile with the innate and unexpected intimacy of the moment. He cuts a harsh, dark gash in your sweetly decorated bedroom, radiating something wild and powerful and unsure of himself like a chained bull as he takes in the soft, pale bedding, the paintings and photos taped to the walls, the woven rug and the sheer drapery. His breathing slows as he studies it all—eyes eventually catching on something behind you. Looking is unnecessary. You’re sure he’s spotted the dried peonies in their ceramic vase. Or maybe the now worn stack of papers that is his Odyssey, marked up and soft around the edges from constant flipping-through.
Then Spencer looks at you, and that softness seeps in again. Along with something like... fear? Grief?
In some other universe your first time with Spencer is sweet and giggly and kind and he smiles at the decor in your room and looks around with wonder because it’s another way he gets to know you. It’s a different way to learn you from the inside.
You sense that he’s caught in between universes right now as well, painfully aware of what he would have given you that he can’t anymore.
He breathes your name like an apology, and foolishly you let a second go by in which you think he might offer you one. But he doesn’t. Not with his words, anyway. His eyes tell a different story.
“It’s fine,” you say unprompted on a whispered exhale, then a little louder as you push off the footboard, crossing the space until your hands are on his chest. You focus on his tie, not making eye contact as you rush to undo it. “It’s fine.”
He lets you do this for a few seconds before finally covering your trembling hands with his own. You still can’t meet his eyes.
“We don’t have to do—”
“No! No, please. I want to. I need—I need us to be okay.”
“Hey,” he murmurs, catching your chin and forcing you to look at him. “We are okay. Me and you are fine.”
It’s a pretty thought, but it’s not true. In fact, it’s a hideous and abject affront to the truth. Sure, maybe you’re fine in comparison to last week. Maybe anything feels fine compared to an eight by six cell. But it would be impossible for you and Spencer, for your relationship, whatever that relationship may be, to be fine. It’s especially impossible for him to make that claim, after all he did or rather didn’t do while he was gone. What you need is for him to stay anyway. What you need is to find a way to be with him, to exist with him, even when you are so clearly not fine.
“I just need you to stay,” you whisper, and he’s already nodding, wide-eyed like he’d do anything for you. You ignore all the bitter venom rising in your throat. You pretend this isn’t all happening after he cut you out of his life with a dirty switchblade. Instead you focus on his hands on yours, the familiar smell of him, which invites you to let go of each and every thought and worry. He must’ve showered before coming here, you realize. How long has he been out? What happened? 
“Okay. Okay, I can stay. What else can I do? How do I make it better?”
You sniffle and look back down.
“You can untie that for me.”
He hesitates, then nods some more, fingers working under yours to undo the tie around his neck.
“Okay.”
A moment goes by and after that final whispered word, the tension begins to build again. Spencer senses it in the way your fingertips linger on his chest and you step even closer, dragging them down to his belt. The metallic sound of it unbuckling, despite being your own doing, still manages to flip your stomach. How many times have you pictured this? When was the first time you realized you wanted it? You’re sure you haven’t stopped wanting it even once since then.
Spencer tosses the tie away and is shrugging off his jacket now, then before you see it coming he’s kissing you again, ducking down to do it. He feels taller this close up, and especially in your bedroom, where he just seems rather out of place. But you want him here. God, you want him here.
You break the kiss, forced to look down as you fumble with his belt.
“Sorry,” you gasp, embarrassed by your lack of dexterity. The light is barely sufficient to see what you’re doing, especially when he’s wearing black on black and your eyes are still bleary.
“You’re okay,” he assures you, and it’s so Spencer a fresh round of nerves electrifies the tips of your fingers. That thing is happening—the thing you’d hoped to avoid if you hadn’t lost momentum partway through, where you’re allowing your actual feelings for him to get in the way rather than getting swept up in the pathos of the moment and letting everything be easy and mindless. “Here, can I help you?”
But he doesn’t actually wait for an answer before he’s finishing off the belt for you, tugging it loose from his hips till it’s a leather coil in his hands. Your fingers brush the material and he lets you take it as if it were your prize. It’s heavier than you thought it’d be, and you just feel the weight of it in your hands for a moment, your dropped head brushing his chest.
You have a terrible feeling that if you do this now, it doesn’t mean everything will be alright. Because it can’t just go back to normal. Spencer has told you nothing of what must be an enormous trauma, and you haven’t spoken about it at all, but you sincerely doubt that after this he’s going to be ready to just jump into that committed relationship the two of you had been toying with for months before his absence. You’re almost... scared of him, now. Scared of where he’s been and what he’s endured—things you’re sure you couldn’t have taken. What that does to a person, you can’t imagine. He seems so solid and real in front of you now—but you know that’s not always enough. Maybe you’re just scared that somehow whatever he’s been through will have made him care for you less. That you were too far removed from the whole ordeal, and now you’ll never understand. If you could understand, maybe you could fix it for him. Maybe he’d stick around.
Still—even if you do end up pushing him further away in the long run—won't it have been worth it to have had him so completely, even just once?
You toss the belt to the ground, compressing all of these very complicated thoughts and feelings into a few seconds so short he can’t ask you any questions about them. Instead you find his top button, and just as you manage to undo it with relative ease he’s gently grabbing your wrists. You look up at him, immediately surrendering.
“If we’re going to do this I need you to relax a little bit.”
Gears grind in your chest. You feel need and anxiety comingling in every square inch of your body. It’s a sick buzz—a high on an empty stomach.
“I can’t,” you admit.
“Yeah, you can,” Spencer gently disagrees, slowly lowering your hands. When he’s sure you’re not going to try ripping his clothes off again, he releases, and his eyes lower to the zipper of your hoodie. His fingers follow, warm against the soft triangle of revealed skin at your chest as he grips the small piece of metal between barely shaking fingers. “You can.”
You match his eyeline, breathing shallowly and watching as he slowly drags the zipper down. You wonder if that sound has haunted his fantasies the way the sound of his belt has haunted yours. If he’s seen this hoodie on you and wondered what’s underneath, staring at you and daydreaming during movie night with you none the wiser.
Both of you have your eyes glued to the span of skin as the zipper parts. Spencer stalls with the zipper at your sternum, just below the band of your bra.
Right. No shirt.
You look up and find his eyes already on you, tinged with a curious kind of humor.
“I wasn’t expecting guests.”
The words come out shy. Spencer’s chuckle has its own nervous airy quality as he resumes tugging on your zipper, leaning down until your noses bump.
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”
Then he kisses you again, a little sweeter now. Sweet enough to give you butterflies and for them to flutter right out of your stomach and spill from your lips in a little whimper against his.
It comes as a surprise when he pushes the fabric from your shoulders without looking or asking. Not that you’d have said no—you're just underprepared for how assertive he is in this foreign context.
Left just in your flimsy shorts and your thin bra, you feel quite exposed—but Spencer’s hands are as demanding and hungry as his mouth. They skim up your sensitive sides and sweep lower, suggesting less proper placement over your ass and pulling at your bottoms until you gently put a stop to their wandering.
“Wait. We’re... we’re uneven.”
It’s a struggle to get any words out at all when he keeps chasing your lips, nipping at you like he physically can’t stand not kissing you, but they catch his attention and he laughs airily, pulling back to let his gaze pour over your less clothed form. It lingers and catches and lights you up everywhere it touches, drops of heat soaking into your skin and making you feel all fuzzy and needy.
“We are,” he acknowledges, tone low and colored with the faintest smile. “You’re a lot prettier without your clothes on than I am.”
“I don’t believe you.”
The challenge comes immediately and thoughtlessly. Spencer’s golden eyes flash up to yours. He’s breathing a little harder than usual.
“You want me to show you what I mean?”
If that means getting him naked, then yes, absolutely.
You nod, but rather than immediately stripping, he takes your hand and holds his own open next to it. A thick pink scar bisects some pretty significant palmistry lines, but you don’t mention that. Instead you swallow—your thoughts, your words, your nausea.
“That’s new.”
You wonder how you hadn’t noticed it earlier.
He nods.
“A lot is new.”
It sounds almost like he’s challenging you—there's a kind of tremulous force in his voice, despite the perpetual softness there, like he’s inviting you to say it’s ugly. And you realize he’s referring to more than just the glowing scar cutting an asteroid trail against the flesh of him palm. The scars he obtained in prison must form a constellation over his body.
“I don’t care. I wanna see you.”
Spencer swallows, cupping your face with the scarred hand once more. You can’t feel it against your cheek but you know it hasn’t gone away.
“I’m sure you think you do,” he permits, and that’s where the conversation ends for the moment—with his hand on your face and his lips back on yours. “For now why don’t you let me worry about you?”
Obediently, you breathe, “okay.”
This is, for whatever reason, amusing to him. The brief levity dies as quick as it comes like a snuffed-out brush fire as soon as he lets his hands fall back down to your hips.
“I want... I want to give you slow. But...”
But slow is for people who didn’t lose three months of their life. Slow is for people who don’t know what it’s like to be starving. Slow is not for the desperate.
You understand the feeling.
“I don’t need slow.”
You’ll let him use you up like quick-burning fuel if that’s what he needs. You’ll go as fast and as bright and as hot as he tells you.
“But you want slow,” he murmurs, a secret acknowledged into your own waiting mouth. You’d keep it there forever. You could be the object he hides his soul in. “I know you do. You deserve to get what you want.”
“I can go fast. I want whatever you can give me.”
Spencer’s shuddering exhale is like a drug, dizzying as you inhale it and your eyes flutter at the high, pressed head-to-head with him. For so long you’ve needed him so badly. It’s overwhelming to have him now, all over you. If only your walls could breathe him in the way you are, if this room could remember what it feels like to hold him the way you will, if any inanimate object could bear witness to how you’ll give yourself, any part of yourself, over to him, so willingly.
“I’m going to try.” Spencer’s voice is hoarse as he walks backward to the bed, taking you by the hips as he goes. “I want to do it right. I want to do this the way I... the way I imagined it, before...”
Now he’s sitting, and you’re standing between his legs as he finds the clasp of your bra and undoes it, his fingers a comforting pressure where they ghost down the slope of your back. Your heart is pounding at the confession, at the way his tongue darts over his bottom lip and his fingertips journey back up to your straps, looking up at you with haloed irises as if he’d find anything other than the most dangerous kind of smoldering devotion in your eyes—the kind cult-leaders seek and spend years nurturing, and he’d earned with a mere brush over your bare skin.
The fabric slides down your arms, and as it falls to the floor, you watch something like despair flash-flood his eyes. It is a deep, distinctly human grief. The ineffable kind where something is almost too beautiful; so perfect it offends the mortal senses because it should be permanent, but nothing is, and the clash of divine beauty with unstoppable time which oxidizes copper and covers marble with vine is almost as grotesque as metal rending delicate flesh. It is the grief that drove the first poet to write and the first parents to press their baby’s painted hands to the walls of a cave. It is the desire to do the impossible—to capture ephemeral perfection and make it eternal, and the knowledge that it is hopeless. You recognize it because you’ve felt it for him.
