#he's been elevated to another friend category

[stingslikeabee]

The news of Melissa's birthday had hit him too quickly. Given two months — sure, Reno might have been able to come up with something spectacular. The only Birthday related things the Turk had planned for anyone was that for his partner, so needless to say he had no clue what to give a woman as a present. He leaned on the women at the HoneyBee Inn for assistance, and after several hours of batting around ideas Reno decided to be true to himself. Partly. Rarely did the Turk take any days off from work, but he decided to cash in on the yearly opportunity to take two days off. An all expenses trip to the Golden Saucer for both he and Melissa had been purchased; that was entirely up the red head's alley. As for something that leaned more towards Melissa's taste, Reno opted for a dress.

It felt like a quick and easy answer, but it had been neither when it came to decided the details of the dress. That required a great deal of input from the honeybees such as choice of colour and, more importantly, dress size. As expensive as one ticket was the dress. It looked pretty enough, he supposed, and it was damn expensive. Delivered in a sleek black box by rush delivery, the dress within was full length and of shimmering emerald. Reno was told green and browns worked well together. The honeybees had also emphasized the importance of accessories, but Reno was not about to rip out his perfect hairs over such trivial matters. Golden Saucer ticket was set inside a plain envelope, and it was attached to the topside of the dress box. He waited for her, not quite in the lobby but neither in her private living area either. Box was held vertically against his body, pinned by his arm, and in his other hand a bottle of expensive champagne was held by the neck. Not Reno's taste, of course, but it was all for the birthday girl.

unscripted asks - birthday edition! . always accepting

Melissa had taught her girls well - preparations for her birthday had been done right under her nose and she failed to detect anything amiss; after all, the inn was always buzzing with excitement for one thing or another and historically there had been some surprise celebrations. The madame had merely chalked it up to some of their usual mischief - after all, the queen's birthday was just another regular day for a place that seemingly never closed.

But Reno - that the Turk had been involved took the brunette by surprise. The giggling of her own staff coupled with the redhead's grin and the visible offerings in honor of her birthday suddenly turned obvious and Melissa laughed freely, even if in slight disbelief of it all. By the size of the box, it was clear that Shinra's most charismatic employee had gone to some trouble for her, and it evidently pleased the madame.

But the envelope was the one that did it - expensive dresses and top-shelf champagne were always appreciated, but things Melissa could have access to within her little kingdom. But the Golden Saucer? The woman had never left Midgar - it was impossible to make it out and back when one was originally from the slums and without the right papers or chaperoned by one that had the power to do so.

And maybe the reaction was slightly unbecoming of her (and the age that the inn proprietress boasted) - but the realization of what Reno had offered as a birthday present had the woman suddenly hugging him without any concern for appearances. It was a tight, heartfelt embrace and one that ended with a trademark lipstick stain on Reno's cheek - luckily he has more than enough balance and grace to prevent any accidents with the champagne that hadn't even been touched yet.

"I should ask for your head - how dare you conspire with my own subjects? At this point I'm afraid they will like you more than they love me," the brunette replied with an obviously comical tone - the smile on her face, the blush on Melissa's cheeks and the childlike excitement at the idea of the trip were all pointing towards her gratitude, of course. She was no evil monarch asking for beheadings when she was blindsided with a surprise - Wall Market had one tyrannical ruler already.

"I'm only joking, of course. Come with me, you need to help me pack. I've never been up there before and I'm in need of your expert advice. We can drink as we go and you can see how well the dress fits," Melissa offered by means of an invitation that couldn't be refused, pulling Reno towards her by the hand and taking them both towards her room - not just an empty one, but her living quarters; the queen's inner sanctum.

That was how much the Turk had come to mean to her - a friend, perhaps the best one she had. Very few would be willing to go the extra mile like Reno did when Melissa was already bound by their unofficial partnership to be of service to Tseng (and therefore, Shinra). And to show her appreciation, the madame kissed Reno again - on the opposite cheek, hard enough to stain his skin.

"For symmetry," she clarified, with barely contained laughter. Well, if anything, Reno could be sure his traveling companion would be in high spirits. Definitely one of the best birthdays ever in Melissa's book, and it had barely started.

#bitterarcs #v: FFVII #birthday shenanigans 2023! #replied #I cannot stress how much this means #he's been elevated to another friend category #she will only let go of his arm if he sees a suitable guy to chase #(then she will gladly step aside haha)

[fortheloveofwonderland]

No Distance Left to Run | Part 5 | S.R

Previous Part

Chapter Summary - Spencer puts his hatred for Cat aside in order to try and save you before it’s too late. But even if he manages to get you back from the clutches of her partner, can the two of you really have a future?

Pairing - Spencer Reid / BAU Fem! Reader

Category - friends to lovers | mutual pining | angst with happy ending | smut minors DNI

Warnings - spoilers for 14.08 Ashley, hostage situation, guns, swearing, talk of miscarriage (canon compliant), vomit, blood.

WC - 8.2k

Part 5 - Red Light, Green Light

Present Day

“We need to talk.”

“No we don’t.”

“Yes, we do.” 

Your eyes fluttered, your brain flitting between consciousness and sleep. You tried to fight to stay awake but you were just so tired.

“We need to talk.”

“No we don’t.”

“Yes, we do.” 

The dark haired woman was still playing on her phone, feet up on the counter. The bracelet was sitting on the corner of it, tauntingly sparkling at you. 

She wouldn’t tell you how she’d come to be in possession of it, of course she wouldn’t. But it made you fear what had happened to Spencer. 

He was the last person who had it, what had this woman done to get her hands on? Was he here? Was he being held in another room? Was he…dead? 

“We need to talk.”

“No we don’t.”

“Yes, we do.” 

Images kept flashing before your lids every time your eyes fluttered closed. Shimmers of gold and twinkling lights. Large, spherical golden orbs hanging from the ceiling, strings of fairy lights illuminating the otherwise drab BAU lobby.

“We need to talk.” Spencer sidled up to you, whispering so no one else would hear. 

“No we don’t.” You kept your eyes focused on the elevator shaft, gripping your champagne flute tightly in your hand. 

“Yes, we do.” He hissed and then you felt his hand on your back as he started leading you away. 

You’d just arrived back from a case in New Hampshire where little girls were being abducted after their parents were killed with the unsub trying to rehome the girls with more “worthy” parents. 

It was Spencer’s last case before he took a sabbatical to teach classes at the university and honestly you’d been quietly looking forward to him being gone. 

It had been nearly three months since the night in Varnville and the tension between you was close to reaching fever pitch. 

“Now is really not the time.” You spat as he continued to lead you down the corridor. 

“Yeah well there has never been a good time.” He removed his hand from you as soon as you were far enough away from the others. 

“Spencer, Rossi and Krystall are imminently going to come up in the elevator and either they will be engaged or Rossi will be crushed. Either way we need to be there.” You huffed, half wondering if you might crush your champagne glass with the grip you were holding it in. 

“I can’t keep doing this, Y/N. It’s been months of you giving me the cold shoulder. The team knows something is up, they’ve been asking questions. I…I miss you.” He softened, his eyes full of sorrow. “I miss my best friend.” 

You swallowed thickly, loosening the grip on your glass a little. 

“I miss mine too.” You admitted. “But every time I look at you, I am flooded with guilt, Spencer. What we did…it should never have happened.” 

“I just want us to be ok again.” He rolled his lip between his teeth. 

“So do I.” You nodded. 

“At least we can agree on something.” He offered you a slightly wistful smile. 

“It’s going to take time though, Spencer. For us to get back to how things used to be.” 

“But we can try?” He asked, hopefully. 

“Yeah,” you sighed a little. “We can try.” 

“She said yes!” Rossi’s voice suddenly carried down the hall followed in quick succession by cheers of congratulations. 

You went to pass Spencer to hurry back to the festivities but he stopped you with a hand on your shoulder.

The look he gave you said so much. There were so many things he wanted to say to you, you could tell he was struggling to pick just one. 

Eventually he sighed and simply whispered, “you’re too good for him” before turning away from you and walking away. 

“I think it’s time we up the ante, don’t you?” 

Your heavy eyes shot back open at the sound of her voice. She was on her feet, her phone dangling from one hand. 

“Just tell me what you want.” You groaned, your throat was so dry. 

“I already told you. For you to see what he’s really like.” She scowled at you like you were a misbehaved child. 

“I don’t know what that means.” You tugged on your bindings. 

“Do you think they’ll find you?” She cocked an eyebrow at you. 

“Wh-who?” You frowned at her change of subject. 

“Your team. SSA’s Emily Prentiss, Jennifer Jareau, David Rossi, Tara Lewis, Luke Alvez and Matt Simmons? And that’s not to forget technical analyst Penelope Garcia and of course Doctor Spencer Reid.” 

“Bravo, you know my team's names.” You rolled your tired eyes. 

“Do you think they’ll find you?” She repeated. 

“While I’m alive?” You huffed. “Or after you kill me?” 

