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cillianmurphysdimples · 2 days ago

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A female Y/N / Cillian fanfic (Part Thirty Two)

Absolutely not based on anything real at all, all totally fictional, fanciful and all total bollocks.

Warnings for sexual references and language. Adult themes. Not suitable for under 18s.

We Got Issues

Part Thirty Two: Cillian is keen to ensure Y/N takes it easy, wanting her to be as calm as possible. They agree that his sons need to hear the news from them - and soon. But Y/Ns suggestion for doing that surprises Cillian a little when both of them find it difficult to sleep. Y/N tries to ease the tension, but she voices a feeling Cillian had always known she feels. [Angst/Anxiety & Fluff/Sexually suggestive]

@cherry-cilly @dragonsneversharetheirtreasure @aesthetic0cherryblossom @meister95 @vivianleighwishesshewasme @watermeezer @strangeions @borntodiemp3 @lavender-haze-01

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“You need to relax. I'm annoyed about it, and we need to talk to Mal and Aran sooner than later, but what's more important to me right now is that you calm yourself down.” Cillian says, his hands on your biceps in the middle of the kitchen. He's been home an hour. Cuddles and welcomes have long since passed, and the obligatory cup of tea has been drained. It took you twenty minutes before you raised the article, and a further five minutes before you cried. “We've time enough to talk to them, and sure now I'm at home there'll be no more, but I think we should talk to them before the scan. I know you're iffy on that, but I think they're going to need the time to process it too. And Yvonne. I mean we're only after telling them we're not having a baby, and we've to go back on that now.” He moves his hands and wraps them around you, pulling you in against his chest. “I know it's scary. But we've got to do it.”

“It isn't just that.” You sigh, sniffling your sobs down. “They printed things about us, Cillian.”

“Yeah,” he inhales as he mutters the word. “And didn't I tell you they would?” You can hear in his tone he's not fishing for points to score, but you feel it anyway. “It's a shitty article, by a shitty group of so-called journalists. And there'll be more, about whatever the fuck they want to write. But we're having a fucking baby!” You can hear his small laugh through his ribcage. “And they're scumbags, and it'll be fucking shit, and it's exactly what I didn't fucking want - but we're having a fucking baby, Y/N. I'm happy. I'm shit scared to tell me own kids, but I'm happy.”

“I don't want to hurt your boys, Cill. They're going to be…,” you sigh and push up against his chest. “They're going to be so mad, hurt, they're going to think we lied to them.”

Cillian takes a deep breath, “Maybe they'll be all of those things.” He nods, “But they're going to have a brother or sister in a while, and that's not going to change because they feel whatever they do. I don't want to hurt them either, ever. But this is my family too. You and that baby.” You're aware it might sound cold to others, but to you it's what you need to hear. This is his home, his life, his family. It's not erasing his sons at all, but this is the immediate life he lives now.

“And telling Yvonne?” You raise your eyebrows, and your heart flutters as you say her name.

“Yeah,” he drags his mouth to the side and frowns, “That's going to be a fucking mission too.” he sighs and shakes his head. “But it's nothing to do with her. It's the boys that matter. She deserves to know, of course, and hear it from me, but that's as far as that loyalty goes.” It's an amazing string of words to hear him say, soothing so many of your anxieties if just for a while. “What she thinks doesn't matter. Like I said, it's the lads I'm worried about. But this is happening regardless. There'll be a cot, and a pram, and fucking…pumps and nappies and dodies.” He smirks.

“Dodies?” You repeat.

“Yeah, the wee dummies.” He grins.

“We called them dadoos when we were small.” You chuckle.

“Dadoo?” He laughs, “Where the fuck did youse pull that name outta?”

“Same place you got dodie, you big freak.” you swat your hand against his chest, and sigh to try and feel calmer. “Fuck, Cill, why can't this just be simple, like every other couple, having babies? Why did I find you when I did?”

He smiles softly, but he looks sad. “Cause that's when I needed ya.”

You feel an emotional swell at his words, and your chin quivers, “Oh, love.” You bring your hand up to his cheek. “When do you want to do it? Tell them?” You bring your hand down again and rest it back on his chest.

“After Christmas?” He says, brows raised. “Or do you want to do it before? I only say after so it's peaceful fucking Christmas.” He scoffs.

“They're your boys, it's your decision when.” You tell him. “I'll support whatever you decide.”

Pursing his lips, he nods slowly, then sighs heavily. “I'll think about it.” He whispers, and pulls you in closer again. He rests his cheek on the top of your head and holds you tightly. “Will we get dinner?” He asks, swaying you slightly from side to side.

You wrinkle your nose, though he can't see it, “Like what?”

“Spin down to the chipper?” He suggests.

“You go,” you shake your head and slowly pull yourself from his arms. You would stay there - it's comfortable, and intimate, and you're so glad he's here - but the mere suggestion of food is turning your stomach. “I don't want anything.”

“I won't get a feed without you,” he raises his eyebrows. “Will you not have anything? Will I cook?”

“No, love, you're just in the bloody door.” You shake your head. “Go and get your chips, don't eat them near me,” you laugh, “Then we've the whole night.”

“To sleep, I hope?” He grins.

“God, yes,” you sigh with a laugh.

You wake up with a sudden jump, and you're not sure why. You can't recall a dream, but suddenly you're awake and you're cold. You turn onto your back and instantly realise that Cillian isn't there. Shifting to retrieve your phone, you check the time - just gone three am. You throw your legs from the bed and sit up, shivering in the chilly room. Cillian's hoodie from the day is thrown over the chair in the corner, and you grab it and instantly snuggle yourself into it. You push your feet into your Ugg slippers and slip from the room, not being too quiet. As you step down the stairs you can hear the TV, and there is the glow of a light from down there, too. You brace your hands as you walk down, and land at the bottom feeling even more cold than upstairs. “Hey, what're you doing?” You ask, catching sight of Cillian on the sofa. He's laid out across it on his front, head against a cushion in the corner and legs stretched down, arms tucked up beneath the small cushion. He's wide awake, glasses on, and watching the TV. He shifts his head slightly and looks at you, pushing his lips into a pout. He looks tired and you're not sure if it's because he hasn't slept and is flagging, or because he hasn't been up long and is still exhausted.

“Watching Interstellar.” He says and sniffs. He draws his hand from under the cushion, clutching the controls, and pauses the film. “What are you doing?” he asks, and yawns tightly. He doesn't sit up, but he snuggles his head against the cushion a little. His cheek is pushed up and it makes his lips look fuller.

“Standing here, looking at the teenager laid out on the couch.” You say and smile when he scoffs a small laugh. “You couldn't sleep?”

“Ah,” he tuts. He shifts around and finally pushes himself up. He sits into the corner of the sofa and bends his left knee up, foot planted into the seat. “Just a bit wired I think, thinking about how to talk to the lads.*

“We just have to tell them, love. Like you said, and you were right, we're going to have a baby regardless.” You reassure him, though you're still so nervous about all of it. “We can't control how they'll think or feel, but at least it'll come from us and not some wank-page report they get sent or find themselves.”

“Wank-page,” he mutters, smiling a little. He removes his glasses and folds the arms in, then tosses them down onto the sofa beside the TV controls. You watch as he fidgets, filled with an anxious energy. His tongue swipes around his mouth and his fingers flick and tap against his raised leg.

“Go,” you say, wondering if you'll regret it.

He frowns at you and his tongue stills. “Where?”

“In the garden - I admire that you're trying to do what I wanted, but I can see you're struggling. Go and have a bloody cigarette.” You push your hands into the pocket of his hoodie you're wrapped in.

“I'd the last one at the airport, waiting on the taxi.” He says, then purses his lips. You're almost happy to hear that, but you also know that after weeks back on high doses of nicotine, he's going to be a little grumpy. “C'mere,” he says. He pushes his legs down and holds his arm out to welcome you in for a hug. You smile as you walk over and curl in against his side. His arm immediately wraps around you. “I was thinking,” he says and you want to make a joke about smelling smoke, but you hold off. “Will we give the baby an Irish name?”

“We don't even know what it is yet,” you smile, but it occurs to you that you've been so wrapped in your anxiety that the thoughts of cute things like that had been pushed far away.

“I know but, like, I'd want an Irish name.” He says quietly. “A wee Oisín or Ciarán, or a Caoimhe or Róisín.”

“We could have twins, Róisín and Oisín.” You laugh a little.

He tuts, but he's smiling. “When I read the article I wanted to ring the boys there and then and just tell them. Say, look lads we're having a baby and that's what's happening. You know? And then I didn't want to hurt them, and I still don't. Like, I know what they're going to think. They're going to think we lied about it. And that's what's fucking eating me, you know? I love ‘em, they're my best friends, and-and I don't want to hurt them or push them away further. Malachy's in such a good place with us now, and after talking with Aran I know he feels better. I don't want to fuck that. But Y/N, having this baby with you feels good. I know what I said before and I know we went through the shit over, but I'm happy it's happening. I am. I promise you. But all the shit - the kids, the press, Yvonne, the reactions from every fucker around us… I'm scared of all that.”

It scares you a little that he's echoing your fears, but it's good to know you're not alone in them. But you know you're on your own in the fear that somewhere in the midst of this pregnancy, he's going to flip his ideas again. “We should tell the boys before Christmas.” You say. “Let's have a couple of days, you and me here at home, and then we can have them over - the boys and Yvonne. Tell them all together.”

Cillian turns his head a little and you look up. “You want to do that?” He sounds surprised, happy maybe, and you nod your head.

“We have to.” You say quietly. “Sooner rather than later, it has to be said and it has to be before any more shit like that article is produced.” You sigh heavily, “And then after the scan, after we know everything is okay… then we tell everyone else that needs to know. Your family first.”

You can feel the vibrations as he laughs, “Ah, fuck, Páidi's going to have an opinion or two.”

“He's your little brother, he's supposed to!” You smile. You wrap your arm around his slight waist and snuggle closer. “I am so fucking glad you're home.”

“Me too,” he hums, pulling you closer.

“It's been no fun fucking myself.” You laugh, breaking the heaviness in the air.

“Ah stop,” he throws his head back against the sofa, chuckling lightly. Then he laughs a little more, “I'd the earphones in on the plane, and that song came on, you know the one Afternoon Delight?” He pauses as he giggles again. “Just made me think of you recently.”

“I googled it,” you say, “Pregnancy and wanting to fuck all the time. Apparently it only happens when your partner is Cillian Murphy.” You tease, and he laughs again. “It's just a good job I'm already pregnant because it's that fucking feeling I like… feeling you just spilling inside me.” You shake your head and know you need to stop, you're only egging yourself on here. “We'd be in serious trouble otherwise.”

“Stop talking,” he sighs and shifts. “... Jesus.”

“You're alright,” you laugh, “I'm too tired to ride you like I want to. But I swear, Cill, we're destroying the sofa in the next two days. I need that out of my system before I stand in front of the family I destroyed and tell them we are having a baby.”

He laughs awkwardly, his whole body shaking as he does, and he tightens his arm around you more. “Y/N, you didn't destroy anything. I've told you this so many times, I know you know. I wanted that marriage over.”

“Would you have left if we hadn't spent that year sneaking around?” you ask. You've asked before and you know what he'll say, but it never clears your fears for long enough.

“Yes. We were falling apart, Y/N. The only thing you did was show me it would be okay to do it. You didn't ruin anything.” He reassures you, but you know that he knows that will always be how you feel. “And I'll tell you once more, but I won't remind you again - whatever happens, I love you.”

#cillian murphy #my fic #cillian murphy fanfiction #my fic: we got issues #we got issues #relationships #reader fic #y/n fic #female reader #female y/n #female reader x Cillian Murphy #female y/n x Cillian Murphy #reader x Cillian Murphy #y/n x Cillian Murphy #cillian murphy x female reader #cillian murphy x female y/n #reader x celebrity

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amywritesthings · 3 hours ago

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I have to put all of these tags in a read more because when I'm telling you I have read them over and over to the point where I have teared up alsdfjkalsjdf peach you absolutely spoiled me with these reactions, you really did. This is every author's dream to see: a wall of text with many capslocks and screeching. If I was self conscious about my smut, then I am certainly no longer thanks to you!!!!

#the second and I mean the SECOND I saw ‘resolved sexual tension’ I started giggling like I fucking goblin #plus ‘nipple play’ Amy you’re trying to kill me #I’m on my period and you’re trying to kill me #idk starting with cradling her head when that’s the thing she hit and how he lost her?? I’m fine. I’m fine. #(I’m sobbing loudly) #instinctually you jump knowing he’ll catch you’ oh you’re out for blood ok #‘fighting or fucking. the odds are fifty fifty’ when I tell you I snorted #Hange’s got a bet pool going I know it #HIM CUTTING OFF HER APOLOGY I AM EATING THIS UP SO HARD AMY #the two of you know the language of violence so well but you know each other better is actually an insane line #Amy you always blow me away but THIS?? #it’s so tender and sweet and you can just feel the sense of *finally* #like yeah there are pieces still missing but they’re falling back into place and that’s what matters #YEAH JAMES CLIMB THAT MAN LIKE THE TREES YOU CRASHED THROUGH #‘do you think the others —‘ ‘I don’t care’ might be the hottest exchange I’ve ever read #god you catch his personality so beautifully. it’s such a treat to read your Levi #even if dirt was a sin apparently you were not. <- Amy I’m going to kill you /aff #tit lover Levi I love this song #HIM HOLDING BACK IM GONNA SOBB #he will never forgive himself for what happened I know it but he won’t let that keep him from what he wants and I love that so much #PINNING HER DOWN BY HEE HIPS WHILE SHE COMES I SWEAR I DROOLED #“our rule’ oh I would’ve cursed his ass out over that fucking three rule thing. now is not the time Levi!! #still remembering to use protection!! my conscious babies!! #‘I never stopped loving you’ hey what if I threw myself off a cliff?? dramatically #‘TAKE WHATEVER YOU WANT FROM ME. IT’S ALWAYS BEEN YOURS’ #AMY WHO GAVE YOU THE RIGHT TO JUST WRITE BANGER AFTER BANGER #‘I’ll cum so fast’ yeah that’s the goal stupid. #oh he’s a babbler. #’let go. I’ll catch you’ AMY FUCK OFFFFF /aff #you’re killing me with this. the symbolism of falling as something good compared to last chapter and the start of the story

silver underground. | chapter 24

( Read on AO3 )

Pairing: levi ackerman x f!reader (attack on titan / shingeki no kyojin) Word Count: 6.3k Summary: day 163 - continued.

Warnings: 18+ MINORS DNI - explicit smut, resolved sexual tension, oral (f!receiving), nipple play, body worship, fingering, dirty talk, multiple orgasms, protected piv sex, angst, mentions of death, sensuality Credits: dividers by @saradika-graphics

Previous Chapter. / Next Chapter. | Masterlist.

I feel... you.

The answer to your question you’ve been asking the moment you opened your eyes.

The clarity you’ve sought ever since you locked eyes with the captain of the Scouts.

I remember you.

Levi kisses you like he knows you, and the rest of the world ceases to exist.

His sturdy hands flutter in a flurry, touching every part of you like he wishes he could have it all.

Chilled palms cup your face, cradling your head as if it's the most precious thing they've ever touched, before sliding down your neck; to the slope of your shoulder, dipping down your sides — pulling you closer, closer, until you’re airborne.

You’re not afraid of falling.

Not with him.

Instinctually you jump, knowing he’ll catch you.

Your thighs clench around his waist as one strong arm supports your weight, unwilling to compromise the position of his other hand. It remains on your cheek, cupping your face to hold your kisses steady.

As the man stumbles forward, you hear the abrupt slam of the wooden chair go flying across the room, skidding to its side on the floor.

It’s loud.

(Surely someone downstairs will hear.)

Hange, Moblit, Erwin — in a best-case scenario, those who stayed behind will be the only privy to the commotion.

However, if the entire squad has returned from the forest...

Well, there's no mistaking the shuffles and slams coming from Captain Levi's room.

Fighting or fucking; the odds are fifty-fifty.

He doesn't seem to care.

Honestly?

Neither do you.

(Too much time wasted on open secrets.)

With immense control and strength, he slowly lowers you both to the bed. The bed frame creaks in its age under the weight, but the mattress feels soft compared to the forest floor you crashed into mere hours ago.

Your back touches the ivory sheets, engulfing you in the scent of him. Something uniquely Levi; crisp and impossibly clean with a musk that’s making your mouth water.

You’ve smelled it in passing the few times he’s passed you at headquarters — always at arm’s length, no matter how close you try to get — but now it’s bound to stick to your body, your clothes —

The way it used to in the Underground.