“I thought about you all the time,” he whispers, doesn’t bother calling you beautiful but you don’t mind because he’s telling you with his hands and his eyes and the waver of his voice. “When I was gone, I thought about you—”
You’re just as quiet, just as soft.
“Don’t, Spencer.”
He doesn’t get to tell you about when he was gone. Not now. Not after he acted like you didn’t exist.
“Okay.” He swallows the things he’d wanted to tell you like you choked on the things you needed to tell him for three months. “I’m sorry.”
But his hands—his hands are perfect over your waist and his lips are perfect where they kiss your ribs like they’re his homeland. You could forgive a thousand wrongs for each kiss he puts to your skin. Light from the full moon stretches over the room like a blessing from the cosmos, and you have every intention of making the most of that gift, how the silver gilds the planes of his face and highlights curls like they were carved, and invites you to search for something in each shadow.
Some of his kisses land over the sensitive skin of your breasts though you doubt he has much intention or that there is any sort of end-goal with the trail he blazes—in fact, you have to root your hand in his hair and pull gently back when he doesn’t seem to realize that he’s making you wait again. His eyes are glassy and cheeks slightly pinkened—you weren’t expecting this wave of fondness to knock you on your ass but here you are, falling all over again.
“You don’t have to go that slow.”
A slow smile splits the heart of his mouth at your bashful tone and he’s emboldened to bring his hands higher for a moment, thumbs brushing particularly delicate though not downright indecent spots. Nonetheless, your breath catches.
“Impatient girl,” he scolds, and though it’s lighthearted it still inspires heat to dance across your face. Oh, I think I’ve been plenty patient, you itch to say, but you bite it back because it’s only sad and true and unkind.
Still, he gives you the beginning of what you want, really only the tip of the enormous iceberg that is your desire for him, by slipping his thumbs into the waistband of your shorts and tugging them down. His hands slide up the fronts of your thighs, tracing the trim of your underwear, and you’d swear he’s not even breathing. The moment one of his hand loops behind your knee and pulls forward until it’s pressed to the mattress and you’re half-kneeling, half standing, desire begins to truly cloud your mind. Manhandling never seemed like Spencer’s style, but when paired with how softly he reveals your hip, pulling gently down on the fabric of your underwear just to admire you up close, you don’t mind it.
More kisses are littered over your stomach, and he takes you by surprise a second time with a quick maneuver landing you on your back and him on top of you.
“I wasn’t doing you justice with my imagination,” he murmurs against your mouth. “I couldn’t have known.”
“Couldn’t have known what?” you pant as he shamelessly digs his fingers into the plush of your ass. You almost hope it bruises.
“How pretty you would be,” he coos like he means it, and you dissolve, slipping through his fingers like sand in an hourglass. “You were holding out on me.”
It’s a tease, not at all serious, but you manage to hit him with a, “Was not, asshole,” and he chuckles, placating your little hurt with another sticky kiss, and you get another disorienting glimpse of some other timeline where you’re both a little less damaged. Where it’s a little easier.
But in this timeline, his touch becomes starving and ragged and urgent, and you accept the drag of his thumb up your thigh and between your legs, gasping when he runs his knuckles up the center of you. This touch is metal on screeching metal. It does not pretend to be anything more than what it is—brute, powerful, executed to elicit sensation. You get the sense that Spencer’s never touched anyone this honestly, and while you do envy the girls who got to have him gentler, you’ll take this as the compliment that it is. A kind of vulnerability that is nearing primal.
His lips, though—always his lips—are kind when they brush and land on your skin guided by some invisible map. A dip down your neck and chest and then a plunge, his tongue dragging over your hips, chasing the fabric of your underwear as he almost pulls it off and then reroutes, making room for himself between your legs and pushing lace aside to mark the hinge of your inner and upper-most thigh. Your chest heaves and you don’t dare move for fear he’ll stop leaving signs of himself on your body and you won’t be able to reassure yourself that it was real and he was here and it was not another dream.
Because something in you knows, if only consciously recognizing it for the first time now, that he will disappear again. That this may be your only chance.
The desire to make the ephemeral eternal. An impossibility.
He’s clearly losing himself to something, eyes shutting blissfully. You wonder when the last time he let his guard down even a  little was. You’re okay with being the thing he gets lost in, even if you’re not exactly okay with him—something you are becoming more acutely aware of as each touch makes a part of you want to cry. Maybe you still have some things in common. A strange pain that doesn’t quite feel like it belongs to you, for one thing.
You slam back into your body as his nose nudges against you through fabric, and his lips catch on cotton as he drags himself up, eventually settling a kiss against the little bow at the waist of your underwear. There he stays, eyes closed, mouth pressed to you.
“Is this okay?”
You swallow, buzzing. Is this really what he wants? After everything?
“You don’t have to...”
“But is it okay with you?”
Nothing more than an airy whisper, you reply, “Yes, if that’s what you want.”
Being emotional at this point seems wrong, but it’s difficult to ignore the fact that you have thought about this before and it’s finally happening but it’s not exactly as you’d imagined it. There is an indelible sadness to it, to the way he’s so hungry for you because he’s been deprived, to the desperation with which he touches you because he’s had everything taken from him.
For a moment, before he tugs your underwear down, he pauses, and you wonder if he’s freezing one moment in time, this moment, and grieving all the other ways it could’ve been, and accepting that this is the way it is going to be. You are.
These higher realms of thought abandon you as he finally pulls the last barrier down your legs and encourages you to spread them further. You don’t have time or energy to be embarrassed, not even by his staring, or the way his eyes dart up to yours and back down again, wide and shining, as if to say, have you seen yourself? Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?
All you feel is the lack of him on you, the pull to have him closer so strong it’s almost sickening because he could be gone at any second. Maybe he understands that because he doesn’t waste anymore time before he’s kissing the most sensitive part of you. The drag of his tongue has you loosing a shuddering cry.
His mouth wanders, making connections you wouldn’t have realized the value of until you feel them on your skin. Your hips buck as he traces you and you’re unable to stop yourself from tangling your hands in his hair. Speech fails you—hell, you can hardly breathe as you watch his with a furrowed brow and parted lips, only expelling air from your lungs in the form of little cries and gasps and failing to hold your hips down to the bed.
The tip of his tongue teases around your entrance and he catches your leg as your foot rises off the bed, slinging it over his shoulder and consuming you more fervently until you have no choice but to moan though you’ve never been one for theatrics. Nobody has done this for you like he’s doing it for you. Locks of hair fall in front of his face and you hold them back for him, shuddering as he shifts his weight and presses the tip of his finger to your cunt.
“Ah—please,” you manage, your first words since he started. Spencer groans against you and the sound is so wonderfully unexpected, so much better than in your dreams. You cant your hips up in further invitation, chirping as he takes it, pushing two fingers into you at once. Your eyes screw shut and you bite back a whine at the slight stretch, unconsciously writhing your hips either to get further away or take him deeper, you’re not sure.
Spencer pulls back, kissing your hips and thighs and pumping his fingers very slowly as you adjust.
“’M sorry,” you pant, “it’s been awhile, I...”
“Don’t apologize,” Spencer says like it’s simple, his own breath coming quicker. “How’re you feeling? Need me to stop?”
“No! No, it feels really good, I feel good.”
He holds your burning gaze, matching it with his own, and his hair is tousled and his cheeks are flushed as he continues to move his hand.
“Yeah?”
“...Yeah.”
This little show of obedience, of call and response, has him smiling before he occupies his mouth with something else once more. It’s a different smile than you’re used to from him, but you decide you don’t at all mind it.
Like that, with his tongue and fingers working tirelessly, your orgasm comes on quickly. The feeling is rare but not entirely foreign, and in that brief moment of utter disconnect between your brain and reality, of sheer white-hot pleasure, you don’t feel you’re missing out on anything at all. How could you be, when you are here and Spencer is here and for a moment all your neurons are lighting up and flashing neon? How could there be anything more to life than the searing feeling of him slowly withdrawing his fingers from you, than your hips between his hands like he’s cradling the world, and his lips, indiscriminate with where they kiss because every part of you is worthy of attention?
You’re reeling, and your legs are gelatinous as he so affectionately sucks the darkest mark yet onto your inner thigh like a parting gift, like he’s signing his trembling work. If you could clamp your legs shut around the almost painful aftershocks you would, but he’s climbing back up your body, so all you can do is wriggle against him and release delayed, stunted little moans. He stops to kiss your neck before he makes it to your mouth and drinks down all your sounds until you’re gentle and pliant for him like you haven’t been yet.
His voice is soft and sympathetic when he speaks. “Better?”
Wordlessly you nod, both comforted and unsettled by how well he knows you. What, exactly, has been made better, you’re not sure. Not trust. You don’t trust him anymore. Something cheaper, but temporarily effective. A sense of permanence, maybe, however fleeting it may be. You’ve completed something with him now, and he’s still here, still sweet.
He looks into your eyes, then, for a moment—and there is just enough light in the room for you to tell yourself that the shadows dancing there as he looks at you are love.
They morph as you watch into haunting, wild hunger. Pained even now.
He sits up abruptly and so do you, scooting back against your headboard and pulling your knees to your chest to protect your pounding heart as Spencer takes you in with darting eyes and quick breaths. His fingers find the collar of his shirt and he begins to unbutton.
“I need you to remember it’s all going to heal.”
He swallows, and you hardly have the wherewithal to study the way he unbuttons his shirt, a way he exists in the world that you had previously not been privy to. The words are too distracting.
“What?”
Sometimes he reminds you of a deer, with those big brown eyes that can’t help betraying anxiety. Moreso in those old pictures he’d shown you from his early days at the BAU—but it shines through occasionally even now. It’s reassuring to know that something inside of his has remained soft.
“Just...” his fingers don’t stop at their task, and you come to the disturbing realization that his knuckles are bruised. “Please don’t freak out, alright?”
Your mouth goes dry, eyes glued to the lengthening span of revealed skin.
And before he even has his shirt fully undone, something isn’t right.
He’s like a Pollack of bruises—starbursts and watercolor blots of discoloration blooming over his side and stomach.
You’re glad the light is off for two reasons: one, being that you don’t think you could handle the bruising in all its glory, and two, you hope the look of horror painted on your face is at least partially obscured from Spencer.
But you can’t. You simply don’t have the gas in the tank to freak out, as he’d said—at least not externally. Those bruises shouldn’t be there, but 96 days is a long time to be gone.
You drag your eyes back to his—nervous, deeply insecure and mistrustful. A deer. Just like those pictures of a 24 year old Spencer in an FBI jacket that was too big for him.
It’s enough to have you scooting on your knees across the mattress to him. Those big eyes stay glued to you as you draw near, falling as you carefully push open his shirt, cautious not to bump any tender spots as it falls to the bed. A flash of white gauze wrapped around his forearm that makes your stomach flip. How? You want to ask. Why?
