#trying not to examine that too closely

[flubnuggetpurple]

We have once more entered the season of other people being confused about my gender and me also being confused about my gender and enjoying us all being on the same page

[lucalicatteart]

A few silly little small sculptures that I made with some of the leftover clay from the main one I did recently

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2024: LEECH by Hiron Ennes.

This is a reread for me! I first read it when it came out in 2022, and it absolutely rewired my brain. It does so many fascinating POV things that I adore, and I'm excited to revisit it with ~Vague Recollections~ of plot reveals to see how many of them I spot ahead of time this go-round.

[leohtttbriar]

at this point i've written four different pairings that feature nyota uhura (because i'm obsessed with her) and it's sort of interesting for me to think about the ways uhura's linguist-ness plays out depending on whichever barbie i've decided to make her kiss.

like with t'pring the linguist-ness is front and center because it's an obvious way to bridge divides between two aliens and also a fun way for me personally to explore where aliens might differ from each other because at last one character (t'pring) only says rational and/or well-reasoned things and at least one character (uhura) is aware of linguistic realities and is also good at lit crit.

with jadzia, the linguist-ness is sort of an answerable intelligence to jadzia's technobabble smarts and uhura's command over language is a specific tool for both penetrating jadzia's performance and validating the performance for what it is, which makes the way they talk to each other a fun reifying of the art of conversation itself.

with rand, uhura's mastery of linguistics is a mastery of 'people', at least the abstract idea of them, which reflects rand's role of administration and personality-wrangling and professionalism in tos, so it's less a conversation between two opposing themes, like with t'pring and jadzia, and more an expansion on the theme that exists in both the leader of people and the linguist--an attending to the details and a carefully constructed distance between observer and observed.

and with chapel, the linguist-ness is incidental, so it doesn't really interact with the story. they're simply friends and chapel, by the transformative power of typing the slash key, just thinks uhura is hot.

[cheetahsprints]

(If you don't like mentions of a slash ship featuring certain anthro hedgehogs just scroll past!!!! Quickly!!!)

TL;DR (You can skip this blurb if you want the full story)

I went from being like neutrally aware of the Sonic franchise characters' existence to totally obsessed practically overnight with Shadow and Sonadow. Went full speed ahead brainrot on them because of a freaking dream where cartoon (unspecified) Sonic & co accidentally entered the dimension of live action Sonic. Shenanigans ensued, most notably a dreambrain-hatched live action Shadow fighting his cartoon version because of his attitude toward Sonic & co.

(End of TL;DR)

[Text wall below for details]

A few nights ago I had a random as hell dream about Sonic the hedgehog and I am now here I have watched freaking Sonic Prime on Netflix because the mental images wouldn't leave me alone so I treated it like a weird message from the universe e send Help

My only previous interactions with sonic stuff was some person I followed on twitter for something else posting art of it (mega long time ago), watching the sonic live action movies why I have no idea (super long time ago), and that joke game that went surprisingly hard The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog which I completed even though the minigames to progress got hard AF for me (pretty long time ago) and like even before all that I knew of Sonic from ads, memes, and various posts on social medias. But I didn't fully engage with it.

Side note: the twitter posting was mostly sonadow and I would look it over like uh-huh ok the vibes check out and just keep scrolling like lsdfkjdskl but that is pretty much the main reason I knew Sonic/Shadow existed but at the time I didn't actively seek it out or try to learn more.

Onward...

My brain is so so so weird and the dream was somewhat vivid like watching a movie omg where the live action sonic and pals met the cartoon versions of the characters?? even though I never watched any of the cartoons before??? as such it wasn't a specific series, I just knew it in the dream they were from a generalized cartoon universe

Specifically it was Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles in the movie group, while the cartoon group had Amy and Rouge instead of the other two alongside Sonic, who I only even really knew about because of the April Fool's game. And Shadow was also there in both groups because why not I guess and they (the Shadows) fought each other because the movie one thought the cartoon one was a jerk lmao idk? Yeah my subconscious decided it couldn't wait for Sonic 3 and made up its own version of movie Shadow.

Early in the dream there was also a little kid clone of Sonic who belonged with the cartoon group. There were some cute interactions but in nonsensical dream fashion that character just disappeared later like he was never there lol

…There was some plot about the cartoon group needing to get back to their dimension because Sonic accidentally got them blasted into the movie one somehow... after watching Sonic Prime I'm like my dream was so FREAKISHLY similar to that show's plot, but I SWEAR I knew nothing about the premise of SP before the dream. Although, in the dream they were like... multidimensional travellers doing hero stuff and had met other variants before, just this time it wasn't intentional and it messed something up.

Uh getting off track... (which the dream itself did a lot tbf)

Anyway, what I remember is the movie dimension made the cartoon group look in the more realistic style so at first Shadow thought the actual movie group were the ones from his dimension (Shadow & Amy got separated from Sonic & Rouge) and was rude to them because he was so ticked off blaming Sonic for being a dumbass and yelling at Tails for not preventing whatever happened or something, so actual movie Shadow appeared like. don't talk to my friends that way asshole and beat the absolute shit out of him. There was an explanation Tails gave that the movie Shadow was more powerful for some reason I don't remember and Amy told cartoon Shadow to stop trying to beat him. But yeah bro was so pissed movie Sonic had to step in and physically stop him because he wouldn't listen to and/or overpowered anyone else. He reminded Shadow that the other Shadow was still him, in a sense.

Cartoon Sonic and Rouge appeared and Sonic started bickering with cartoon Shadow. but the movie versions were best friends so they were watching them like wtf is wrong with y'all. Movie Shadow got fed up quickly and punched cartoon Shadow again and stood protectively in front of both Sonic versions bristling and wouldn't take his eyes off his counterpart. Cartoon Shadow was so goddamn confused by Shadow's protectiveness and asked how Sonic had made movie Shadow his loyal bodyguard (derogatory) Amy and Rouge like explained the backstory to the movie crew, which is fuzzy to me but it was something along the lines of, Shadow had been brainwashed to rival Sonic, tricked to think that Sonic was evil (unbeknownst to that Sonic who in his pov had this random edgy hedgehog start attacking him out of nowhere during a mission) and they had a lot of intense fighting before Shadow found out the truth. But the two of them never quite got over the misunderstanding. Listen I didn't know Shadow's backstory, literally none of it, but I have read the wiki since ok

Meanwhile movie Shadow, in the dream, was made and raised in a lab and similarly believed he was made as Sonic's rival/equal. Behind the scenes some government thing or whatever were afraid of Sonic's power and wanted a backup plan. But some evil guy stole and unleashed Shadow. At first it was basically just a duel, Shadow admired Sonic, but the evil guy had put a chip in his head that when activated made him try to kill Sonic. Eventually he was subdued and the chip deactivated- and despite everything Sonic insisted Shadow come with him to his home and the rest was history. This unfolded in like flashback style.

There was a funny part where Shadow questioned Sonic's home like "What kind of base of operations is this?" In a very unimpressed tone. Sonic said sarcastically "Oh, sorry if you were expecting my own Fortress of Solitude." And I guess Shadow was allowed to watch tv because he got the reference and shot back "Does that make me Lois Lane?" Didn't make a whole lot of sense sdlfkjds but movie Shadow delivered this line very confidently and flirtatious and just walked away leaving Sonic shocked LOL

And then later Shadow complained that the government people would always rewind and loop the villainy parts and he never got to see if Lois and Clark kissed (It's been too long since I watched any Superman movies so I couldn't tell you if this makes sense) and Knuckles teased him for being a romantic, and then the whole team binge watched every Superman movie.

In the "present" at some point movie Sonic and Shadow pulled their alternate versions aside and like told them off for being mean to each other lmao cartoon Sonic was kinda like uwu I didn't know Shadow had feelings he's like a lone wolf and like was surprised by his counterpart's vehemence. Movie Sonic told cartoon Sonic that Shadow can be a great friend if you give him a chance. I don't remember the Shadowses convo much but it was a lot more chill despite the fighting before (though still prickly) because Shadow's reasons were more valid and it was more of a pep talk from movie Shadow that if he opened up more it might give the others around him more opportunity to know and accept him.