The way it used to in this very bed.

His kisses are messy yet precise, focused on the feel of your mouth against his. When you let out a shaken breath and whimper, overwhelmed by his reinvigorated passion, Levi outright groans.

The same arm once holding you up snakes around from under your back to meet its twin cradling your face, keeping you in place.

(As if you’d ever wish to leave.)

“I’m sorry,” you whisper between kisses.

“Don’t,” he replies just as softly, tugging at your lower lip with his teeth. “Not now.”

“But—”

“I don’t want your damn apologies,” he sighs, traveling south to pepper your jawline with short, chaste kisses. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

When he senses your hesitance, he pumps the brakes on his kisses and raises his chin to look you in the eye. The storm in his eyes has darkened to a damn near black.

His button-down hangs off of his bony frame, giving you a view of the expanse of skin beneath.

“Nothing,” he repeats.

Like he knows you want to fight.

(The two of you know the language of violence so well, but you know one another better.)

The protests, the pleas, the endless stream of begging dies on your tongue the second his thumb grazes your lower lip with reverence.

Emotion flickers across his face, gone as fast as it came, before he dives back in for another kiss — slower this time, the push and pull deliberate with reassurance.

This.

This is what your lips should be doing, not apologizing.

The message is received loud and clear: you tilt your chin to meet him in every kiss, hands blindly raising to run through the soft strands of his black hair. He exhales through his nose, the hot breath tickling your skin.

For the longest time, it’s all you do.

Kiss.

One for every day spent apart.

One for every fight you’ve ever had.

One for every memory you’ve yet to recall.

The puzzle has a frame, yet there are still missing pieces, destroyed edges, that may never return. Maybe he’ll never make peace with it, but knowing you were a stone’s throw away from death surrenders that grief into confetti.

There will be new memories to make.

(As the keeper of your heart, you trust his recollection of the details you can no longer recount.)

This life won’t be perfect, it never has been from the beginning, but so long as you have this — have Levi — then nothing else matters.

“I can hear you thinking.”

The first part of that statement is muffled by a kiss, but he pulls away to check in during this languid, yearning make out session.

Levi squints down at you, lips pink from exertion.

“I’m not,” you lie.

His eyes narrow further.

“Fine. I am.”

“About?”

“About how badly I want you.”

The blatant honesty dissolves that narrowness in seconds.

“About... how you—”

With the strength harnessed by adrenaline, you push on Levi’s chest, hard, until he’s flat on his back.

The bed creaks again when you crawl on top of him, straddling his hips while your hands plant themselves on the soft flesh of his wrists.

Down; you push down, pinning him underneath.

Levi doesn’t tense. He simply stares above, allowing you to do this.

“Want you,” you clarify, “yes.”

His throat bobs, but his expression stays cool.

“Are you sure?”

“Do I look like I’m hesitating, Captain Levi?” you challenge, leaning down to hover over his face.

His hands leisurely flex under your hold, as if to relax them from their clenched state.

For a moment, doubt creeps in.

Even if he’s confessed, there is still so much time unspoken for; so much to talk about, so much that you have missed.

Maybe it’s too much.

The grip on his wrists falters. “Unless if you don’t want—”

With inhuman strength, he uses the light hold you have on his wrists to push up, setting you off balance.

As you waver he quickly finds the upper hand, switching your positions once more so he can pin your wrists to the mattress beneath.

“Don’t even try to finish that sentence.”

To make his point, he drops his head to your neck and plants open-mouthed kisses against the column of your throat. You can’t help but make a strained noise of desire, eyes fluttering shut from ecstasy.

From this vantage point, you feel it — the sheer tension in his hold on your wrists, how desperately he resists clenching down, how gentle he aims to be when he glides both of your wrists from the sides of your face to over the crown of your head.

Levi doesn’t tremble, not like you. He remains as calculated as ever.

His lazy, methodical kisses trail up your neck to your jaw to your mouth. Both of his hands work to carefully connect your wrist in an x-formation. Once satisfied by your compliance, he slides one of his hands over both to latch on, pushing them down — yet still giving you plenty of room to escape if something doesn’t feel right.

(For the first time in over six months, everything feels perfectly in place.)

Panting against his mouth to catch your breath, a floating thought comes to mind once again.

So you speak. “Do you think the others—”

“I don’t care,” he interrupts, capturing your lips in a searing kiss. You follow his lead, tilting your chin up to meet him. “I do not fucking care right now, James.”

His candidness earns him a gentle giggle, and you feel the slightest shift against your lips:

A smile of his own.

You tap his hip cascaded by the disheveled fabric of his white button-down with your knee.

“Then take this off.”

The kisses cease at your request — no, demand — and Levi pulls away enough to stare down into yours.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Those beautiful gray eyes, stormy with droplets of blue — you realize the deep hurt in your belly is a pang of loss.

You say it before you can regret holding it back.

"I missed you."

His expression smooths with how earnest you sound beneath him, before clearing his throat.

“Which part?” he asks, voice slightly strained from the efforts of holding back.

You blink twice. "Which part?"

"Of me, yeah."

Searching his face, you decide to play along.

“Are you going to get mad if I say all of you?”

His eyes narrow. “Lazy.”

The flatness of his joke earns a genuine belly laugh from you.

Levi lets go of your wrists to sit up, nudging your legs apart so he can wriggle out of the way. You easily comply, careful to leave your boots hanging off of the bed when you widen your thighs.

Stepping away from the bed, he bends over first to remove both of your boots, then his own.

Any other time he’d have a conniption over the dirt, the grime, that you’ve brought into this bed.

(If there was one thing to remember about your past, it was that people from the Underground City could still be just as clean as anyone else. So much time spent cleaning the endless grit from under your nails; an impossible feat.)

Even if dirt was a sin, apparently you were not.

He doesn’t even blink at the specs that may very well still be in your hair.

Instead he’s focused on watching your face as he unfastens the harness at his sternum, shrugging out of his own leather straps. Tossed carelessly to the floor, he rips off his dirtied cravat and ODM gear skirt next.

Pressing a knee into the mattress, he rejoins you on the bed to reach for your chest.

He hesitates, throat bobbing with fleeting uncertainty before he begins to slip the leather through its loop.

“Sit up for me.”

You acquiesce, sore muscles protesting the movement as you prop yourself up on your elbows.

He’s softer with his movements when it comes to your uniform, pulling it apart piece by piece, as if afraid one false move will ruin this dream.

It’s not a dream, you want to tell him. I’m right here. I’ve always been right here. I won’t be going anywhere ever again.

You don’t.

Can’t, not when you’re so mesmerized by the way he pauses at the first button of your shirt.

For a short moment he meets your gaze, studying it, before nodding once.

One by one, deft fingers unbutton your shirt until it’s hanging from your frame, revealing a chest band. All of the air rushes from his lungs in one swift woosh, until you realize—

The scars.

Shit.

The dreamy spell is broken, and soon you find yourself scrambling for something that will quell any negative emotion bubbling in his belly at the sheer sight of your body.

A part of you wants to cover up, act coy and switch roles —

But clever Levi, forever two steps ahead, dives right in to kiss the one of the many healing scars littering your body after the fall — the jagged line just above your left breast — with such fierce devotion that the gesture nearly knocks the damn wind of your lungs.

“Beautiful.”

The murmur is tattooed into your skin, invisible to the wandering eye.

“So—”

He unsnaps the bind.

“—fucking—”

Like a feral animal, his hand tugs once, twice, until it gives and unravels.

“—beautiful.”

Levi forgets himself when his eyes meet your breasts, and you see the way his pupils damn near dilate at the sight.

His lips part, slick from the way he licks between them, before he exhales one single curse like it's a prayer.

“Fuck.”

You stay perfectly still on your elbows, perched on an incline in his bed.

At a loss for words as he stares at your torso like it’s a work of art, your heart hammers in your chest as you telepathically plead with him to simply do whatever he wishes.

Anything he desires, so long as he moves.

Your voice dissolves to a whimper.

“Levi—”

“Can I?”

“Please.”

His own voice crackles like a spark readying a flame. You want to feel him, separated by the absence of muscle memory; to have his hands, his lips, scorched on your skin forevermore.

Levi gives into temptation and kisses south, his nose tracing in a straight line until both hands hold your breasts.

Hot sighs heavily flutter across your skin before those very lips kiss the rising bud they’d been seeking, causing your back to arch clear off of the bed. You whine, trying desperately to stay quiet.

Levi’s too busy worshipping the nipple in his mouth to chastise you for the sound.

His tongue swirls to harden it faster while his other hand massages the other breast, his calloused thumb rolling in the same direction.

Your nails dig into the sheets, anchoring your hands from clawing up his back.

“Levi.”

He hums around your nipple as his answer, its tone dismissive.

When you’re brave enough to open your eyes, you see that his eyes are completely closed — softened in an otherworldly ecstasy at the sheer feel of your body against his.

The sight shoots a dizzying amount of arousal to your belly.

When he switches it up and sucks, those eyes lazily open to stare up at you: a challenge to let him stay like this, to never leave.

He wouldn’t have to ask twice.

If this was your entire night, with Levi’s mouth on your chest while he lives in the memories of you old and new, then you’re inclined to say that there are worse ways to spend your time.

(No, you’re happy to say like this forever.)

Except a chill passes over your pampered breast as Levi kisses across it, abandoning your nipple to trail to the other side —

Fuck.

“You’re going to kill me,” you rasp, too worked up to care if you sound wrecked.

“Won’t,” is all he replies as he dives back in, worshipping your body.

“Will,” you grit, trying your damnedest not to cry out from just how good it feels.

With one final kiss to your nipple, Levi detaches with mercy to shrug the pesky white button-down off of his shoulders.

The fabric joins the mounting pile of clothes on the floor, but his hands hesitate when they touch his belt.

His eyes notably flicker to your belt — a pause.

Deciding.

If it’s too soon—

If it’s too much —

No, you want to cry out. It’s not enough.

The words die on your tongue, possessed by the ghost that’s plagued your mind for months.

Instead you take action: sitting up on the bed, overly eager fingers tremble as they begin to unbuckle his belt, working at the leather straps crisscrossing his thighs and calves.

“James.”

His voice is dying on his tongue; a singular syllable of surprise.

“Let me.”

You notice the way his abdomen tenses at your words as you tug the first belt from its loops.

“Are you s—”

“I said,” you slowly repeat, moving closer to kiss the trail of dark hair peppering just under his belly button. Levi exhales like he’s been punched. “Let. Me.”

Punctuating each word to show your seriousness, your eyes meet as he stares below.

Inch by inch, you press slow, meaningful kisses in his skin — first to the left, curving towards his hip.

Your hands push down the trousers of his uniform pants, using the strength to drag the leather straps wrapping around his legs to fall with them.

Levi stands before you in merely white briefs, and there’s no hiding the immense arousal straining against the thin fabric.

The sight causes your breath to simply evaporate from your lungs, unable to stop staring.

From your peripheral you see the hand at his side flex then snatch into a fist to combat the desire to touch you.

He must feel guilt.

He must be so terrified that this moment will simply evaporate like the rest of your memories.

That you may have woken up, yes, but you can still fall back asleep.

You refuse.

“You can touch me,” you murmur into his skin, and Levi’s throat bobs.

When he doesn’t move, you take the first at his side and systematically uncurl every finger.

He lets you.

Slowly, calculated, you raise his hand until it’s running over the crown of your head. His nostrils flare as he takes control, abandoning the guide of your hand to cup the side of your face.

A gentle thumb smears across your lower lip in reverence.

“I won’t break,” you tell him, knowing he’ll protest. Your voice drops to a hush. “I won’t.”

“I know,” is all he can reply — then your back hits the bed again, and he drops to his knees at the edge of the bed.

Levi disappears from your immediate line of sight, but you feel pressure on your hips: inch by inch, he’s undone the belt and buttons and yanked your uniform down your thighs, your knees, until they’re hanging at your ankles.

Oh.

One by one, he slips your feet from the pants and uses your ankles to widen your knees, bearing you to him at eye-level in just your white cotton underwear.

“Shit.”

A feeble gasp escapes when his lips start at your left foot.

You can’t see him, only feel him — he presses a tender kiss to your ankle then another just above it, creating a careful line up to your calf. His fingers gingerly curl around it to keep you steady as he ascends with his lips touching every single inch he can.

When he reaches your knee, you see it: the darkness in his gaze, how stormy his eyes have become, while making direct contact with you.

“Levi,” you moan, refusing to look away as he makes a point to stare at you while he nudges your left thigh further out to keep kissing it.

Stay awake.

Don’t forget this.

Don’t ever forget this again.

“Can I?” he asks, and you nearly miss the question in your intoxicated, aroused state.

You know.

You know exactly what he’s asking to do.

There’s no chance in hell you’d ever say no.

Wordlessly you nod, but Levi’s tongue darts out to taste the skin of your inner thigh. “Say it.”

(Fuck, when did he get so demanding?)

“Yes,” you exhale. “Yes, I want this. Want you.”

He doesn’t answer with words — a mere wanting growl takes their place.

Raven-black hair tickles your bare skin as he shifts, and strong arms drop to your rope under your knees.

With one swift tug, he drags you directly against his face, and the world becomes a myriad of brilliant colors.

Even if it’s a mere kiss to the cloth of your dampened underwear, you whine from the sheer desire flooding through your veins.

Maybe in another life, you would have teased him for his eagerness.

Maybe before the fall, you would have made him work for it, asked him to crawl to you, to beg.

Not this time.

You don’t have time to be coy, not when it’s been so long.

The tip of his tongue sensually drags up the center of your underwear, the slowness obscene. Your head slams back into the mattress with a soundless cry.

The hot puffs of his breath tickle your inner thighs as he continues to swirl his tongue against the final barrier between you and his mouth.

“Please,” you beg, throwing all dignity to the wind.

He doesn’t seem to hear you.

Levi’s hands grip your hips firmly, keeping you in place as he continues to gather the taste of you on your panties.

When you have the courage to watch him again, you see that his eyes are closed.

Like he’s found some kind of paradise right here.

With you.

“Levi,” you whimper louder, voice terribly shattered, “Levi, Levi, please—”

His moans against your clothed clit damn near scrambles your brain.

Finally ending your torture, he pulls away to tug your soaked underwear down your thighs, your knees, until they drop to the floor of their own volition.

“Been dreaming of this,” he finally states, his voice several octaves lower and cracked. “The goddamn taste of you—”

He cuts himself off when he runs his thumbs down your folds, parting them with his thumbs.

If you weren’t so eager, then maybe you’d be embarrassed by how wet you were.

Dripping, really, from the way he worshipped your chest only minutes ago.

You almost scream when he dives in and kisses your clit, before his tongue languidly glides against it. By some miracle, you don’t.

His thumbs leave you in favor of holding open your legs for him as he feasts, refusing to allow them to close from the shock of the forgotten sensation.

With one hand grabbing the pillow above your head while the other threads through his hair, you’re unable to take your eyes away from how thoroughly he eats you out.

“Oh fuck,” you whisper, and the vibrations of his groans of agreeance damn near take you out.

The captain’s tongue explores every atom of you as if it has navigated this journey more times than he can count; as if he knows you better than you know yourself.

Because a part of you can remember —

The things you like.

The things you don’t like.

The hazy desires that plague heated dreams at night.

Yet Levi reaffirms them, teaches your body language right back to you, as his eyes lift from his task to yours to watch you watching him devour you whole.

Mesmerized, you stare back.

His lips close around your clit and suck as if to challenge you to look away, but all you can do is tense your abdomen and moan, louder this time, while your eyes flutter.

Stay open.

Don’t ever forget.

Lips parted with shaken breath, you witness this man mercilessly pleasures you.

Stares, so he knows that you’re still taken by him.

Worships, so he can remember what it’s like to finally have you in his bed after so many months apart.

It won’t take long to fall clear over the edge.

Not at this rate.

But you don’t want it to be over.

“Wait,” you whisper, “wait, I’m almost — I want you in—”

The second syllable of that word is lost in a sharp cry to the ceiling when he abandons solely sucking on your clit to focus instead on flickering side to side, rapidly, ensuring you’ll come no matter how badly you want to fall into bliss alongside him.

There’s no chance you can stave it off.

Your climax, a damn near year in the making, approaches like a bursting star.

“Levi—” you breathe, higher pitched than usual. “Levi, Levi, Le—”

You can’t finish the next syllable before you're surging off of the mattress, and he shoves you down against it by the hips so you don’t hurt yourself.

The world morphs and shapes into brilliant bright colors in the back of your skull as you come, and you do your damnedest not to shout.