He doesn’t seem to know what you’re going to do, and neither do you, until you’re grabbing his hands, bruised knuckles and all, and just... holding them for a minute.
“I lost weight,” he says quietly, as if that’s the most shocking thing about his current appearance, though it is noticeable.
“You’re still pretty.”
He smiles at this—a true Spencer Reid smile. Flattened lips, eyes tinged silver with sadness, voice quiet and anxious and wavering.
“I didn’t have a lot to spare.”
A moment goes by.
“I’m not going to ask you about them,” you promise, though you care so much and you want to know but you already understand that he won’t want to tell you.
Another moment. It doesn't surprise you to watch the shiny vulnerability in his eyes to freeze over completely. But he squeezes your hands once in thanks, and you know it’s still the same Spencer.
“Lie down.”
Oh. Right.
This.
You do as he says, taking a deep breath to try and exhale the concern twisting your stomach like a poison. Somehow your room feels so unfamiliar, so new with him in it. Even the whorls on your ceiling look different as you study them, trying to time the pattern of your breathing with the pattern of the paint and plaster and not let the sound of Spencer further undressing quicken your heartrate too much.
Soon he’s coaxing your legs apart again, reverently, and kneeling between them, studying every part of you—lingering not on the parts you’d expect. He traces the scar on your knee with his thumb, follows a line down your thigh to the freckle on your hip. The scrutiny is unnerving and warms you everywhere. Perhaps he senses the microscopic clench of your thighs as you imagine pushing them together, if he weren’t in the way.
“You alright?” He asks, still stroking your hip. Tender again. It’s so hard to keep up.
“I...”
Suddenly your heart beat is a deafening echo in your own ears. The tide of your breathing is too powerful, too in and out and whooshing, leaving you always too empty or too full but never comfortable.
Maybe he’s changed, and he’s harder to know now, but he is the same Spencer. He is the Spencer you’d fallen in love with. The hard part is knowing that now you may never get a chance to tell him that. You don’t know if he’d be able to hear it.
There are things you can’t have with him anymore. Not now, at least. Maybe not ever. But you can have this. It will be different, but you’d rather him be different and here than the same and only in your memory.
You swallow.
“I’m good.”
Tangling your hand in his hair once more, you pull him down into a kiss. It’s hesitant, at first—maybe he can taste your thoughts, where they’d been balancing just on the tip of your tongue. But the uncertainty fades and he kisses you deeper, harder, in a way that is hard to keep up with. You like the messy overwhelm of his lips, teeth, tongue. That’s the only way he knows how to want you.
When you go to wrap your leg around his waist he catches it, running his hands over the soft plush of your thigh. The hard line of him presses against you like memory foam and you gasp and he breathes it in deeply as your brain short-circuits, as you realize this is really going to happen, that you’re going to have him like you’ve never had him before and in ways you’ve only imagined and immediately felt ashamed for.
“Spencer,” you whisper. He ducks to leave open-mouthed kisses along your neck and your eyes flutter shut, craning your neck but not losing sight of your objective as you reach down blindly. When you find what you’re looking for he freezes, groans against your neck at the same time as you breathe the tiniest whimper. Just in your hand he feels impossible, hot and imposing and hard. Your heart palpitates.
Without thinking, you angle your hips up and encourage him closer, until the tip of him is smearing through your folds, and you both go utterly silent like the breath had been stolen right from your lungs. The moment crystallizes, time around you hardening like preserved amber to keep you frozen there forever.
And then he rolls his hips, catching the underside of his cock on the crux of you, and then he does it again, and you choke out a moan and so does he, and it’s beyond perfect—it's nirvana, more than you could ever have conceived of, with his weight pressing you into the mattress, arms caging you in, his heavy breaths hot against your neck and vice versa as you twine together like serpents on a rod, your foot floating in the air as you widen your legs to make more room for him.
And you’re not even fucking yet.
“Oh my god,” you whine, just for him, barely audible under the heavy cloak of night, the thickened air in your bedroom and the sound of panting and fabric shifting. It’s like your heart is trying to reach through your chest to his own where they’re pressed together—that is how hard it’s beating.
Spencer only breathes a long, low curse and shifts so he can grasp himself. Your fingers drift down the shaft of him as he slots himself at your entrance, notching half an inch in and you hold your breath, and you brace yourself—and then he’s kissing you again, but gentler this time. Reassuring. You soften, you can’t not, releasing all your air in a soft gust through your nose, and then he’s pushing in.
Your lips part at the stretch as it fuzzes your mind, but he stays right there, nose pressed to your nose, lips ghosting over your own. He’s not going anywhere, you think, and you’re glad for it, when it burns ever so slightly, and the tiniest whine escapes your open mouth.
“Shh,” he soothes immediately, low and soft, only fractionally louder than you had been. “You’re okay.”
Spencer. Your Spencer.
For a moment, you’re living in that alternate universe. The kinder one. The flash of pain you feel then has nothing to do with the way he’s opening you up.
This is the closest you have ever been, and in some strange way, the furthest apart.
Together, fingers brushing, you guide him until he settles at not quite your deepest point. You can feel that he’s not giving you everything yet, but you’re okay with that, as you adjust to the full feeling. Spencer again senses your desire to close your legs against the deep intrusion, and gives you the best he can by encouraging you to wrap your legs around him.
“Good girl,” he whispers tenderly, nudging at your jaw with his nose and dragging kisses along the ridge of it. Your stomach flips at the moniker and your brain turns to warm sludge as your eyes flutter shut. It makes you feel all light-headed and you flutter around him. Spencer chuckles into the junction of your neck and shoulder and the vibrations send a chill down your arching spine. “I thought you might like that one.”
“Mhm.”
“Mhm. How are you? You okay?”
“’M ready.”
“You’re ready?” His tone is dripping sarcasm and faux-disbelief as he pulls back the slightest bit only to push right back in deeper, this time. Your toes curl, one thigh sliding higher up his waist as you cling to him.
“Fuck,” you manage, a pitiful, high pitched curse tossed to the wind. He echoes the sentiment.
“Oh, my god,” he groans, continuing with that slow pace, “you feel so good, angel.”
You grapple at his back, searching for purchase as your brow knits. “Faster.”
This inspires another breathy chuckle, but he obliges, and you cry out softly. It’s almost unreal, your head buried against his neck, drunk on his scent and the drag of him like a shock felt in the far reaches of your body, again and again.
There’s nothing you can say that will accurately demonstrate what you’re feeling, so you elect not to speak, to remain silent and try to get a grip on this cacophony of sensation and emotion. But it’s too much to be alone with. You feel you have to get it out, to seek understanding. You can’t do it alone.
“Spencer.”
“Hm?”
“I don’t know...” the sentence trails off into a gentle keen. He moves to kiss you, speaking against your lips.
“You don’t know?”
Shyly you shake your head. Spencer sighs wistfully.
“Do you know how much I missed you?”
It’s like he can sense your need for comfort. For something grounding.
And while this topic was off-limits earlier—you're softer now. The stone walls that form your boundaries have been chipped away and lowered.
Spencer continues unprompted.
“I thought about you every day. Every night while I was falling asleep. You were always on my mind, angel girl.”
You whine. Whether it’s pleasure or distress is anyone’s guess—including your own.
“You were gone so long,” you whisper, eyes shut.
At this, Spencer slows again, and the tension that was building settles back to a simmer.
“I know. I wish I could—I wish I could change that. But I’m here, okay? I’m right here with you.”
Then he makes sure you feel every last inch, and it takes your breath away. If your thoughts were any more coherent, they’d be something along the lines of: but for how long? How long until you leave again?
“You’re here.”
You say it like a mantra, once out loud, and then again and again in your head, timed with every clash of your hips. With each repetition he becomes more real. Every little ache, every tingling, head-emptying brush against that most sensitive spot inside proves to you that he could not be any closer. This can’t be faked. It can’t be another dream to wake up in tears from.
“You’re here,” you gasp as it hits you, as it truly sinks in.
“I’m here,” he breathes.
There’s so much you want to say—three months of words you need him to hear, of things you need to talk to him about, things you need to yell at him for and things you can only say crying in his arms and things you can only say laughing or whispering or drunk or half-asleep—and in this moment you can’t manage any of it. Every word condenses into one drop of salt water, drifting away from your eye and down your cheek. Spencer doesn’t tell you to stop crying. He only kisses the tear away, and murmurs I’m here I’m here I’m here over and over again against your skin until he’s not even speaking it out loud anymore. But you feel it. With every brush of his lips, every breath, every movement, you feel it.
Soon he’s adjusting his angle, gradually picking up the pace but retaining that unforgiving depth, and your nails bite into the skin of his back as your jaw drops. Spencer hisses, pressing impossibly closer.
“I’m sorry!” you squeak.
“Do it again.”
“Wh—what?”
“Please,” he begs, low and hot against your jaw, just beneath your ear. “Do it again, honey.”
Honey.
You’d do anything for him if it meant he calls you that again.
When he shifts his weight to one arm and reaches down between your bodies to play with your aching clit in exactly the right way, you don’t really have a choice. You arch and moan wantonly enough to feel embarrassed as your nails scratch down his back. At the same time he’s making noises of his own, and you almost feel guilty for marking him up like this only you think he likes it. The most perfect and troubling tension is building in your core, so taut you almost fear the inevitable rebound when it snaps. But you’re driven to be exactly what Spencer needs right now, and to let him try and be what you need. Even if it scares you. Even if you’re not sure how.
Spencer groans, head tucked to the bend of your shoulder. “I’m not gonna last.”
Any response you might’ve been about to muster is annihilated by a sudden, deep bolt of pleasure.
“’M gonna cum,” you mewl like it’s a secret.
“Are you?” he asks, coming up breathless. If your eyes were open, you’re sure you’d see him above you.
“Mhm.”
“Look at me. Look at me.”
It is unmistakably a command—one you fight to follow.
You cry out as you meet the intensity of his gaze, those shadowy corridors suddenly ablaze and alive. They are not unending, like you’d thought. They are a door thrown open to let the light in, or maybe to let the fire out. They’re open in this moment for you.
No more words are spoken after that—you cum hard, gasping as you fall and spin. Spencer follows very shortly after, like he was holding it together just for you, and your eyes are still locked though everything is a bit bleary.
“Fuck,” you whine as he continues to fuck you for as long as he can, despite your writhing hips, but you’re entranced by him, unable to look away now that you’re hooked. Until he slows to a halt, glances down at your mouth, and you just have time to pray that he’ll kiss you before he does. You whimper against his lips—a plea for understanding. A plea for him to stay, even though this is over. He kisses back so soft and sweet it’s like he can read your mind. Echoes of I’m here I’m here I’m here still buzz across your skin. His eyelashes tickle your cheek. Your heart stops beating quite so quickly, melting and warm like the rest of your body.
Soon the kissing ceases and you’re just breathing together, trapped and faced with the knowledge that it must end just the same as you had waited for it to start.