Her lip twitched up at the corner in a wry smile. She pocketed her phone and moved back over towards the camera on the edge of the counter. She pressed a button and the bright red light illuminated. 

“It’s time we talked about why you’re here. Cat Adams wants you to know what your lover boy is really like.”

***

“Goddamnit,” Spencer groaned when he almost lost his footing for the hundredth time.

To his right came the sound of Cat’s playful giggle. 

“I figured a genius like you would have a mathematical equation or some kind of scientific theory for this.” She snickered. 

“Gravity dictates that my body is naturally being drawn towards the floor.” Spencer huffed. 

“It has nothing to do with your gangly and uncoordinated limbs?” She laughed again. 

“I’m not gangly.” He grumbled, wobbling again on his roller skates. 

“You can’t skate backwards?” She chirruped, showing off her skills, keeping her eyes on his as she expertly manoeuvred herself backwards on the skates. 

“I can barely go forward.” He scoffed. 

“You need to keep your head up.” 

Spencer pulled a face but did as she said, lifting his head, rolling it back a little too far and he stumbled again. 

Cat laughed, quickly skating to his aid and grabbing him before he could hit the floor. 

“Not that far.” She linked her arm through his, keeping him upright and slowly started to move them both on the rink. “Is someone having fun? I’m having fun.”

Spencer’s hand was on top of hers which rested on his forearm. He didn’t think he meant to put it there. He glanced at her and she glanced at him. He couldn’t speak, so Cat continued. 

“If your stupid chaperones weren’t here, I’d ask the DJ to put on some Savage Garden for the guy-girl skate and we could totally make out.” Her tone was teasing but it made Spencer’s chest constrict. 

He stumbled a little at the mere thought as she let go of him so she could look at him. 

“You, uh, you realise what I have to do, right?” He fought to keep his balance, 

“Uhm lemme think. Ask me a bunch of pointed questions and hope that I trip up?” She rolled her eyes, skating backwards again like it was the easiest thing in the world. 

“What happened to your baby?” He asked, arms flailing a little. 

“What?” She frowned. 

“The last time I saw you, you were pregnant with someone else's baby that you said was mine.” Spencer shrugged but it threw his balance off again and he stumbled before managing to correct himself, 

“Why are you asking me about that? I don’t wanna talk about that.” Her tone suddenly turned defensive. 

“Hormonal changes during pregnancy expand the brain's capacity for empathy. I was actually just trying to see if I could use it against you.” 

“Oh really? What about, um, sex?” She suddenly skated closer to him, really close. Soon her whole body was pressed against his and her arms were wrapping around his neck. “Why don’t you use that against me?”

He instinctively held her by the waist whilst swallowing thickly. She noticed the shift in his eyes, could see exactly what he was thinking about. 

She pulled herself away and shook her head angrily. And then she was raising her arm and her palm collided with the side of Spencer’s face in a slap that echoed around the roller rink. 

Spencer fell to the ground on his knees, hissing at the sensation of the hard floor slamming into his old injury. 

He looked up to see her standing over him, her eyes dark with rage. 

“You can’t even give me five minutes? Five minutes where you aren’t thinking about her?” She spat before she was turning effortlessly and skating away, 

“Cat!” Spencer tried to scabble to his feet. “Cat, wait!” 

By the time he got himself up she was already off the rink, sitting by the side and working her feet out of her skates. 

He managed to push himself towards the edge and used the little wall to guide himself to the opening in the rink. 

“She’ll never love you.” Cat spat harshly, standing back up once she had the skates off. “Not like you love her.” 

“You’re going to make sure of that right?” Spencer rolled his lip between his teeth. “That’s what this is about. “You want Y/N to be scared of me the way she is of her husband.” 

Cat’s expression didn’t change, she was always so hard to read even for a seasoned profiler. 

“I don’t want to talk about her.” Cat folded her arms. “If you can’t go five minutes without thinking about her while you’re here with me then this date is over. Wrap it up boys.” 

Spencer clenched his jaw, glancing over his shoulder towards Luke in the booth and shook his head subtly. 

“You have my undivided attention, I promise.” Spencer spoke as he looked back at her. 

“I don’t believe you.” Cat shook her head. 

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to prove it to you.” He shrugged, powerlessly. 

“You’re pathetic, do you know that?” She surprised him with her words. 

“How so?” He humoured her. 

“Pining after a married woman all these years.” She clucked. 

“Yeah well I think you know enough about her to know that he’s out of the way now. You’ve had eyes on her, your partner, Juliette, she’s been stalking her. When Jared was arrested you found your perfect time to strike, the perfect leverage over me.

She was at Rossi’s wedding, I remember her. She overheard me talking about Y/N and what happened to her husband and the fact that I have feelings for her. And now you want to use that against me, you want her to hate me because me and my team had Lindsey arrested. I know you’re game, Cat, you’re predictable. And I also know you won’t have her killed because it’s too easy.”

“You think any of this has been easy?” She scoffed. “Clearly I’m not as predictable as you think.”

“What does that mean?” Spencer swallowed thickly. 

“You should have Garcia check her emails.” Her lips turned up into a wicked smirk. 

Spencer felt his blood turn to ice in his veins and he turned back to Luke once more who was already on his phone calling Quantico. 

***

“Ohemgee. Ohemgee!” Penelope screamed as your face materialised on the big screen in the round table room, tied to the chair just like you had been in the photograph. 

Emily nudged her in her arm to silence the blonde as the video started to play. 

“It’s time we talked about why you’re here. Cat Adams wants you to know what your lover boy is really like.” Weaver’s voice flooded the speakers.

She was barely in shot, all of her that could be seen was one shoulder and half of her back. Clearly the point was to have the focus on you. 

“Ah, of course she’s behind this.” You croaked, sounding exhausted. You didn’t look to be injured aside from the dried blood still on your face and matted into your hair. “So this is about Spencer, I’m some kind of pawn in her sick revenge fantasy?” 

“Oh finally, she gets it.” Weaver scoffed. 

“Why me? We’re friends, that’s all.” 

“That’s bullshit and we both know it.” Weaver’s shoulder tensed, they all saw it. “I’ve been watching you for a while Y/N, I know exactly what you and Spencer are to each other.” 

Emily, Tara, JJ and Rossi frowned at the screen, not sure what she was getting at. Garcia chewed on her lip guiltily, remembering what Spencer had told her at Rossi’s wedding. 

“I don’t know what you mean.” You sighed, but they all saw your jaw tighten. 

“He must mean something to you if you’d cheat on your husband with him. Even if your husband does beat you, it’s still infidelity.” Weaver chuckled.

“She…Spencer…no, no way.” Garcia frowned now. He had not told her that. 

“Shush, Garcia.” Emily scalded her. 

“I don’t know what you think you know, but I would never cheat on my husband.” You told her but all the agents watching knew it was a lie. 

They could read you well enough to know you were bluffing, hopefully Weaver couldn’t. 

“Sweetheart, I wouldn’t lie to me if I was you.” Weaver spat and then she raised her arm into frame. 

Penelope gasped as the gun came into view, pointing right at you. Emily, Tara, Rossi and JJ all stood frozen in fear. 

“I hate to break this to you, but you aren’t the first person to hold me hostage. You aren’t the first person to hold a gun to me.” You tried to keep control of the situation, refusing to show her your fear.

“He’s no better than your jerk husband.” Juliette changed the subject. 

“Reid, was right.” JJ muttered under her breath.

“And how would you know that?” You sighed again. 

“You don’t know what he’s capable of.” 

“You mean what he did in prison? I know all about that. He did what he did to survive.” 

JJ wrapped her arms around her body, her legs shaking a little but unable to move to sit down. Emily’s eyebrows were furrowed deeply and she was gnawing on one of her fingernails. Penelope had silent tears rolling down her cheeks beneath her lime green glasses. 

“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about what he did after prison.” Weaver chuckled darkly. 

“And what would that be?” You rolled your eyes. 

“His time inside changed him, Y/N. He’s not the same man you fell in love with.” 

“I never said I was in love with him.” 

“Yes, you did.” Juliette laughed again, the gun shaking a little as she did so. 

“I’m getting a little tired of this cryptic thing. Just tell me what you’re talking about.” 

Rossi exhaled loudly through his nose while Tara clenched her hands into fists. 

“Truth or dare, Y/N?” Juliette chuckled deeply, stepping back behind the camera. 

They saw your eyes follow her, and they also saw the way your body straightened in the chair.

“Reid was right.” JJ repeated. “She was at the wedding, she overheard him talking to Max.”

“Excuse me?” You tried to remain calm. 

“Truth or dare? Please pick truth because I am dying to hear you confess a secret you would never admit out loud.” 

“How do you know about that?” You finally gave over, knowing there was no point in denying it anymore. It didn’t matter how she knew, she did know. 

“I know a lot of things.” Juliette replied curtly. “I know you are in love with him, I know you cheated on your husband with him. And I also know what a monster he is.”  