As soon as your moan reaches its peak, your hand manages to smack against your mouth, muffling the strained screech.

His tongue slows down, instead focused on leisurely catching your essence with his mouth.

Greedily collecting every last drop.

So he doesn’t have to dream anymore, you realize.

So he never goes without again.

Panting heavily, your chest rises and falls rapidly as you try to remember which way is up.

“Holy shit.”

That doesn’t even begin to describe how otherworldly you feel at this moment.

“Levi…”

When you finally open your eyes, you see him resting his cheek against the inside of your thigh, nose and mouth glistening with the essence of you.

You’re not sure who is more satisfied.

“You okay?” he asks, softly this time.

Hardly a whisper.

You nod wordlessly, but hold your hand out for him. “Please?”

“Please what?”

“Let me have you.”

A storm flashes across his expression as he stands from the floor, his knee coming to rest on the edge of the mattress.

You can tell he isn’t putting his whole weight on it, avoiding the creaking of the bed frame as he contemplates.

“Not yet,” he murmurs, his fingertips running up and down your thigh absently.

“Why?”

“Because it’s been a while.”

The wandering fingers travel up, toying with the mess between your legs. Your hips jerk from oversensitivity, and a ghost of a smug smile passes across his lips.

“And I’m not rushing this.”

“Why?” you repeat, this time in a whine.

“Like I said—”

He begins, testing the give of your entrance as his middle finger pushes its tip into you.

You sharply gasp, forcing him to instantly stop. Those gray eyes flicker to your face.

“—it’s been a while.”

“I don’t care,” you state. “I can take it.”

“Well I do, so deal with it.”

There.

That commanding tone reserved for his position as captain pokes through, and it shoots straight to your lower belly.

Rocking your hips to try and force more of his finger into you, you shake your head wildly.

“You do realize that the more —”

His fingertip eases out, causing you to cry out in frustration. “Shh.”

There’s only so much sanity left in your body to plead your case.

“It — ah — the more time we spend away from the others downstairs—”

“As much as I like hearing you talk,” he reassures, voice dropping to a husk of its former self, “I really don’t want to discuss the whereabouts of anyone else when I could have my fingers inside you instead.”

Then that same finger suddenly pushes.

One knuckle.

Two.

Your head drops back when he buries his middle finger into you, unapologetic.

His free palm drops to the side of your head as he hovers over you, easing you to relax as he pushes one finger in and out.

The fringe of his black hair falls over his eyes, his face flushed with inexplicable lust.

“Do you remember our rule?”

Do you really expect me to think straight now? is what you want to say.

Instead you keep your eyes on him as he fucks you on one finger, too tight yet not nearly enough. You maintain eye contact, scrambling for an answer.

“With what?”

When his finger curls, you have to bite your tongue not to shriek.

“C’mon, James,” he purrs, the heel of his palm rubbing against your clit, “what’s my rule for you?”

Rules.

Rules, rules, rules—

Then it clicks, the puzzle piece unearthed deep from your psyche.

“Three,” you weakly whimper, realizing just what’s about to happen.

When we had our own place—

He nudges his index finger beside his middle finger, opening you up more.

You widen your legs with little shame, sinking into the sheets as this man thoroughly takes you apart in his captain’s bed.

—I always said I’d give you three.

“Think you can give me it?” he asks with feigned confidence.

You know what he’s really asking:

Is this too much?

Am I moving too fast?

Would this be taking advantage too soon?

The opposite; what he’s doing isn’t enough, because you know what you want.

You need to give him what he wants first before you reach your goal.

Belatedly, you nod emphatically.

“Good,” is all he replies in that baritone voice of his, before dropping down to kiss you when he curls his fingers again, relentlessly fucking you.

The kiss is maddening. Searing. Your eyes roll into the back of your head as you try to keep up with the messy press of lips, all too eager to indulge in what it means to feel alive.

This.

This is what home feels like.

You never had to build it with nails and wood and insulation.

It was always in the person hovering above you, working you open with a sneaky third finger that causes a pathetic strangled moan to die on your lips the second his tongue dips into your mouth.

Relentless.

You’re so far gone that you don’t even realize you’ve already come a second time.

It’s Levi who pulls back, looking down at his hand as he keeps curling his fingers into you.

“Shit, already? Can feel you getting tighter– Fuck, James.”

Shaking from the less intense but no less amazing orgasm, you come silently on his hand as you melt into the sheets.

Stars blur your vision like the first snow of a winter.

Weightless.

Watching Levi pull his fingers out of you to immediately put them into his mouth, licking each digit clean, is an out of body experience.

Nothing to waste, nothing to lose — he relishes in the taste lingering on his tongue before you leisurely nudge him with your knee.

He’s still wearing his underwear, but his cock is practically ready to burst through the fabric. His hardness looks painful, the flush of his skin prominent against the ivory cotton.

“...do we still have condoms?”

Your voice is faint, an exhale at best.

His eyes widen briefly before his jaw clenches, and his hair flutters as he nods.

“Yeah. They… should be expiring in about two months.”

“But not right now.”

Levi considers your inquiry, searching your face. “Not right now, no.”

A moment of content silence passes, his eyes glued to yours.

You want to reassure him that you’re more than ready, that it’s been too fucking long since you’ve had him, that you need this more than anything you’ve ever needed in your life.

You can’t.

All you can do is beg, as you have this whole day.

“Please?”

His head drops in defeat, shoulders slumping.

All of the air leaves his lungs as he leaves your side to rummage in the nightstand by his bed, and you can see it clear as day on the hand that is still pressed to the mattress:

He’s trembling.

Sitting up on your elbow, you reach to gently place your palm over it. His attention whips back to you, first staring at your joined hands before looking back at you.

“Are you sure?” the captain asks, looking for complete and utter consent.

You open your mouth to respond, but Levi curls his fist over the condom foil and sits up taller.

His hand lifts the two of your hands together, switching their positions so your palm ends up on his cheek.

In a tender moment, his lips press a chaste kiss to its center.

“We can wait if it’s too much.”

You shake your head wildly. “It’s not too much.”

“You only just—”

“Levi.”

Exasperated, you crawl around him to slowly hike your bare leg over his hip.

Hovering over his lap, his eyes round when you snap the waistband of his briefs between pinched fingers. Instinctively his hand reaches to steady your bare hip.

“I know you have every good reason to worry that I could change my mind. That I could forget.”

He flinches, if only for a fraction of a second.

“But I never left you. I never stopped wanting to be near you. I never…”

Trailing off, you realize.

The words are right there on your tongue.

The image flashes through your mind: two kids just barely making sense of this cruel world, tangled together, when his whispered words tickled the shell of your ear.

Words that would change your life forever.

“I never stopped loving you.”

With a single blink, the lines on Levi’s weary face soften.

The captain’s throat bobs, swallowing the emotions that come with your confession.

He speaks with a conviction unlike anything you’ve ever heard.

“...I never stopped loving you, too.”

Joy blossoms in the center of your chest as you lean in, capturing his lips in a kiss that seals the promise of forever. He kisses back just as eagerly, his hands leaving your body to push his underwear hastily down his hips.

You hear the tear of a wrapper foil, feel the shuffling of his hands between your bodies, before lining up the tip of himself against your entrance.

You both stop.

Testing the give with a gentle nudge, you both let out a gut-punch exhale.

“Want you to set the pace,” he states against your lips, trying his damnedest to keep his voice from shaking. “Take whatever you want from me. It’s always been yours.”

Yours.

Nose to nose, you allow him to hold his hard and eager cock steady as you wrap your hand around the back of his neck for an anchor.

Levi lets out a shaken breath when you begin to sink, face flushed with sweat and arousal.

No going back.

(You never want to leave again.)

Inch by inch, you ease yourself onto Levi’s cock. Your eyelids flutter from the sheer ecstasy of finally, finally, having him inside you again.

The captain seated beneath you is oh, so focused, nostrils flared as he bites back a heavy groan.

Although it takes baby steps to get there — you rock your hips and fuck the tip of him, your body slowly relaxing enough to take up more of him — you eventually end up seated with your legs wrapped around his waist.

Levi instinctively curls a strong arm around your waist to keep you in place, looking utterly wrecked as he fully submits to your will. His brows are screwed tightly together, eyes struggling to stay open — to watch.

So you watch him, too.

When you lift yourself off of his cock and drag back down to the hilt, you both groan in harmony.

You can’t help it.

A smile bursts on your lips, stretched wide.

This.

This is where you’ve longed to be.

You roll your hips and ride your captain with reverence.

The room reverberates with the sound of skin against skin, your moans and his grunts, the squeak of a well-worn mattress on an ancient wooden frame.

To hell with subtly.

You don’t care who hears downstairs.

Once he has his own emotions under control, Levi memorizes your pace and begins to buck up in a thrust from below.

You gasp, and you see it: he smirks, his own confidence gaining on him.

“That’s my girl,” he groans, his words as finite as ash. “Fuck, there she is.”

The praise has your blood singing, burning, as you bounce on his cock with an urgency to bring him to his long-awaited climax — and your third.

“I love you,” you tell him, earning a bitten-off grunt for him.

“Fuck, don’t,” he begs as he matches your pace, bringing himself deeper. “I’ll cum so fast.”

“Maybe I want that,” you tease.

“James,” he warns, pinching your nipple as punishment.

You can’t help but cry out, head dropping back. Levi takes the golden opportunity to lean in, kissing the column of your neck to mask his own needy moans.

The fingers once rolling your nipple as you ride him glide down your belly until they catch your clit, causing you to collapse into his chest. You whimper, and you can hear the utter filth against your ear as Levi picks up the pace.

“Love you.” You clench around him, causing him to hiss. “Shit, I love you so goddamn much. Feel so fucking good.”

“Levi—”

“I got you,” he promises, holding you up as he pounds into you from below. “Won’t let you fall. Gonna make me cum so hard, s’like you were made for me — fuck…”

He loses his train of thought as his fingers rub your clit in furious circles, desperate to get you to the same edge where he hovers.

Over and over you moan out his name, unable to even think straight as pleasure succumbs and fills every vein in your body.

From the way his rhythm is faltering, you know:

He’s close.

You’re not very far behind.

“I love you,” you tell him one more time under your breath, unable to say anything else beyond that and broken variations of his name.

His thrusts become more urgent as he answers between clenched teeth.

“I love you, too.”

“Let go.”

You wrap your arms around his body to hold him close.

“I’ll catch you, just let go.”

For what it’s worth, he holds on for a few seconds more.

He gives you the performance of a lifetime as he thrusts up into you, running after his orgasm with a desperation reserved for you and you alone.

Then you feel it.

Levi grabs the back of your head and slams his lips to yours in one final, devastating kiss before you abruptly come around him.

Your muscles spasm and clamp down around him, milking him for all he’s worth before he’s moaning loudly against your mouth.

He’s forced to fall off the deep end with you, coming inside you.

You leisurely ride him through your joined orgasms until his hand comes to your hip, stilling your movements.

Eventually the fingers at your clit still, pressing against it to feel its erratic heart beat.

Forehead to forehead, the two of you stay here, catching your breath—

Refusing to part.

Author's Note:

taylor swift vc: it's been a long time coming...

If you've been around my blog for the last several months, then you know I got hit with the author curse (seasonal depression kicked my ass, my day job issued an RTO mandate, I was sick a few times, I have a surgery in late February) so the creative juices were not there. Apologies (and the biggest thanks!) to all who have been waiting so very patiently. To readers old and new, I am so grateful for your reblogs, comments, and inbox messages.

So I ask, after five long months away from you: how are we doing, Jevi Nation?

#feedback.#fic: silver underground

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thewadapan · 2 days ago

Text

School Days review

Yeah, School Days is actually pretty good after all.

When you google "School Days", on the first page of results there's a reddit thread asking "hey, why do people hate this show?" OP gives a succinct summary of the show's themes and praises it for its tight focus and psychological depth.

The comments in that thread are fucking crazy. The top-voted comment includes this absolute gem: "Sekai is an emotionally manipulative bitch". Some users gesture towards a faint understanding that School Days is a deconstruction of harem anime, but almost to a one they claim the character writing is unrealistic. Nobody seems able to look past the show's metatextual meaning to just look at it on a straightup subtextual level—that is to say, it's not just being different to other anime for the sake of contrarianism, it's making a serious point about misogyny and toxic masculinity. Describing Makoto as a "character" at all is almost missing the point; he's practically a force of nature, and the vast majority of the show is concerned with the psychological manoeuvring of the girls in his class trying to manage and shape his behaviour.

I only know about School Days because @weaselandfriends is constantly banging a drum about it being a secret masterpiece. Gee, I wonder who the OP of that thread was! Cannot imagine being on a "School Days slaps" grindset for eight fucking years now.

(CW: discussion of underage sex, full spoilers follow)

I'm going to take a cowardly centrist route and say that School Days does in fact slap on a conceptual level, but that the execution in many places leaves a bit to be desired. It often feels repetitive. I watched the thing on 1.5x speed because, as someone who reads fast, watching subbed anime is like watching paint dry. The dialogue often feels awkward (unintentionally so, as in), which I'm willing to partially chalk up to the translation; maybe some of the clunkier lines feel more natural in the original Japanese. The imagery is often kind of laughably blunt: in some cases it works, like Kotonoha's red yarn like she's pulling her own fucking arteries out of her body, and in other cases it feels derivative and hackneyed, like the whistling kettle in the final episode. Maybe that was more original in 2007, I don't know—I would've seen the same thing in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire two years prior.

School Days does set out to pull the wool over the eyes of its presumably-mostly-young-men audience, by putting them in Makoto's POV. The show is adapted from an eroge, where the player literally would have inhabited Makoto and made his choices for him, and the "objective" of the game would have been to unlock sex scenes with all the schoolgirls. The trick with the anime is that it removes the possibility of choice, creating an impactful dissonance as Makoto's actions become increasingly alien and harmful. Inversely, as Makoto's sexual exploits escalate, we see less and less of them; by the end, the whole thing is routine, not eroticised in the slightest, we see people putting clothes on afterwards, sneaking around darkened rooms.

At the start, though, it's all panty shots and boobs. And like, how do you depict the objectification of women, from an internal perspective, without just... objectifying women? This has basically always been the classic problem with satire. If there is a way of doing it, School Days hasn't figured it out, so it just rolls up its sleeves and gets on with it. Where School Days stumbles, in my opinion, is that the fanservice shots leak out of Makoto's POV and into the scenes where it's just the girls on their own. Nevertheless, I think that even pretty early on School Days is unmistakably saying, "this is a bad thing". There's a discordant note to everything, a threat of another shoe waiting to drop. At the start, it takes the form of these innocuous remarks as the characters try to interact in good faith: Sekai is constantly like, "There's nothing wrong with feeling attracted to a girl! But maybe she doesn't feel comfortable with it! Have you thought about how she might feel?"

That's the great tension of Sekai, and indeed of much of the show's conflict: there is a world where Makoto and Sekai are just friends, and where Makoto is faithful to Kotonoha, and everyone lives happily ever after. Maybe Sekai really is earnestly trying to cross this gulf between genders, and wants to just make Makoto understand, so everyone can be happy. But from the start, there's a question of Sekai's motives; embodied by Sekai's friend Setsuna, who trails after her constantly asking, "But do you like him really?"

Setsuna is an interesting character with her own motives. There's a reading where she has a crush on Sekai, but can't pursue it because of her family's impending emigration; she ends up hanging around Makoto and desperately attempting to protect him from the consequences of his actions to preserve his relationship with Sekai, expressly stating that she wants Makoto to be a proxy for her after she's gone (though leaving any romantic feelings unspoken, that's just my interpretation). This escalates to the point of her having sex with Makoto on the condition that he breaks off another engagement with Otome, which is such a self-defeatingly doomed gambit that it becomes tragically clear Setsuna has lost all control over the situation. I got the impression that Setsuna somewhat envied the other girls' entanglements with Makoto: the bit where she kisses him while he's asleep, in an attempt to create a personal memory before she leaves forever, is haunting. Like Sekai, Setsuna ends up manufacturing a romance between herself and Makoto as a way to be with him "by proxy", without earnestly confronting her own feelings.