Eventually the air between you becomes mostly carbon dioxide and you let your head fall to the side, dizzy and giggling breathlessly as you nearly avoid asphyxiation. Spencer laughs too, letting his head fall to your shoulder once more, and you finally let your eyes flutter closed. To do something as simple as laugh with him again is its own small euphoria. It’s unexpected, and a soft landing once all that tension breaks underneath your combined weight.
It can’t last forever, you know that well. But the slow fade of it makes the next parts a little easier.
Spencer presses a kiss to your neck. “Is your bathroom through that door?”
You hum a confirmation and are only slightly disheartened when he pulls out and rolls off of you. You’re further disturbed when you see there’s gauze around his thigh, matching what’s around his arm, and you wonder how you missed that. Spencer scoops up his clothing and disappears into the adjoining restroom, assuring you he’ll be right back and leaving you alone with your thoughts and the whorls on the ceiling which have seemingly shifted into entirely new constellations.
He leaves the door cracked which is oddly reassuring—the sliver of warm light and the sound of the sink running. Only a few moments pass before he’s returning clad in boxers once more to sit on the edge of the bed, pushing away the sheet you’d just pulled over your chest and pulling one of your legs over his lap. Your face warms as he brings a washcloth between your thighs. As soon as he glances up at you and catches your eye you’re looking back to the ceiling.
“I should’ve asked first,” he says quietly as he cleans up the mess he’d made of you.
You speak just as softly, like you’re both afraid of disturbing some peace, of waking some sleeping giant. “It’s okay. I would’ve told you if I didn’t want it.”
His reticence, his unreadable face, make you nervous.
When he’s done, he rises to toss the dirtied cloth in the laundry bin, and with his back to you (as scratched up as it might be) you feel braver.
“Are you gonna, like... hate me now?”
It was a mistake. That’s clear by the way he turns around, brow knit deeply and grimacing slightly like even the suggestion offends him.
“Am I going to hate you?”
Again you pull the sheet up, and again you look away, studying the pattern of moonlight stretching out over the floor and scooting to make room for him when he steps in it.
“Not hate, I just...” the bed dips beside you and you are indescribably glad he’s not immediately running out the door. “I’m not dumb. I know what this was.”
He pulls you into him and you settle against his chest. It feels good. “I never thought you were dumb.”
This is your first real conversation since he’s gotten back, you realize. And how quickly you’re falling into familiar patterns, familiar syntactical beats. You know when to speak. You know when to bite your tongue and keep him talking.
The silence goes on longer than you’re used to. Maybe he got good at not speaking while he was away.
Eventually your eyes wander, falling to the white strip over his thigh where it is parallel to yours on the bed, only over the sheets.
“What happened?”
You said you wouldn’t ask, but that was then, and you’re upset again. You almost want to hurt him. To piss him off. You don’t know.
But it doesn’t work.
“Do you really want to know?” There’s a note of something heavy in his voice, and you look up at him. It’s a privilege to have him this close—his beauty is a constant surprise that you’d become unaccustomed to over the months. You say nothing, and he takes that as the yes that it is. “I... I did it to myself.”
He may as well have reached down your throat and grabbed for fucking heart for all its clenching. Tears well almost immediately, though they’ve been waiting in the wings all night.
“What? Did you—were you trying to—”
His eyes widen.
“No! No, honey, no.” You wilt as he gathers you closer, a deeply confused frown still contorting your features, too heartbroken even to cling to him, or to appreciate the ease with which honey slips past his lips again. “No. I was—it's complicated. I didn’t—I wasn’t trying to hurt myself, but I had to—I had to do it before someone else did something worse.”
The bruises covering his abdomen.
You sniffle and pull back enough to look up at him tearfully. “Why would they want to hurt you?”
Mist fills his eyes even as he’s looking down at you, a layer of separation, as if he’s two places at once. Even as he goes to brush your hair behind your ear, to stroke your cheek.
“I’m... not... the same, as I was.” It’s not an answer to your question—but it’s the beginning of the answer to a question you’d been too afraid to put into words.
“Don’t say that,” you beg, because you know where this is going. He keeps smoothing your hair like it’ll make this easier.
“But it’s true,” Spencer says gently, the slightest waver betraying his own emotion.
“You’re just going to leave again.”
And you’re losing to the tears.
“I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“But you will,” you insist, like a child crying to a parent come to comfort them after a bad dream.
“Not right now. Right now I’m here.”
I’ll stay until you fall asleep again.
For now, maybe that has to be enough. 
You cry on his shoulder. He kisses your head and doesn’t tell you to stop. 
Eventually, you sniff and wipe your eyes. 
“We were so close. Before you… we were almost there.”
You’re sure of it. You’re sure that if he hadn’t gone when he did you would’ve been a real couple. You would’ve told him you loved him. 
“We’ll get there again,” he promises, rubbing your arm. “I just… I need a little bit of time. I think you do too. But we’re going to get there again.”
Maybe it will never be like it was. 
But as so often is the case—Spencer is right. Difference doesn’t mean it won’t ever be good again. 
You have to believe that, just as you had to believe you’d see him again. 
You look to The Odyssey on your bedside table. 
The sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness invades the world. 
But the sun has a habit of rising, time and time again, after the longest nights, after the darkest storms. 
You feel the beginnings of its rise, see the golden tips of it lighting the room as he holds you. Even now. 
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moonstruckme · 1 month ago
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Heyyy! So I'm obsessed with your writing! Your EMT series might be my favourite thing I've ever read.
I was wondering if I could request an EMT Marauders x reader story where she gets really sick but thinks it's nothing and downplays it to them, only for it to end up being Pneumonia or something. And maybe they feel guilty for not realising it sooner?
I know you've probably already written something similar to this so no worries if you don't feel like writing it but I'd love to see your take it if you decide. Hurt/comfort is my favourite trope in the world. I just can't get enough of it!
I hope you're doing well!
Thanks gorgeous, hope you're doing well too <3
cw: pneumonia
emt!marauders x fem!reader ♡ 1k words
You make sure there’s plenty of honey in your tea when the boys get home. 
“Hi,” you greet them, pleased when your voice comes out semi-normal. 
“Hey, gorgeous.” Sirius flops onto the sofa, nearly on top of your curled-up legs. “How was your day?” 
You try to keep your answer brief, your cough plied into submission with honey and warm tea but not for long. “Good. Got some things done.” 
You don’t mention that after every one of those things you’d had to have a thirty-minute lie down, or that many of them involved disinfecting surfaces you’d accidentally coughed near. 
“Being sick isn’t an opportunity to get things done.” Remus sinks into his chair, leveling you with a reprimanding look. “You’re supposed to be resting.” 
You shrug. “The only reason I haven’t been at work is because—” A couple of coughs fight their way out of you. James’ expression pinches as he sits on the arm of Remus’ chair, but thankfully the fit passes quickly. You take another sip of your tea. “Because I don’t want to pass it to anyone. I think I have to go back tomorrow, though.” 
Sirius makes a soft tsking sound. The boys are all still in uniform, his tattoos peeking out from the short sleeves as he traces looping circles on the side of your knee. “But you’re not better yet.” 
“Yeah, but I’m running out of sick days.” 
James frowns. “How long has it been?” 
You bring your tea to your lips, avoiding meeting anyone’s eyes. “I’ve been out for a week.” 
“But you were sick for a while before that,” he says. “What is that, ten days? Eleven?”
You shrug. 
Sirius is looking up at you with a puckered brow. “Do you feel like you’re getting better?” 
“I think so,” you say optimistically. It’s quickly undermined, however, when you’re caught up in another coughing fit. You have to set your tea down to keep from spilling it, holding a tissue over your mouth. 
James’ eyes widen, and Sirius sits up to rub your back. 
“That doesn’t sound very good,” James says. 
“No,” Sirius agrees. He reaches to feel your face, but you brush him away. 
“Don’t-—ack—don’t get too close. I don’t want to get you sick.” 
“I’m not gonna get sick, you baby.” He pushes past your hands. “Let me do my job.” 
“You just got off work.” 
“Yeah, well,” his voice softens, taking on a sympathetic hum as he lays his palm flat to your hairline, “maybe I maybe I was talking about my boyfriend job.” A pause. “I think your fever’s gotten worse, my love.” 
You whine. “Really?” 
“‘Fraid so. Have you noticed your symptoms getting worse at all?”
“I don’t” —you cough and reach for your tea again— “think so.” 
“Dove,” Remus says warningly. 
“It’s hard to tell,” you admit. “It’s moved around.” 
“Like where, honey?” James asks. 
“Like, in my…” You feel your throat contract, another fit brewing. You touch a hand to your sternum to avoid speaking. 
“In your chest?” Remus infers. 
You nod. 
He hums and moves to sit on the coffee table, his knees touching yours. You try to warn him away, but Remus shushes you gently. “Let me look at you.” 
He brings one hand to your face, feeling the way Sirius had, and touches the other to the pulse point on your neck. His touch is gentle and cool against your warm skin. You don’t know what exactly he’s looking for, but you find yourself fighting the urge to fall asleep in the basin of his palm when it slips down to hold your cheek. 
“You don’t need to talk,” says James, “but just nod yes or no, okay? Have you noticed yourself feeling more tired lately?” 
You nod tentatively. 
“Yeah? Less appetite?” 
You frown. “I don’t think—” You’re cut off by your own hacking. 
“One week off work, and she completely forgets how to follow instructions,” Sirius teases, rubbing your leg. 
“Terrible patient,” James agrees. 
“Alright,” Remus says once your fit ebbs. “I don’t have a stethoscope, but can you turn sideways for me?” 
You do, confused. Remus puts his ear to your back. You must make an odd face, because Sirius grins at you, reaching over to pinch your chin affectionately. 
“Take a deep breath,” Remus instructs. 
You try, but it doesn’t get far. Your lungs expand maybe halfway before you’re coughing again, horrible, wracking coughs punctuated by stabbing pains in your chest. Remus sits up after a few moments, rubbing your back. 
“Sorry,” you manage. 
“Why are you sorry?” Sirius pulls you into him, cradling your head to his chest. “That sounded like it hurt, huh?” 
“Yeah,” Remus answers for you, brows bent with sympathy. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. At least now we can get you some medicine, though.” 
You cough weakly. “You can?” 
“Sounds like pneumonia?” James asks Remus. Your boyfriend nods. 
Sirius coos, petting your head. “I’m sorry, baby. I was thinking it was just a cold.” 
“It’s not your fault,” you croak. “I was, too.” 
“Feels like we ought to have known the difference, though,” James admits. When Sirius gets up, he’s quick to take his spot, tucking you underneath an arm. 
“Where are you going?” you ask Sirius. 
He’s putting his shoes back on. “To get someone to write you a prescription. The sooner we get you on antibiotics, the better. It’ll give you something to show your boss, too.” 
“I don’t need to come with you?” you ask hopefully. 
He winks, grabbing his keys. “Perks of knowing people at the hospital.” 
“Perks of flirting with the doctors, he means,” Remus mutters after he’s gone. 
“Hey,” James laughs, giving his boyfriend’s knee a playful squeeze, “it works out for us, doesn’t it?” 