At the roller rink, crowded around Luke’s phone as they watched the same video, Spencer’s back stiffened and tears flooded his eyes. Matt was holding Cat roughly by the arm a few feet away and he could see her in his peripheral vision. 

“Spencer Reid is not a monster.” You retorted with a scoff.

“Oh really?” Weaver spoke sarcastically. “So you think nice men strangle women?” 

Spencer’s nostrils flared and he closed his eyes briefly trying to stop the tears. Luke’s grip on his phone tightened. 

“Are you seriously trying to tell me that Spencer strangled someone? Ok, I’ll bite, what do you think you know?” 

Spencer held his breath, so did Luke and Matt. So did Emily, Garcia, JJ, Tara and Rossi back at Quantico. 

“You never saw the tapes did you?”

“What tapes?”

“The tapes from the interrogation room in which Spencer Reid held Cat by her throat against a wall and threatened to kill her while she was pregnant.” Juliette spat viciously. 

“That didn’t happen.” You shook your head. 

“Sweetheart, it most certainly did happen. He is worse than your husband, at least you weren’t pregnant when he had his hand around your throat. And to make matters tragically worse, Cat lost her baby as a result.”��

Your eyes widened as you started at Weaver over the camera, your bottom lip quivering slightly. 

Back at Quantico Garcia gasped yet again while JJ shook her head in disbelief.

“Is that true?” Spencer glanced up at Cat, being held roughly by the arm by Matt. “That’s not true.”

“It most certainly is true.” Cat subconsciously placed her other hand on her belly. 

The tears forced their way out of Spencer’s eyes and as he looked back at the phone he saw tears rolling down your cheeks too. 

“No, no that didn’t happen.” You shook your head. “Why are you telling me this?” 

“Because,” Weaver’s voice had a hint of amusement to it. “Cat wants you to know the truth before I send you to your grave.” 

And then the sound of several gunshots screamed through the tinny phone speakers and the screen suddenly went black. Spencer whimpered, staring at the dark screen for a few seconds before looking up at Cat. 

“What have you done?” His tears streamed hot and angry down his face. “What the fuck have you done?” 

He yanked her free of Matt’s hold and held her roughly by the biceps as he started shaking her.

“This time, I will kill you. I will fucking kill you!” He spat in her face and he shook her harder.

“You can’t win them all, Spencie.” Cat smirked menacingly at him. 

He felt a set of strong hands on his shoulders and Luke was trying to pull him back from Cat while Matt worked on freeing Cat from his hold. 

“Don’t, stop it!” Spencer fought against Luke. “Let me kill her!”

“Not gonna happen, Reid.” Luke growled and between him and Matt they managed to get the two of them apart.

Spencer was breathing heavily, his tears never ending. Luke held his arm as if afraid Spencer would go after her again. He started at Cat through bleary eyes for a moment or two before shaking his head. He snatched his arm out of Luke’s hold and pushed past the other man, away from Cat and towards the door. 

His footsteps were heavy and loud as he stormed away before he did something stupid. When he reached the door he threw it open so violently it bounced back against the wall. 

He fled into the dark night as his breathing got heavier and his vision was almost entirely compromised. His head started to spin, the world started to spin. 

He stumbled down the steps of the roller rink, using the handrail to try and keep himself upright. When he reached the bottom his stomach lurched and he suddenly vomited all over the concrete. 

He vaguely heard the door open but didn’t pay it any attention as he emptied his guts onto the sidewalk. 

Soon there was a hand on his back, rubbing up and down his spine in soothing motions. 

“It’s ok, Reid, let it out. Let it all out.” Luke cooed. 

Spencer stayed doubled over until he had nothing left and he simply dry heaved. Tears were still rapidly falling from his eyes when he stood back up.

And when he looked at Luke, he swore the other man’s own eyes were misty with tears. 

***

“Oh my…no…no! No she didn’t…she didn’t…” Penelope stumbled on her heels until she hit the table, tears streaming down her cheeks. 

“She can’t be.” JJ croaked. “She couldn’t…”

She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked at Rossi through tear riddled eyes.

“It could be a trick.” Tara’s voice was equally as cracked as JJ’s. “It has to be a trick.” 

“We need to find where they are.” Emily spoke, voice devoid of emotion as she continued to stare at the blank screen. “We need a location.” 

“The emails are untraceable.” Penelope whined. 

“There had to be something in the video, some kind of clue.” Rossi agreed, reaching over to Garcia’s laptop. 

“I can’t watch it again.” Garcia sobbed. 

“Go then. Get a cup of tea and calm down.” Emily finally turned to face them. “I know what we just witnessed was beyond horrible. But if Juliette Weaver really did just kill our friend, then she has to pay for what she's done. So regroup, refocus. Y/N needs us.” 

Garcia sniffed and nodded at her boss, turning on her heels and wobbling to the door. JJ followed her whilst Emily, Rossi and Tara stayed put.

Emily gave them both a look, one that asked if they were up for this and they both nodded stiffly. 

“Ok,” Emily swallowed. “Play it again, Dave.” 

***

Spencer couldn’t speak, couldn’t even blink his eyes on the drive back to Quantico. Matt went with swat who were taking Cat back to prison while Luke drove him and Spencer back to the bureau. 

“Reid, you gotta think.” Luke tried to engage him as he drove, glancing at the younger man out of the corner of his eye. “This is a game to Cat, a meticulously crafted game. Nothing is left to chance, wherever Juliette took Y/N means something. You gotta think.”

Spencer exhaled shakily, keeping his eyes trained out of the window of the SUV. 

“What’s the point? She’s dead. It’s over.” His voice sounded haggard, fractured.

“We don’t know that, man. The video cut out, we don’t know she’s dead.” Luke tried to convince him but he wasn’t sure he believed it himself. “And if she isn’t dead, we’ve gotta find her before Weaver kills her for real.” 

Spencer closed his tired eyes, leaning his forehead against the cool window. He tried his hardest to focus on the small details of those images which haunted him, which may haunt him for the rest of his life. 

It was a relatively plain room. The floor was out of shot and he could only see one wall which had been behind you. It was an off white colour, nothing of interest. Nothing stood out in that damn room. 

“They could be anywhere, Luke.” Spencer opened his eyes again. 

“Try harder.” Luke was stern. “There was something, something you’re missing. This place means something to the two of you, it has to.” 

Spencer scrunched his brow in thought as he tried to recall places that might mean something to the two of you. You had fifteen years of history, how could he filter through all of that right now? 

“I really don’t know, Luke.” Spencer groaned. 

“Yes, you do. Somewhere in your brain you know exactly where she is. Your mind is clouded right now because it's trying to process too much. It's the same reason it took you longer than it normally would to recognise Weaver. You know where they are, think. Off of the top of your head, where is a place that means something to you and Y/N?” 

Spencer huffed loudly, closing his eyes again. This time however he didn’t see the images from your final moments behind his lids. 

The sun was shining and he was standing awkwardly on the sidewalk, twiddling his thumbs, feeling like the world's biggest idiot for getting this so wrong. 

“Sorry, sorry I’m late, I know.” Penelope Garcia tottered towards the two of you, pushing her bangs back off her face.

“It’s ok, it doesn’t start for another ten minutes.” You smiled as you embraced her. 

Spencer looked dumbly between you and Garcia, mouth slightly agape and eyebrows so high they almost hit his hairline.

“Happy birthday, boy wonder.” Garcia grinned at him.

“Uh…” He swallowed thickly. “Thanks?”

“Shall we?” You motioned towards the front door of the movie theatre and Garcia nodded, taking the lead.

You hung back a little, looking at the confusion that was still spreading across the young genius's face.

“You don’t mind, do you? Penelope loves Harry Potter almost as much as I do.” 

“Of course I don’t mind. Why would I mind?” He shook it off but was quickly pushing past you inside. 

As he entered the Film Factory, the hole in the wall movie theatre he took in the scent of popcorn that wafted up his nose and the sounds of you and Penelope chatting among yourself flooded his ears. 

Maybe he could have been a little more specific about his idea of tonight, because clearly you’d gotten the wrong end of the stick and invited Penelope along on what was supposed to be a date. 

He tried to ignore the way his stomach tightened and his chest constricted at his utter stupidity. 

As he passed towards the booth, the small room with the little window peeping out between large, plush red curtains, his eyes scanned over the sign perched above the booth…

“Give me your phone.” Spencer’s eyes shot open and he turned to Luke in a panic.

“Uh, ok?” Luke frowned, fishing in his pocket with one hand whilst keeping the other on the wheel.

He soon handed the device to Spencer and the younger man was quickly trying to navigate his way through the smartphone. After a few failed attempts he found the video again.

He paused it as soon as it started and zoomed in on the still. On the wall behind you, mostly out of frame, he was just able to make out a sign. In cobalt blue he could see the letters FI on one line and FAC on the line below. And underneath that he could see part of a drawing of a film reel. 