Anyway, my point is that early on, everyone is treating Makoto like a person, which is sort of their mistake. They're like, oh, a boy with a crush, how cute! What's the worst that could come of this? He's a bit clumsy, but I'm sure he means well! And progressively, mercilessly, the show is like: no, he does not mean well. This dude has absolutely nothing in his life except sex. Girls only exist to him as people to have sex with. Guys practically don't exist, as he can't have sex with them. And for these teenagers who are discovering their sexuality, the very fact that Makoto soon starts having these rumours circulating around him is what gives him some allure: he's a sexual entity, he can be thought of in that way, there must be some reason all these girls are acting so crazy over him. Even a character like Hikari, who early on was crushing heavily on the anime's one (1) other male character, Taisuke, ends up taking her turn with Makoto; whatever feelings she had for Taisuke are forgotten, the anime doesn't even bother establishing how that romance works, because it doesn't need to, we've already seen Makoto use his exact same wiles on like three girls already.

School Days has aged well not just because the years since have yielded a better cultural understanding of its subject matter, but for its "production design": what would have been a timely present-day setting at the point of its release ends up turning the whole thing into an early-2000s period-piece. The fashion and environments are distinctly noughties. Perhaps the most consistent bit of visual symbolism in the whole thing is the flip-phone: whenever a character is holding their phone, you can think of them holding their heart in their hands. They're like the fucking soul gems from Madoka Magica. Sometimes, people leave their hearts in the other room, or block each others' hearts, or search their hearts for good memories. The "cell phone charm" from the first episode is brought up towards the very end, seeming bitterly quaint in retrospect. Right before she kills him, Sekai sends Makoto a text which just reads "sorry" copied and pasted hundreds of times. And of course, the ED shows a propped-open cellphone with a slideshow of photos of the girls.

I think in terms of its place in history, School Days speaks to this information age where young girls are being bombarded with cultural messaging that the best way to get ahead is to sexualise oneself while simultaneously slamming everyone else for their sexuality. Girls aren't just competing with one another for the attention of boys; now, they're competing with online pornography. Sekai works as a waitress at a maid cafe (?), and sometimes wears the outfit for Makoto when they have sex. During the School Festival, the girls theme their class as a maid cafe (drawing on Sekai's experience, I think?), and are shown using "absolute territory" as a last-ditch resort to steal people from the other classes. As part of the festival, they have a secluded area curtained off with a bed, encouraging couples to go there for sex acts—but later, it turns out some of the girls have set up a camcorder, and they use the footage to reveal how everyone is cheating on everyone else. While the exact events are obviously taken to an extreme, subtextually everything in School Days tracks 100% with my own experience growing up in a Bri'ish high school, and it feels like things have only gotten worse since social media really tightened its grip on our society.

The most common talking point I see regarding this show is that the characters are "stupid". And it's like, no, they're not stupid, what planet are you on, they're fucking children! (They're children, fucking!) Most of them have probably never been in a relationship before! Everyone in the show is pursuing their own interests; it's just that often, they're in denial about the reality of the situation, because to acknowledge the reality would run against those interests. It's funny, Makoto hardly changes his behaviour throughout the whole show—it just becomes more extreme—but the only thing that affects whether or not his behaviour with Sekai is good or not is whether or not Kotonoha is his girlfriend. The use of "girlfriend" as a role is weaponised by both Kotonoha and Sekai against the other constantly; like declaring "you're It!" At once point while cooking for the school festival, Makoto starts groping Sekai's ass, and she goes, "Geez, stop it! Stop it I said! What'll you do if someone sees us?", only for Makoto to reply, "Then it's okay if no-one sees us?"; this motif of a private sin recurs with Setsuna's character, particularly in the masked play that crops up a couple of times. In what context is an act of desire okay, or not okay?

Halfway through the show, I remembered Emily is Away, a short Western indie visual novel. Released in 2015, Emily is Away is very consciously an early-2000s period piece, wearing the whole time period as an affectation. The whole game is a series of text conversations on an IM client with a girl; after key choices, you are told "emily will remember that".

I fucking hated Emily is Away when I played it. It made me so, so cross. Because after I finished my first playthrough, and got a miserable, unsatisfying end, I naturally started the whole thing over and tried again. I picked different favourite bands. I acted completely differently. And yet, no matter what I picked, during the timeskips between sections, my viewpoint character would do the exact same shit and the relationship fell apart in exactly the same way. The second playthrough was a complete waste of time. It seemed like I, the player, was being railroaded, that the writer simply hadn't the imagination to conceive of a truly interactive narrative with a wildly diverging chain of events.

But of course, that's the whole point, obviously. Emily is Away plays a mean trick on the player, where it outright lies that "you" are making meaningful choices, when in fact "you" are merely spectating the actions of the viewpoint character, a specific guy who is, by nature, a certain way. It posits that all this shit on the computer just doesn't fucking matter, it has nothing to do with how we feel about each other, that it's only our actions in the real world that matter. The thesis of Emily is Away is that sometimes, for some immutable reason, shit just doesn't work out between two people, and there's nothing you could have done differently that would have changed that.

In the timeline where you go the party, you regret going to the party. In the timeline where you don't go, you regret not going. So, the game says, what's the point in regretting at all?

I totally understood this, after finishing the game. But, fuck, I was still pissed about it. The game lied to my face. It put me in the position of being a shitty person, and I didn't like that. It left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm still not sure if Emily is Away is actually any good; I think I like it conceptually, but maybe the writing sucks, I played it eight years ago. My point is that I think School Days is trying to pull the same trick as this one game, but in a much more mean-spirited way, to much more devastating effect, and I suppose I can't be too surprised that it pissed off a lot of people. If I hadn't known upfront what to expect- well, I wouldn't be watching ecchi anime in the first place, but you get the point, maybe I would've been pissed too.

If you break out of the "anime" mindset for even a second, and allow yourself to think that what you're watching is a frank portrayal of events, rather than some hyperreal cartoon, then Makoto is obviously just a little sexual predator. He's constantly pushing the girls past their limits, groping tits, going in for kisses, often against their express wishes. He initiates all the sex we see, and while in a certain sense it's all consensual, everyone involved is under the age of consent, and the show is making a very strong case for why underaged sex is a problem. When Sekai gets pregnant, Makoto wants nothing to do with her—"It's not my fault!"—but it's made clear he wasn't using any contraception, so, c'mon.

School Days is very deliberate in omitting adult characters entirely. Teachers mostly exist in the form of textbooks being read offscreen. I think we get a line of dialogue from Sekai's mom, if I remember right? It presents this world where Makoto basically has free reign to do whatever he wants to the girls, and everybody knows about it, but nobody is doing anything about it. When Sekai murders Makoto, there isn't a scene where anyone notices his absence, finds out. Kotonoha carries his severed head across town without anyone noticing, kills Sekai, and makes it onto the boat without getting caught. The show ends on a montage of idyllic school scenes, as if to say, "nobody noticed, everything just carried on". And again, to a certain kind of guy, I think this would stretch plausibility to the point of causing offence. For me, I think it's speaking to something very real.

Makoto's bedroom is barren except for his computer and magazines: porn, and porn. In the back half of the show, the void left by the absence of adults is filled by Makoto, Sekai, and Kotonoha, who are thrust into this horrible domestic drama, as everyone else in their class blocks Makoto. Makoto relays Kotonoha's recommendation for an abortion clinic to Sekai. He and Sekai sit diagonally across a table in a living room, and suddenly Makoto's school uniform looks like a salaryman's suit, a size too big for him, like he's walking around in his dad's clothes. Sekai tries to prepare a big meal for him, in a fucked-up parody of domesticity, but ends up destroying the whole thing after Makoto spits in her face yet again; later, she sees the remnants in the trash, an uneaten chicken leg poking out, and sees a little of herself in there, and that's basically when she decides to take the knife and kill Makoto. She stabs him in the belly, which is what Kotonoha will later do to her; both are imitating the original sin of the pregnancy.

Kotonoha explicitly chooses to kill Sekai this way because she believes Sekai is lying about the pregnancy—which we can pretty safely say isn't true, based on the scenes where Sekai is on her own. There's this horrible, horrible shot where the camera is looking out at Kotonoha from inside the gut wound, and she observes, "Just as I thought. There's no-one in there." And it's like, is she talking about this baby, still so early in the gestation that it's scarcely even an idea? Is she talking about Sekai, or Makoto, these two people who turned out not to care about her at all? Or is she peering straight through the screen at the viewer, complicit in this atrocity? The shot mirrors the bag containing Makoto's head earlier in the same scene; when Sekai unzips it, the inside is just a black void, and we aren't shown the contents. It's honestly more unsettling to infer it—that bag's not big enough for all of Makoto—and have it "made real" by that final shot of Kotonoha pressing the severed head into her chest on the boat. The memes were more right than they knew: "Nice boat."

Overall, I think School Days extends a lot of empathy towards its female characters. Or, if nothing else, it takes care to give them complex and distinctive internality, which is more than I can say for a lot of anime. Kotonoha initially represses her feelings for Makoto, and then when she feels pressured into reciprocating his intimacy, she soon gets turned into a social pariah for it. Early on, there's this eye-roll-inducing scene where Kotonoha is like "the other girls used to make fun of me because of my huge boobs", and from Makoto's perspective it's like "great, you've got huge boobs!", but then from Kotonoha's perspective, she spends the whole show getting slut-shamed, doesn't she? As a coping mechanism, she builds up elaborate delusions around Makoto—Makoto wouldn't let this happen to her, would he!?—which make it impossible for her to see how he's harming Sekai at the same time, culminating in the "I think you've made up your pregnancy for attention" beat. Their own internalised misogyny prevents the girls from identifying their common enemy.

If I'm being totally blunt, I feel like I can pretty safely put most of the comments regarding School Days I've seen online into a big bucket labelled "HAS NEVER HAD MORE THAN ONE GIRL INTERESTED IN HIM AT ONCE". Like, "I can't believe this Makoto guy! Why doesn't he just dump Kotonoha and date Sekai, who he's obviously more compatible with?" Bucket. "Makoto is so spineless and needs to stop letting these girls manipulate him!" Bucket. "There's no way the teachers would let him get away with this!" Bucket. "What do these girls see in Makoto anyway?" Bucket. "Sekai is such a bitch!" A new, bigger bucket labelled "NO BITCHES".

What I'm interested in is takes from School Days haters who aren't brainpoisoned anime fans, who might even nod along to all my analysis of the show's themes here, but who nevertheless think it's a bad show that deserves to be reviled. What part didn't you like? Is it the part in the OP where you see every female character naked one after the other? Yeah that part's pretty bad. Is it that windowpane-shattering digital transition that gets used once or twice? Is it the utter self-seriousness with which it tackles its ludicrous melodrama? I can see how, if you don't let yourself start to think "oh, those poor girls!", if you don't have that emotional buy-in, the whole thing might just feel comically edgy, sophomoric. I don't think there's any level on which School Days is fun to watch, and I'm not saying it's a secret masterpiece either, but I guess it more-or-less landed for me.

#school days #anime #anime review

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demigodsanswer · 2 days ago

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hii, would you ever write a blurb about the time Sophia ran away during annabeth’s baby shower in the tattoo au?

i have been obsessed with it

A few things went completely tits up today, so I spent a few hours writing this to calm down.

Sophia had tucked herself into the corner of the couch with a cocktail plate of crackers and cheese cubes. Annabeth had never seen her daughter look so bored. She was a real trooper. The baby shower was painfully boring.

"Hey nugget," Annabeth said, sitting down next her her. She combed a finger through Sophia's hair. "How you doing?"

"I'm bored," she mumbled.

"I bet. Baby showers aren't exactly the most exciting place for a kid, huh?" Annabeth said.

Sophia shook her head.

"If you want, you can go read in your room for a while? I'll come get you before we have desert?" Annabeth offered.

This didn't raise Sophia's spirits, but she did slide off the couch and walk to her room without another word.

Annabeth frowned. She spotted Percy in the kitchen chatting with one of his friends.

"--excited about your first baby?" Rachel asked him.

"Oh yeah!" Percy said, before spotting Annabeth walking towards him. "I mean, first baby baby. Second kid."

"You're that close with Annabeth's daughter?" She asked.

Annabeth snuck into Percy's side, as much as she could sneak these days. She was the size of a brownstone.

"He is," Annabeth told her with a smile. "Of course, she's gone off to hide in her room. The party isn't exactly thrilling for an eight-year-old. Could I borrow Percy for a minute?"

"Of course," Rachel said, leaving them alone.

"Sophia is in a mood again," Annabeth told him. "I let her go to her room for now, but we should check on her." This had been happening more and more these days. No matter what they told her about the baby, about their family, no matter what new custody arrangements they worked out with Luke, Sophia had it in her head that she was absolutely being replaced.

It was killing Annabeth, and she was doing everything she could to try and make sure Sophia understood she wasn't. But nothing -- not solo days with Annabeth, family days with Luke, family days with Percy, a new American Girl Doll, nothing -- was getting it through to her.

"Want me to talk to her?" Percy offered.

Annabeth nodded. "Just, make sure she knows that you're still going to be her dad?"

Percy kissed her gently. "Yeah, of course."

Sophia made up her mind. She was going to live with her dad. Not with Percy. With Luke. Mommy could have a few days with her, maybe. If she wasn't too busy with the baby. But she'd stay with Daddy now. Where she wouldn't have to deal with babies or being a big sister or any of it.

Her sister was going to be Percy's first baby. That's what everyone kept saying your first baby. Sometimes they even said it to her mom. "No," her mom would always tell them, "Sophia is the first." Sophia is here too.

But she was different. She'd have a different last name than the baby. She'd look different from the baby. Percy probably wouldn't want her to call him Dad anymore now that he had his own kid.

Moving in with Daddy just made the most sense.

She packed her essentials -- her sketch book and markers, the book she was reading, her Kit doll and teddy bear. She had keys to her daddy's apartment in case of emergencies, and that's what this was.

Her mom had shown her how to pop the screen out of the window and how to climb down the fire escape in case she ever needed to leave. And that's what she needed to do. The screen came out easily, but from the outside, she couldn't get it back in. She just left it, and started down.

Her dad only lived two blocks away, and she made it there fast. It was still bright and sunny. Only a few people looked at her twice, and only one woman with a child of her own tried to stop her and ask if she was okay. Sophia just said "Yep!" And started to run to where her daddy lived.

Luke had been invited to the baby shower, but he truly had no ambition to go. Even setting aside his complicated past and present with Annabeth, the whole thing was sure to be incredibly dull. He felt bad for Sophia who was trapped there now.

Luke had taken advantage of the free Saturday. He'd invited a man over under the pretense of watching baseball, but the game was background noise now as his hands reached for the man's belt, their lips still together.

And then he heard a key in his front door's lock.

The two jumped apart from each other as Luke stood up. There were only a handful of people in the world who had a key to his place, and they should all be at Annabeth's apartment right now.

Luke opened the door for the mystery guest.

His daughter's arms were around him as soon as the door was pulled open, and she broke down into tiny sobs.

"Sophia?" He asked, glancing in the hallway for Annabeth. "Sorry Mitchell," he said to his guest, "this is my daughter."

"I guess I should go?" he suggested.

"Yeah, I think so," Luke said, trying to convey his disappointment as the man got his stuff and shuffled out past them.

"Sophia," Luke said said again, "how did you get here?"

"I ran away," she confessed.

She was too big to be picked up, or maybe Luke was too old. So he settled for walking her to the couch where he sat her down.

"We need to call your mom, I'm sure she's looking for you," Luke said.

"She probably hasn't even noticed I'm gone," Sophia protested through her tears.

Luke's phone rang.

Annabeth

Luke answered and put him on speaker. "Sophia is here. I was just about to call you."

Percy had gone into Sophia's room and found it empty. He didn't immediately panic, until he realized she wasn't in the bathroom, wasn't in his and Annabeth's room, the baby's room, or his and Annabeth's bathroom. She wasn't in the hallway, and she hadn't rejoined the party.

Annabeth hadn't noticed him sneaking around looking for her daughter, but he'd have to confess soon. Sophia was gone. How she'd made it out the front door without anyone --

Percy went back into her room and looked out the window. The screen was on the fire escape, and the ladders had been pulled down.

Percy tried to breath. She's eight. She has no money, no metro-card.

He knew when she'd gone.

Percy stepped back into the party, grabbed Annabeth and pulled her into Sophia's room without any subtly.

"Soph -- Where is she?" Annabeth asked, before Percy could say a word to her.

"She's not in the apartment. I think she went out the fire escape. I'm betting she's at Luke's," Percy said.

Annabeth sat on her daughter's bed, before sinking down to the floor to look under it, as if Sophia had simply been hiding. She hadn't been. Percy checked.

"She's gone?" Annabeth asked, her eyes filling with tears now.

"She can't have gone far --"

"She's alone in New York! Anything could have happened to her!" Annabeth reminded him. Before Percy could say anything else, she took out her phone and called Luke.

"Sophia is here, I was just about to call you," Luke said, "I've got you on speaker."