“Sometimes,” Remus allows. He fixes his gaze on you. “Anything we can do to help you feel better, sweetheart? Do you want to try a hot bath? Steam would be good for you.” 
You look down into your now cool mug. “Could I have some more tea?” 
He takes it from you with a kiss to your head. “What a silly question.”
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drluvsick · 4 months ago
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Hashiras x super cheerful excited golden retriever girlfriend PLSPSLSPSLPSLPSLS🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Reader is sunny , always smiling , laughing , extroverted , very strangely optimistic ^_^
𝐌𝐘 𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐄 — 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐡𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐬
hashiras with a sunny, optimistic s/o. 📝 ik the ask called for fem! reader but this can be read gn! as well. GOOSH I’M SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG TO DO… ALSO i knew that if i just did this regularly for everyone it’d start becoming repetitive in each one, so i put them into categories first and then wrote down what might be different with each hashira— hence why some entries are pretty short. SORRY AGAIN!!
word count : 1.3k+
𝙉𝙊𝙒 𝙋𝙇𝘼𝙔𝙄𝙉𝙂 . . . 𝘚𝘜𝘕𝘋𝘈𝘠 𝘉𝘌𝘚𝘛 — 𝘚𝘜𝘙𝘍𝘈𝘊𝘌𝘚
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MATCHES your energy perfectly. absolutely loves the positive vibes, it makes their entire day and they live for it.
— rengoku, mitsuri, tengen (mostly)
FINDS it refreshing. the corps needs more people like you to make the negative energies of demon slaying wash away. may not completely match your energy, but it makes them happy no doubt to see you spreading that positivity (it’ll rub off on them soon enough if it hasn’t already).
— shinobu, obanai, gyomei
FOUND you annoying at first. absolutely thought you were stupid. though, in the end, they fell anyways without meaning to— soon finding your positivity and shining personality charming.
— sanemi
TREATS you like an any other day person they’d react with on a daily basis until you start spending more and more time with them, congrats! you’ve invaded their hearts.
— giyu, muichiro
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𝐆𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐈 𝐇𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐉𝐈𝐌𝐀
— you distract him from everything. you’re always so bright and happy that whenever he’s around you he can’t help but smile and forget all his worries and stresses.
— he likes that this is your true personality, not just some act.
— definitely falls further in love when you defend him from other slayers who question his capabilities as hashira due to his lack of sight.
— AND HE WILL DEFEND YOU whenever he senses that you’re sad because of another person. he cannot stand to hear you feel upset. it’s one of the rare times he’s passively aggressive towards someone, he simply just cares for you so much.
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𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐍 𝐔𝐙𝐔𝐈
— finds you interesting. and when he spots an interesting person, you best believe he’s going to investigate.
— loves talking to you about nothing in particular, whether you’re leading or he’s leading the conversation it’s bound to be a unique and enlightening chat.
— ABSOLUTELY bedazzles you with some of his flashy items so that you’re positively shining in and out.
— sometimes when he’s just down in the dumps he may find your positivity annoying and will voice it, but he always backtracks when he sees your smile go a fraction lower.
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𝐆𝐈𝐘𝐔 𝐓𝐎𝐌𝐈𝐎𝐊𝐀
— this is a trope. it’s called extrovert x introvert. it’s also another trope called yapper x listener.
— you will spout out a whole paragraph or two about something and he’ll just give you a few nods to show he’s paying attention, maybe voicing his opinions once in a while with just a few words. but he’s definitely listening, after all, he loves hearing you speak.
— you go from just another person in his life to something way different, someone who recognizes him for something and doesn’t shun him like the others.
— he thinks that maybe—with you being a “look on the bright side,” kind of person—you’ll be able to see him from an angle that practically no one takes the time to see for themselves.
— he lets you hug him whenever you’re happy, but at the same time he hopes that you don’t hear his heart going a mile a second.
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𝐎𝐁𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐈 𝐈𝐆𝐔𝐑𝐎
— it’s funny, really; how fast his memories from way back when go to rest whenever you’re nearby, how immediate the thoughts of his scars disappear as you come into view.
— he admires your consistency to stay positive among the lifelong struggles in this job as a demon slayer.
— showed his scars to you early on after you convinced him that looks alone wouldn’t change your opinions on him. he’s so glad he did, because after some much needed pep talking he’s absolutely ecstatic. he can breathe easier around you now, taking off the bandages whenever he likes because you’re just that much of a comfort to him.
— possessive & protective, if someone’s making you sad they are DEAD MEAT. HIDE
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𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐄𝐌𝐈 𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐙𝐔𝐆𝐀𝐖𝐀
— fell so hard. and he didn’t even notice it! that smooth road from hating you to loving you never crossed any speed bumps that let him figure it out, it just hit him one day.
— “you can’t find positivity in everything. you’re bound to wake up to reality somewhere along this line of work.” sanemi said this to help himself so that he’d never be so hurt by your eventual sad expressions from who knows what. the only thing it succeeded in doing was convince you to prove him wrong.
— has the prettiest color on his face when he blushes at you complimenting or being enthusiastic at spending time with him, even if you’re enthusiastic at spending time with every hashira.
— it’s funny cuz he’ll just go from being so aggressive and mean towards you to just one day out of the blue being unusually gentle and kind. you bet he’ll be the first one to beat up whoever makes you cry or help you with your problems, because even if this man doesn’t see it, he is absolutely WHIPPED.
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𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐎𝐊𝐔 𝐊𝐘𝐎𝐉𝐔𝐑𝐎
— he just wants to hug you every time you’re around (and he does, with your consent of course)!
— two golden retrievers running around with no leashes and no restraints. everyone should be terrified
— he’s happy that there’s someone in the corps he can really talk to for days on end about anything if he’s ever looking for positive outlooks. someone who sees his point of views and matches his overly optimistic nature.
— gets a lil jealous when you’re like this around tengen but we shall not elaborate as he’s stomped those feelings down long ago
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𝐌𝐈𝐓𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐈 𝐊𝐀𝐍𝐑𝐎𝐉𝐈
— LOVES your energy SO MUCH. it makes her feel all warm and fuzzy inside when you talk and laugh around her; she feels wanted.
— your hype girl. she will absolutely cheer for you whenever you need it and she’ll squeal when you pay her back with hugs or compliments.
— she never seems to need any words or comfort from you whenever she’s sad, because every time you walk in her point of view she immediately lights up and her mood does a whole switch.
— clicked easily with you when you first got introduced, definitely love at first sight for her.
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𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐎𝐁𝐔 𝐊𝐎𝐂𝐇𝐎
— she’s surprised at first at how happy you could be in this line of profession, but soon after spending some more time with you she understands. you’ve given her a new reason to be happy everyday and she cherishes her genuine happiness closely.
— she refrains from teasing you as she does with giyu, because unlike with him she can’t stand to see your smile break even a little bit.
— likes the positive role model you present to her patients, encouraging them that everything was going to be okay and uplifting all the moods of all the people you speak with in her estate.
— eventually her own smiles will mirror your unfeigned ones over time. she thanks you heavily for that.
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𝐌𝐔𝐈𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐎 𝐓𝐎𝐊𝐈𝐓𝐎
— aloof with you as he does with most others at first. doesn’t understand the point and why you want to spend time with him so much—why it’d bring you so much joy to be around him.
— eventually he learns to tolerate it which leads to his days feeling unusually empty without you. he subconsciously asks for more missions with you with reasons that don’t fully make sense, but they’re more believable than “i don’t want to be apart from them.”
— and then when he regains his memories and the fog from his head is lifted; he’s absolutely smiling every time you’re around. he still dazes out of conversations once in a while, but that’s only because he’s busy looking at you.
— he comes to full terms with himself and hugs you a lot (to the point where he’d been called clingy by tengen a few times). he’s so, so happy with you and hopes you never fall to the line of work that you both reside in.
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overluvsick | please do not repost, translate, and/or claim my works as yours !!
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fastandcarlos · 13 days ago
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The House Of Piastri : ̗̀➛ Oscar Piastri
summary: the one where you and oscar move into a place that you can finally call your own
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“Welcome to the house of Piastri!” Oscar chimed, turning the key and opening up the place that was finally yours. “Our very first home,” Oscar grinned, throwing his arm across your shoulders, pulling you in. 
It was far from perfect, there were moving boxes everywhere, little decoration, and many of the rooms were uncoordinated, but it was your place. Just for you and Oscar. There was no one else around, nothing to interrupt you both anymore. 
“Where do we begin?” You laughed, pressing your fingers to your temple. “What have we signed ourselves up for?” You asked Oscar, glancing across at him. His smile was wide, a lot more optimistic than you were at the adventure that you had ahead of you. 
When Oscar suggested the two of you think about finding your own place after moving to Monaco, you jumped at the chance. It was a big deal for you both, having only ever lived separately before, but after leaving home in order to support Oscar, you knew you couldn’t be alone. 
“Doesn’t it just feel right though?” Oscar whispered, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “I can already see how amazing it’s going to look, even if it doesn’t look that way right now.” 
Your head nodded in agreement with Oscar, no doubt that it was a place you’d feel happy calling your home. You and Oscar had so many plans, you’d spent hours awake at night talking through your ideas, searching online for some inspiration of what you’d like. 
“The view is beautiful too,” you hummed, taking a few steps forward across the room to where your balcony was. “I don’t think I’ll tire of looking out here, it’s beautiful.” 
“Almost as beautiful as you,” Oscar chimed, watching as your eyes rolled. “What? I’m only being honest; it doesn’t quite compare to you.” 
Oscar took your hand again, leading you across to where the sofa was just beside the balcony. You sat against his side, back pressed against his chest as Oscar rested his head on top of yours. It was about the only piece of furniture that you had built and ready to go, having taken most of the day to get it delivered and set up, but it left you both excited for all the hard work that was to come.  
It felt like a dream as you looked around the apartment, neither you or Oscar could quite believe that you were finally there, after months of planning and waiting around. 
“Imagine how beautiful this is going to be soon,” Oscar whispered into your ear, “I can see us spending forever here, growing old, maybe even raising a family too.” 
Your eyes widened as Oscar spoke, not quite knowing what to say. He felt your body tense up, worried that maybe he’d said the wrong thing, got too ahead of himself in amongst all of the excitement of moving in. 
Oscar mumbled an apology across to you. “I didn’t mean to say that, it’s just a maybe one day kind of thing. I guess I’m just excited for the future now that we’re finally here.” 
It wasn’t that you were scared, but you’d never really heard Oscar talk about your future plans before. You were both so young, and had so much time ahead of you, although you knew most of your time now was going to be spent building, decorating, and trying to get your home look a little more homely.  
“Don’t be sorry,” you smiled up at Oscar, “there’s no need to be sorry. I like that you’re thinking about these sorts of things. Forever is a long time though; we don’t know where the future is going to take us.” 
“I’d live anywhere as long as I had you with me,” Oscar mused, “I’d live in a rubbish bin as long as you were there, even if you would end up smelling a bit.” 