“Turn the car around.” Spencer hurriedly told Luke. 

“What?”

“Turn the car around, I know where they are.” 

Luke did as he was told and was quickly making an U-turn whilst switching his lights and siren on. 

“It’s a place called the Film Factory, it’s an old movie theatre that shut down a few years back. I took Y/N there on what was supposed to be our first date but she misunderstood and invited Garcia. We’ve been there countless times since, it’s like a…oh fuck.” Spencer trailed off with a gasp.

“What?” Luke asked as he weaved in and out of traffic. 

“The wedding wasn’t the only place I recognised Weaver from…” 

As he passed towards the booth, the small room with the little window peeping out between large, plush red curtains, his eyes scanned over the sign perched above the booth with the theatre's name and logo before looking at the young girl in the booth. 

She couldn’t have been older than sixteen, possibly even younger. She had dark hair and an incredibly bored expression on her features.

“I just need to grab one more ticket to The Deathly Hallows, please.” Spencer spoke politely,

“Seven bucks.” The young girl smacked a piece of gum in her mouth. 

Spencer handed over a ten and she handed him his change and a third ticket. He felt her eyes on him all the way to the concession stand.

“She worked there. For years actually. She was there nearly every time I’ve been there. She’s seen Y/N and I there on multiple occasions. I don’t know how I didn’t see it sooner.” Spencer shook his head. 

“You were in tunnel vision. Your brain was clouded because this was personal.” Luke stepped on the gas, dialling Emily’s number via his car display.

“My inability to see what was right in front of me might have just gotten her killed.” Spencer spat, balling his hands into fists. 

The phone started to ring. Before Luke could reply Emily had answered. 

“Alvez, how did it go?” 

“That’s not important. We know where Weaver is, we’re heading there now. Reid will send you an address.” 

“Wait for back up when you get there.” Emily instructed. 

Spencer scoffed and rolled his eyes. 

“With all due respect, Emily,” he spoke harshly. “That’s never going to happen.” 

***

“Because, Cat wants you to know the truth before I send you to your grave.” 

She curled her finger around the trigger and didn’t hesitate in pulling it. Once. Twice. Three times. Four. 

You closed your eyes and screamed out into the small room, knowing it would do no good, no one would hear you. It took you several seconds to realise you didn’t feel any pain. 

Your heart beat frantically against your chest and you slowly opened your eyes to see the woman laughing at you as she put the gun down on the desk.

Your eyes fell down to your torso. No blood, no pain. Blanks. She’d fired blanks. 

Your breathing was erratic, your close brush with death forcing a few tears from your eyes. The woman laughed hysterically at the fear on your face. 

You tried to focus and noticed the red light was off on the camera now. She toyed with both the camera and her phone for a while, still laughing to herself. You could only assume what she must be doing, it was the same she’d done when she’d taken the photograph. 

And if like you’d suspected she was sending it to your team, they would think you were dead. 

“Why don’t you just kill me?” You whined slightly.

“Cat gave me very specific instructions. She doesn’t want you dead, she just wants you to know what kind of a man Spencer Reid really is.” The woman spoke softly, almost like she cared. “You have a type.”

“Spencer is nothing like my husband.” You growled. 

“When I’m done with you, and you scurry back to Quantico, watch the tapes. You’ll see for yourself. He had Cat around the throat just like your husband did to you.” 

“So you don’t plan to kill me?” 

“Well that will depend.” She smirked.

“On what?” You sighed. 

“Cat’s orders. If she doesn’t get what she wants out of Spencer, I may have no choice.” She shrugged.

“Cat Adams is a psychopath. Did she make you feel special? Do you think she cares about you? I hate to break it to you but we’ve seen it before. You aren’t her first partner. She used another woman just like you to have Spencer arrested. But ultimately her game with him was more important than the woman she claimed to love. Cat cheated on Lindsey, got pregnant by a prison guard just so she could pretend she’d had Spencer sexually assaulted. 

Cat doesn’t care about anyone but herself. She will toss you aside as soon as she doesn’t need you anymore. You’re disposable, sweetheart. You’re not special, you’re just the only one who fell for her act.” You didn’t mince your words. 

You saw the woman’s face fall, her nostrils flare at your summation. She moved closer to you and quickly dropped to the floor in front of you. She grabbed your jaw in one hand, digging in firmly with her fingertips. 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know her!” She spat. 

“I know her better than you do. She’s using you! You will end up in prison for this, whether you kill me or not. And where will she be then?” You dared rile her. 

“You don’t know anything.” The woman spat, tightening her hold on your jaw. 

You saw her other hand moving behind her back and soon you caught the glint of a blade catching the overhead light. 

You swallowed, trying to wriggle free of her hold. She brought the tip of the blade to your chest, right beneath your collarbone. 

“I thought you weren’t going to kill me?” You spoke as she squeezed your jaw. 

“Yeah well,” she let go of your face and pressed the blade harder against your skin. “Plans change.”

***

“Reid, wait!” Luke ran after him towards the boarded up old movie theatre. 

The second the car rolled to a stop Spencer had leapt out of the passenger seat and onto the street, throwing his Kevlar vest on as he went.

“I’m going in there and you can’t stop me.” He barely had it over his head when he was drawing his gun.

“We need to wait for back up.” Luke reminded him, working his own vest on. 

Spencer stopped by the door of the old building, fastening the Velcro straps with one hand. 

“Alvez, if for whatever reason, we didn’t witness Y/N’s death, if she is still alive, she might not have much time.” Spencer stared at him in frustration. 

“If you go in there without back up you might end up dead, Reid.” 

“You’re my back up.” Spencer got his vest done up and turned to the door. “Cover me.”

Before Luke could even blink, Spencer was heading forward, gun outstretched as he reached for the door with his free hand. 

It was unlocked. He shoved it open, eyes quickly taking in the entrance way, gun following his line of sight.

Luke exhaled and drew his firearm, following in Spencer’s footsteps hurriedly. This seemed like a monumentally bad idea, but there was no way Luke was letting him go alone. 

He followed hot on Spencer’s heels as they canvassed the lobby. Spencer clearly had a destination in mind and he pushed forward towards the little ticket booth window. 

The place was a mess of cobwebs and ripped and torn movie posters everywhere. As he walked Luke heard cracking under foot. He looked down, the floor was littered with little beads. 

Popcorn kernels. 

The curtains were draped closed but there was a door to the right hand side. Spencer stopped in front of it and glanced at Luke over his shoulder. His other hand reached for the door handle. 

Spencer’s heart thumped in his chest, beating more fiercely than he’d ever felt it before. His stomach lurched like he might be sick again and he took a deep breath to try and stem the nausea. 

As he tried the handle, another SUV pulled up outside and Emily, JJ, Rossi and Tara all threw themselves from the vehicle. 

Spencer pulled down the handle and shoved open the door.

“FBI don’t move!” He yelled into the small room. 

Juliette Weaver was on her knees on the floor but quickly jumped up, spinning around the chair you occupied and holding a knife to your throat. 

The relief that flooded him seeing you looking back at him, very much alive, was almost overwhelming. His knees buckled a little but he pushed past it. There would be time for him to fall apart later. 

“Welcome to the party Doctor Reid, you’re just in time.” She smirked. 

Spencer’s stomach lurched again at the sight of the blood spilling from an open wound of your chest. Your eyes met briefly as he stepped into the room. 

“Juliette, you don’t want to do this.” He held his hands up before slowly lowering them and holstering his gun. “Put the knife down.”

“I’m not going back to prison.” She shook her head, her other hand was on your shoulder, gripping you tightly. 

“Don’t do this because of Cat. She manipulated you.” Spencer tried to reason with her. 

He was blocking Luke’s shot and Luke was sure he was doing it on purpose. 

“You don’t know her!” Juliette screamed at him, holding you tighter.

You whimpered as the blade pressed harder against your throat. You had tears rolling down your cheeks as you stared at Spencer. 

You tried to commit every little bit of him to memory, convinced this was the last time you’d ever see him. He really was so beautiful, you wished you’d gotten to tell him that. 

“I know she wanted to prove a point.” He held his hands up and took another step forward. “She wanted Y/N to know that I am no better than her husband. It’s true, Y/N, what she said about me. I did try to choke Cat to death because she kidnapped my mother. Prison changed me, maybe I am no different from your husband.”

“Don’t say that.” You sobbed. “It’s not true.”

“It is true.” He nodded. “I would have killed her if JJ hadn’t been there to stop me and I wouldn’t have felt bad. I’m not a good man, Y/N. I’m not the man you think I am.” 

Luke knew what he was trying to do. He was trying to make you hate him the way Cat wanted in the hopes if he achieved that Juliette would let you go. 

Luke had his gun trained towards Juliette but Spencer was still blocking his shot. If he just moved a little to the side he could get a clean shot. 

He heard soft footsteps behind him and he didn’t need to look to know who they belonged to. He kept his gun high, on the off chance Spencer would move.