I remember there was this one specific heavy emotional line in the dream that stuck with me when I woke up said by cartoon Shadow about Sonic, "He's my best friend but I'm obviously not his" DFKLJDSKJ

Additional small detail that movie Sonic and Shadow had known each other for over 2 years during dream events. And they were quite close and in sync. But still bantery

My brain basically conjured a LITERAL FANFICTION in my sleep and I have been thinking about it a lot What's hilarious is I knew next to fuck all about these characters my brain pulled the plot points of this dream out of its ass

Typed out, this dream probably sounds a lot longer than it was... the "scenes" just felt oddly detailed for how mashed together and quick passing they were.

But yeah I kept thinking about the dream and like daydreaming more scenes and it somehow turned even more into Sonadow (like, I imagined Cartoon Sonic & Shadow finding out in a very abrupt way that the movie versions were an item. <- to my delight I did find a fic with a premise very similar to this just not movie universe related. Also played with the idea of Sonic and/or Shadow accidentally kissing the wrong counterpart in their excitement at being reunited which Awakened Some Things for the receiver of the unexpected passion😂 )

The dream kinda acted as a base that inspired daydreams to spiral out from my brain without permission but I just... mentally jumped into it because ships sometimes grab you like that.

And Sonic Prime made my sprouting interest worse, basically fuel to the fire, so now I am obsessed with them... like what a fucking way to get into a ship

[applestand]

.

[pynkhues]

a little pick-me-up for you (suggestive nsft - don't open where the other court goers can see you 🤭)

this art reminded me about one of your kinktober fic ideas, you know the one))

https://x.com/unalepidoptera/status/1847990954298417448

Ahaha, thank you, anon!! I looove that (and that artist! They've been doing so much amazing work for kinktober!!)

[amatres]

hm. maybe a lot of my problems with dragon age can be summed up in that they are trying to tie everything into a grand plot instead of having each game be a different story exploring a different part of the societies born in this world and seeing how the character you're playing's actions can shape the world, whether those consequences seem obvious or not

[camellia-thea]

initially this post had some commentary about interests right now. and then it turned into a ramble about personal healing in the tags. so the interest post is going separately.

[tonydaddingham]

LWA: I'm procrastinating again from professional writing, so I'll take the opportunity of you being uncomfortable with "God Ships It" to do my rant. When I started attempting to read GO fanfic, I was startled by how...panicked?...it is about the source material. The panic is most obvious when it comes to dealing with any of Crowley's character flaws--this is a fandom that gets very sentimental about how cruel Crowley might be to his plants, but then does a Bentley-sized swerve when it comes to how cruel Crowley is to /Aziraphale/ when he /successfully/ manipulates him into trying to kill the Antichrist for him--but it also comes out in its treatment of religion.

The irony of post-S2 fanfic is that pre-S2 fanfic overwhelmingly endorses Aziraphale's attitude to Heaven (without realizing it). That is, it implicitly or explicitly assumes that Heaven has become warped in the absence of God, and that the presence of God Herself (or Himself, in the novel) would provide the "good" alternative. Heaven, that is, can be reformed if the real authority would just stand up. Moreover, there are multiple fics that really do assume that being an angel is better than being a demon because angelic grace means they are still in touch with the divine, and there are even fics that posit how great it would be if Crowley were reinstated to angelic status. "God ships it" rests on the assumption that the GO God is "good," that His/Her "shipping" is beneficent and rooted in care specifically for the protagonists (particularly if it proves to be part of the ineffable plan), and that His/Her imprimatur is desirable and necessary.

None of these assumptions are supported by the novel or series. (I keep wanting to write "Source for this claim?" in the margins.) Gaiman inadvertently sets the stage for "God ships it" by making God the narrator in S1, but "God reports it" is not the same as "God ships it." More to the point, both the novel and the series reject the terms of Pascal's Wager: if we cannot be assured of the existence of God or the nature of God's will, GO responds, then the correct course of action is to locate moral authority "on the ground," as it were, in human communities, and to proceed as if /God does not exist./ (Anathema burning the second book of prophecies is a case in point.) Moreover, in the series we are shown repeatedly that God's actions violate human (and angelic and demonic) moral norms, particularly in repeated sacrifices of children, and viewers are not invited to side with God! There is no evidence that the GO God is good, or loving, or even fundamentally decent in a way that can be articulated in terms of earthly morality. God's ways are incomprehensible, which is why, as I said before, attempts to do theology in GO-verse don't arrive at anything coherent. There is certainly no sign that God thinking you're a great person is going to do wonders for you (see: Job). And after seeing what God either causes to happen directly or allows to happen by withdrawing, there are no circumstances under which centering the protagonists' love lives makes God look any better. ("Isn't it amazing that all the horrors of the past several millennia had to happen just so Aziraphale and Crowley could be in love?") Finally, the "shipping" suggests that it is /desirable/ that the characters' love be divinely authorized or that they should be outright directed into a relationship by providential means, even though GO is all about the centrality of free will and the necessity of learning how to choose. So...no.

hey, look LWA; far be it for me to tell you how to spend your breaks in between work but i do have to question your decision that any part of that break is spent delivering Hot Tea to my inbox - but im never going to complain about it, rant away!!!✨ (also - hope the writing is going well, procrastination or no!!!)

it does make me uncomfortable for this one simple reason:

"god does not play dice with the universe. i play an ineffable game of my own devising."

so look - i know it's literally god speaking. she can do as she pleases, whatever. but to think that she tampers with her best and yet most ironic invention truly unnerves me - that she takes free will, and manipulates it to her design - and even more alarming is that that design is completely unknown and unknowable to anyone other than her. honestly, it's this kind of thought that makes me steer well clear of any religious leanings personally; people will make decisions and will mess them up and will succeed with them, but the thought that those occurrences were "god's will", or down to a higher power... well, it's not a good feeling, in my opinion. extrapolate that thought to any real life scenario as you will.

but in any case, to apply this to GO gives me the same sense of unease. i have still the thought that there is going to be a clear, definitive line between the great plan and the ineffable plan in the narrative. that seems to have been set up very firmly in s1, and arguably becomes way more understated yet elaborated on in s2 (job and resurrectionist minisodes) until the end when metatron mentions the second coming. id absolutely love for it to be a huge narrative point in s3 again; the ultimate long-con chekhovs gun metaphorically jamming, backfiring, and spraying shrapnel all over the place.

but which is worse? a great plan that at the very least almost everyone of influence in heaven, including aziraphale if you hypothesise based on his knowing of the plans for the humans/earth in the pre-fall scene, has seen or at least seen bits of, and now presumably will work to ensure will come to pass because they know better than to question something metaphorically written in stone? an awful concept at face value, fulfilling prophecy, but at least you'd know what you're getting - you're buying what's advertised. i got rather ensconced in looking up some biblical stuff the other night, thinking about something similar to this, and:

And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. (Matthew 24:6 - KJV)

that is terrifying, even if you take into account "the end is not yet", because that is ominous as all hell. but is it more terrifying that the ineffable plan, that is controlled and shaped and enacted by only one entity, cannot be questioned or challenged until it has already come to pass? that it is not of even questionable morality, but unknowable morality? god does not play dice, because that would be fairer - that would leave things up to chance... free will. instead she is playing by something only she knows, only she can control. so in that first quote, i interpret that she is either directly or indirectly telling the audience not to trust her and her actions. maybe god is self-aware, maybe not. she's ineffable.

so, even if the great plan is awful and inevitable, is it better to anticipate exactly what's coming? better the devil you know? either way, between the two, you're actually caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. that's the whole dilemma, the whole point, i know. but this is where i come to the "god ships it" trope: i originally thought that aziraphale and crowley being a part (and possibly inadvertently cocking up) the ineffable plan by way of their love story would be a great plot device - until i realised that, to be honest, that would a) feel like lazy writing with very little nuance to be had, and b) directly contradict my whole thought process on free will.

i do think they're involved in the ineffable plan, have a stake and place in it. i don't think, in some way, that there's any way they can't be. but it would have to be for god's benefit (ie whatever conclusion for the world she's currently got running on standby mode), and i don't think god, being what/who she is, would be able to understand love like that. she might foresee it, being omniscient and all, but what would she know about it? love is something to be felt, and that kind of love (unless GO is going to take a very weird turn) is not something she could ever experience. she sees it, sure, in her creations, but that's not knowing it.

so no, i don't think god has any place in the relationship between aziraphale and crowley. if anything, her mere existence is the ultimate barrier to it, through crowley's resentment, hurt, and anger, and in aziraphale's naivety, blind faith, and own brand of god complex. to give her seal of approval to any of it would be redundant anyway; it wouldn't change anything, it doesn't prove anything, and it immediately questions whether the characters choosing to have a relationship of any kind is of their own free will or was predetermined and inevitable. so, no, thank you.

i would like to think god is good - because if there is a higher power, you just have to hope that they don't have it out for you, right? - but logically she just... is. arguably, she is beyond morality, and arguably she is both good and bad. she makes bets with satan to test the faith in her most loyal faithful - which again, it might have been the great plan to make job suffer, but equally it might have been the ineffable plan for aziraphale and crowley to thwart it at great risk, sacrifice, and pain to their psyches... frankly, it's fucked either way you slice it.