“Moving in has really got you thinking about things, hasn’t it?” 
Oscar nodded, kissing against the top of your head. “I guess moving in with you has made me so happy, I’m just excited now for what’s going to come next.” 
“I’ll give you a clue...a heck of a lot of painting,” you teased. 
It was going to take many hours to get the apartment as you wanted it, but you and Oscar knew that together you’d get it done. You didn’t want the easy option when it came to finding your home, but even this was a harder challenge than either of you could imagine. 
“Think about all the memories that we’re going to make here,” Oscar spoke, “we’ll be able to have friends over, family can stay when they visit, and just stay here together too.” 
It was a big move, not only had you found a new city, but you’d found a new country too. Luckily for you, many of the other drivers who were already out there had been more than willing to help you out, offering their services whenever you needed them. 
“I think once we’re unpacked and decorated, I’ll feel happier, your mum would be mortified if she knew we were living here with the state of this place right now,” you replied. 
“She can’t wait to visit,” Oscar laughed, “I think she might be more excited than us about this.” 
Everyone around you couldn’t wait to see you move in together, you were inseparable at the best of times and it was only a matter of time. Your parents, and Oscar’s, especially had pushed you to move in, desperate to see you in a place you could call your own. 
“It’s going to be crazy, but there’s no one else I’d like to move in with and decorate my first home alongside.” 
Your head nodded in agreement with Oscar, as terrifying as it was, you were beyond excited too. Your vision was clear, and one thing you were absolutely confident of was the fact that you were absolutely going to love living there, especially with Oscar there too. 
“You know, when all of this is done, we’ll be able to sit here and think about how lucky we are.” 
Your head tilted back to look up at Oscar, “I already feel lucky enough as it is. You’re here, and we’re in Monaco, what could be better than that?” 
“I really do appreciate you moving all the way out here to support me,” Oscar whispered, “not many people would move across the world for their partner. It’s a huge sacrifice to make, I just hope that it’s worthwhile being here for you.” 
“It’s worth it, wherever you go, I go,” you replied, reminding him of the promise that you made to each other. “Anyway, Monaco is definitely the place that feels like home now too.” 
Oscar glanced down with a smile, “there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than here with you right now. I think I could get used to living here, with you.” 
“I agree, this is beyond anything that I could have ever dreamed of.” 
“It’s not just an apartment anymore, it’s our home,” Oscar said, “a place we can finally call our own.” 
“The house of Piastri, it’s perfect.” 
˗ˏˋ 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ! ´ˎ˗
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hotshotsxyz · 10 days ago
Text
since forever
(buddie) (1.3k words) at no point in time while writing this did i have a single plan for where it was going. it's soft, it's sweet, it has minor spoilers for the blair witch project (1999)
Bizarrely, the first thing that occurs to Eddie post-realization is that he lied to a priest. The thought startles a laugh out of him. Whoops.
He feels good. Like—shockingly good. Light and optimistic and free, everything he’s been trying to let in since Father Brian gave him the go ahead to stop punishing himself, which—
It isn’t actually that he needed permission, especially not from a priest. Or maybe he did.
All he really knows is that this joy he’s letting in? It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt him, or Chris or Buck or anyone else he loves. So when Eddie finally realizes why he’s been putting Buck in his own category for years, he doesn’t even try to put it back in the box.
He loves Buck. He wants Buck. And he’s allowed to want. It’s a good thing, even. And speaking of Buck—
His best friend/the love of his freaking life is staring at him like he’s grown two heads. Which, fair. He’s not entirely sure where they are in the movie, but as far as he recalls there isn’t much in the way of comedy in The Blair Witch Project.
It’s just—Buck was sitting on the literal edge of his seat, pillow clutched protectively to his chest, staring at the TV with eyes wider than dinner plates. Who in their right mind could see something like that and come to any conclusion other than love?
Buck pauses the movie.
“Do not tell me you think this,” he says, gesturing at the screen where, oof, yeah, a young woman is sobbing in terror, “isn’t scary.”
“No, no,” Eddie replies, “very scary.”
Buck snorts. “You’re such an asshole,” he says, but it’s wrapped in one of those warm grins that give him away every time.
Eddie hums agreeably.
“Alright, fine,” Buck says. He scoots closer until he’s flush against Eddie’s side. It’s really not that much of a scoot. “If you’re gonna go all brave strong man on me, I get to use you as a shield.”
“I guess I can live with that,” Eddie sighs. He wraps an arm around Buck’s shoulders, just because he wants to.
He can feel Buck’s exhale as he settles against his shoulder, and for all the times they’ve touched before, this feels different. Maybe it isn’t, though. Maybe Eddie’s just different.
As the tension in the movie ramps, Buck burrows further and further into Eddie. He kicks his feet up onto the couch and twists so that Eddie’s forearm falls from his shoulder and drapes across his chest instead. It’s maybe the most comfortable Eddie’s ever been.
On screen, the two remaining characters creep into a seemingly abandoned house. On the couch, Buck squeaks and grabs Eddie’s hand. This, he decides, is his new favorite movie.   
“We’re never going hiking again,” Buck declares as the credits roll.
“Sure,” Eddie says, shrugging with the shoulder that isn’t currently occupied by Buck’s head. “Until you see a cool trail on Instagram.”
“I’m serious!” Buck says. He tilts his head back until he can kind of make eye contact with Eddie. “I am not getting Blair Witched.”
Eddie hums, pretending to think about it. “How about we just… never go hiking in Maryland?” he proposes.
Buck grins up at him, and oh, Eddie has never wanted to kiss someone as much as he does in this exact moment.
“Deal,” Buck says. He sits back up and rests his head back against Eddie’s shoulder.
There’s a long stretch of quiet where Buck plays with his fingers and Eddie revels in the feeling of it. He thinks—he’s almost certain—that he could ask Buck for anything right now and he’d say yes.
Kiss me.
Move in with me.
Marry me.
His lips tick into a small smile at the thought, but he takes it no further.
“Hey, Eds?” Buck asks quietly.
The TV screen has shut itself off, leaving the room in semi-darkness, cut only by the light of the streetlamps outside.
“Yeah?”
“Something’s different,” he says. It’s not a question.
“It is,” Eddie acknowledges.
“Good different?”
Eddie considers for a moment. Something about the hour, the darkness, Buck’s warmth against his side, makes him feel brave. He presses the smallest, softest of kisses into Buck’s hair.
“Good different,” Eddie confirms.
“Oh,” Buck breathes.
“Good ‘oh’?” Eddie asks teasingly.
Buck flicks one of Eddie’s fingers in recompense. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were fishing for something,” he says.
“If I am?”
Buck takes a shaky breath. “Then I’m gonna need you to spell it out for me, Eds.”
He sits up and turns to face Eddie directly, and as much as Eddie misses the warmth of his body, he wants to look Buck in the eye for this part.
“I love you,” Eddie says.
Buck’s lips part in an awed sort of surprise.
“I’m in love with you,” he continues. “I have been, for years, I think. I just… wasn’t ready to let myself look at it.”
“Eddie,” Buck says, already a little wrecked.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Eddie reassures. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“No, I—” Buck says quickly, stumbling over his words. “I didn’t—I’ve never even—” He looks down and his expression shifts, like he didn’t realize he was still holding on to Eddie’s hand. “You love me?” Buck asks, looking back up, eyes shining in the yellow glow of the streetlamps.
“Yeah,” Eddie says softly. “More than I think I knew was possible.”
Buck exhales in a punched-out kind of way. He raises a hand to Eddie’s face and ghosts two fingers along his cheekbone and down the line of his jaw. “I didn’t—I didn’t know I could,” he breathes.
“You can, Buck,” Eddie says. “Whatever you want, it’s—”
Buck surges forward and cuts him off with a kiss, and if there was a single doubt left in Eddie’s mind, this would’ve extinguished it. It’s a little messy, a little awkward, and the angle’s not quite right, but—
It’s Buck, so it’s perfect.
He pulls back, gasping for air. “I—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
Eddie catches one of his hands and rubs his thumb in soothing circles on Buck’s wrist. “Don’t be,” Eddie says softly. “It’s okay. If you need time—”
“No!” Buck says quickly. “Or—maybe? I just—” He blows out a sharp breath.
“Hey,” Eddie says, ducking his head until Buck meets his eye again. “I told you once that you didn’t need to be anything for anybody. That includes me, okay?”
“Jesus, Eddie,” Buck says.
“I’m just saying, you don’t have to make any decisions tonight. You don’t even have to want,” Eddie says, gesturing between them in lieu of finishing his sentence.
Buck sags a little. “Of course I want,” he whispers.
Warmth floods Eddie’s chest and overflows into his stomach. “Yeah?” he asks.
A slow smile spreads across Buck’s face. “Yeah,” he says. “I really do.”
Eddie has known happiness before, felt it in small bursts and long stretches. But what he’s feeling now—it’s blindingly bright, brilliant and beautiful and free of fear in a way he’s not sure he’s ever experienced.
“Can I kiss you again?” Buck asks breathily.
Eddie nods, not quite sure he can trust his tongue anymore.
This time, Buck leans forward deliberately. He cups Eddie’s face in his hands and tucks his nose against Eddie’s before carefully brushing their lips together. It’s featherlight and maddening in the best possible way.
He presses his lips against Eddie’s again, then teases them open with his tongue and—
God, if this is how it was always supposed to feel, Eddie’s pretty sure there are a few more revelations coming his way in the near future. For now, though, he just leans in.
“Oh!” Buck exclaims, popping back suddenly. “I love you, too,” he says. There’s something like wonder coloring his tone and writing itself across his face. “I really—Eddie, I think I’ve loved you forever.”
It’s not possible, not really. As difficult as it is to remember what it was like before his life became intertwined with Buck’s, that before still exists. Eddie knows that. But in his heart—he’s pretty sure his atoms started loving Buck’s at the beginning of the universe.
“Yeah,” Eddie says, drawing Buck back in. “Me too.”
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pitchsidestories · 3 months ago
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when grumpy met sunshine II Kika Nazareth x Reader
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masterlist I word count: 2382
It was the first day of training after the summer vacation marking the start of pre-season. With the new players coming in on the one hand and on the other hand the familiar faces it almost felt like the beginning of a school year. Everyone was buzzing.  
One of the fresh signings approached you quickly once she recognized you, her face lit up with joy and excitement.
“Hi y/n, I love your playing style and can’t wait to play with you!”, Kika Nazareth greeted you. God how you hated that footballer and her stupid smile. Also how dare she is saying that after what happened a year ago.
“Uhu, sure. It seems like you forgot what you did during the Champions League group stage games.”, you answered coldly.
“Huh, what do you mean?”, the Portuguese woman frowned confused.
“Forget it.”, you waved it off and rushed off leaving a very bewildered Kika behind.
“Don’t take it personally she never forgets anything really. Come on you need to meet the rest of your new teammates.”, Mapi padded empathetically the shoulder of the young forward.