The footsteps crept to his right, further down the corridor. They were surrounding the place, if Weaver made it out of that ticket booth she wouldn’t get much further. 

“Are you listening to him? Do you see now?” Juliette shook you. 

You made eye contact with him again and you understood. You understood what he was trying to do. 

“I see it,” you nodded. “You’re no better than him.” 

Hearing those words from your lips made his stomach lurch again. His jaw clenched and he felt tears behind his eyes. 

“You’ve made your point Juliette. Let her go, please?” Spencer pleaded with her. 

Spencer took another step forward, creating enough space behind him for Luke to manoeuvre into the small room. 

He pointed the gun at Juliette who still had the blade against your throat. 

“Juliette, there’s no way out of this. Put the knife down or I will have to shoot you. You don’t wanna die today.” Luke tried to talk her down.

Her eyes flicked over to him and then back to Spencer. She squeezed your shoulder, blade pressing dangerously against your flesh.

“I ain’t going back to prison.” She repeated and her hand holding the blade twitched. 

Less than a second later Luke fired his weapon. The bullet penetrated her right shoulder, surely hurting her but not killing her. She yelled out in pain, stumbling backwards and dropping the knife from her weakened hand as she fell against the wall and slid to the floor. 

Luke hurried to her side, holstering his weapon and kicking the blade away. She howled again when he knelt in front of her and pressed on her gunshot wound, trying to contain the bleeding.  

“We need a medic!” He called out the door where he knew his team was waiting. 

Soon the small room became crowded, Rossi was by Luke’s side, keeping an eye on Weaver while Emily and JJ holstered their weapons and allowed themselves to breathe a sigh of relief that you were ok. Tara was hurrying behind you and cutting through your bindings. 

Spencer knelt in front of you, his tears now escaping as he looked at you and you looked at him and he thanked every higher power that you were alive. 

Tara helped you stand up, you were still bleeding from the cut on your chest and your legs shook as you stood. Spencer got to his feet too and the two of you continued to stare at each other. 

“We need to get you seen to.” Tara spoke softly, placing a hand on your lower back. 

You nodded but kept your eyes on Spencer, smiling weakly at him. You allowed her to lead you from the room and Spencer watched you go. 

He stood there for some time, letting the tears fall, letting him feel the relief wash over him. He wasn’t aware of what was going on around him, the people moving around, the medic coming to take care of Weaver’s gunshot wound. 

The world seemed to move slowly around him. He could see what was happening but he didn’t feel connected to it. He felt as though he was watching it all unfold from above, no longer tethered to reality. 

He thought he’d watched you die. He thought he’d lost you forever. He hadn’t even had a chance to process your death when he’d found you alive. 

The amount of thoughts running through his brain caused him to switch off from reality while he tried to sift through them. He didn’t feel JJ’s hand on his shoulder, he didn’t notice that she’d led him outside.

He was brought back around by the temperature change as JJ led him out to the sidewalk. He blinked several times taking in the street, the SUVs, two ambulances, lots of people. 

Juliette Weaver was taken to the hospital to be patched up before she would be detained. Cat Adams was on her way back to prison where she would soon meet her end at the hand of the lethal injection. 

Spencer stood still on the sidewalk, his mind unable to shut off. You were supposed to be dead. His brain had already started trying to grieve you. But you weren’t dead. What did that mean now? 

Rossi was at his side now, holding something out in his hand. Without thinking too much, Spencer held out his own hand and Rossi coiled the item into his palm.

When he closed his hand around it, it was cool beneath his fingers. He knew without looking exactly what it was. 

“Hey kid?” Rossi spoke quietly. 

“Hmm?” Spencer croaked.

“Garcia wanted you to know something…”

***

You refused to go to the hospital, that was the last place you wanted to go. The cut on your chest and your head wound weren’t bad enough to warrant it and you insisted the paramedic patch you up in the ambulance. 

Your heart rate was still erratic and you wondered if it would ever return to normal. You had been so sure you were going to die today and that adrenaline still ran through your veins. 

Emily was the first to come and see you, holding her cell phone out for you. When you put it to your ear your children's voice encompassed you, causing you to cry once more. 

“Mommy, when will you be home?” 

“We miss you mom.” 

Knowing they were safe and hearing their voices calmed you a little. Liv had collected them from school when you couldn’t and taken them to her place in case your own home wasn’t safe. It was late and they should have been in bed already, Liv said she would keep them for the night and drop them off at school in the morning. 

You were crying still when you thanked Emily and handed her phone back. When you looked away from Emily, Spencer was hovering nearby, looking unsure if he should come over. You offered him a small smile which gave him the green light. 

Taking a breath he slowly started towards you. Emily saw him coming and patted your shoulder gently.

“I’ll give you a minute.” She whispered before turning and heading away.

Spencer ambled over, hands in his pockets and rolling his lip between his teeth. He cautiously sat down next to you on the lip of the ambulance. He looked at you, his eyes full of so many emotions. 

“I’m so sorry this happened to you.” He exhaled shakily. 

“It’s not your fault.” You sniffed, wiping your tears on your sleeve. 

“It kinda is though. She used you as a pawn in her sick and twisted revenge against me.” Spencer shook his head. 

“It’s fine, it’s over now.” You breathed. “You know I don’t really think you’re anything like him? I just said that because I thought it might save my life.” 

He looked away from you, out across the street. His body deflated and he closed his eyes for a few long seconds.

“I wasn’t lying, Y/N, I have changed since prison. What I did to Cat…I don’t feel bad about it. The miscarriage, I do feel bad about. If I had caused that, the death of an unborn child, I would never have forgiven myself. But Garcia checked, she actually miscarried months later. And so I can’t bring myself to feel bad. She kidnapped my mom, she had me arrested. But it makes me no better than your husband.” He shook his head, sniffing lightly.

You placed your hand on his arm and he looked back at you, unshed tears in his eyes. 

“Spencer, I don’t think you’re anything like him.” You shook your head. “You’re probably the only person in the world who has ever really loved me.”

“But things are just….so complicated.” He frowned. 

“True, I probably still have a long battle ahead of me to keep Jared out of my life. I have two kids who are going to need me more than ever. But life is always going to be complicated and messy and if we try to wait for the right time…” you trailed off and squeezed his arm softly.

His eyes flit down to your hand and his heart leapt into his throat when he saw your now empty ring finger resting on his arm. 

“If we try to wait for the right time, we might be waiting another fifteen years?” He finished for you, a small smile creeping to his lips.

“Exactly.” You nodded, your own lip twitching at the corner. 

“But that really begs the question…” 

“Ask me.”

Spencer rolled his lip between his teeth, turning his body a little so he was facing you properly. He reached out and took hold of your hand, threading his fingers in yours. 

“Y/N,” he whispered. “Truth or dare?

“Truth.” You replied quickly. 

“Did you mean it?” 

“Yes.” You didn’t hesitate in responding. “You were my first love, Spence. I was always too scared to admit it and then I met Jared and I thought it might help me get over those feelings. But it didn’t. And I pushed you away and I’m sorry, I’m sorry for doing that.”

“Hey, it’s ok.” He squeezed your hand gently. “I understand. The truth is I don’t know how to be in this world if I’m not wishing for a future with you.”

His free hand went back inside of his pocket and he pulled out the item Rossi had handed him. The silver and gold of the bracelet shimmered in the light from the ambulance. He let go of your hand and you held it out for him to drape the metal around your wrist before he clasped it shut.

You smiled softly at each other, his hand finding yours again and for a moment or two you sat in silence. You took in the street, the old abandoned movie theatre you and Spencer had spent so much time in together. 

All those memories seemed so clear now. All the old horror movies he’d taken you to see which you told him you hated but you secretly loved because when you got scared it gave you an excuse to curl in close to him. 

All the foreign movie festivals you’d gone to, some of which lacked subtitles and Spencer would lean in close and whisper the translations to you. 

All the shared popcorn and the accidental brushing of fingers as you both reached in at the same time. 

The hours you must have spent inside of those walls together, in your own little bubble all came flooding back, all of those adventures you’d watched playing out on the screen side by side. 

And it made perfect sense that you should be sitting here now, on the cusp of your latest adventure together. 

You glanced back at him and as if sensing your eyes on him, he looked at you too. 

“Hey Spence?” You whispered.

“Yeah?” 

“Just to confirm, because you didn’t actually say it…” you trailed off and Spencer chuckled lightly. 

He was quick to move his free hand to your cheek, drawing you closer and then he kissed you. 

Somewhere in the back of your mind you heard fireworks going off like it was the Fourth of July. He was gentle with you but his adoration was spoken silently against your lips. 

It was a new hope, a new beginning. It was two people who had been unfathomably in love with each other for well over a decade finally coming together.

When he pulled back, he didn’t go too far and he kept his hand on your cheek as though scared he might lose you again. He smiled at you softly. 

“I love you too, Y/N.” He laughed.  

“After all this time?” You whispered.

“Always, my love. Always.”