"Sophia," Annabeth's voice started, shaky, "are you okay?"

"No," Sophia said.

Luke winced, knowing what Annabeth meant. "Are you hurt?" Luke asked her. "Did anything happen to you on your way over?"

"No," Sophia confirmed.

"She looks okay," Luke said. "You got very lucky," Luke told Sophia. She just crossed her arms and sunk into the couch.

"Baby girl, what happened?" Annabeth asked.

"I don't want to live with you anymore!" Sophia yelled towards the phone. "I'm going to live with Daddy."

The ambient noise on the other line died, and Luke could tell Annabeth had muted herself, likely to keep Sophia from hearing her cry. Luke crouched next to Sophie, his heart breaking for her and for Annabeth. Especially for Annabeth.

"Sweetheart," Luke started.

"I don't want to be a sister, I want things to be the way they used to be," Sophia said.

"You moving in with me won't make it that way," Luke told her. "Your mother loves you, Sophia."

"She's going to have a baby with Percy, and I won't matter anymore. I want to live here," she told him.

"Sophia, of course you'll still matter." That was Percy's voice. Luke was glad to know Annabeth wasn't alone. He could hear her crying in the background though.

"Everyone keeps saying saying you're having your first baby," Sophia said.

"And we keep telling them they're wrong," Percy said. "You're always going to be your mother's first baby, and you feel like my first baby too. Sophia, we promise, we're not going to forget about you."

Sophia kept crying. "Yes, you will!"

"Sophia," Luke said, taking her hands, "has your mom ever forgotten about you? Has she ever forgotten to pick you up, or left you alone?"

Sophia shook her head.

"Do you think a baby would change that?"

Sophia nodded. Okay, so he really wasn't getting though to her.

"Baby girl, we would never --" That was Annabeth's voice, but Sophia cut her off.

"I don't want to be your first baby, I want to be your only baby! I'm Daddy's only baby, so I'm staying here."

Annabeth's line went mute again.

It was Luke's turn to actually fix things for once in his life.

"Sophia, no you're not," Luke told her. She looked at him, utterly betrayed. "You can stay here tonight if you want, but you can't stay here permanently."

"Why not?" She asked, new tears in her eyes.

"Because I can't take care of you like your mom can. I love you so much Sophia, but you need your mom. I know you might not feel like it right now, but she's the best mom in the world. And no baby could ever make her forget about you," Luke told her.

Sophia was still crying a little.

"Do you want a hug?" Luke offered. Sophia nodded and held her arms open for him. "I love you sweetie, and so does your mom, and so does Percy. Nothing is ever going to change that." After a good hug, Luke asked: "Should I bring you home?"

"Can I stay here until after the party?" Sophia asked.

"Okay," Annabeth said, "okay."

Luke suspected there'd be a longer conversation once Sophia got home. Luke wondered if he'd be involved or not. He'd text Percy and ask.

"You guys enjoy the rest of the shower, I'll bring her home in like an hour?" Luke said.

"Sure, thanks Luke," Percy said. "Love you, peanut."

"Love you. baby," Annabeth said.

"I love you too," Sophia said weakly.

They hung up the phone.

"Do you think I'm in trouble?" Sophia asked.

"I'm sure they're just happy to know you're safe," Luke said, "but you might also be in trouble."

"I really can't live with you?"

"I will always be here for you, if you ever need anything, but you would miss your mom if you stayed here."

"No I wouldn't," she protested.

"Really? You wouldn't miss her if you guys couldn't do Friday girl's nights, or have dance parties? Or if she couldn't do your hair in the morning?"

Sophia cried again. "But what if we don't do that anymore?!"

Luke sat on the couch next to her and held her. "I think you just need to tell your mom that you don't want that to stop. When the baby first gets here, things might need to pause for a little. And if you want to spend extra night's here because the baby is loud, that's okay. But once things settle -- and they will settle -- I'm sure things will feel normal again. And before long, your baby sister will be able to do things with you too. She's going to need you to show her how to sneak out of the apartment," Luke teased.

"What if the baby doesn't like me?" Sophia asked.

"Sometimes siblings don't get along, but I'm sure you'll both love each other," Luke promised.

Sophia nodded and snuggled into his side. After a few minutes of quiet, Luke heard her little voice again. "Do you think I made Mommy mad?"

Luke squeezed her tight. "I think she's probably very upset that you've been so sad and scared about being a big sister," Luke told her, "and she's probably very sad that you don't want to live with her anymore."

"...I still want to live with her," Sophia confessed.

"You should tell her that when you see her," Luke said, "I'm sure it will mean a lot to her to hear that."

Sophia spent the next hour just watching TV with him. He got her to drink some water and stop crying. But after an hour, it was time to take her home.

Percy politely ended the party, sending people home a bit early while Annabeth laid down. He'd managed to get her to stop full-blown sobbing by promising that, no, she had never treated Sophia the way her father had treated her. Kids sometimes just have a tough time adjusting to big changes. Thalia was watching over her now, as Percy thanked people for coming.

"Is everything okay?" Sally asked him before leaving. "Where's Sophia?"

Percy said goodbye to a few more guests before telling his mom and sister what happened.

Sally looked at him sympathetically. "They'll both be okay," she promised. "Do you want me to stay?"

"No, that's okay," Percy told her. "Thalia is staying. We don't want to overwhelm Sophia when she gets back."

His mom gave him a big hug, and then Estelle joined in.

"Don't let anything happen to either of my nieces," Estelle warned.

"I won't, I promise," Percy said.

With everyone gone, he tidied up a bit, before checking on Annabeth.

She'd stopped crying, and she'd washed her face so her eyes and cheeks didn't look so red and puffy.

"Want me to stick around?" Thalia asked them both.

Annabeth nodded. "You don't need to, but Sophia's always had an easy time talking to you," Annabeth said.

A few minutes later, Luke knocked.

Percy opened the door, and he looked for Sophia first. Her face was pale and riddled with guilt.

"Hey," Luke said. "Sorry we're a little late, her tummy hurts."

Sophia nodded, but didn't say anything.

"It's okay," Percy promised. "Come in."

"Annabeth?" Luke asked.

"Living room," Percy said, gesturing vaguely as if the apartment was unfamiliar to either of them.

Sophia walked slowly ahead of them.

"Is she okay?" Percy whispered.

"Yeah, she just worked herself up into a stomach ache," Luke whispered back.

It didn't take long to get down the short hallway. But when they got to the end, and Sophia saw her mom waiting for her, she stilled.

Annabeth and her mini-me just looked at each other for a long moment, until Sophia started to cry again.

"Baby, come here," Annabeth said, her arms wide open. Sophia ran to her, and Annabeth scooped her up. Sophia climbed onto the couch next to her, before crawling into Annabeth's lap as if she were a much younger kid. Sophia was careful to navigate around Annabeth's belly, but she still managed to hide her face in Annabeth's shoulder and sob.

Annabeth rocked her daughter gently and spoke softly to her.

"Are you mad at me?" Sophia asked, her little voice almost shouting through her sobs.

"No, sweetie. I was just scared and sad," Annabeth promised. "I didn't know where you were, or if you were safe, or if I'd ever see you again."

"I -- I -- I'm sorry!" Sophia said.

Luke sat on the couch next to them, and Percy sat in his reading chair.

"Breathe, munchkin," Luke said. "You'll cry yourself sick," he warned.

Sophia took a few breaths.

"Can you tell your mom what you told me?" Luke asked as Percy stood to get Sophia a Sprite to help her stomach.

Sophia told them everything uninterrupted, about how she didn't want dance parties or girl's nights to end, and how she knew she'd be different from her sister, and how people kept saying the baby was their first baby.

"Those things won't stop," Annabeth said, wiping some of her tears away. Percy handed her the cup of soda. "They might pause for a bit when the baby is really little, but we'll keep doing them."

"Will I need to share them?" Sophia asked.

Annabeth nodded. "I think so. But we will find new things for you and me to do, just us. I promise." Annabeth was crying too, and Sophia reached up and wiped some of her mom's tears away.

"I still want to live with you and Percy," Sophia said finally.

Percy wanted to ask when he'd become Percy to her again, not Dad. She'd been calling him Dad for over a year, ever since he and Annabeth got engaged. Percy figured he would ask later but --

"You don't call him 'Dad' anymore?" Luke asked. Luke didn't sound happy or smug, just concerned. He looked at Percy, a bit sorry for him.

Sophia shrugged. "He's got his own baby," she mumbled.

"He's still your dad, Sophie," Luke said. Percy could have kissed him. Annabeth looked at him like she might. Thank you, his wife mouthed to him. Luke just rubbed Sophia's back.

"Things really aren't going to change that much," Annabeth said to her. "There will be a new person here, and that might be weird for a bit. But how much did things change when I started dating Percy?"

"Lots," Sophia said, "but it was good stuff."

"Yeah," Annabeth agreed. "That's what having a sister will be like. Lots of changes, but all good stuff. And all the same old good stuff too."

Sophia took a deep breath. "Am I in trouble?" She asked finally.

Annabeth smiled at her. "No, not this time. But if you ever scare us like that again, you will be," she promised.

"Peanut, if you're ever upset about something, or if you want to see your daddy, or you just need a break from us, just tell us," Percy told her. "We're happy to call Luke for you, or give you time to yourself. We just don't want you running away."

"I'm always there for you, Sophie," Luke promised, "but your mom and dad are right, you need to talk to them first."

"No more fire escapes. That's for fires," Annabeth.

"No shit, you went down the fire escape?" Thalia said, speaking up for the first time from where she was standing in the corner.

Sophia smiled at her and nodded.

"You're a trouble maker, kid. You get that from me," Thalia said.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "I ran away when I was seven, you get it from me," Annabeth told her.

"You ran away?" Sophia asked her.

"Oh yeah. The police found me. I had to go to the police station and wait for my dad," Annabeth said.

Sophia looked extra guilty now, and just said "Oh. I'm glad I didn't have to go to the police station."

"Yeah, me too," Annabeth said, kissing her head. "How's your tummy?"

"A little better," she promised.

"Good. Want to help us open the presents?" Annabeth asked. Sophia nodded.

"Do you want me to hang out for a bit?" Luke asked the two blondes.

"Are we keeping you from anything?" Annabeth asked.

Luke's face told them yes, Sophia had interrupted something, but he just said, "No, no, it's okay."

"Can Daddy and Aunt Thalia stay?" Sophia asked.

"'Course we can, munchkin," Thalia said. "I'll order a pizza."

#tattoo au #percabeth #annabeth chase #percy jackson #thalia grace #luke castellan #my writing

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unoriginalcontent · 2 days ago

Text

Been thinking a bit about this post; I do believe that to empathize with Trump voters, at least on an intellectual level, is important for purely pragmatic reasons. The idea there is that the right wing propaganda machine is a menace that no one knows how to deal with, and so if we can understand the concerns and anxieties of the conservative voter, we might have an opportunity to demonstrate how Trump is tangibly not addressing their problems and turn them against him. And hell, even if they did vote for him out of bigotry, maybe they'll still be willing to turn on him out of self-interest. However much it sucks, many of these people will not care if you simply point out that his policies harm other people. They've already set the human cost aside as acceptable losses, or else they outright support harming these people, which is why a different strategy is necessary for them. If we can get conservatives to turn on Trump, then even if it's not for the right and morally-correct reasons, that's still a win.

Of course that's all in reference to conservatives who were probably already predisposed towards whoever has an R next to their name on the ballot. When it comes to leftists who refuse to associate with democrats out of protest, I just don't know. I can understand that someone might want to vote out of self-interest and also believe that a Trump presidency is beneficial to them. Obviously they're likely to be wrong, but it's not hypocritical to have believed a lie and acted accordingly. Conversely, I think most leftists are people who will claim that government and voting shouldn't just be about self-interest, and that helping other people is a worthy end unto itself. And yeah, they should have known better.

If you're educated enough on the issues to have known all of Harris's shortcomings, how the hell do you not also know Trump's? If you know them both, how the hell can you conflate the two as equally bad?

We have this idea in the left that our systems are bad, and therefore we can never make progress until we destroy the systems entirely and build something new from the ashes. If you believe that, then please get your head out of the clouds because that's what Trump and Musk are trying to give us, and it turns out to be bad. We live in the system, we depend on the system, if we didn't then it wouldn't matter how many federal programs Trump is trying to abolish. Even if you specifically will be fine, you're writing everyone else off as an acceptable loss. It's not wrong to imagine and strive for a better world than this one, but unless you have viable alternatives ready and waiting, you won't get there by breaking things.

Maybe it's unfair to blame the current situation on people on the left who didn't vote for Harris. I don't even know how much blame matters at this point. And yet I think this is an important thing for all of us to keep in mind. Your moral clarity can be used against you. No matter how good and pure your ideals are, the real world has to come first. And right now that means acknowledging that a huge portion of our democracy chose Trump. And they don't care if you're hurt from his policies, or if I'm hurt, for a lot of these voters your suffering is probably just sugar on top. OP is absolutely right, they probably don't regret wishing leopards onto other people, but that doesn't mean it's not worth convincing them that we should stop the leopards before their faces are eaten. People are going to be poisoned by food which they voted to deregulate, and a part of me wants to think of that as justice. I feel angry. I feel spiteful. These people are taking human rights violations and touting them as victories, fuck them. But anger and spite won't fix anything, even from our side. And no matter how awful some of these people might be, together they're a hell of a voting block. I wish that I could force people to care about the suffering of others, but I can't. And so I hope that it's possible to at least get them to care about themselves.

And if you do think of yourself as progressive, and you still refused to vote for Harris, then I think OP is right, and you really do take a look at yourself. It is true that many of our problems are created and perpetuated by larger institutions beyond our control, but when it comes to democracy, it's not enough blame the system. You're a part of the system. If you don't want to participate, you need to have an alternative that is—crucially—viable, actionable, and realistic in the immediate short term. If you don't have that, which I guarantee you don't, then high-stakes elections are not the time for moral grandstanding.

Sorry for rambling here on your post, I'm probably a bit scattered. I've been having a lot of discussions with people about this sort of thing lately. Whatever strategy the left has for winning hearts and minds, it clearly hasn't worked if someone like that can still win the popular vote. I don't know how to fix that. But I think we all need to be a lot more comfortable ceding the moral high ground if it means making progress in the trenches.

Trump voters owe me financial compensation.

#my present thinking is change minds first and hearts later #i don't know if that's right but it strikes me as the more manageable project for our current cultural zeitgeist #maybe if we oust trump then all of the bigots who voted for him will just find the next shiny figure who'll appeal to their worst instincts #but it wouldn't be trump and that would be progress #(genuinely sorry for how rambly this probably is. it's the middle of the night and i should not be on tumblr rn.)#(i will most certainly regret all of my grammatical choices come morning)

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hungermakesmonsters · 2 days ago

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Just want to take a moment to congratulate you on 500 followers! You absolutely deserve it and more! I love your ideas and your writing. Can I request a blurb with a headstrong reader who is always used to fixing things herself but Billy just wants to take care of her? I like the idea of PA reader, kinda like Donna & Harvey in Suits! Maybe something like reader gets “stood up” by an Anvil client whose interest in you got Billy clear on how he feels and jealous on someone else seeing your worth?

I used to love Suits... but I never finished watching it so I don't know what happened with the whole Darvey situation but I LOVED their dynamic in the first few seasons of the show (and also just how weird and awkward it was when Max Beesley's character was going out for Donna for a while). So, yeah, this was definitely fun to write and I hope I've managed to catch enough of the awesome Donna energy in the reader character here! (Also now I'm going to have to start watching Suits again)

Don't Have to Say You Love Me

Pairing : Billy Russo x Reader

Story Rating : M

Warnings : [This is 18+ only, minors DNI] Smutty behaviour.

You placed his coffee and lunch down in front of him, immediately drawing his attention upwards.

"Is that —"

"A large flat white and a toasted BLT with extra sauce," you said, knowing full well how he liked to take his lunch on a Friday. By this point you were almost offended that he dared to ask.

"And have you got —"

"The research on the Collins account and the two government contracts Senator Williams wants to discuss," you interrupted as you pulled three files from beneath your arm and placed them down.

His eyes narrowed on you, mind obvious racing, trying to find something you hadn't thought of.

"What about —"

"Yes, I've had someone from maintenance fix the AC in the meeting room because I know you don't like having the Senator in your office around the good scotch."

Everything was sorted. Everything he could possibly ask of you, and he knew why — he was just waiting for you to say it. You didn't want to have to say it, because you knew exactly what his reaction would be.

But you knew Billy Russo. You knew how fucking stubborn he could be.