(and it does make me wonder about why this appears to be the last that we actually see of god's 'physical' presence in heaven so far...)

furthermore, the issue in the resurrectionists; not even just aziraphale's alarming speech completely disregarding inequality as a means of arriving at a ridiculous point about morality, but - did god have a hand in having aziraphale and crowley come across elspeth and morag, leading to aziraphale starting to question what right and wrong is (rather unsuccessfully, he swings between redefining the two like a sodding metronome)? and equally have a hand in morag's death, that made aziraphale potentially retreat back to his usual standby of exalting in god's power and mercy? but leads to elspeth being able to live a better life? unknown, but this possibility does indicate that no, she isn't good, and she isn't bad, she's just playing a game that has an equal chance for the rest of us as being a good or bad move (insomuch that only she knows what game and rules she's playing - schrödingers chess move, really).

that's why aziraphale's decision at the end of s2 is so important to me. he spent the previous episode playing at being god, moving pieces around the board in a series of patterns as he pleased in order to reach the check, but having little regard for them in doing so - removing their free will and ability to think or feel or act independently, but equally whilst never at any intention of causing harm. does that make it okay? of course not - it's playing a game only he knows how to play.

so to then look at heaven as being something that he could change, should change - because he's being handed the opportunity - is meritable; he's not leaving it up to someone else, not following blind faith that "the almighty will fix it", he's choosing to be the change himself. and there's no confirmation at all that he's doing it to return it to what he considers to be god's original intention; as it stands, we have to assume that he's just going to fix/change/improve it for the wider benefit of everyone. but then again - is this fair? that at the top of heaven there will essentially only be aziraphale (not counting the metatron), and his vision, his decisions? perhaps that's why it was also so important to see that conference meeting in ep6 - it's not just the supreme archangel in charge; there is a precedent, however questionable the board of directors, of democracy in heaven.

lastly, just to touch on it: i think it would have been an interesting conundrum if crowley had accepted the restoration; whether it would have changed him, erased parts of him involuntarily, or if he would have remained as just crowley and used the opportunity to bring down the second coming and heaven's corruption from the inside. as it stands, we'll never know - but there never was any true characterisation reward to be had from making him an angel again, and it would have been a weird choice for him to make. the way it went down was exactly as their characters are and believe.

(putting this into a separate section because my mind just got a factory-reset by this point and my having a philosophy-realignment moment didn't really fit in any of the above very well):

it's really interesting to bring in pascal here, because i wouldn't have seen GO as rejecting it altogether on first glance (ie not contradicting you, just realigning my thought process). so... my initial thought is that GO eradicates at least half of the wager by confirmation that god exists, full stop (aaaand immediately going off on a long tangential thought of how different the story could be if we didn't have god as the narrator/no confirmation of god in the book other than in abstract, and therefore the pascal wager could theoretically apply - big yikes). removal of the dead-end outcomes leaves you with receiving either damnation, or eternal peace. but add in the element of ineffability, as you say, and the entire argument is rejected altogether... it makes sense to have GO reject such a binary argument, and the whole representation of agnes as being a stand-in personification (?) for god, in that respect, and anathema essentially rejecting her, carries so much more weight for me now... thats so cool to think about, thank you!!!✨

[selamat-linting]

y/n reader fantasies are a little embarrassing. i admit it. but, my fantasy of becoming tony montana's personal enemy that he always beats up by hand but never kill despite us being opposites in ideology and career is different i swear!!!

[mlentertainment]

it's really interesting examining my own brain anthropology. like how certain truths, when seen in hindsight, can reveal patterns of other truths. for example, my crush on justin russo predicted my crush on bo burnham

[maelancoli]

Writing Intimacy

i often see writers sharing a sentiment of struggling with writing kiss scenes which honestly bleeds into other portrayals of physical intimacy. i see it a lot in modernized styles of writing popularized by the recent trend in publishing to encourage short, choppy sentences and few adverbs, even less descriptive language. this makes intimacy come across awkward, like someone writing a script or clumsy recounting of events rather than a beautiful paragraph of human connection.

or just plane horniness. but hey, horny doesn't have to be mutually exclusive with poetic or sensual.

shallow example: they kissed desperately, tongues swirling and she moaned. it made her feel warm inside.

in depth example: she reached for the other woman slowly and with a small measure of uncertainty. the moment her fingers brushed the sharp, soft jaw of her companion, eliza's hesitance slid away. the first kiss was gentle when she finally closed the distance between them. she pressed her lips lightly to gabriella's in silent exploration. a tender question. gabriella answered by meeting her kiss with a firmer one of her own. eliza felt the woman's fingers curling into her umber hair, fingernails scraping along her scalp. everything inside eliza relaxed and the nervousness uncoiled from her gut. a warm buzz of energy sunk through her flesh down to the very core of her soul. this was right. this was always where she needed to be.

the first complaint i see regards discomfort in writing a kiss, feeling like one is intruding on the characters. the only way to get around this is to practice. anything that makes you uncomfortable in writing is something you should explore. writing is at its best when we are pushing the envelope of our own comfort zones. if it feels cringy, if it feels too intimate, too weird, too intrusive, good. do it anyway! try different styles, practice it, think about which parts of it make you balk the most and then explore that, dissect it and dive into getting comfortable with the portrayal of human connection.

of course the biggest part comes to not knowing what to say other than "they kissed" or, of course, the tried and true "their lips crashed and their tongues battled for dominance" 😐. so this is my best advice: think beyond the mouth. okay, we know their mouths are mashing. but what are their hands doing? are they touching one another's hair? are they scratching or gripping desperately at one another? are they gliding their hands along each other's body or are they wrapping their arms tightly to hold each other close? do they sigh? do they groan? do they relax? do they tense? are they comfortable with each other or giddy and uncertain? is it a relief, or is it bringing more questions? is it building tension or finally breaking it?

get descriptive with the emotions. how is it making the main character/pov holder feel? how are they carrying those emotions in their body? how do they feel the desire in their body? desire is not just felt below the belt. it's in the gut, it's in the chest, it's in the flushing of cheeks, the chills beneath the skin, the goosebumps over the surface of the flesh. everyone has different pleasure zones. a kiss might not always lead desire for overtly sexual touches. a kiss might lead to the desire for an embrace. a kiss might lead to the impulse to bite or lick at other areas. a kiss could awaken desire to be caressed or caress the neck, the shoulder, the back, the arms etc. describe that desire, show those impulses of pleasure and affection.

of course there is the tactile. what does the love interest taste like? what do they smell like? how do they kiss? rough and greedy? slow and sensual? explorative and hesitant? expertly or clumsily? how does it feel to be kissed by them? how does it feel to kiss them?

i.e. examine who these individuals are, what their motives and feelings are within that moment, who they are together, what it looks like when these two individuals come together. a kiss is not about the mouth. it's about opening the door to vulnerability and desire in one's entire body and soul.

[your-internet-bf]

It's been a while since you've seen a doctor, and you're nervous as you follow the nurse back to my office. What's there to be nervous about, this is just a little checkup, right? You notice the nurse's manicured burgundy nails as she knocks sharply on the door. She turns to you, smiling prettily, and says, "the doctor will see you now."

You push open the door and enter quite a large room. The nurse follows, closing the door behind you. In the center is the examination table, off to the right is a small crowd of young adults, appearing to be made up of men and women, and on the left is me, seated at my desk. "Welcome," I say, standing and extending one hand. My voice is deep, warm, and smooth, and you fumble for a moment, blushing a little, before you remember to shake my hand. Your hand is dwarfed in mine, my strong fingers encircling you, and a thought flashes unbidden through your mind - what would those fingers feel like inside you? - but, come on now, that's really not appropriate...