@andiebeaword @measure-in-pain @muffin-cup @dreatine @matthew-gray-gubler-lover @justreadingficsdontmindme @spencer-reid-wonderland @thebloomingeagle @frostandflamesfanfic @pixiehex1985 @release-your-sweets @megan-mars @hales-17 @onlyspence @werewolfbansheelove @gubsi @vivian-555 @ropickle @meowiemari @dil3mma @wolfstar-17 @kylakins88 @shqwqrma

#spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid x fem! reader #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction

[danielfuckingricciardo]

Homecoming - Toto Wolff x Reader

Pairing - Toto Wolff x Reader

Word Count - 2.8k

Content Warnings - swearing, unprotected sex, vaginal sex, ‘sir’ kink???

Synopsis - You had left your position as a strategist at Mercedes to join Red Bull after the 2021 season, and spent the entire year avoiding your former boss and friend Toto Wolff. But after he invites you over for a dinner at the end of the season, he shares with you his true intentions of bringing you home next year.

Author’s Note - This one falls into the category of ‘Christmas fics that aren’t really Christmas fics but are set at Christmas’. It’s essentially the Die Hard of Christmas fics, but I’m sure you’ll be willing to forgive me considering how spicy it is!! First Toto fic too, so I felt like I owed y’all a bit of spice, especially considering how the first two in my Christmas series had been wholesome, it’s nice to get back to regularly scheduled smut posting on main! Anyways, enjoy!!

You hadn’t seen Toto outside of work for a long time. When you still worked for Mercedes, having dinner at his place was a regular occurrence. Usually you started off talking about work, sliding documents to one another between mouthfuls of whatever he had cooked for you that evening. But these meetings always ended the same way, the two of you on the couch, a glass of wine in hand, as you just laughed away the hours catching each other up on the events of your lives since your previous dinner meeting.

You always liked these dinners. Sure, it was a great way to get work done, and Toto was a terrific cook, but just being able to relax with your boss after a long week was nice. His presence always had a calming effect on you, you weren’t exactly sure why, but with Toto you always felt at peace.

When Christian had approached you with the offer to work for Red Bull Racing, initially you declined. You couldn’t betray the team like that, they needed you. But when Christian returned a week later, a fresh set of contracts filled with all the benefits you could possibly want, and a salary that made your eyes practically pop out of your skull, you found it much harder to say no. Simply uttering an ‘I’ll think about it. I’ll let you know tomorrow’ before returning to your hotel room to consider the offer you had been given.

You had thought about going to Toto and asking him to match Red Bull’s salary, but you didn’t think it was fair. Besides, you wouldn’t want Toto thinking of you as someone who only thinks about money. Surely loyalty to your drivers, your co-workers, and your friends was more important than your pay check? And if he had said no, where would that leave you? You’d have to go and join Red Bull anyway to save yourself from the shame, knowing that Toto would never see you in the way he used to.

That’s how you found yourself in Milton Keynes following the end of the 2021 season, sat in Christian Horner’s office, signing documents stating that you would be a Red Bull strategist for the 2022 season. You had been apprehensive, but Christian reassured you that they would treat you well, but that wasn’t what you were afraid of. You were terrified that everyone at Mercedes would think of you as a traitor, which was why you decided to Mail in your letter of resignation to Toto’s office. You couldn’t bare to do it in person.

The season went well, very well, and you were welcomed to the team and given all the respect you deserved as a formidable strategist. You became familiar with the workings of Red Bull Racing, but you so deeply missed your little dinners with Toto.

You only saw him in passing, and could barely stand to look at him whenever he walked by. You had tried your best to avoid him all season, not wanting to have to deal with the awkward conversations that would take place. But one weekend, you weren’t so lucky.

You were taking the elevator up to your hotel room, and just as the doors began to close, you see a man running towards the doors, begging you to open them. Initially unaware of just who it was, you press the button, allowing the doors to open and Toto to step inside.

You were terrified of what he was going to say, it was obvious you’d been avoiding him all season, and standing beside him in your Red Bull polo, you felt wrong. You felt ashamed.

“Long time no see (y/n)” Toto says, his eyes fixated on the doors of the elevator.

“Yeah, it’s been a while.” You say, trying to sound casual but failing miserably.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” He states, taking his first glance over at you to see your face filled with nerves.

“I guess. It was just awkward, I didn’t know what to say or how to say it, and I didn’t know how you would respond so it was just easier for me to keep my distance, I guess?” You say, stumbling over each and every word.

“Whatever you want to say, you can say to me at my place. I’m free on December 20th, I’ll make dinner. Just like old times.” Toto says, and the elevator beeps. The doors open and he disappears down the corridor, leaving you alone as the doors close, trapping you in.

You almost thought of cancelling, of texting Toto with some lame excuse so you could get out of having this awkward meeting, but you told yourself no. You needed to do this. You needed to clear the air so that next season you wouldn’t have to play hide and seek when Toto would swagger his way around the paddock. But more than that, you wanted to be friends again.

How you had missed these dinners, missed Toto’s cooking and his excellent wine selections. But most of all, you’d missed his company. He was an excellent conversationalist, and a great listener. Sure, working at Red Bull had been great, but you didn’t have anyone like Toto to talk to there.

You found yourself sitting on a tall chair beside the marble island in the kitchen, a glass of red wine in hand as Toto stood over the stove. You take a long swig, before glancing over at Toto who was vigorously stirring a pan filled with pasta which smelt divine.

Toto glances over his shoulder at you, finding your eyes firmly fixated on him.

“I made the pasta dish you always used to like.” He says, filling the silence and causing you to snap out of your trance.

“Amazing! I did miss your tremendous cooking.” You say, mentally facepalming at your use of the word ‘tremendous’.

“It’s been too long, (y/n), it really has.” Toto says, lifting the pan from the stove to carry it over to where you are sat.

He takes a pair of tongues and neatly twists a nest of pasta onto the plate before you, before doing the same for his own. He garnishes both with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese, before discarding the pan in the sink and taking a seat beside you.

“Bon appetit” Toto says, and you nod your head, taking a forkful of pasta and placing it in your mouth.

As you chew, you feel that sense of familiarity, and are hit with a wave of nostalgia for all of your meetings together, and every time he had cooked you this particular dish.

“It’s delicious, thank you Toto.” You say, and he offers you a warm smile before taking a bite of his own meal.

“You should have told me that Red Bull had offered you a contract. I would have matched it, given you even more, perhaps. I would have done anything to keep you here.” Toto says, and you drop your fork to your plate with a clatter.

“I thought about telling you, I did. But I didn’t want to seem like I was manipulating you. It didn’t feel fair for me to make all of these demands. And if you hadn’t been able to match it? What would I have done? What would you think of me?” You say, before throwing back a deep swig of wine to prepare yourself for Toto’s response.

“It’s business. I would never think less of you for advocating for yourself. You are worth even more than that Red Bull contract. In hindsight I should have offered you more after the 2021 season, to reward you for you performance and incentivise you to stay with us. And I should have known that Christian would want to get his hands on you. It’s my fault, I made a mistake.” Toto says, and you release a shaky breath.

“I just, I don’t want you to think of me as a traitor. I was worried you’d be ashamed of me for even considering it, and after taking the offer, I couldn’t bring myself to speak to you about it. That’s why I didn’t hand you my resignation personally, and why I avoided you all year. I just didn’t want to disappoint you.” You say, and Toto places a reassuring hand on your shoulder, an electric sensation pulsing through your body at his touch.

“I could never be disappointed in you. Look at what you have achieved! I was sad that you avoided me all year, but that was only because I wanted to congratulate you for all you’ve done. You are a rare talent, and I value you greatly, not just as a strategist, but as a friend.” Toto says, and you sigh.

“I’m sorry, I truly am. This year has been amazing, but the one thing I missed most of all was this. Our meetings over dinner, your amazing cooking, and just being able to spend time with you.” You say, and Toto smiles at you.

“I missed you too. There’s no one else in the team quite like you. Besides me, of course, but I spend enough time with myself as it is, and the conversation isn’t quite as exciting.” Toto says, chuckling slightly.

You smile at him, and his hand finds it’s way up to the side of your face where a stray strand of hair had escaped from behind your ear. He tucks it away gently, and you find yourself leaning ever so slightly into his touch.

“Toto, I-“ you begin to say, but you are cut off as his thumb finds your bottom lip, pressing it gently downwards. You stare up at him through your eyelashes, your breathing shallow as you study every element of the older man’s face, waiting for him to make the next move.

His thumb moves down to your chin, pulling you gently towards him until his lips touch yours just for a second in a soft kiss.

Your mind is empty as you search it for something to do, something to say, but all you can think of is how great his lips felt on yours, how soft his touch was on your skin, and how much you’d like him to touch you more, touch you everywhere.

Almost as if he could read your mind, he pulls you in for another kiss, wrapping his hands around your waist to keep you steady against the chair. Your hands find his hair and you deepen the kiss, pulling him in closer to press your noses and foreheads together.