“But I don’t get it, Mapi. What did I ever do to her?”, the brunette asked the defender, while her brown eyes followed you across the room. S
he was genuinely excited to play with you, if you hadn’t stopped her so abruptly the Portuguese might have said even more. How Kika loved the way you looked and.. she should stop thinking any further you clearly were mad at her, but why?
“I don’t know.”, the older Spanish woman shrugged equally as clueless.
“Weird.”, the forward mumbled.
“Let’s go the others are so thrilled to see you.”, Mapi tried to cheer her up.
“Hey, everyone.”, Kika begun anew, beaming at the teammates. Hoping, no praying, she wouldn’t cause a reaction like yours earlier. The dark haired forward didn’t want to ruin the first day at the new club anymore.
“Hi, welcome to the club.”, Claudia replied grinning.
“And thanks to special agent Aitana for this transfer who sadly can’t be here right now.”, Mapi continued, trying to soothe the fresh signing. It worked Kika did feel more relaxed in front of them.
“Guys calm down she still hasn’t proven herself in the team.”, you commented rolling your eyes, suddenly appearing next to Ingrid.
“I’m aware of how good this team is. But I’m sure I can help.”, the Portuguese swallowed hard, trying to sound as optimistic as possible.
“We’ll see about that.”, you shot back.
“Don’t worry you’ll.”, she promised. The football player was waiting for a response but once more you vanished without a trace. What a strange behaviour Kika thought to herself.
Thankfully Ellie delivered a much-needed distraction.
 “Kika? Ewa and I wanted to ask you if you’d join us for a coffee sometime soon? As we’re all new to the city.”  
“Yes, sure, I’d love that.”, she nodded happily.
Ellie beamed: “Wonderful.“
“Can’t wait.“, Kika smiled back at the young goalie.
Once again, you rolled your eyes and turned away from them to focus on your warm up.
You were one of the last to leave the pitch two hours later, thinking that you would have the dressing room for yourself. You did not expect Ingrid and Mapi waiting for you there.
“So?“, Ingrid said with her arms crossed in front of her chest.
You didn’t want to talk about your new team member so you decided to play along: “So what?“
With a half smile she finally formulated a question: “Why are you pouting?“
“I’m not pouting. Just annoyed by that smiley…“, you stopped yourself. You couldn’t come up with the right word for her anyway.
Mapi shook her head: “You’re not annoyed.“
At this point, you were starting to get annoyed with these two as well.
“Yes, I am. We didn’t need her in our team.“
“That’s not our decision though.“, Mapi shrugged.
You were about to say something but Ingrid was faster: “Y/n?“
You turned to her: “Yes?“
“Tell us why you’re mad at her.“
You heaved a frustrated sigh. They were worse than your parents.
“Remember when we drew against Benfica in Lisbon?“
Both of them nodded. Of course they would remember last years UWCL games. “Yeah?“
“What happened there? Why can’t you move on from it?“, Mapi asked.
Her girlfriend added: “Come on. It can’t be that bad. You can tell us.“
They looked at you with those soft eyes, all parent-like. Almost like your team psychologist.
The sudden urge to tell them disappeared completely so you just shrugged and grabbed your bag: “Whatever.“
You could feel their eyes on you as you left the dressing room, still in your workout clothes.
Ingrid looked at her incredulously: “Well, that was strange, Mapi.“
“Very.“, she agreed slowly.
As you went back to your own place, Kika and the other new players sipped on their coffees at a tiny little coffee shop.
“No, I’ll win her over with my charm, Ellie.“, Kika announced confidently. Even they had noticed the awkward tension between the two of you.
The English goalkeeper nodded slowly: “Sure you will, Kika.“
“Anyone wants some cake with their coffee?“, Ewa changed the topic. She had been eyeing the tasty looking sweet treats on display right from the start.
The Portuguese striker nodded: “Of course.“
“Can’t say no, they look delicious.“, Ellie laughed.
“We have to celebrate. It’s our first coffee date in our new home.“, Kika laughed.
Ewa stood up and agreed: “We do.“
She quickly returned with three different slices of cake so all of them could try.
“Knowing we play for such a prestigious club now feels great, right?“, she said as she sat the plates down on the table.
“This feels like a dream come true.”, the goalkeeper agreed with a dreamy look in her blue eyes.
It has always been something the blonde fantasized about since she was a little girl, playing for that club and now the fantasy turned into reality which she was forever grateful for.
When Ellie continued, she sounded serious. “Especially after the last year that I had.” The other two women knew about the stroke the English player had suffered.
That was why Kika pulled her into a soft hug whispering into the ear. You deserve to be here so much, Ellie.”
“Thanks. I’m happy that I got to start with you two.”, the goalkeeper smiled at her new teammates.
“Same. I’ve a feeling this will be a fantastic first season for us.”, Ewa replied enthusiastically.
“And we got each other if it’s getting hard.”, the Portuguese striker added.
“Yes, plus I’m sure even grumpy will like you eventually, Kika.”, Ellie remarked.
Immediately the smile vanished from the brunette’s face. “Not so sure about this. Apparently, I must have done something to her during our UWCL match last season.”
“But you don’t remember?”, Ewa questioned curiously. Quickly Kika shook her head.
“No.”
Although she tried her hardest to think what the striker could have done which made you hate her so much. Usually everyone warmed up under Kikas positive radiance, but you were her first exception, following her into her dreams.
In training Kika and you were much to your dismay supposed to be partners.
“Kika, I think Ill swap with Esmee.”, you declared.
“You can’t swap training partners.”, Mapi interjected in a tone which didn’t allow any dissent.
“Fine.”, you groaned. Even though you had played a few years in the first squad of Barca now aged 21 the defender was still like the big sister you never had, and you didn’t want to disappoint her. Even if it meant you needed to work with the person you disliked.
“Looks like you’re stuck with me.”, Kika observed, wearing a huge smile on her lips.
“Yes, with the one who showed me the middle finger last year.”, you muttered under her breath. Unfortunately, it was still loud enough for the striker to understand the words you were saying.
“I never did that!”, she objected loudly.
“Yes, you did.”, you responded.
“No way, I’d never do that.”, Kika insisted.
“And when you said something about the way I played.”, your voice trembled.
“That’s not true.”, the striker denied strongly.
“What’s true?”, you wanted to know.
“Nothing of what you think happened is true!”, she stated passionately.
Hearing her statement made your heart pound hard against your chest. “Are you saying that this is all a huge misunderstanding?”
Obviously!“, Kika said with emphasis and the slightest undertone of anger.
“Oh.“
You didn’t know what else to say. Was she telling the truth? Did it really only look like it at the pitch? Was it a gesture to you or her own teammate?
All the Champions League games seemed to blur together in front of your inner eye. Now you weren’t sure anymore.
“Wait… so you don’t hate me because I’m here and could potentially take your place in the starting squad?“, Kika asked.
You frowned at her: “No, we play two different positions. So why should I be afraid of that?“
“Because I know that you like to push forward too.“, she explained.
You stalled once again. You found it impressive that she had already analyzed your playing style.
You shook your head: “Yes. But I don’t hate your for that. I’m used to tough competition, Barca is my childhood club.“
“Okay… wow.“
“What?“
Kika started laughing: “I really thought you hated me because you had a good reason.“
At first you just glared at her for making fun of you but her laugh was incredibly infectious and you suddenly found yourself laughing with her.
“Stop laughing. This is a good reason!“, you told her as you playfully hit her arm.
“That’s not a good reason.“
“Come on. Focus on your exercise.“, you reminded her, still smiling.
Kika raised her hands defensively and grinned: “Okay, okay. Can’t make you mad at me again.“
“No. Also I have to maintain my grumpy status.“, you replied and tried your best to keep your face serious again.
Kika giggled: “Sorry, of course.“
“Good.“
“Don’t worry. I think I can handle your grumpiness.“
You squinted at her: “Might need some sunglasses to deal with your sunshiny attitude.“
“I know you love it.“, she winked at you. She really dared to wink at you!
You shook your head: “No, you’re still the most annoying person around here.“
“You don’t mean that.“
She was right. You didn’t.
Still, you continued to tease: “Are you sure?“
She flashed you a confident smile: “Yes.“
“Dream on.“
Kika shrugged casually and focused back on your partner exercise: “If you say so, y/n.“
After your talk, you didn’t feel that intense anger towards Kika anymore. Everything was a bit lighter once the misunderstanding was cleared up. It went even so far that you didn’t react with pure disgust when she asked you to room together at your first pre-season match against Hoffenheim.
“Can’t believe we’ve to share a room, Kika.“, you joked as you sat on one of the beds.
Kika threw herself onto the other one: “Quit complaining, you grump.“
You shrugged with amusement: “At least it’s just for one night.“
The Portuguese striker smiled: “You will survive. I’m a quiet sleeper.“
After you both changed into your pyjamas and brushed your teeth you happily let your head fall on to the soft pillow.
“Good night, Kika.”, you mumbled.
“Night y/n.”, the striker hummed.
Yet something was off, the heat in that southern part of Germany still hung in the room, plus Kika hasn’t stopped moving in her bed. 
“Can’t you sleep?”, you asked her with a heavy sigh.
“No, what about you?”, she returned the question, directing her gaze straight at you.
“Me neither.”, you admitted. There was some restlessness and tension between the two of you, it was almost unbearable.
“Do you want to talk?”, Kika offered kindly.
“Sure.”, you agreed softly.
“So, what keeps you up?”, the Portuguese wanted to know.
Even though the moonlight enhanced her features and made you think thoughts again you tried to avoid you started with a less heavy confession.
“The adrenaline of the win. I think I’ll never get tired of that feeling, what about you?”
You waited for her response, did you imagine it or did her cheeks turn red, it was hard to tell in the dark.
“Oh, yeah, I get that. I love it too. But there’s something else that keeps me awake.”, the brunette replied nervously.
“There’s? Are you missing Portugal?”, you listened up.
“A bit yes, but that’s not it. This might be a bad start for the new season, but there’s someone in this team that I think I’ve a crush on.”, Kika confessed.
“You do?”, you answered stunned.
“Yeah.”
For a moment you paused before the realization hit you hard.
“Wait, it’s me, right?”
“It’s yes.”, she confirmed quietly.
“That’s too bad because I.”, you begun.
“Oh, you don’t have to say anything, I get that. I didn’t want to ruin anything.”, the striker interrupted you quickly.
“No stop talking for a moment.”, you begged her, placing a finger of yours onto her lips. God, that woman really loved to talk, even though now the time clearly was for listening as you tried to demonstrate to her.
“I fell too.”, you added in a whisper.
“You did? Am I not way too annoying for you.”, Kika frowned.
“Yes, you’re and yet I’d like to kiss your mouth who loves to annoy me with it’s yapping.”, you grinned.
“You should give it a try maybe.”, she smirked.
“Maybe you can sleep better afterwards.”, you suggested playfully.
“Maybe we both can.”, your teammate wiggled her eyebrows.