"I have a few students with me, as you can see. Is that alright?"

"Well, yes, of course!" Why shouldn't it be?

"Excellent. Now, I'm pioneering this new full-body examination method - it's really quite extraordinary, the maladies I can detect this way - but be warned, it is, shall we say, unorthodox. Is that alright?"

Just for a moment, you see something in my eyes, something behind the genial smile and gentle, reassuring tone. Just for a moment, you feel like some specimen, some piece of meat, pinned down under the lights with nowhere to go... but just for a moment. Surely, nothing bad can happen, and I'm a doctor, aren't I? You can trust me. So you swallow your fear, and you acquiesce.

"Excellent! Let's have a seat on the table, if you don't mind, and we'll make a start. Nurse V, if you would..."

As you sit on the table, the clinical, sterile seating a little cold against your skin, the pretty nurse steps behind the table, facing you, waiting for something. From your right, I approach, and you feel again just how much larger than you I am as my broad shoulders block out one of the ceiling lights. With all these people watching you, it takes all you have not to squeeze your legs together, just a little bit.

We begin with a quick examination of your face - "you have beautiful eyes, you know," I purr into one ear. I place one hand on the side of your neck and tilt your head; god, you've been reading too much, haven't you, the way you want these strong, expert fingers to close around your throat.

"Now, open your mouth for me, please." You oblige, and I cup your chin and slide my thumb into your mouth, pressing down on your tongue. Your eyebrows jump in surprise, and you look at me questioningly.

I smile again, still inside you. "Unorthodox, remember? Now, close your mouth and try to swallow." From behind, the nurse strokes your cheek with the back of one hand, and you feel a sudden ache between your legs. You close your lips around my thumb and swallow. It tastes... clean, mostly, as one might expect from a doctor, but you can taste the sweat underneath.

"Very good, one more time for me."

You swallow again, and you feel me slide my thumb over the surface of your tongue, pressing down, swirling in circles.

"And, one more time... yes, that's it, good job, very good job."

The praise for this degrading task is more than you can bear, and you squeeze your thighs together. Fuck, it's humiliating, everyone just saw you do that... All these eyes on you, the beautiful nurse behind you, this big, strong doctor with these big, strong hands and that big fucking bulge... but no, this is just a checkup, nothing is going to happen, right?

While you were thinking, I dried my hand off and had begun speaking.

"I'm - I'm sorry?"

"No worries. I was saying, can you remove your top, please? We need to examine your heart and your breathing."

You stare at me. "Remove my - "

"Yes, remove your top. The fewer barriers between me and you, the less interference with my examination." My face is quite serious, almost bored - this really must be routine. You look back at the nurse, and she smiles slightly and nods. So you undress, your nipples betraying you, standing at attention. You blush as the crowd of students looks at you intently. The nurse lays one warm hand on your shoulder, slender fingers gripping you reassuringly, and your eyes are drawn once more to those burgundy nails.

I step in close, and you feel my breath warm on your chest. "Now, observe the stiffness in the patient's nipples - this is to be expected, given the cool air, and it's certainly nothing to be ashamed of," I say, smiling. I press my stethoscope up over your heart, the metal cold on your skin, and your mind is betrayed by the pounding of your heart. My eyes flick up to meet yours, and I grin, predatorily, and once again you feel like a piece of meat beneath the lights.

I examine your breasts, starting with your left. Enclosed in my big, strong hands, I squeeze and push, prod and pull, ostensibly feeling for any abnormalities, but the way my fingers brush over your nipples, the intensity with which I sink them into your soft breasts, heaving now as your breath comes faster... My practiced tongue rasps over one nipple and a tiny moan escapes your lips as you try desperately to hide how much you're enjoying this; try desperately, and fail.

Abruptly, I pull back. "Excellent! All seems well here." I rest one hand on your other shoulder and turn to the students. "Note the pleasure response during this section of the examination, and I hope you were paying attention to the oral technique."

I turn back to you, my eyes dancing as they meet yours. "Fully undress, if you would. The inspection must continue."

Your hands tremble as you slide your clothes down off your waist, and the nurse aids you, her lovely hands stroking along your thighs and calves as she does.

"And spread for us, please."

Obediently, your thighs open, exposing your cunt, your needy, aching wetness, to all.

"Note the beauty of the patient's sex, here. The shape of the folds," I murmur, tracing one finger along your sensitive lips, "the balanced ratio of the clitoris to the vulva overall," sliding two fingers on either side of your clit, squeezing gently between them, "the appropriate pleasure response in - "

You lose what I say as I plunge two fingers inside you, powerful and dextrous, knuckles slipping past your tightness easily. It feels so fucking good to finally have something inside you, after all this aching and teasing, and god, so many people are watching, they're all watching your pussy spread and toyed with by this big, strong, handsome older man, and now the nurse's slender fingers are across your throat and her lips are on your forehead, and she tells you that you're doing so well for me, you've been so good...

My fingers press up inside you, finding your g spot, and with my thumb rubbing on your clit, I start melting you. Waves of pleasure course through your body, you gasp, moan, whimper, and with your eyes closed you can't tell whose lips are so soft on yours, but it feels so fucking good, and all those people are watching and it makes you want it more, your back arching, chest heaving, melting under the attention, and finally, mercifully, you cum, contracting around my fingers, squeezing your thighs together, trembling, shaking, gasping for air. You hear me say something, but you're so overwhelmed with pleasure that all you can make out from my speech is "very, very good".

The hand withdraws from your throat, and I gently, gently, extricate my fingers, and settle my hand atop one thigh, fingers slick with your desire.

The nurse whispers affirmation in your ear as I address the class. "Stimulation in this manner, of the two most sensitive sex stimuli, brings the most consistent and powerful orgasms to those possessing these organs." I stroke the inside of your thigh reassuringly, before turning to you.

"The final part of this examination is seeing how well you handle penetration. I'm going to need your unequivocal verbal consent before proceeding."

The nurse leans in and whispers into your ear, "might I suggest 'please, sir, will you fuck me?'" You'd blush harder if you could.

You swallow, nervously, and there's a twisting in your gut as you say it. "Please," you begin, voice cracking. "Please, sir, will you fuck me?"

"Yes, that is sufficient. I must say, though," I warn, unzipping my jeans, "that I am quite large." I slap my cock down on your tummy, and the sheer weight of it shocks you. You've seen size like this in porn, sure, but fuck, you've never touched something like this. When you tear your gaze away from my cock, I'm grinning down at you, predatory again. "You can back out at any time, you know." My voice is low, teasing, challenging. "Should we continue?"

You nod shakily, and spread your legs a little wider.

One hand on your raised knee, one hand guiding my cock, I push against you. For a moment you realize the exam had to be done in this order; if you weren't so fucking wet, there's no chance you'd be able to take me. But all thoughts are blasted out of your mind as I push harder and slide in.

It's so fucking thick that you can't help but groan. You've never felt so full, so strained inside, being pushed in every direction; you're not built for this, maybe there's just too much, your body is rejecting me - and then I push again, another few inches, and you slam your head back against the padded table, a long, drawn-out "fuuuuuck" wrenched from your lips. You feel my strong hands brace at your hips, and with a final thrust, slamming your cervix up into your guts, moving your entire body, the ridges of my cock sliding deeper and deeper, sliding painfully, pleasurably past your walls, I'm inside you.

The nurse rests her hands on you again, and purrs in your ear, "you're doing so well for him, I know it's hard, it's so hard, but you're doing such a good job, pretty girl..."

Glacially, I pull out, allowing you a moment to rest, before thrusting in again, hands still at your waist. You sob once, loudly, and then you sink into it as I pick up a rhythm, deep, deep strokes inside you. You hear me grunting, whispering something, and I grow more frantic, impaling you a little harder, and through the wall of pleasure you hear me rumble, "nurse V, begin the overstimulation procedure."

"Certainly, doctor." She leans over you, lips fiercely meeting yours, and one of those slender hands reaches down to abuse your clit. An image of those burgundy nails on your cunt flashes through your mind as I continue pounding you, forcing you to spread for me, adjust to me, even as the nurse plays your clit like an instrument, and fuck, she's a virtuoso.

You sing a song of moans and voiceless curses under our combined mastery, knowing your audience is entranced, filled with a blazing, lusty pride. The deep bass of my voice, resonant in your skull, is saying something, but you cannot hear me; you're moaning, groaning, pleading, "yes, yes, oh my god yes" over and over...