It'd probably amuse him to keep you standing there all day like a lemon.

After a few seconds you let out a huff.

"You do remember that I'm leaving early today, right?" You asked, drawing attention to the elephant in the room.

You weren't even sure why Billy was so annoyed that you'd gone and gotten yourself a date — he was stringing along half the women in New York, so why did it matter that you'd finally found someone who was interested in you?

"Right, how could I forget?" He said and you could hear the disdain in his voice. "I still can't believe you're going out with Thompson."

"Why not?" You asked, really not in the mood for his snarky behaviour. You both knew each other better than that.

"He just so —"

"Rich?" You offered. "Handsome? British?"

"Boring. He's not right for you, he doesn't deserve you."

You rolled your eyes. "And what would you know about what's right for me, Billy?"

The question was met with the expected silence. You'd long since given up on any fancy notion of him actually seeing you or admitting to the undeniable tension that had permeated your relationship since you first started working for him years ago.

What had once been a will they, would they, could they, had be stamped with a big red absolutely not by him and his inaction.

"Enjoy your date," he said, like he was driving the final nail into the coffin.

You couldn't remember exactly what you told him as you left his office, but it didn't matter. The pair of you argued, you always had. You'd made it clear from the start that, just because you were his PA, you weren't there to take any of his shit. You did your job and you were damned good at it — he was lucky to have you, lucky that you still wanted to work for him when there were so many other firms that would love to have you.

But you were loyal if you had one fault. Endlessly loyal when it came to Anvil and when it came to Billy Russo.

The one thing you weren't, however, was an idiot. Davis Thompson was funny, charming and rich, and sure, you might have met him through work, but you at least owed it to yourself to see where it would go.

And, where it went, as it turned out, was absolutely nowhere.

You'd been stood up before — you were a big girl, getting snubbed by a man who couldn't even bother to text was not going to end your world. (Though it might give you the urge to key his car the next time he had a meeting at Anvil.)

You got to the bar early, and you waited.

And waited.

You ordered yourself a drink, and you waited.

You gave up on him showing, but you decided to have another glass of wine because, why not? And, while you were making bad decisions, you decided to add another to the list and text Billy.

Don't go getting smug, but you were right.

It took less than a minute for his reply to come through.

He bored you that much already?

You found yourself smiling, even as you rolled your eyes.

Didn't even show up.

Despite feeling somewhat embarrassed, you knew that Billy wasn't on the other end of the phone laughing at you. He wasn't like that. Not when it came to you. (He was probably planning on keying Thompson's car too now.)

You put your phone down on the bar and ordered another drink, only half-surprised when it didn't buzz with another message from Billy. It was fine. It was Friday, he was probably busy on a date of his own. You had your wine, you were happy, you'd maybe have one more, then —

"Well, here I am. What are your other two wishes?"

In any other circumstances the bad pick-up line would have had you seriously considering throwing your drink, but you recognised the voice immediately and before you could even turn your head, Billy Russo was sitting at the bar beside you.

"Please tell me you've never used that line on a woman you actually wanted to sleep with," you said, barely biting back a laugh.

"I have," he answered, waving down the bar tender and ordering a glass of what you were drinking.

"And did it work?"

"I'll let you know at the end of the night."

"Oh, ha ha, very funny." You rolled your eyes. "What are you doing here anyway?"

"Thought you might want some company since Thompson was a no-show."

For a few seconds you were willing to accept his answer, but it didn't exactly hold up under scrutiny.

"I text you literally five minutes ago; how did you get here so quick?" You asked, eyes narrowing.

"I was in the neighbourhood?"

He almost looked sheepish, embarrassed even, and you had no idea why. A dusting of pink spread across his cheeks and, for a second, he could barely even look at you.

"Okay, what the fuck is going on?" And, then when he looked at you, you felt an unsettling feeling in you gut. "What did you do?"

You'd always been good at reading him, at seeing right through him. And, right then, he had the look of a guilty man struggling to explain himself.

"Don't get angry —"

"Don't ask me not to get angry if you're going to say something that makes me angry, Billy," you warned.

He took a drink. "I might have cancelled your date —"

"You did what?"

Un-fucking-believable.

Actually, no. It was entirely fucking-believable. And that was what pissed you off the most. He'd ruined your date because of — what? Some selfish sense of jealousy and entitlement, because if he didn't want you, no one else should.

You start to move, standing only to find his fingers on your wrist.

"Wait —" he started, almost sounding panicked.

"I did wait, Billy," you said, admitting far more than you ever wanted to. "I waited for years. For you. And what were you doing? Fucking half of New York."

It was the first time you'd dared utter anything of the sort aloud, the first time either of you had openly admitted to the unspoken, unacted-upon feelings between you.

You tugged against his grip on you, but Billy held tight as you struggled against him.

"Let me go," you said.

"No," Billy answered, getting to his feet, standing in front of you. "I'm not letting you go again."

Before you could even think to question what the fuck he meant, his lips were on yours and your whole world seemed to come to a screeching halt. For a few sweet seconds, you were frozen, indulging in something you'd barely allowed yourself to dream about, but how could you trust it? How could you trust him when he was only kissing you because he'd been jealous, because he'd thought you were finally going to find happiness with someone else.

You pulled back from the kiss, enough to see the flicker of hurt in his eyes and the worry on his face.

"This better not be a game, Billy," you warned him. "I'm not one of your girls that you can pick up and drop whenever you —"

He cut you off with another kiss, his arm winding around you waist and pulling you against him. And you let him. You allowed yourself to melt into the warmth of his body, you fingers gripping his shirt at his waist, just beneath his jacket.

"No more games," he muttered against your lips. "I can't lose you. I won't. I'm sick of pretending that I don't want you — that I don't love you."

Your heart stuttered, knowing the weight that that word bore for Billy. He'd never used it when talking about any of the other women, and you knew it wasn't the sort of thing he'd say without meaning it.

Still, you couldn't bring yourself to say it back. Not yet, not when some part of you still ached over his treatment of you.

"Take me home," you said, daring to hope that this wasn't just some pipe dream that would vanish the moment he'd had you in his bed.

Not that you made it as far as his bed.

He'd taken you by the hand a pulled you out of the bar, into the cold New York air — his car was park a block over, it should have been a quick, short walk if it hadn't been for you pulling him back for another kiss. Then, before either of you could think, you found yourself in an alleyway, pressed back against a wall as Billy kissed you.

Years of tension quickly came to the fore, your fingers gripping his jacket, his shirt, his hair — anything you could get hold of, anything you could use to keep him close. And all the while, he kissed you. You couldn't get enough of him.

Things quickly reached boiling point, your fingers tugging at the fastenings of his pants while he lifted your dress. There was no slow build, no teasing foreplay, once you'd freed his cock, you found yourself lifted and —

"Fuck," you moaned against his lips, "fuck, fuck, fuck — Billy."

He buried himself inside you in a single fluid movement, stopping when every inch of him was hilted.

His forehead pressed against yours as you both stilled, already breathless, and both entirely overwhelmed.

"Billy," you said in a low whine, your fingers gripping his hair.

His eyes opened and he looked at you through the gloom of the alley.

"I love you," he said softly, like he'd finally realised the gravity of the situation.

He started to move with slow but deep thrusts, not quite making love to you, but doing all he could to show you that this meant something. He alternated between kissing your lips and your neck, and you found yourself leaning into his every touch as pleasure started to coil inside you.

Your legs tightened around his waist, keeping him close, never wanting to let him go. And when you came it was with four little words.

"I love you too."

#500 follower celebration yay #billy russo #billy russo x reader #billy russo x female reader #billy russo imagine

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starryeyeddreamer21 · 8 days ago

Text

Headcanon that angels can hear prayers if someone is praying specifically to them like if someone says their name while praying they can hear it. So angels like Micheal who are popular and well known get a ton of prayers but angels like Emily who no one on earth really knows about doesn't get many.

So anyway! Alastor finds out about this and prays to Lucifer when he's not there or there are too many people around.

#yeah... I'm absolutely going to write this #but can you imagine Lucifer all flustered because Alastor is flirting with him while they're in public #or because Alastor doesn't have a phone he'll just ask for him to grab milk while Lucifer is out #this would be so perfect if they're secretly dating #lucifer hazbin hotel #lucifer morningstar #alastor hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel headcanon #radioapple

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nereidprinc3ss · 19 hours ago

Text

I didn’t mean to have so much to say about this but wow do I!!!!

Lots of people say they love domestic spencer reid but I don’t think they love domestic spencer reid like EYEEE love domestic Spencer Reid. Because I love domestic spencer reid where he’s doing nothing. Or he’s being kind of….. not an asshole but…… where it becomes clear that he’s just dealing with his own shit and he’s a flawed person and then I love domestic Spencer Reid where he’s dealing with his own shit and he’s a flawed person but he can still say I’m sorry!!! And they can hug and it’s okay because loving someone requires being close enough to sometimes hurt them!!!! And the realism of this kind of fic just fills me w so much joy like THISSSS is what I want from tumblr dot com I LOVEE the meditative fics where nothing crazy happens and the plot comes from the authors understanding of rich interpersonal relationships!!!! I love!!!!

This was also beautifully beautifully written like a breath of fresh air wow I truly am so lucky to get to read work from such talented people thank you for writing this and thank you for sharing it with us!!

So anyway here are the lines that jumped out at me. There is really no rhyme or reason, I tend to extra love lines that are a little philosophical and ponderous about human connection and boy was this full of that!! I am not a literary critic I am just a girl full of thoughts

You wonder if this moment is real, or if it is something you are inventing to survive.

I just think this is an jarringly astute and concise observation of something we as humans do all the time in relationships and again there is nothing I love more than an observation about human connection that I can point at and go MEEEE I UNDERSTAND THAT I KNOW HOW IT FEELS!!!! It’s very exciting to me!!

Or maybe you are lying to yourself, pretending love is something you can bear no matter how heavy it gets.

This to me was a kind of honesty most fanfic lacks and obviously most fanfic is supposed to be optimistic and perfect and reflect the readers desires back to them but quite frankly to me it hits harder when there is this subtle kind of interpersonal angst and strife that is something we can feel and recognize within ourselves it makes it easier for me to actually connect to the fic. Rather than watching it like a movie I can recognize this kind of sentiment and it’s far more immersive to me and therefore a lot more fulfilling and rewarding and interesting to read

Maybe that’s the point of all of this—not two people standing side by side, but two people learning how to take up the same space, how to move around each other without losing themselves in the process.

YEAH MAYBE THAT IS THE POINT!!! THE POINT OF EVERYTHING!!! THE POINT OF MY ENTIRE LIFE!!! This to me is just beautiful and very succinctly summarizes something I’ve been working on and will probably continue to work on for the rest of my life and I think really the whole point of love and the lesson most people need to learn!!!! Once again I like my fluffy fanfic tempered w this kind of realism!! It adds so much texture

"Oh, lovely. I've got you, it's me. I'm here, I've got you," whispered reassurances pressed into your hair, your ear, your cheek, as he moves.

No yeah actually this IS the sexiest thing a man could possible say or do!! Like care and pay attention and be present and observant!!! I won’t even be talking about this because I love it too much to dissect it

Anyways this is maybe making me look crazy I just haven’t been engaged with fanfic very much recently and I did not go into this with the intention of having anything to say about it afterward but to my own personal deep surprise was so motivated to!! And it was so beautiful and so lovely I had to say something. Pls excuse if I’ve gone overboard!! This is just such a good example of fanfic at its absolute best to me like this is what it’s forrrr this is what I wanttttt!!!! Thank you for writing thank you for posting beautiful

mouthful of sunlight (18+)

Some nights, Spencer can’t sleep. His mind runs too fast, too far, tangled in cases, in horrors he can’t unsee. But in the quiet of morning, wrapped in the hush of young sunlight, he finds solace in you—the warmth of your breath, the slow, steady rhythm of your fingers tracing his skin. The comfort is fleeting; distance is inevitable. His absence lingers in the empty side of the bed, in unfinished cups of coffee, in the soft weight of his sweater draped over your shoulders. But when he returns—exhausted, unraveling—you stitch him back together with soft reassurances, gentle hands, and the familiar ease of laughter. warnings: sexual content (who tf am I), very very wordy, mentions of a cannon-typical case, longing, some angst if you squint, mostly reader and spencer being lovesick fools wc: 7.6k

You wake to the sound of rain, soft against the windowpane. The sheets are warm, tangled around your limbs, heavy with the scent of sleep and him. Faint traces of his cologne linger in the cotton, something clean and quiet, the ghost of him woven into the fabric.

Spencer is still asleep beside you.

You turn your head, slow, deliberate - shifting too fast might startle him awake. And there he is, curled into the pillow, his body half-buried beneath the blankets, face softened by the hush of morning. His breath moves through the space between you in slow, measured exhales, lips parted slightly, lashes resting against his cheekbone.

You could spend lifetimes watching him like this.

The curve of his mouth, the way his curls press against his forehead, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes—the ones you're not sure he knows about yet. You think the mentioning of them would send him into a spiral about aging and lost time but you love their presence. It reminds you of how he's laughed with you in the past, their arrival a notion of his genuine joy. The body keeps score in freckles and scars, and time can be found in the weight of sleepless nights and too many days spent carrying more than he should.

In sleep, he is weightless. The tension he wears so often—creased brows, tight shoulders, fingers restless against his knee—has melted away, leaving only the quiet.

You reach for him before you can think of it, fingers trailing over the ridge of his knuckles where his hand rests on the pillow between you. His skin is warm, his palm lax, open. He doesn't stir so you let yourself press further, sliding your fingertips up the length of his wrist, feeling the slow pulse beneath his skin.

Spencer Reid is always thinking. Always calculating, always predicting, always existing a step ahead, untethered from the present moment.

But, right now, wrapped in the hush of morning, doused in soft rainlight, he belongs here. With you.

The thought is terrifying in its simplicity.

You swallow, pressing your fingers a little firmer against his wrist, grounding yourself in the proof of him. His pulse beats steady against your touch, and you let it lull you, let yourself fall into its rhythm.

Spencer stirs beneath your touch, just the faintest twitch of his fingers against the pillow.

You go still.

A part of you—the part still tangled in hesitation, in old wounds and old fears—worries he’ll wake, that he’ll blink at you with those sharp, knowing eyes and startle away the calm you've fostered. You love Spencer, asleep or awake, but the peacefulness of this moment is something to be cherished. You want to watch him more, to exist in this lulling moment between seconds where life doesn't matter.

He doesn't wake, though, and instead, he shifts closer, instinctive, unconscious. The space between you vanishes, his breath warming your collarbone, his hand brushing against your arm where it lies between you. He is reaching for you without realizing it, drawn in like something inevitable.

And god, that does something to you.

You exhale, slow, careful, and let yourself watch him again, let yourself sink into the quiet reverence of it.

The morning light has stretched further now, slanting through the window, gliding through the messy sprawl of his hair. He is all sleep-heavy limbs, the weight of him pressing into the mattress in a way that drags you forward, leaning against him.

Flesh and bone, heartbeat and heat.

He is here. He is yours.

The way he leans into you even in sleep, the way his fingers twitch like they are searching for yours, even now. The way his body gives him away, whispering the things his lips have not yet said.

You cannot be careless with this. With him. But before the weight of it can settle too deeply into your chest, before you can let yourself spiral, Spencer shifts again—his breath catching, his brow furrowing just slightly, lashes fluttering against his cheeks.

You barely have time to think before his eyes blink open, slow and heavy-lidded, thick with sleep.

It takes a moment, his hazy eyes focusing and unfocusing. Still, he sees you. Not just looks, not just registers your presence; he sees you.

His lips part slightly, and for a moment, he only stares, like his mind is still catching up, like he’s still tethered somewhere between dreaming and waking. Blinking like he's not sure if you're a dream. Likely, everything is clouded by sleepy eyes and fading memories of dreams.

Then, his voice, quiet, still wrapped in the softness of sleep, “Morning.”

You don’t trust yourself to speak, so you do the only thing you can—you lift your hand, still resting near his wrist, and press your fingers over his pulse once more. A quiet confirmation. A tethering.

Spencer exhales, slow, deliberate, and then he turns his hand, just slightly, just enough, so that his palm meets yours.

His fingers curl between yours, and you feel it—the certainty, the weight of something unspoken settling between your ribs.

There is morning, and then there is night.

There is sunlight spilling over Spencer’s sleeping form, gilding his cheekbones, illuminating the curve of his mouth. And then there is the stark contrast of shadow—of sterile hotel rooms, of the sharp, artificial glow of a bedside lamp casting his face in harsh relief.