As the two of you part of air, Toto looks down at the table, smiling to himself slightly.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that. I thought that this could be my final chance.” He says, and you stand up from your chair, walking over to stand behind him, resting your arms on his broad shoulders and bringing your lips to his ear.

“I think you’ll have plenty more chances, considering you kiss like that.” You whisper, your lips grazing his earlobe as you speak.

“I assume now would be a bad time to start negotiating the details of a contract to bring you home?” Toto asks, his eyebrow quirked.

“We can do that later, if we have time. But first, I want you to show me exactly what I’ve been missing out on since I left.” You say, your arm running down his toned bicep and forearm to grab his hand gently.

He takes your hand and stands up as you guide him towards the plush velvet sofa in the lounge. The same sofa the two of you had spent hours on together, chatting the night away between glasses of wine.

You push Toto down into the soft cushions, before climbing onto his lap, straddling his thighs. Your dress bunches up to your waist as his large hands find the soft flesh of your thighs, squeezing them gently as he claims your lips in a hungry kiss.

“We could have been doing this for years.” Toto says, and you chuckle as your hands make light work of his belt buckle.

“Who says I wanted you like this back when you were my boss? They do say that absence makes the heart grow fonder.” You say, a smooth tone to your voice as your hand brushes against his cock over the fabric of his suit pants.

“But all those weekends when you could have been out in some seedy club, being touched by other men, but instead you were here, with me.” Toto says, and you scoff.

“Please, those were work meetings. I am very professional and would never think about shagging my boss.” You say, as Toto’s hands find your arse cheeks and give them a form squeeze.

“Is that so? So if you do come and work for me again I’ll find you in Christian’s bed on our weekends off?” Toto teases.

“Oh fuck no. The only man I want in my bed is you, sir.” You say, and Toto chuckles as he pulls you in for another kiss. This time, it’s hungry as he forced his tongue into your mouth, desperate to claim every inch of you as his own.

You unfasten Toto’s suit pants and set his erect cock free from the material, running your hand up his shaft to caress the tip with your thumb. He lets out a small moan into your mouth at the contact, and you pull away from his lips.

You press your wet lips to his ear once again, your breathing deep as your hand continues to pump his cock slowly.

“Would you like me to fuck you, sir? To be filled up with your thick cock?” You whisper in a sultry tone.

Toto grunts in response, his hands finding your hips to lift you up and push your panties aside.

You sink down slowly onto his length, feeling his girthy cock slowly fill you up until he bottoms out within you. You let out a small whine as you adjust to the feeling of fullness, before Toto’s grip on your hips encourages you to begin your motion, starting slowly at first, raising slowly so that only the tip of him remains inside you.

“You fill me up so well, sir.” You moan, as you pick up the pace, bouncing up and down on Toto’s cock. His grip on your waist becomes tighter, no doubt leaving small finger-shaped bruises that would mark you for the days to follow.

Your hands settle on Toto’s chest, feeling every vibration of his body as he lets out grunts and moans at the sensation of you around him.

“Does you calling me sir mean that you’re taking the job?” He asks, and you chuckle.

“Maybe. Does my contract specify that I get to fuck you whenever I want?” You ask between shallow breaths as your pace quickens.

“It can be arranged.” He says, and you wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him in for a messy kiss.

You feel yourself edging closer and closer to completion, your body begins to ache for its release.

“Fuck, Toto, I’m close.” You whine, as you throw your head back, a pornographic moan escaping your lips as you adjust your angle slightly, allowing Toto to hit just the right spot.

“Fuck, (y/n)!” Toto exclaims, as he reaches his own orgasm, filling you up with his cum.

Your walls clench around him as you too find ecstasy, your orgasm hitting you in waves as your pace stills around him.

You collapse against Toto’s broad chest, the room silent besides the heavy breathing of the two of you as you come down from the high of your orgasms.

You sit there for a moment, the two of you together on Toto’s sofa again. Slightly different from how it had been before you left for Red Bull, but you weren’t complaining.

“Is now a bad time to mention the contracts again?” Toto asks, and you roll your eyes.

“I’ll sign them in the morning. Now, you’re taking me to bed, we have a lot of lost time to make up for.” You say, planting a quick kiss on Toto’s cheek.

You were happy to be returning home next year, to the team that raised you, taught you everything you knew, but mostly, you were happy to be back with Toto. You had missed spending time with your boss the way you had in the previous year, but you were very much looking forward to the new year, and spending time with him in an entirely different way.

#toto wolff x reader #toto wolff x you #toto wolff imagine #f1 x reader #f1 x you

[liaromancewriter]

Have a Punny Day

Premise: Cassie and Tobias go overboard with food puns.

Book: Open Heart Pairing: Tobias Carrick, F!MC (Cassie Valentine); feat. Ethan Ramsey Rating/Category: Teen. Fluff. Words: 800

A/N: One of the readers on AO3 asked once if I'd consider writing a Tobias and Cassie interaction, similar to the food puns chapter in book 3. This fic is inspired by that ask. Submission for @choicesmaychallenge24 prompt 'mania' for the use of too many puns and uncontrollable laughter. 😂

Cassie Valentine was run off her feet. As a third-year resident and junior fellow at Boston’s prestigious Edenbrook Hospital, her free time was increasingly being squeezed ahead of graduation. Suddenly, it seemed as if the faculty was determined to dump all their knowledge onto departing minds.

That would have been helpful when she was a clueless intern three years ago. But now, after working with Ethan Ramsey on the most complex medical cases and performing hundreds of procedures, she no longer needed to know when arterial was preferred over central venous line placement.

She scarfed down a banana she’d grabbed from the breakroom between patients and wished it was a chocolate bar instead. What possessed her to give up chocolate for Lent?

Max, that’s what. The bastard had dared her, and she’d fallen for his sneaky insinuations like the gullible idiot she was.

Swallowing down the last bite of the slightly mushy fruit, she disposed of the peel and headed toward the north elevator bank. The buzzing of her pager with a message to report to the Diagnostic Team office had her changing directions.

A short while later, she swiped the access card and rushed into the glass-walled office, breathless from her dash up three flights of stairs.

“Whoa. Cake it easy, Valentine,” Tobias Carrick called out in alarm from the conference table, forking up a chocolate cake.

Cassie watched him in bemusement. “Did you just say ‘cake’ it easy?”

“Oops. Must have had cake on my mind.” He toasted her with his fork, going back for seconds.

Cassie shrugged, joining him at the round conference table. “I’m a layer back kind of person, Carrick.”

Tobias grinned wolfishly. “Well, you’re butter than me.”

He saw her staring hungrily at the cake and pushed the plate toward her. “It’s Maureen’s birthday. I managed to confiscate this from the nurses’ lounge— with great difficulty, I might add. If they find out, I’m in dip chip.”

Cassie snorted at the pun. “What’s life without a few whisks, right?”

Tobias chuckled. “A little cheesy, but grate effort. Here, I grabbed two forks.”

Shaking her head, she pushed the plate away. “Thanks, but my brother challenged me to give up something for Lent. In my not-so-infinite wisdom, I picked chocolate.”

“Yogurta be kidding me!” His mouth dropped open. “I didn’t peg you for being religious, especially with Ethan being agnostic.”

“Anything’s pastable.” Cassie laughed, amused at the hypothetical scenario of Ethan going to church with her. “Besides, it’s not about religion——and if you tell my mother I said that, you’re a dirty, rotten liar,” she warned with a steely-eyed look, pretending to crack her knuckles for effect.

“Max just knows how to push my gumdrop buttons, and we made a bet. I’m not giving him the satisfaction of rolling in the dough,” she added with a secret relish.

Tobias raised his eyebrows. “If you’ve given up chocolate, you must feel pretty desserted.”

“Tell you what.” He pushed his chair back and picked up the paper plate. “Consider this a gesture of my friend-chip.”

So saying, he walked out the sliding glass doors and dumped the rest of the cake into the trashcan outside.

“You’re one in a melon, Tobias,” Cassie said, her lips curled in a friendly smile. “Donut let anyone tell you otherwise.”

“And another one bites the crust.” Tobias winked lasciviously, his voice dropping into a familiar flirtatious tone. “Knew my charm would rub off on you one of these days, Cassie. Admit it. I’ve got you wonton more.”

“Oh, beet it, Carrick!” Cassie burst into laughter, throwing her head backward.

Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes as she tried to still the laughter, but it was a losing battle as Tobias joined her, his deeper chuckles mingling with her lighter ones.

When Ethan and Baz Mirani walked into the diagnostic team’s office a few minutes later, they came to a standstill and stared perplexed. The other half of the team was doubled over in their chairs; bodies wracked in uncontrollable laughter.

“Have you noticed how unruly the team has become since Carrick joined us?” Ethan mused, raising an eyebrow as he glanced from Cassie to Tobias.

Baz folded his arms, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Well, we could use a break from the usual grind of life and death.”