The song swells to a crescendo and with two sudden strikes, two powerful thrusts into you, it ends with a thick, hot, sticky white wave of my approval inside you. You feel it pulse deep, deep inside, filling you, load after load delivered straight past your bruised, abused cervix.

You come back to reality with my cum spilling from between your legs, trailing thickly down onto the exam table. I zip up my jeans while the nurse helps dry you off, from all the sweat and saliva. She dabs caringly at your mouth, and you notice that the cloth is dyed the same shade as her lipstick.

"Now," I address the class, "I hope you were paying attention." I rest one hand on your aching, trembling thigh. How many times did you cum with me inside you? How long were all these people watching you writhe beneath me, begging, losing yourself in the pleasure? You have no fucking clue. "This patient has bravely volunteered for each of you to examine her, here and now, while she's available to us."

Your jaw drops. When did you agree to that? You would never - but you were begging, "yes, yes, yes" earlier, weren't you, while I was talking. You agreed. Everyone heard you say it.

"One at a time, please. And," I say to you, grinning wolfishly, "don't worry. I'll be watching the entire time."

[mostly-imagines]

La Vie en Rose

jason todd x fem!reader

aka jason wildly preferring you over everyone else

4 in 1 blurbs

warnings: standard batfam arguing etc.

You sit curled up embarrassingly close to Jason on the couch, head on his shoulder. The team is still in their gear as they filter into the living room, masks and helmets discarded in scattered locations between here and the cave. The mission had been fairly simple and with all of them together it only took a couple hours to finish up.

As you waited, Alfred had kept your mind busy in the kitchen while he taught you how he makes his famous ice cream from scratch.

The clamor of the heroic party’s return had made itself known sooner than later, and you think your face must have displayed your emotions nicely because Alfred nodded you away with a small smile and no second thought.

You’d walked into the living room, weaving through the mess of siblings until a hand snuck out on your left and grabbed your wrist. You barely had time to look at him before Jason pulled you down to sit next him on the sofa. He wrapped an arm over your shoulder, pulling you in and leaving virtually no space between you. His armor sits heavy against you, but a welcome weight on your shoulders.

Tim plops down on the couch across from you and you can just make out a bit of blood on the side of his head, aptly accompanied by an irritated look sprawled across his face. It’s not enough blood to be concerned about—not for them—but you can venture a guess that whatever they were up to shouldn’t have called for any injuries and his pique is likely directly related to that.

Though Dick’s goading aura might have something to do with it too, as he comes crashing down next to him a second later, partially sitting on Tim’s cape and pulling him into an awkward angle. 

Nightwing doesn’t seem too perturbed by the younger vigilante’s agitation and curt manner of pushing him off.

The others are too caught up in chatter to pay much attention to you, and you can be certain that’s why Jason takes that moment to press a kiss to the side of your head. He lets his lips linger there for just a second as you lean into him.

Alfred’s own entrance is the only thing able to subside the flurry of conversations skirting around the room.

“A job well done,” he commends with a nod. “A selection of ice creams awaits you in the kitchen.”

He gives you a sly wink before retreating back through the swinging door, leaving Stephanie and Cass to practically trip over themselves trying to beat each other to the kitchen. Robin follows after unhurried, mask still on, with his hands behind his back.

Jason kneads your thigh before pushing himself up to stand. He turns back, looking down to you. “What do you want?” he asks softly.

You hum, "Just strawberry's good."

Tim sits up, "Can I—”

"No, you've got legs,” Jason grumbles, stalking off to the kitchen.

Dick barks out a laugh and you bite back a smile.

Tim looks absolutely aghast. 

“That’s such bullshit. You know, he used to be nice.”

“No he didn’t,” Dick laughs, shaking his head. “Not since you’ve known him.”

Stephanie stumbles out of the kitchen then, the door hitting her back on the way, as she mutters a curse behind her. You can vaguely makeout Jason grunting something back before she rolls her eyes.

Steph looks at you, shaking her head as she returns to her seat, “You live like this?”

You shrug, “He’s nice to me.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Tim grumbles.

Jason returns after Cass a minute later with a bowl of strawberry ice cream and two spoons. He expertly ignores Tim’s unwavering glare as he resituates himself beside you.

He scoops your legs up over his lap and positions the bowl in between you, wrapping the sleeve of his jacket around it so that the cold porcelain doesn’t make contact with your skin.

The others have set themselves up so that the four of them are stuffed up against each other on the sofa adjacent to you, very obviously examining you both. 

And while you’re willing to acknowledge the amused stares and singular glare, Jason only sighs heavily, rolling his eyes as he glares at the coffee table.

Only a few seconds of this are allowed to go by before he pulls over a throw pillow and sets it over your knees, so that it rests atop your heads like a mini-fort, successfully blocking out his siblings' view of the two of you.

You smile and press a light kiss to his shoulder as he simmers.

Regrettably, you miss the way Damian side-eyes the pillow above you as he re-enters the room, perching himself atop the back of the couch behind the others.

“This is so nice,” Dick preens. “He used to just leave the room when too many of us gathered in one place. Now he has to stay.”

Stephanie watches the makeshift fort with wary eyes, scooping ice cream into her mouth. “Yeah…I don’t wanna freak you guys out but, uh…”

It’s quiet for a moment and you guess Cass is speaking. 

You’re proven right when Stephanie starts up again, “My thoughts exactly.” Her voice drops into a raspy whisper that isn’t really meant to go unheard, “I don’t know who the hell that is, but it is not Jason.” 

“This is unprecedented,” Damian mumbles, dipping into his own chocolate cup.

“Do they always talk about you like you’re not here?” you ask Jason quietly. 

“Yes,” he grumbles with a scornful look directed at the bowl.

A low hiss can be heard immediately after, “I’ve never heard him whisper before, what the fuck?”

You can’t hide your laugh as well as you mean to, but you know Jason’s light swat to your thigh is nothing more than a rib.

Mumbles continue along the other couch, mostly going unacknowledged, until Tim busts out, “He doesn’t even like strawberry!”

Jason snaps the pillow out of the way, “The fuck do you know about what I like?”

Tim resets his posture with one hell of an attitude, snarking, “Well I can name one thing you really seem to fucking—”

Jason grabs the pillow harshly and chucks it at Tims head which connects with a loud thwack.

Damian swats it away before it can knock him off balance, though his scowl is only half worth what Tim’s is. 

“You’re unbelievable,” he says with a sneer. “This is why you don’t get invited to movie night anymore.”

Jason doubles back at him, “Sorry, is this not your own fucking house?”

Tim huffs, “Yes, which i—”

“Then get your own goddamn ice cream!”

Tim huffs as he stands, sending Jason a pointed look. “I’m going because I want to.”

Jason barely gives him a sardonic nod as he stomps off.

“Get me some too!” Dick calls back, only for the back of his head to be met with a sideways grimace from Tim.

As he leaves, the focus of the room seems to shift towards Damian dripping chocolate onto his cape and it fades away from there.

You turn to Jason, lowering your voice to just below a whisper, “If you don’t like strawberry—”

“I like it,” he tells you, leaving no room to argue as he takes a bite.

Voicemail. 

Voicemail.

Voicemail. 

Voicemail.

Declined.

Voicemail.

Declined.

Declined. 

“I swear to God, he better be dead,” Stephanie mutters to herself.

She shuts her phone off and tosses it into the passenger seat with a huff. Her fingers drum against the steering wheel as she scans the sidewalk across from her car.

The night before the majority of the team had been involved in a less-than-successful plan, which some have called “a display of complete idiocy and inability to circumspect.”

Then Tim had to go and make a joke about that word choice in what was apparently a bad moment. This gave way to a harsher punishment of the team being forced to clean the batcave foot by square foot—notably, an impossible task.

So naturally, they had to retaliate.

The plan was to dismantle the batmobile piece by piece and leave it a collection of parts for Bruce to find. Problem being, the group as it stood didn’t possess the capability to do so without doing a great deal of damage to the parts. Damage, that the family was not willing to face extra retribution for.

Fortunately, they knew just the man for the job. 

Unfortunately, said man has devoted his life to ignoring their messages, favoring to live peacefully and distantly from them. And because that peace and distance does come with an add-on of borderline complete secrecy from his family, no one had any idea where to look for him.