His fingers, curled loosely around yours in the golden hush of morning, become hands gripping the edge of a desk, knuckles white, trembling with exhaustion. His voice, soft and thick with sleep, morphs into something raw, something fraying at the edges.

"I don’t know how to turn it off."

It takes you a moment to realize what he means.

He’s still in his suit, the fabric rumpled, the scent of cheap motel soap clinging to his skin. There’s a stack of case files beside him, a half-empty cup of coffee that’s long since gone cold. He doesn’t meet your gaze, just stares down at his hands, fingers twitching like they’re desperate for something to hold onto.

"Spencer."

Your voice is quiet, hesitant, as if anything louder might shatter him completely.

"Come to bed."

He shakes his head, exhales sharply, dragging a hand through his hair.

"I can’t."

A fight, sharp and cutting. His voice raised, your hands clenched into fists at your sides.

"You don’t get it," he snaps, voice raw, eyes burning. "You don’t know what it’s like to have a mind that never fucking stops—"

"I do," you interrupt, and the way he flinches makes your chest ache.

A pause.

Silence stretching between you like a wound torn open, bleeding into the space between your feet.

Spencer exhales, shakily, and when he speaks again, his voice is barely above a whisper.

"Then why do you keep trying to fix me?"

And there it is.

The knife twisting.

You inhale, but the breath never quite fills your lungs.

The thing is—you don’t want to fix him.

You just want him to rest.

To sleep without nightmares. To let you hold him without feeling like he has to apologize for the weight of his existence. To believe, even for a second, that he doesn’t have to earn the space he takes up.

But you don’t know how to say that in a way that won’t turn into another wound, another reason for him to step back, to pull away.

So instead, you say nothing.

"Fuck. I'm sorry." And it's that simple, really.

Sorry, arms finding each other, whispers of "I know" pressed into necks and soft conversations easing racing minds.

Spencer can't stop the relentless chase of the case in his mind. You can't stop the constant overthinking of being enough, of your body, of desires edging into too much.

Morning. Again.

Spencer, golden in the dawn, the soft breath of sleep still heavy in his lungs. Your fingers ghost over the ridges of his knuckles, tracing the delicate architecture of him, the places where bones knit together beneath skin. Flesh and blood. A body, human and whole.

Then, blood, dark and seeping through the gaps in his fingers, staining his cuffs. Not his blood. Someone else’s. A case. A mistake. A man who didn’t survive the night.

His hands shake as he scrubs them raw in the motel sink, crimson swirling down the drain, his breath coming too fast, chest rising and falling like he’s drowning, like he can feel it slipping between his fingers, the weight of every life he couldn’t save.

You touch his shoulder, and he flinches.

Time lurches.

His head on your lap, hours later. His hair damp, fingers curled weakly in the fabric of your shirt, like holding onto you is the only thing tethering him to the present.

"I don’t know how much more of this I can take."

Morning.

Back in your bed, the light different now, stretched across the sheets in delicate bands. You can’t tell if you’re awake or dreaming.

You wonder if this moment is real, or if it is something you are inventing to survive.

Spencer shifts beside you, a quiet sigh escaping him, and you watch, desperate to memorize the shape of him here, untouched by grief, by the heaviness of what he carries.

You want to wake up to this every morning.

But the truth is, you don’t.

You wake up to the version of him that drinks too much coffee, to the one who is always looking at things that aren’t there, playing scenarios in his head like a film reel stuck on loop. You wake up to the version of him that gets lost in thought mid-conversation, who chews at his nails until they bleed, who flinches awake from dreams he won’t tell you about.

And you love him anyway.

Maybe because of it.

Or maybe you are lying to yourself, pretending love is something you can bear no matter how heavy it gets.

Mornings like this, where he sleeps beside you, still and warm and untouched by the weight of the world—stretch, slow and unhurried, slipping into the day like honey dissolving in warm tea.

Spencer moves through your apartment with the careful quiet of someone who knows how to exist in shared spaces—how to make himself at home without ever taking up too much of it. He is measured, gentle, a man who has spent too much of his life folding himself into small places, and yet, with you, he expands.

You watch him from where you stand at the kitchen counter, hands wrapped around a chipped ceramic mug, warmth seeping into your palms. The coffee is slightly too bitter, but you drink it anyway, because Spencer made it. Because he takes his with too much sugar and no milk, and you take yours with just a little, and the contrast is something you love.

The morning light catches in his hair as he moves about the kitchen, curling slightly at the ends where sleep left it unruly. He wears his clothes loose in the morning—his pajama pants low on his hips, his sweater slightly too big, slipping past his wrists when he reaches for things. He is soft here, unguarded in the way that makes your chest ache.

You don’t say anything when he hums under his breath, something classical, a song you don’t recognize but have heard him play before on nights when he lets the record spin long past midnight.

You don’t say anything when he pours his coffee with one hand and flips absentmindedly through the book he left on the counter with the other.

But you do say something when he starts reading aloud.

“You know, according to the Journal of Neuroscience, studies show that sleep inertia—”

“Spencer,” you interrupt, smiling into your mug.

He pauses, blinking at you, book still in hand. “What?”

You shake your head, setting your coffee down, stepping toward him until you can reach for the book, plucking it gently from his fingers. He lets you take it, watching as you slide it onto the counter behind you, clearing the space between you.

“We’re supposed to be waking up,” you murmur. “Not filling our brains with research before we’ve even eaten breakfast.”

Spencer tilts his head, eyes flickering over your face like he’s considering it. Then, his lips curve, slow and warm. “That’s how I do wake up.”

You roll your eyes, but there’s no bite to it. You both know that you love when Spencer rambles, miss it when he's gone, call him craving the sound of his voice when he's away on trips. “Come here.”

You reach for him, and he comes easily, stepping into the space you make for him, folding himself against you like he belongs there.

Spencer exhales as you press your cheek to his shoulder, hands slipping around his waist, fingers curling into the soft fabric of his sweater. His arms come around you in return, slow and careful, pressing you against him like he knows exactly how to hold you.

The shape of each other, the cadence of shared breath, the quiet rhythm of a love that is not loud or fast or reckless, but something slow and deliberate.

Spencer is slow to let you go.

Even as you shift, even as you move to pull back, his fingers tighten just slightly at your waist, anchoring you there for a moment longer. You don’t resist. You let yourself be held, let yourself stay.

But then his stomach growls. Loudly.

You grin against his shoulder. “Well, that’s attractive.”

Spencer groans, burying his face in your neck. “I knew I should have eaten before I went to bed.”

You laugh, pressing your hands to his sides. “Come on, genius. Let’s get you some food before you start reading case files on malnutrition.”

He sighs, exaggerated, but finally steps back, rubbing a hand over his face as you turn toward the stove. “I do have a study on nutritional deficiencies and cognitive function bookmarked somewhere.”

You glance at him over your shoulder, raising an eyebrow. “You have studies bookmarked on everything.”

Spencer shrugs, completely unapologetic, and moves to lean against the counter beside you, watching as you pull out a frying pan. He doesn’t help—doesn’t even pretend to help—but he does reach for the bag of coffee grounds again, refilling your mug and his, making himself useful in the way he always does.

“You want eggs?” you ask, already cracking one against the rim of the pan.

He hums, peering into the fridge. “Only if you make them the way I like.”

“You mean, as you proclaimed the first time you stayed over, the right way?”

“Yes,” he says simply.

Neither of you mention how he burned them immediately after, distracted by kissing you in the early light filtering through the curtains of the kitchen window.

You huff, but it’s all affection, and he knows it.

Spencer doesn’t sit while you cook. He doesn’t retreat to the table or get lost in a book. He stays right here, a constant presence at your side, sipping his coffee, occasionally nudging your hip with his when you get too focused.

When you plate the food, he takes his with an approving nod. “See? Perfectly cooked.”

“They;re just scrambled, picky,” you tease, nudging him toward the kitchen table with your hip.

Spencer grins, mouth full of toast. “I have standards.”

You snort, setting your plate down across from him. “Oh, I know. That’s why you’re dating me.”

He swallows, takes a sip of coffee, and then, without missing a beat, says, “No, I’m dating you because I’m in love with you.”

Your breath catches.

He says it so easily.

No hesitation. No grand declaration. Just a fact, spoken between bites of breakfast, like it’s something he’s known for years.

You blink, lips parting slightly, and Spencer—Spencer, who notices everything—tilts his head, eyes softening.

“Hey,” he murmurs, reaching across the table, brushing his fingers against yours. “I didn’t mean to—”

“No,” you say quickly, shaking your head, covering his hand with yours. “No, I—I just—”

You exhale, glancing down at where your hands meet, at the gentle press of his fingers against yours. Then, quieter: “I love you, too.”

The corner of his mouth lifts, slow, small, but full of something deep, something certain.

“I know,” he murmurs, thumb tracing slow circles against your skin. “But I still like hearing it.”

And so you say it again, just for him.

Just because he likes hearing it.

“I love you.” Spencer smiles.

After breakfast, Spencer lingers at the table while you move about the apartment, rinsing dishes, wiping crumbs from the counter. It’s a soft sort of silence. When you pass by him, his hand brushes against your hip, absentminded but full of intent, a touch that says I know you’re here. I know you’re mine.

You catch his wrist, squeezing gently before letting go.

Neither of you speak as you make your way toward the bedroom, but Spencer follows, because of course he does. Because his place is beside you, moving with you, orbiting within the same small universe.

Inside, the morning light has stretched further across the bed, creeping in golden streaks over the fabric. The air is warm with the scent of sleep, of coffee, of him.

Spencer moves first, tugging his sweater over his head and tossing it onto the bed. His hair goes staticky, curls fluffed from the fabric, and you reach out instinctively, smoothing them back into place. He stills beneath your touch, the corners of his lips twitching.

“You’re going to make it worse,” he murmurs.

“Probably.” You grin, carding your fingers through the strands anyway, just for the sake of touching him.

Spencer huffs a laugh, but he doesn’t move away.

You let him slip his fingers beneath the hem of your shirt, lifting it over your head in one fluid motion. Let him reach for the zipper of your trousers, sliding it down with the same care you’d shown him.

There’s nothing rushed about it.

Nothing frantic, nothing heated. Just this. Just hands smoothing over fabric, fingers brushing against skin in passing, the quiet, unspoken promise of I know you. I love you. Let me show you.

Spencer tilts his head, gaze flickering down, not to your lips, but to the hollow of your throat, where your pulse flutters beneath your skin. He watches it like a scholar studying something precious like he’s measuring the exact rhythm of you, the precise way you exist in this moment.

And then, with all the patience in the world, he leans in.

Not rushed. Not desperate. Like he has all the time in the world to memorize you.

His lips brush your jaw first—so soft it could almost be nothing, just a breath, just a thought of touch. Then, lower, trailing warmth along the delicate line of your neck, the curve of your shoulder.

Your fingers find his wrists, not to stop him, but to hold him there, to feel the heat of him seeping into your skin.

You shift—not much, just enough to press closer, enough to let your forehead rest against his, enough to let his breath mingle with yours.

His hands slide higher, fingertips grazing the curve of your ribs, the warmth of his palms bleeding through the fabric like sunlight through frosted glass.

Like he understands, without either of you saying it, that this is the sacred part. Not the wanting, not even the having, but the holding. The staying.

He presses his lips to your temple, soft and sure, and you feel it—the weight of love settling between your ribs, deep and real.

“I want you,” he murmurs, voice low, full of something aching.

You shudder, your fingers tightening around his wrists. “You have me,” you whisper.

Spencer swallows, pressing his forehead against yours again, his hands gripping you just a little tighter as he breathes you in.

You feel his adoration in the way he moves—hesitant, reverent. Like he’s unraveling you thread by thread, pulling you apart just to piece you back together in the way only he knows how.

His fingers ghost over the curve of your waist, not grasping, not pulling, just feeling.

Your breath catches when he finally presses closer, the full weight of him sinking into you, a slow collapse into something inevitable. His body is warm, radiating heat like a fever, like a star burning too close to your skin. You curl your fingers into the fabric of his shirt, twisting it tight in your grip, grounding yourself in the weight of him.

He exhales against your jaw, warm and unsteady.

“Look at me,” he murmurs.

You do.

And god, it’s unbearable—the way his eyes search yours, wide and dark and pleading.

His breath stutters when you reach up, cradling his face in your hands, fingertips skimming the sharp angle of his cheekbone. He leans into your touch like it’s instinct, his lashes fluttering, his lips parting slightly, his chest rising and falling in time with yours.

“Spencer,” you whisper, his name slipping from your lips like a prayer.

He answers you with a kiss.

Not rushed, not desperate. His lips move against yours, unhurried but insistent, a careful exploration, a patient claiming. His nose brushes yours, his breath mingling with yours, the quiet sounds of longing pressing into the spaces between you.

You sigh into his mouth, and he shudders, his fingers tightening against your ribs.

“Again,” he whispers.

So you kiss him again. And again. And again.

Until the space between you is nothing, until your bodies are tangled in sheets and sighs and whispered names, until everything is breath and warmth and wanting.

His hands find yours, fingers threading together, clinging, pressing, grounding. His forehead rests against yours, his breath uneven, his body trembling with the weight of this.

“I want you,” he whispers, voice wrecked, shaking, repeating himself.

You tighten your grip on his hands, pulling him closer. “I know,” you breathe. “I know.”

And when he moves again, when his lips find yours with a new kind of urgency, you know—you feel it in your bones—this isn’t just wanting. It’s everything.

Spencer kisses you like he’s searching for something.

Like the answer to every unsolvable equation is pressed between your lips, tucked beneath your tongue, hidden in the soft give of your sighs.

And you let him.

Because you know this—this rhythm, this language you’ve built together. The slow pull of hands over fabric, the careful way he unravels you. The heat that grows between you, steady and unrelenting, like a pot left to boil over.

Spencer exhales sharply when your fingers find the sharp ridge of his collarbone. You press your lips there, breathing him in, and he shivers.

Spencer is reaching for you again, already fitting his hands to the curve of your back, already tilting his head to press open-mouthed kisses to your shoulder, your throat, the place just beneath your ear that makes you sigh.

“We’re going to be late,” you murmur, though you don’t mean it.

Spencer hums, his lips still pressed against your skin. “I don’t care.”

You laugh—a breathy, delighted sound that he swallows with his next kiss, his hands smoothing over your ribs, pressing warmth into your skin.

His trousers slide lower on his hips, and he makes a sound—low, breathless, almost dazed.

And then—“I’m sorry,” he murmurs suddenly, against the corner of your mouth.

You blink, pulse stuttering. “For what?”

“For all the times I haven’t been here.” His fingers tighten at your waist, like he’s grounding himself in the weight of you, in the proof that you are here. “For leaving. For missing too much. For—”

You don’t let him finish.

You press your lips to his, pouring everything into it—forgiveness, love, understanding.

When you break apart, your voice is quiet but sure. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

Spencer exhales, shaky and relieved, and then—

Then he laughs, something soft and breathless, because you’ve pushed his trousers past his hips and now they’re tangled around his ankles, and it’s clumsy, and it’s human, and neither of you can bring yourselves to care.

Your own clothes follow, piece by piece, scattered and forgotten, because this is more important.

Spencer is warm everywhere, all golden skin and careful hands and parted lips. He hovers over you, his breath fanning over your cheek, his fingers tracing slow, reverent paths down your arms, your sides, like he’s still memorizing you.

And when you reach for him, guiding him closer, pulling him in, he exhales a sound—soft, broken, something like ah, like yes, like finally.

You sigh into him, arching, meeting him where he waits, and the warmth between you turns molten, turns necessary.

Spencer presses his forehead to yours, his breath uneven, his fingers twining with yours in the sheets.

“I love you,” he whispers.

And you—You're lost in the heat, the smell of him. The gentle movement as there's nothing left but you and him and him and him.

"Ah, Spencer," you breathe, and he shushes you.

"I know, I know."

It's quiet, it's breathy laughs, it's warmth building building buildig until something cracks - it has to, it's necessary, it's perfect and lovely and hot honey dripping down your thighs to gather into something greater, something perfect, something more.

It should be impossible, the way you fit together.

Like something sculpted by hands that knew what they were doing, shaping flesh and bone with deliberate care, pressing you into each other until there is no separation, no beginning or end. A seamless thing. Thread looping over itself, over and over and over into infinity. Until it cannot be separated from itself, until it is one ball of mass and moving and friction.

Heat and pressure and warmth build into something more, more more. Spencer is calling your name as if you are lost, you're grasping his back to remind him you're right here.