“I’m sure of it.” First the kiss was cautiously before it was getting more intensely until you heard the door open loudly.
“Oh my god!”, Mapi yelled.
“Mapi, get out!”, you shrieked.
“I didn’t see anything. Promise!”, the defender gesticulated wildly. With that said she was gone as quick as the older woman came.
“This news will run like a wildfire, right?”, Kika chuckled.
“Yes, by tomorrow morning everyone knows.”, you groaned as she pulled you into a hug.
“I don’t mind that. They can know that grumpy and sunshine always belong together.”, she announced solemnly placing a soft kiss to your forehead.
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reiding-writing · 4 months ago
Note
i can totally see Spencer buying tickets for a movie and asking cold!reader to go with him cuz he knows she'd say yes
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À BIENTOT— SPENCER REID!
spencer takes an opportunity to get closer to you based on nothing more than a passing comment.
spencer reid x cold!reader | fluff | 2.2k | cold!reader masterlist
a/n— this may be a tiny bit of self projection bc i’m trying to pick up my french again (ça ne marche pas)
main masterlist.
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It’s a quiet day in the office. Quieter than usual for a Friday.
Quiet enough in fact, that you actually had time to take the whole hour of lunch that you were technically mandated to have every single day.
Most of it was still spent at your desk, although with a book in your hands instead of a case file. A distraction, maybe, but not a very optimistic one.
It wasn’t long before you had company. Spencer wasn’t really a ‘socialist’ in the physical sense of the word, and once he’d had enough of sitting in the kitchen eye with the group he too had decided to retreat back to the bullpen.
There’s a tinge of curiosity as he spotted you, sat cross-legged in your chair with both elbows leant on your desk and an open book in hand.
“Auschwitz and After?” He had to tilt his head to see the cover, but his ‘question’, his assessment, was confident.
You hum passively, like you’d already known he was coming over despite his quiet footsteps and your eyes trained on the pages. He’s not too surprised, it wasn’t very easy to catch you off guard.
“What drew you to it?” Spencer questioned, his gaze leaving your blank expression as it went back to observing the book in your hands, scanning the words on the pages.
“Practicing my french,”
Simple and to the point, and to your credit it made sense—when Spencer was knee-deep in a book he didn’t want to interrupt that focus either.
“You’ve read it before?” Socialist he may not be, but he wasn’t ready to leave you in your solitude yet.
“In English,” You turn the page with another small hum. “Doesn’t really count,”
Spencer hummed in agreement.
He could go on for hours about why reading a text in its intended language was superior to reading its translation. How much meaning and sub-context is lost in the transition between languages and completely distort the original meaning.
But you didn’t need to hear that. You already knew it.
So he didn’t say anything, instead choosing to focus his gaze on your face for a few more minutes, wondering if he’d be able to read the emotion on your face like he was so used to doing.
There was still nothing though. No facial twitch. No eyebrow raised. Nothing to indicate what you were thinking.
It was almost like your face was carved from marble.
If he thought about it too much he’d probably say your face deserved to be carved into marble, to keep a relic of you perfect and untouched forever.
But that was a bit too much for him to settle with.
Spencer shifted nervously on his feet, trying to think of something else to say to rid of the silence that was leaving him with his own overthinking.
“Hey— uh— There’s this um— If you’re wanting to brush up on your french—”
“Spit it out, Reid,” Your voice isn’t as harsh as it is blunt. You appreciated conciseness, although you’d never cut him out of a tangent unless it was something that was unproductive.
This one definitely was.
“Uh— Right, right,” he stumbled over his words for a moment before finally taking a deep, steadying breath. “There’s this movie coming out in a few weeks— well technically it came out in France back in May but—”
Spencer’s words came out so fast in his rush to just get to the point, that, for a moment, he was worried that you would only understand half of what he was saying.
“Reid,” You hold up your hand towards him as an indication for him to stop, before moving your hand in a single spiral as a non-verbal instruction for him to breathe.
His rambling stopped almost immediately, and if he had the conscience to be embarrassed, he most definitely would be at how readily he follows your order to take a second to calm down.
Especially considering you still hadn’t even turned your eyes up from your reading in the process.
Still, he follows you with no hesitation, and once you signal for him to continue, he starts back up again, slower this time.
“‘L’armée du crime’, uh, ‘The Army of Crime’, it’s only being shown in a few select theatres here in DC, but—”
The words came out slightly more measured this time, although that little hint of the usual rambling was still, very much present.
“It’s in the original French,” he continued after a beat, his previous hesitation slowly disappearing under the knowledge you weren’t put off by him just yet.
“With subtitles, of course— but still, the entire— dialogue is in— is in French.”
He exhales heavily.
“I was thinking of going to see it.”
He paused again, the hesitation creeping back into his voice.
“What’s it about?”
He swears the whole office can hear his sigh of relief.
“Um, it’s a war-movie,” he said after a few, silent moments, pointing lamely towards your book.
“Set during the Second World War, it talks a lot about the French Resistance, and how it’s not only the people who were fighting in the trenches who made it possible for the Allies to win…”
The start of his explanation is seemingly enough to grasp your full attention, echoed by the way you shut your book with no effort to remember your placement and leave it on your desk to look at him instead, eyebrow raised.
That little gesture, the almost unnoticeable quirk of your eyebrow, was all that Spencer needed to know that he didn’t need to summary the entire movie.
You were interested, but you didn’t want to know the entire plot ahead of the time.
He chuckled lightly at that, before biting his lower lip slightly. The next words that came out of him were almost just breaths.
“… Do you want to come with me?”
It’s enough for your eyebrow to raise more noticeably, enough that Spencer wouldn’t have to be standing less than five feet away to notice it.
“When?”
“Friday night—” It felt like the words were tumbling out of his mouth, like if he didn’t get them out fast enough he’d loose your attention and go back to square one.
But when he actually said the words out loud, he realised how much they sounded like he was asking you out on a date.
He was worried that you would reject him if you thought it was a date.
“…Unless you have other plans?”
There’s a small moment of silence, and Spencer feels like he might vomit from the anticipation.
“Friday’s fine,”
That’s it took for a small, satisfied smile to pull at Spencer’s lips. Those two words, combined with the small nod you throw in his direction, was all the reassurance that he needed to take you at your word.
“Great. That’s uh, that’s— that’s great,” he fumbled over his words, just barely reeling himself in from another ramble of him over-explaining his appreciation for your company.
“Friday’s fine for what?”
He doesn’t really have to worry about that.
Morgan walks over with a mug of coffee in his hand, eyebrow raised in amusement. “A hot date?”
“If you consider watching a french re-enactment of world war two as ‘hot’, then sure,” There isn’t a single ounce of sincerity in your tone, and Morgan glances between the two of you with a barely hidden smile, a chuckle bubbling in his throat.
Spencer, meanwhile, was just staring at Morgan with an indignant expression, silently begging him to not make this into a ‘thing’.
Unfortunately for Spencer though, Morgan was, well, Morgan.
He took one sip of the coffee in his hand, his eyes drifting between the two of you once more.
“French reinactment of the Second World War, huh?” he repeated, his smile turning into a cheeky smirk. “Why am I not surprised?”
There it was, that smirk.
It was the same one he always had on his face when it came to you two.
“It’s- it’s not like that” Spencer mumbled, his tongue quickly flickering out to lick at his suddenly dry lips.
“Sure, it’s not.” Morgan chuckled, enjoying every moment of this as he took another sip of his coffee. “The two of you are just gonna be sitting in a dark room… all alone… together…”
“Watching people get tortured…” You mimic the song-like drawl of Morgan’s voice to throw his ‘joking’ back onto him, rolling your eyes. “So romantic,”
A smirk remained fixed on Morgan’s face as he leaned over your desk until he was looking Spencer directly in the eye.
“I don’t know, you’re both nerds. This sounds like a perfect date to me”, he teased, causing Spencer to scoff in response.
“If that’s your idea of a ‘perfect date’ then I pray for whoever has the unfortunate circumstance of ending up with you,”
“Nah, don’t worry about me, Snowflake,” he chuckled, lifting the mug of coffee to his lips once more. “I’m not the one who’s gonna be sitting in a dark, lonely movie theatre with Doctor Genius here,”
“I don’t need to be ‘prayed for’, Reid is perfectly fine company,” You give Morgan another roll of your eyes, although whether at his comment or his ‘nickname’ Morgan is unsure.
“Sure, sure” he murmured, before pushing himself up off your desk with a smirk. “Enjoy the movie, lovebirds.”
He leaves the bullpen with a blown kiss in your directions, throwing the two of you a wink as he catches up to Garcia walking into the conference room.
You re-open your book once he’s out of sight, letting out a soft groan in lieu of Morgan’s tormenting.
You didn’t really hate it per se , but you’d be lying if you said it didn’t get on your nerves.
Spencer wasn’t unalike in his reaction, a breath of relief leaving his lips once Morgan’s back was turned.
‘Lovebirds’.
Spencer tried to mentally scoff the thought away, and tried not to blush at the thought either.
He glanced back at you, praying that hopefully you didn’t notice that small, involuntary flush that seemed to be crawling across his cheeks.
He continued to be frozen on the spot, eyes locked on your relaxed expression as you scanned the pages to see if you recognised certain parts of the text.
“Page 212...” His voice came out quiet as he spoke.
“What?” You take a second to divert your attention from the pages, eyebrows furrowed curiously in his direction.
Spencer swallowed, hoping that he at least looked composed despite feeling like the exact opposite.
“You were on page 212,” he explained, a small smile pulling at his lips as he caught your gaze.
“Right,” You don’t question his recollection as you skip to page 212, throwing him a dismissive “Thanks,” once you confirm you’re in the right place.
“You’re welcome,”
Spencer’s voice was quieter once more, not as anxious as before but still quiet. He watched you as you returned your gaze back to the pages of the hardback copy, and he was torn between the urge to just stand there and keep looking at you reading the book, or heading back to his desk to work on one of the many case files that had stacked themselves there.
Deciding that it would probably be a little creepy for him to just stand there watching you read, even if you didn’t seem to particularly mind it, he forced himself to look away.
Just as he turned to head around to his desk, he found himself blurting out something without even realising.
“You look nice today,”
Your eyes flicker back upwards from your book through furrowed eyebrows. “Thanks,”
You hadn’t actually changed anything about your appearance, the outfit you were wearing was practically identical to the one you wore most days, your hair was done the same, you hadn’t even showered that morning.
He quickly realised that he must’ve looked like a complete idiot and, for a moment, was wondering if he could rewind time to not say what he had just said.
“Uh, I mean—” he tried to backpedal, hoping that his awkward rambling could save him from this situation. “Not that you don’t usually look nice! I meant-!”
As he fumbled over his words, he mentally slapped himself. Why couldn’t he just be normal and not blurt out something so stupid at such a random time.
God he hoped this wouldn’t make you change your mind about wanting to spend time with him one on one.
Thankfully, the universe seemed to have a little mercy on him.
“Team, I need you in the conference room.”
So much for a full lunch break.
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