So, Stephanie decided to do the next most rational thing and track down your location. She’d hoped he would be with you like he always is, but for seemingly the first time in the last year—he’s nowhere to be found.

Now, was revenge for a minor-slight by Bruce so important that it required Stephanie to take all of these steps to get a hold of Jason? No, absolutely not. She’s pretty sure that the others have already given up on it by now and started cleaning. But it’s about the principal. And also, she does not want to clean the floors of a cave.

She jumps up in her seat when she spots you exiting a store, scurrying to unbuckle and pry the car door open.

She’s across the street in half a second, running directly into your line of sight. It actually would’ve been very difficult for her to miss your line of sight, considering she’d landed only a good six inches in front of your face. “Hey!”   

“Oh, fuck—” you jump, grabbing your chest. You take a breath when you realize who it is, less surprised now by the theatrics of the introduction. “Hey Steph.”

“Hey,” she smiles casually, like she didn’t do what she just did. “So Jason’s been ignoring us and I need to get a hold of him,” she tells you.

You nod, still collecting yourself. “Oh. I don’t know where he is—”

She shakes her head, “That’s fine. Can I use your phone to call him?”

You frown, “Is something wrong?”

“With him, yeah,” she snarks. “I called him, Tim called him, Dick called him, Cass called him, Damian called him, we used Bruce’s phone to call him—that was a bit of a long shot, but still. This is our last option. Well, not our last option, if this doesn’t work I could get really invasive, but—” She shakes the thought from her head, “Nevermind.”

You nod blankly, taking in the mountain of information she’d just handed you. “How’d you know I was here?”

She scans your eyes back and forth for a second before her own widen in realization and she’s shaking her head. “No, no, don’t worry we’re not tracking you! I just hacked into the traffic cameras to find you.”

“Oh!” you exclaim, nodding some more. “Okay.”

You hand her your phone without any further questions—for your own sake—and she happily accepts. 

“You know I texted him 115 times?” she tells you as she scrolls through your contacts.

You furrow your eyebrows, watching her click his name and press the phone to her ear. “Did you count?”

“Well, I had the time, di—you son of a bitch! One ring?” Stephanie scorns into the phone.

You can hear Jason groan on the other end of the line. 

He says something to Stephanie that she follows up with a firm shake of her head.

“No,” she says defiantly. “She let me use it.”

Stephanie rolls her eyes, not pleased with his response. “What if it was an emergency?”

She listens for a second, skeptical look on her face.

She gasps suddenly, “I am not overstepping, we thought you were dead!”

Over the course of about ten seconds the shock on her face drops into just-been-caught guilt. “Well, I mean we considered it.”

You imagine Jason’s telling her to give you your phone back as she stands her ground, pushing, “If you promise to text me back.”

A short response on his end.

“Promise to text me back!”

There’s a brief lull before she’s giving a self-satisfied nod and jostling your phone back into your hands. “Here ya go. Thanks, babe!” She smiles wide at you before jogging back across the street, not waiting for the cars.

You smile as you watch her go, putting the phone up to your ear, “Hey Jay.”

You can hear the relief on the other end of the line. “Hey sweetheart. You know if you see Steph in public, you can just walk away?”

“I’m not going to walk away from your family.” You look again across the street, “Also I don’t think that was an option for me this time.”

“That thing is fucking scary.”

Cass smiles fondly, signing, “I think he’s cute.”

Tim eyes the way Salem traipses around his feet, yellow eyes staring up at him. “Why’s it even here?”

Jason rolls his eyes, continuing to scroll on his phone. “He’s hers. Deal with it.”

Tim scrunches up his mouth. “She knows I hate it. And she, unlike you, wouldn’t subject me to this just for the hell of it. So again I ask: why is it here?”

Jason huffs, looking up from his phone. “What do you want me to say? He wants to be.”

Tim scoffs at that, “‘It wants to be’? You’re the one who put it in the car.”

“No, I didn’t,” Jason says factually.

Tim looks at him sideways as Salem leaps onto Jason’s lap and nudges his hand up. Jason follows along as requested, petting the top of Salem’s head with an open palm. 

Tim squirms to the other side of the couch with a look of disgust on his face. Salem watches him the whole time.  

A smile adorns Cass’ face as she signs, “She says he can read people’s energy.”

Tim huffs, resting his head against his fist. “What does that even mean?”

The conversation is cut off by the clatter of you and Dick stumbling into the room, carrying a freshly painted headboard. Blue paint coats both of your hands and has no doubt stained your clothes.

You’re clearly struggling a bit to keep your grip on your end, the weight of the wooden frame dragging your arms down.

Jason stands and Salem flows along with his movements easily, leaping down onto the hardwood. He comes over and helps you lift your end of the frame with a stupid amount of ease, to the point that you’re not even holding any of the weight up anymore. The three of you—less so you—move the headboard and lean it up against the wall. After it's set down Jason steps back and looks over it gingerly.

“It looks good,” he murmurs to you, quiet enough to not give his brother the satisfaction of his approval.

Dick had asked you over to help him paint Damian’s bed frame as a surprise for him for not getting in any “altercations” at school this semester. You’d decided on coating it with his favorite color first and then fill it in with a collection of what Dick has “on good authority” are his favorite animals. It’s a fairly random assortment that you’re not sure adds to or disproves Dick’s credibility. You’d spent the better half of the afternoon googling animals you’d never heard of just to make sure you projected their likenesses accurately. Dick had been very clear that you had to be precise on the details because Damian would know if he was really looking at a komodo dragon painting or if it was “some common lizard.”

You sigh, “I hope he likes it. I’m worried we did it too childish for him.”

“He is a child,” Jason says plainly.

“But he is not childish,” you counter. And he sure isn’t. You’d had a hard enough time convincing Damian to watch cartoons, adding a colorful animal mural to his bedroom might be one step too far. You’re still trying to figure him out.

“He’ll like it,” he says firmly.

You smile, slipping around under his arm and tucking yourself into his side.

Not a moment later, Dick slings an arm around Jason's shoulder, grinning as he pulls his brother in close.

Jason’s immediately louring. "No, get away from me."

Dick, unfazed and still smiling, removes his arm and takes a big step to the right. You do the same, figuring he needs his space, but you get caught by the wrist before you can do more than sway to the side. 

“Not you.” 

He pulls you back under his arm, wrapping it around the front of your shoulders. You hook your fingers around his forearm, letting your hand hang.

You hear a double-clap from the other side of the room that has you both turning around to face Cass. 

She signs something to Jason with a fond smile on her face. 

You look back and forth between them as Jason waves her off. “What?”

He shakes his head, “It’s nothing. She said—she said we’re cute.”

You smile up at him and he deflects—not so subtly—and starts nudging you back towards where the group is gathered, now all standing. 

Dick’s quick to start bragging off to the room about how great of a job the two of you did and how really complex and daunting it actually is painting animals for a child.

As he talks, your eyes find Jason, who’s definitely about to roll his eyes any second now. A bit subconsciously, your hand comes up to brush Jason’s white streak of hair back, away from tickling his forehead. 

On the other side of Jason, Tim does the same, sweeping Jason’s hair back in a much more mocking manner. 

This gives way to Jason smacking his hand away, harder than he needed to.

"Wha—You let her do it!" Tim protests, overplaying how much the slap hurt.

Jason scowls, "She can do whatever she wants."

Tim drops his shoulders, looking at Jason as if he’d been scandalized. “Oh but I can’t?”

“Not if it involves touching me,” Jason grumbles.

Tim steps closer, putting a finger to Jason’s chest. “You’re such a—”

From the floor, Salem hisses up at Tim, successfully startling the teenager. “Auahh—”

He stumbles backwards, grimacing at the cat. 

“Fucking demon,” he hisses, walking away.

When Tim’s far enough away and Salem’s seemingly satisfied, he brushes up against your leg, purring. 

You peer down at him with a furrowed brow. 

“What’s Salem doing here?”

“I’m not doing this shit with you.”

“No, come on, 9 out of 10 times is what you said. How ‘bout just once? Beat me one time at anything, Jaybird.”

“Anything?” Jason asks like he knows damn well Dick can’t swear on that word.

Rightly so, Dick backtracks. “Something agreed upon.”

Jason throws his hands up, partially in exasperation, partially relenting.

Dick smoothly turns his back to him, announcing, “Opening up the room for ideas.”