He tumbles and you're stuck on the edge, unable to follow. It's a brilliant thing, watching him. Eyes screwed shut, tightly. Breath coming out in spurts and spasms. Love, love, love. Pouring out of him and into you.

It's warm, so so warm, and nearly enough to send you to the place of glass shattering and pleasure fluttering and complete unity.

It isn't until Spencer's hips are faltering that he notices you there, hanging on the precipice of masterpieces yet unknown.

"Oh, lovely. I've got you, it's me. I'm here, I've got you," whispered reassurances pressed into your hair, your ear, your cheek, as he moves.

And you fall after him, tumbling down into something safe and known and foreign and unlearnable.

When you clatter back onto Earth, Spencer is warm against you, chest rising and falling in the slow, steady rhythm of shared breath. His fingers—long, elegant, familiar—trace mindless patterns against your arm, mapping you the way he memorizes pages, theories, entire histories. As if you are something to be learned, something to be understood.

As if he hasn’t already written you into the marrow of his bones.

Your limbs are tangled in the sheets, in each other, some quiet aftershock of connection humming between your skin. He shifts, pressing a lazy kiss to your temple, the edge of your jaw, the corner of your lips, his breath still heavy with you.

Whole. Uninterrupted.

Until—

A loud grumble splits the silence, echoing off the walls.

Spencer stills.

You blink.

And then—

Your stomach rumbles again, louder this time, an undignified protest against your distraction.

Spencer bursts into laughter.

It’s warm, breathless, human, cracking through the solemn weight of the moment like lightning through a storm. He drops his head against your shoulder, shaking with it, his entire body vibrating with amusement.

“Oh my God,” you groan, covering your face with your hands.

Spencer’s still laughing when he rolls onto his back, his hand dragging down his face as he tries to compose himself. He fails, utterly, letting out another breathy chuckle before turning his head to look at you.

“I’m sorry,” he says between soft huffs of breath, his eyes bright with mirth. “It was just—so poetic, so profound—and then your stomach actually growled.”

You peek at him between your fingers. “You're going to give me shit when you essentially did the same thing earlier?" You ask, aghast. Spencer nods his head, cheeky smile overtaking his face.

You groan again, but it’s half-hearted, because Spencer is still laughing, and it’s the kind of sound you’d willingly make a fool of yourself for, over and over again, just to hear it.

"Did you not have any of your stellar eggs?" Spencer asks, pulling away from you.

You both wince as connection is lost, resisting the urge to pull him back in again, to be selfish and keep the warmth of him near.

He stretches, arms raised above his head, back cracking. You stay still, stretched across the bed as he moves into your bathroom and wets a washcloth.

"No, I don't really like scrambled."

Spencer hesitates, at the foot of the bed, one knee propped up on the edge. "What?" He asks, frozen, still as a statue.

"I'll eat them but this morning they were too eggy."

"Too eggy," Spencer mutters, voice aghast, cleaning you before pinching your thigh playfully. "Come on, time to get you to work."

The moment lingers, shifting into something softer, something easy.

And then—

You’re standing in the kitchen, hours later, Spencer in his undershirt, stirring a pot of something that smells like warmth, like home.

Your stomach grumbles again.

Spencer smirks, not even turning around. “Should I start reciting poetry, or—”

You throw a dish towel at him.

||||

There is the weight of Spencer pressed against you in the morning, the heat of his breath on your skin, the steady rhythm of his fingers tracing patterns into your ribs. And then there is the cold side of the bed, the imprint of him faded from the sheets, the silence of an empty apartment that settles like dust in your lungs.

He’s gone.

Not forever. Neer forever.

But the difference between knowing something and feeling it is vast, and this morning, you feel it.

The bed is too big. The air is too still. The coffee is too bitter without his absentminded habit of adding too much sugar to the pot when he thinks you aren’t looking.

His absence moves through the space like a ghost, turning everyday things into echoes of him.

A book left open on the table, spine cracked, a scrap of paper sticking out with notes in the margins.

A half-full mug beside the sink. He always assures you he'll finish it later but never does. You don't mind, savoring the reminder of him when he leaves in the middle of the day with little notice.

The sweater he left draped over the back of a chair, smelling like warmth, like him, like something undone.

You exhale, pressing your fingers to the edge of the table as if grounding yourself, as if it might keep you tethered.

You knew this would happen.

It always does—cases that stretch into days, weeks, phone calls that come at odd hours, the sound of his voice wrapped in exhaustion and apologies, the waiting, the not-knowing.

You reach for your own coffee, cradling it between your palms, letting the heat seep into your fingers.

Your phone buzzes. A message. Short, simple.

Spencer: I miss you.

The breath in your chest stutters.

Your fingers hover over the keyboard, a response forming before you can even think about it.

You: I miss you too. It’s too quiet here.

Three dots appear. Pause. Disappear.

You wait, staring at the screen, willing the space between you to close, even just a little.

Spencer: I’ll call you tonight. Stay in my sweater until then.

You let out a breath, something soft, something caught between a laugh and a sigh. You reach for it, slipping it over your shoulders, wrapping yourself in the remnants of warmth.

It’s not the same.

But for now, it will have to be enough.

||||

The door unlocks with a quiet click.

You don’t move right away.

You should—should stand, should cross the room, should meet him in the doorway. But instead, you sit still, curled into the couch, the weight of waiting still heavy in your limbs, pressing you down.

Footsteps. Familiar, careful.

“Hey,” Spencer murmurs, quiet, hesitant, like he isn’t sure if you’re asleep, if he should wake you, if he’s allowed to break the silence.

You inhale sharply, and that’s what does it—what snaps the moment in two. You push up from the couch, feet hitting the floor, your body moving before your mind catches up.

You are in his arms.

He exhales sharply at the impact, his bag slipping from his shoulder, his arms wrapping around you with something desperate, something relieved, like he’s been waiting for this moment just as much as you have.

The scent of him—faint cologne, the sterile bite of too many hotels, the quiet warmth that is Spencer—hits you all at once. You press your face into his shoulder, fingers curling into the fabric of his jacket, holding tight.

“You’re back,” you breathe, and it’s obvious, unnecessary, but you need to say it, need to hear it, need to confirm it.

Spencer laughs—soft, exhausted, fond. “I’m back.”

You feel the words vibrate through him, feel the shape of them beneath your hands, the weight of them settling between your ribs.

“Did you miss me?” You laugh, a quiet, breathy thing, your grip tightening on his jacket.

“Not at all,” you say, pulling back just enough to look at him, to see him. His face is tired, his eyes a little shadowed, but there’s something soft there, something bright just beneath the surface.

His lips twitch. “Liar.”

You hum, tilting your chin up just slightly, brushing your nose against his, letting the warmth between you settle.

“Say it anyway,” he murmurs.

So you do. “I missed you, Spence.”

His breath stumbles and he kisses you.

It’s not rushed. It’s not desperate. It’s homecoming, warmth where there was once cold. It’s touch where there was once absence. It’s the quiet, certain return of something that never really left.

It takes a while for Spencer to let go and, even when he does, he keeps a hand on you. Not even after the kiss fades into breaths, not even after his bag is abandoned by the door, not even after you’ve guided him toward the couch, pressing your hands to his shoulders until he sinks into the cushions with a sigh.

You don’t ask him about the case.

Not yet.

Instead, you move around him, nudging his shoes off with your foot, smoothing his hair back from his face, pressing your fingers into the stiff muscles at the back of his neck. His eyes flutter shut, and he exhales slow, like he’s unspooling one spiraling thread at a time.

“You look exhausted,” you murmur, brushing your knuckles over his cheek.

“I feel worse,” he admits, cracking one eye open to look at you. “I think I might actually be a ghost.”

You hum, tilting your head. Slowly, you press a finger into the center of his chest, thumping it against his sternum twice. “I don’t know, you feel pretty solid to me.”

Spencer lets out a breathy chuckle, shaking his head. “Okay, fine. Maybe I’m only part ghost.” He waves a hand in the air, "I hover between realms, or whatever those silly books you read would say."

“Well,” you say, ignoring the dig at your admittedly less-academic reading preferences, pressing your lips to his temple, lingering, “if you were a ghost, you’d be a talkative one. Following me around, rambling about hauntings and historic criminal cases—”

Spencer scoffs. “I’d be a great ghost.”

“Would you?”

“I’d be an educational ghost.”

You snort, letting your fingers trail down his arm, wrapping your hand around his wrist, pressing against the pulse there. “I think I prefer you educational and alive.”

Spencer smiles, but it’s softer now, more worn, and when he leans into you, it’s not just playful—it’s relief.

You shift, curling into him, letting him fold himself against you like he’s been waiting for it for days. He buries his face against your shoulder, his breath warm against your skin, and you feel the tension still lingering in him, the weight of something else.

Something he’s not saying. So you just hold him.

One hand drifts into his hair, threading through the soft curls, the other smoothing over his back, steady, slow. His fingers flex against your side, gripping, holding, grounding. He sighs, deep, exhausted, pressing closer like he’s trying to escape something.

You kiss the crown of his head. “You don’t have to tell me,” you whisper. “But you can.”

Spencer is quiet for a long moment, his breathing uneven, his fingers still pressed into your skin. “The case was a little boy,” he murmurs, barely above a breath. “He lost his—” His voice wavers, and he swallows hard. “His whole family. We nearly didn't find him in time."

It's the most he can give you, the most that the public has probably heard, too, but it's enough to impress upon you the true horrors he's facing.

You close your eyes, tightening your arms around him. “Spencer.”

He shakes his head, shifting just enough to rest his forehead against your collarbone. “I just—I keep thinking about him. How small he looked. How scared.”

You press your lips together, blinking hard, willing yourself to keep it together for him. “I’m sorry,” you whisper, voice thick. “I know that doesn’t help, but I am.”

Spencer exhales shakily, nodding against your skin. “It helps.”

You don’t know if that’s true, but you keep holding him anyway. Keep smoothing your hands down his back, keep whispering his name, keep pressing your lips to his temple, his cheek, the corner of his mouth, like you can will the heaviness away.

“I’ve got you,” you murmur against his skin. “You’re home.”

Spencer lets out a slow, shuddering breath. “Yeah,” he whispers. “I am.”

Spencer doesn't move much, pressed against you, letting himself be held. His breathing steadies, his hands no longer gripping like he’s afraid of being pulled away.

You shift, just slightly, pressing your cheek against the top of his head. “You wanna do something mindless for a bit? Watch bad TV? Read a book with no footnotes? Stare at a wall together?”

Spencer snorts, muffled against your skin. “Tempting.”

“I'm very persuasive when I want to be.”

“That’s one word for it.”

You pull back just enough to look at him, narrowing your eyes. “Excuse me?”

Spencer finally lifts his head, and there’s something lighter in his expression now, the weight of the case still lingering, but no longer pressing quite so hard against the edges of his mind.

He shifts, settling further into the couch, his knee bumping against yours. “You bullied me into watching a terrible documentary about haunted dolls last time I came back from a case.”

Your mouth falls open in offense. “It was informative!”

Spencer levels you with a flat look. “It was ninety minutes of a guy holding up dolls to the camera and whispering ‘Do you hear that?’”

You press your lips together, fighting back a laugh. “Okay, maybe it wasn’t the most scientific—”

“There was a scene transition shaped like a skull.”

“You didn’t have to watch it!”

Spencer gestures at himself dramatically. “I was physically incapacitated by exhaustion!”

You shove at his shoulder, laughing now, and he catches your wrist easily, pressing a quick, warm kiss to the inside of it before letting you go. The gesture is so easy, so thoughtless, that your chest goes tight with it.

Spencer sighs, shifting so he’s half-leaning against you again, pressing his forehead briefly to your shoulder before pulling back. “But,” he admits, softer now, “it was kind of nice. Sitting with you. Not thinking for a bit.”

You hum, tucking your legs beneath you, leaning into his warmth. “I am great at the whole ‘not thinking’ thing.”

Spencer huffs a laugh. “That’s not what I meant.”

“You sure? I distinctly remember you asking me how I manage to not overanalyze things while I was eating a bowl of cereal the other day.”

“That was—” He pauses, brows knitting together. “Okay, yes, but that’s because you were reading the cereal box like it was literature.”

“It was a compelling narrative, Spencer.”

He tilts his head. “The ingredients list?”

“The lucky leprechaun’s backstory,” you clarify.

Spencer just stares at you.

You grin, nudging his knee. “It’s called escapism, genius.”

Spencer shakes his head, exhaling something close to a laugh-sigh, then shifts again, tucking himself more comfortably against your side.

"Unless you're calling me dumb," you muse, not ready to give up teasing him. He takes the bait easily.

"I would never say that-"

"i'm pretty certain that's what I'm hearing."

"Absolutely not." You sit silently, humming dramatically, hoping for a compliment that you're sure is to come. "You're one of the smartest people I've met, actually. That's why your taste in books and documentaries appalls me."

"You're good at groveling, Dr. Reid."

He doesn't answer, chuckling and pressing his lips against your shoulder in response instead.

After a moment, his fingers brush against yours, hesitant for only a second before twining them together. Quiet settles between you again—not heavy this time, not suffocating. Just easy. Just you and him. Spencer squeezes your fingers lightly, voice soft when he speaks again.

“You make coming home easy.”

Your throat goes tight, and you squeeze back. The shift in tone is palpable. You long to linger in the feeling of warmth and safety and the earnest way he mumbles it. “Good,” you murmur, pressing your forehead to his temple. “Because you are home.”

Spencer exhales, slow and steady. “Yeah,” he whispers. “I know.”

You don’t move immediately after Spencer settles against you, letting his weight sink into the couch, his fingers loosely tangled with yours. He’s relaxed now, softer, the weight of the week still lingering in his tired eyes but no longer pressing quite so hard on his shoulders.

It’s the perfect time to strike.

You reach for the remote, flicking through streaming options with intense purpose.

Spencer glances at you, suspicious. “What are you doing?”

“Putting something on to help you unwind.”

His eyes narrow. “What kind of something?”

You hum innocently. “Oh, you’ll see.”

Spencer watches as you select a YouTube documentary—one you know is riddled with inaccuracies, one that will absolutely send him into a spiral.

The second the dramatic narration begins, Spencer physically tenses.

You stifle a smile. You watched it when he was gone, something mind-numbing after a long day at work, and have been waiting to see his reaction to the ridiculous claims of the conspiracies.

The documentary wastes no time getting things wrong.

A sweeping shot of pyramids. An ominous, overly intense musical score. And then, in bold, serious tones:

"The ancient Egyptians, known for their fascination with aliens—"

Spencer inhales sharply, head snapping toward you, eyes wide with horror. “Their fascination with WHAT?”

You shrug, biting your lip. “Aliens, love. Keep up.”

Spencer throws his hands in the air. “Ancient Egyptian society was a highly advanced civilization with remarkable achievements in engineering, mathematics, and medicine—why does everything have to be aliens?”

You pat his knee comfortingly. “Shh. The experts are speaking.”

He turns back to the screen just in time to hear the narrator say:

"Some theorists believe the Sphinx was originally a statue of a dog, not a lion."

Spencer physically jolts, glaring at you again.

“A dog?” he scoffs.

You bite back laughter. “I don’t know, Spence. It kinda looks like a dog if you squint.”

He looks betrayed. “It doesn't. I know you don't think it does.”

You hum thoughtfully, pretending to study the screen. “Maybe, like, a bulldog?”

Spencer presses the heels of his palms into his eyes like he’s in pain. Give me the remote. There's a better, actual documentary, about 1940s Germany that I wanted to show you instead of this-” he gestures toward the screen, "garbage."

You grin, nudging his side. “Oh, you love it.”

“I do not—”

A new segment starts, this one even worse, featuring a so-called “historian” confidently stating that the Romans invented cheese.

Spencer makes a noise nearly resembling a laugh and you know you've got him.

“No they didn't," he says, deadpan, shaking his head and clicking off of the video.

You lose it. You cackle, curling into his side, shaking with laughter as Spencer queues up an actual documentary, switching on subtitles for you.

“I hate you,” he mutters, but his voice is fond, his arm still wrapped tight around you.

“No, you don’t,” you tease, leaning into him.

He sighs dramatically, dropping a kiss to the top of your head.

“No,” he murmurs, softer now. “I really don’t.”

And just like that, the warmth settles back between you, easy and earned.

Even if he’s still muttering about the Sphinx as the documentary starts.

You settle down like that, listening as Spencer adds his own interesting facts to the documentary. This is home, wholly and truly, sitting on this couch next to him.

You're sure to ask questions, keep him talking, until he falls asleep, missing the sound of his voice the second he dozes off.

#fic recs #that should be me #fic motherfucking recs

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