Damian’s eye roll is almost audible from the corner armchair, where his attention is unmoved from intently sharpening a blade he’d recently come into possession of.

Bruce similarly remains unbothered in his seat, trying to read despite the distractions. 

“Ooh, okay. Okay.” Stephanie wiggles up a little on the couch. “You could race!”

Dick shakes his head negatively, “I literally just busted my knee up two days ago, Steph.”

“Convenient,” Jason mumbles.

“You were there!” Dick exclaims with an open mouth.

Steph continues, “Um…”

Cass waves to the room from her position upside down on the couch, head hanging down next to Stephanie’s legs. Attention successfully acquired, she signs, “Staring contest.”

Jason grimaces, “That sounds like a nightmare.”

Dick gives him a faux-smile.

“You should play chicken,” Damian chimes in, holding up his knife.

“No,” Bruce drones monotonously as he flips a page. 

“Tic tac toe?” Steph suggests.

Cass is already shaking her head as she scrunches up her mouth in thought.  

Jason rolls his eyes, “What are we, five?”

Dick nods, cracking his knuckles as he thinks. “No, we need something that really proves our worth.”

Bruce looks up from his book, staring numbly through his brow, but remains silent.

“You could arm wrestle,” Steph suggests.

The elder brother twitches at that, “Uh, no.”

Cass moves past that before a joke has the chance to be made. “Handstand contest?” she suggests.

Jason shrugs, “Yeah, sure.”

The elder brother looks at him incredulously. “You’ll do a handstand contest with me?”

“That’s what I just said.”

Dick scoffs, “Jaybird, I’m an acrobat, you’re just some guy.”

Jason, not giving him the courtesy of eye contact, pulls his sweatshirt off from his back. “Well, you’re a lot of things, aren’t you?”

Dick throws his head back with a squint.

Jason fishes his phone out of his pocket and Dick follows suit, offended stare maintaining all the while. 

No exchange is required as they both toss their phones across the room, landing together with a rough clatter on Damian’s lap. Damian’s resulting glare is borderline disgusted.

Dick starts them off, “Alright, go. One…two…”

Both men push up onto their hands, muscles flexing as they find their balance. Dick’s form is better, of course, but Jason looks to have a stronger foundation.   

They both hold strong as several minutes go by with the brothers only maintaining the attention of some of the room, and the interest of none of it.

Stephanie huffs and tilts her head, thoroughly unentertained with the consistency they’re both managing. 

“Starting to wish they’d picked something that moved along a little faster,” she murmurs to Cass.

Dick glances over at the younger brother, clearly displeased with his lack of trouble keeping up with him. He shuffles closer one hand at a time, using the decreased distance to poke at Jason with his foot, trying to knock him over.

Jason kicks him back harder, “Hey! Don’t be a dick—”

“Very funny,” Dick leers.

They both end up finding a struggle to keep balance and are forced to mind their own.  

A chime rings out from the corner that has heads turning briefly in his direction before coming back to the competition. 

“Whose was that?” Dick calls out.

Damian leans over and inspects the screens with disinterest. “Todd’s.”

Jason adjusts his position, “Who is it?”

Damian responds with your name. 

“And?”

He picks up the phone shrugging like he couldn’t care less, “She wants to know if you want to go see some movie.”

There’s a brief silence before Jason drops out of the handstand, standing up. 

Dick’s blood-flushed face peers up at him, bewildered. “Wait, what?”

The family watches with wide eyes as Jason picks his sweatshirt up off the floor and tugs it back on.

Stephanie gawks, bordering on laughing. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah,” he says simply.

Dick lets himself fall into a kneeling position with a huff, “You would rather go to some movie you don’t even know the name of than win a bet?”

Jason moues at him, “Uh, yeah.”

He tosses a twenty at Dick, and plucks his phone from Damian’s hand as he strolls past him, typing out a reply.

Cass sits up a bit and signs up to Stephanie, “Does he even like movies?” 

Bruce, now attention now fully removed from his book, watches Jason exit with the slightest hint of a smile. Dick sits dumbly on the floor, staring after him with an open-mouth. 

Damian twists the knife in his hands around contemplatively before rising to stand. 

“I will go,” he announces, dropping his blade onto the seat of the chair. Jason grumbles a no but Damian follows after him just the same.

you know what happened to the last guy that didn’t reblog? … 🔪🧨💥😵⚰️🪦

[nereidprinc3ss]

hi!!! here for a request. can we have a imagine where reader has a wound from surgery or whatever on like in a rib and she hides to change the bandages but then spencer sees her and he’s like ‘lemme help you’ and…

you do you for the rest!

in which spencer helps BAU fem!reader change her bandages in the bathroom at work. it's intimate, and he's adorable and awkward, and it only fuels her terrible, terrible crush.

warnings/tags: fluff, talk/description of wound, brief talk of being stabbed (does not actually occur in this fic lol), reader wears a bra, spencer undoes said bra but not sexually, lots of suggestive humor and teasing, a TINY sprinkling of angst but not really, idiots in love

a/n: i'm picturing early seasons spencer and it is filling me with so much unbridled joy. I. LOVE. HIM. thank you for the request!! and lets not talk about how inconsistent my formatting for requests is pls and thanks!!

It’s not like you meant to bend down so quickly that your wound reopened—but here you are, suffering the consequences of your actions in the women’s bathroom at Quantico as you try to assess the injury before you re-bandage it. And your shoe is still untied. 

Unfortunately, the fact that you had quite literally been stabbed in the back last week makes it hard to reach said injury—especially when you’re at work and so can’t take off your shirt like you normally would. And all this struggling means it’s taking longer than it should, so now you’re focused on the wound and its scabby, wet edges and all the things it’s secreting rather than hurrying to give another statement of the entire event to Hotch since the first one had apparently been too sparse on the details. 

A knock sounds on the open door. Spencer calls your name. 

“You in there?”

The angle of your neck has your voice slightly strained as you call back, “yeah, what’s up? Is it Hotch?” you pause to hiss as you accidentally scratch at the wound with a nail. You don’t even want to know how much bacteria you just introduced to it. “Tell him I didn’t forget our meeting, I’ll be there in—”

“It’s not Hotch. I just wanted to make sure everything was okay with your back? I know you said you were going to check on it, but you’ve been in there a while.”

You sigh, dropping your sore arm as you continue to hold up your shirt with the other and regarding the reflection of your back in the mirror. 

“Actually—could you come in here?”

There’s a pause. 

“You want me to come into the women’s restroom?”

“Yes, Spencer. It’s fine. There’s nobody else in here. I just… I need some help, I think.”

The last part is admitted quietly, with an air of defeat. To admit to needing help, is, by your standards, the same as failure. Spencer knows this, which is probably the only reason he puts aside his hesitations and shuffles uncertainly into the tiled room. If you’re asking for help, it’s because you really need it. 

“What do you need help with?” he asks, sweeping his gaze suspiciously around the lavatory as if you were lying about there not being any other women present and this whole thing might be a trap of some sort. 

“It’s gross, and you can totally say no.”

He raises his brows expectantly, before spotting the weeping wound on your back. Unconsciously he steps closer, leaning forward. It’s not your fault, and the gore is not specific to you—anyone’s body would react this way to being stabbed. But you still feel embarrassed by the close attention to such an ugly marring, which nobody besides you and your doctors has actually seen up close.

“That doesn’t look good,” he mutters. The expression on his face is irritatingly familiar—the drawn brows, tightened eyes, barely parted lips—but it takes a moment before you realize what it is. 

“Reid,” you complain. He’s still stooped over slightly to examine the wound, and looks up at you through dark lashes with those infuriatingly warm puppydog eyes.

“What?”

“You’re looking at me the way you look at a dead body on the slab.”

His nose scrunches.

Some might say it scrunches adorably. 

“No, I’m not. That’s just my face.”

“Okay, well stop. It’s freaking me out.”

He pouts—actually pouts. Subtle, but bottom lip jutted out and all. It’s ridiculously endearing. 

“My face freaks you out?”

“Wh—no! That’s not what I said! You have—you have a great face! I didn’t mean—” 

You manage to claw yourself out of the hole you’re digging when you see the dopey smile growing on his face. 

Oh. He was fucking with you. 

He never used to do that. It’s unnerving to be the fucked with instead of the fucker for a change. Especially when it’s Spencer. 

“What did you need me for?” Spencer asks by way of peace offering. You close your eyes and sigh, attempting to collect your thoughts without his presence re-scrambling them.  

“Um—I just need you to put this bandage over it. I can’t reach without taking my shirt off.”

And now you’re forced to wonder if he’s thinking about you shirtless as much as you’re thinking about you shirtless.

“Yeah—don’t do that,” he says absentmindedly, stepping again closer to get a better look before turning to the nearest sink.

For some reason, this offends you. 

“Why not?”

Spencer pulls another face as he washes his hands—you love the constant flow of expressions he always seems so unconscious of. Even when they’re not pleasant and directed at you.  

“Are you asking me why shouldn’t you take your shirt off?” he clarifies. 

“I know why I shouldn’t take my shirt off, but I want to know why you think I shouldn’t take my shirt off.”

“Because we’re at work?” he observes astutely. You frown deeply at his completely logical reply. Spencer chuckles as he dries his hands and approaches once more, taking the square of gauze pre-lined with medical tape from your hand. “I mean, I can’t stop you. But it would be kind of a weird choice.”

“Oh, so me shirtless is weird?”

Cool fingers meet the comparatively hot skin of your back—where everything is still sensitive because the wound wreaked havoc on your nerves there. You flinch slightly. 

“Sorry,” he murmurs gently. Though his touch is so incredibly light it doesn’t really hurt—it hurts much less than when you’re tending to the wound, anyway. It’s almost soothing. After a moment he continues, a bit louder. “And that is not what I was saying. But I am completely comfortable asserting that it would be weird for you to be shirtless at work.”

The gentle touches contrast with his teasing words and serve to disorient you as you’re shaken back in to your usual dynamic. Which is markedly more sarcastic. 

“Well—”

Before you have to think of something to say, Spencer interrupts you. 

“Your, um—I think your… brassiere… is in the way.”

As soon as he says it you burst out laughing. It echoes through the room. 

“My brassiere? Are you actually 70 years old?”

His brows knit even tighter and his face gets very pink very quickly. He can’t meet your eyes over your shoulder. 

“That’s what it’s called.”

“Spencer, you may be the first person to use that word since 1952. Say bra.”

“I don’t want to,” he complains. Your laughter only grows as your head tips back. 

“Why? How is brassiere better than bra?”

“It’s—it’s too colloquial! I’m trying to be professional!”

“Call it a bra or I’m going to rub my dirty hands all over my back,” you threaten, adopting a poker face so he knows you mean business. His eyes widen immediately. 

“Oh my god! Bra! Do you want to introduce staph and meningitis and g—do not do that!”

“See? How hard was that?”

“I hate you,” he mumbles, face still flushed and adorable. “And you still have to take it off.”

“Excuse me?” you grin, pretending to be affronted because you know he didn’t mean it like that but it’s fun to pretend he did. Fun for you, of course. Not so much for him. He's utterly flustered by this point.

“Or at least undo it! It’s in the way.”

With a deeply bored sigh, you go to unclasp your bra—but as you go to do it your shirt drops down. You grimace, humor briefly forgotten as the fabric brushes the damaged skin. 

“I can’t—”

“Okay, just—I’ll do it,” Spencer says. “Just move your shirt again.”

So you do, watching his reflection as he works.

And you have not one joke to break the heavy silence with as you feel his knuckles gently pressing into the middle of your back, as he unclasps the bra with his characteristic tenderness and a surprising amount of agility. It’s quiet except for your pulse in your own ears as he carefully pushes it out of his way, holding it down with a hand to your rib cage and fingertips slipping just under the fabric of your shirt—unintentionally and certainly non-sexual, no doubt, but skimming under your heart in a way that still feels so intimate you’re realizing how touch-starved you are. 

“You do that often?” you find yourself asking, because you’re stupid, and you need to cool the tension before it chokes you, and you can’t help yourself even though you don’t actually want to know the answer. 

“I,” he begins, voice quiet as rustling paper, tongue darting over his lip and eyes narrowed. The sentence stalls as he focuses on placing the patch just so. “Do not think that is an appropriate workplace question.”

Something aches in the pit of your stomach. 

Something resembling jealousy. 

It was not the timid evasive linguistic maneuver of someone who is insecure about the thing they’re discussing. It was not the awkward fumbling no but I don’t want to tell you that which you were expecting from Spencer Reid. 

Nor is it an easy yes—an admission between friends. He doesn’t want to tell you. 

You swallow and try to act like yourself. 

“Yet here you are, in the woman’s restroom at our place of employment, undoing my bra. I think we’re past professionalism.”

“When you decontextualize it like that it sounds like something it’s not. This is professional, because I’m helping you with a wound you sustained on the job. I’m being a good colleague.”

Your lips twist into a smile he can’t see. 

“A great colleague would kiss it better.”

“It's almost like you want me to file a sexual harassment complaint with HR," he says through a little smirk as he smooths the bandage over. Before you can snip back, he steamrolls over his own teasing—you’ve both been speaking in almost reverent tones since he started but his voice loses the sarcastic edge from a second before and reverts back to concerned and sweet. “Does that feel okay?”

You rotate your shoulders best you can without letting go of your shirt or flashing the good doctor to check if it feels secure.  

“It’s good. And hey—if I were going to sexually harass you I would do a lot better than that. You think that’s my best material? That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I keep so many inappropriate comments to myself. You’d be shocked by some of the things I have almost said to you.”

He laughs, secures the band of your bra and begins fitting it to the clasp you’d had it on—and at that precise moment Emily walks in. 

“H—woah.”

“It’s—I’m—I was helping her!” Spencer panics, immediately removing his hands from you like his palms are burning and holding them up defensively. 

“Oh, you helped me alright,” you tease, pulling your shirt back into place. 

“Don’t say it like that!” And then, to Emily, “I was changing out her bandage!”

“Changing my bandage,” you emphasize, winking more than is advisable. 

“That’s—this is a hostile work environment! I feel unsafe!” Spencer almost yells, half laughs, as he scampers towards the door. “I’m going to HR!”

“Shut up! You love it!”

His laughter audibly travels farther away for several moments as he presumably goes back down the hallway to do his actual job. 

You have the stupidest grin on your face, but you wipe it off when you notice Emily staring. 

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says, shaking her head and looking away, moving toward a stall. “You’re just… you guys are funny.”

“What do you mean funny?” You demand, standing right outside her stall as she closes it. 

“Wh—I mean funny! Are you going to listen to me pee, you weirdo?”

You frown. 

She makes a good point. 

Unfortunately, giving Hotch a more detailed statement is just as bad as you’d thought it’d be. Despite how cheery you’ve tried to remain about the whole situation, despite the way you insisted that the wound was so shallow you didn’t need more than a few days off work, despite the jokes you make about forgetting it’s even there because it’s on your back—it’s hard not to remember exactly how the glass felt twisting under your skin, how you’d felt suddenly so hot and lightheaded and sick to your stomach and the way Morgan hollered because he didn’t know how deep it had gone after you crumpled quick from shock, when you’re asked to describe it all in excruciating detail. 

It only takes ten minutes, but they seem to drag on and on and by the time you’re leaving Hotch’s office you feel utterly drained. You hurry back to your desk, covertly wiping away moisture that you refuse to allow to become tears. Once seated, and having dodged sympathetic looks and avoided any do you want to talk about its, you allow yourself a few deep breaths with your eyes shut. 

When you open them, you realize there’s a fresh cup of your favorite tea on your desk, in the Snoopy mug the team is always fighting over. Now his little black nose is covered by a square of yellow paper. You’re already smiling as you peel away the sticky note and hold it closer. 

On it is an adorably odd smiley-face, and a note in familiar, messy looping scrawl. 

I would never report you to HR beautiful

That would be a stab in the back!

You snort loudly and clap a hand to your mouth—but you’ve already drawn the attention of almost everyone in the bullpen. 

When you turn to look at Spencer, he’s not looking back. Instead, his eyes are firmly trained on his computer screen. But he’s got his chin propped on his fist over the desk, and his knuckles are doing a poor job of concealing a giant self satisfied grin. He is the only person on the team who knows you well enough to make such a distasteful joke. And he also knows you well enough to know that it would make you feel so much better after your meeting with Hotch than all the well-meaning sincerity in the world ever could.

Funny. 

Maybe that is the right word for what you two are.