“I’ll never understand how one person can cause such chaos,” Ethan shook his head, crossing the carpeted floor to stand at the front of the conference table.

Noticing the others had joined them, Cassie and Tobias slowly collected themselves. Their laughter died down to occasional chuckles as they shared one final amused glance before turning to give their attention to Ethan, the levity of the moment settling into a comfortable workday hum.

-------------

All Fics & Edits: @bluebelle08 @coffeeheartaddict2 @crazy-loca-blog @jerzwriter @lady-calypso

@mainstreetreader @peonierose @potionsprefect @queencarb @quixoticdreamer16

@justyourusualash @tessa-liam @trappedinfanfiction

Submissions: @choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

Ethan & Cassie only: @cariantha @custaroonie @youlookappropriate

#open heart #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #tobias carrick #open heart fanfics #open heart fanfiction #choices fanfic #choices fanfiction #choices fic writers creations #cfwc fics of the week #ethan ramsey x cassie valentine #choices open heart

[sc0tters]

Ambers 500 Celly Playlist

Hello and welcome to the 500 follower Celebration!

I asked and you voted so this celly has 20 of my favourite tropes!

I’m usually pretty lenient with my request rules but this one as some differences so please read the request key below this!

Free Choice - you can pick any player you want for tropes in this category nhl or collegiate level will work for this!

NHL Player Only - these are the prompts that I will only accept with NHL players in the request. These NHL players have to had joined an NHL team in the 2021-2022 a season at the latest (all rookies from last season are not eligible for this category)

Prompts - similar to free choice, anyone can be picked for these. These five prompts are brand new and only for this celly.

As all slots have now been allocated a player, happy reading my lovelies!

Free Choice

Brothers Best Friend - Alex Turcotte

Best Friends Brother - [Rutger McGroarty] Rutger isn’t a very good matchmaker when everyone he suggests isn’t him.

Friends to Lovers - [Mikko Rantanen] when Mikko sees you with one of his teammates he realises that he wants to be more than just your friend.

Enemies to Lovers - Jacob Fowler

Right Person Wrong Time - [Will Smith] confessions are made when you get trapped in an elevator with your ex

One Bed - [Gabe Perreault ] when things get said during spring break, you realise gabe doesn’t hate you all as much as he makes it seem.

Sunshine vs Grumpy - Luke Hughes

Secret Lovers - [Drew Fortescue] you and Drew have been dating for a while now but a series of events cause your relationship to become known to all rather quickly after practice one day.

Forced Proximity - [Mark Estapa] when a game of beer pong turns interesting you learn to realise that your brothers friend isn't so bad after all.

Accidental Pregnancy - Cole Caufield

Teammates Sister - Juraj Slafkovsky

Captains Sister - [Adam Fantilli] an obstacle quickly comes in your relationship when Nolan learns about your relationship with his teammate, there is light at the end of that tunnel but how do you get to it?

Fake Dating - [Luca Fantilli] who would have thought fake dating could end up so messy?

Lessons in Bed - [Mackie Samoskevich] when Mackie learns of your struggles he finds a way for you both to win.

NHL players only!

Next Door Neighbours - [Jamie Drysdale] Jamie has been pining over the girl next door so it’s about time he does something about it.

Single Parent - [Mat Barzal] Mat’s son meets his next door neighbour and quickly befriends her, what happens when Mat falls for her much like she does for him?

Exes to Lovers - [Jack Hughes] when Quinn invites you back to the lake house it forces you to reconvene with your ex. What happens when Jack misses you just as much as you miss him?

Love Triangle - [Trevor Zegras & Mason McTavish] when it’s the annual Halloween party Mason has a surprise that you’re sure to enjoy.

Division Rivals - [Quinn Hughes] when the flames came to visit it brought back old memories, including why you hated quinn.

Dads Friend - [Sidney Crosby] when you push Sidney to his limits, he decides to teach you a lesson.

Prompts

"i never should've expected anything different from you." - [Quinn Hughes] Quinn finally learns how to settle down in life but when a girl finds him during a roadie it causes the biggest obstacle in your relationship yet.

"is that really all i am to you?” - [Jamie Drysdale] when Jamie gets the news that he’s being traded his departure comes with you having questions.

"you both were practically made for each other." - [Mark Estapa] wanting to get Marks attention is something you never thought would land you in his bed.

"if you leave now, you better not come back." - [Adam Fantilli] with the draft hanging over Adam’s head and the view of you getting on with another man brings the end of your relationship, but what happens when you two see each other again?

"i just... i thought you would've called." - [Trevor Zegras] you and Trevor are forced to confront your past when you are brought back together for Alex’s birthday.

#ambers 500 celly

[windyxiao]

Rating: Explicit

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: M/M

Fandom: Genshin Impact (Video Game)

Relationship: Alhaitham/Kaveh (Genshin Impact)

Characters: Alhaitham (Genshin Impact), Kaveh (Genshin Impact).

Additional Tags: Mentioned Tighnari (Genshin Impact), Mentioned Cyno (Genshin Impact), Mentioned Alhaitham's Grandmother (Genshin Impact), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas Smut, P With Plot, Hookups to Strangers to Lovers, dating apps, Dinner as an Excuse to meetup with your Crush, Misunderstandings, Autistic Alhaitham (Genshin Impact), Kaveh Has ADHD (Genshin Impact), Oblivious Kaveh (Genshin Impact), napping together, Dry Humping, Praise Kink, Oral, Anal Fingering, Anal Penetration, Aftercare, Gift Giving, Requited Affection

Read on AO3, sneak peak below!

It was the 21st of December and Kaveh was still considering what to do over the holidays. His mother celebrated in Fontaine with her new husband, but they had not spoken in a long time and he was afraid to call her now and disrupt her life just because he had no one to not be alone with.

He stared at the notification on his phone, eyes narrowing as he recognized the name, "grandsagehthm: Merry Christmas, are you still free this year?" It was the guy who had blown out his back, massaged him and then ghosted him. Kaveh groaned and clicked on a notification on his aKasha to Humpr, opening their chat – it had existed for a year now, they should celebrate their chat's anniversary, Kaveh thought, sarcasm heavy even in his own head.

There, the message sat and mocked him. This guy had a nerve to contact him for a holiday fuck again. Kaveh was not some festive bird that can be stuffed only to be spat out again, so he closed the chat without replying, not caring that he knew the man on the other side would see that his message had been delivered and read.

He picked up his sweater, pulled it over his head and over his turtle neck to keep him warm. After all, he still had to go outside, drive to the supermarket nearby and buy everything he needed for the holidays. It was a death sentence, going shopping for groceries on the last workday before Christmas Eve, but Kaveh had to. Not only did he need to bake cookies for his best friend and his boyfriend, Tighnari and Cyno, but he also needed to buy food for himself. The holidays had always left a somewhat sour taste in his mouth after his father's death, so now it was just a holiday to him where he did not need to work, but his friends elevated his mood quite a bit with their silly – endearing – traditions. They even invited him for New Years Eve ever since they had moved in together, which had been four years ago , but this year they would come back earlier as Cyno's father was on a business trip in another region, so they could celebrate the 2nd Christmas Day with Kaveh , and even have him sleep over the day prior so they would have even more time together .

So now he drove to the supermarket, where he collected the ingredients for everything he needed and longed for. He would treat himself t his Christmas, it was a gift to himself. A nice baked loaf, maybe some cake. However, in the end, he stood in front of the section he always dreaded, the wine section. Kaveh stared at the bottles of sorrow, of bad memories, of a darker time in his life, and he knew how horrible they made him feel when he had numbed himself, but he could not help but be tempted.

However, a voice tore him from his internal argument between the devil and the angel on his shoulders, "I see, that's why you don't want to reply to my inquiry."

Kaveh turned his head to see the very man he had left on read, Alhaitham. "It's you."

#haikaveh #alhaitham #kaveh #kavetham #genshin impact #haikaveh fic #kavetham fic #windyxiao #ao3

[tuiyla]

Can I just float the question of: was Finn homophobic?

• I mean he said the F word to Kurt. Which was really bad and he should have known better, especially since they were friends.

• He outed Santana and he didn't think it was that big of a deal. I mean no matter what, it is never someone's place to out another person. I know that it's not real, but in glee universe he had no idea what her situation was. Her parents could have disowned her, her abuela did. I'm saying this because if someone did that to me then my life would be over, I don't know where I would live and I wouldn't have any support.

• Also, when Santana was insulting Finn his reaction was to basically say "yea well you're gay." That is his idea of the biggest insult he could have thrown at Santana. In my mind being gay would never be seen as an insult or ammunition to use against someone but he did. What does that say about him??

I think even Glee itself doesn't shy away from Finn's homophobic tendencies, at least in season 1, which is a refreshing bit of self-awareness. It doesn't last. The self-awareness, that is. The homophobia does.

So here's the thing, I think Finn was meant to represent this more lowkey but just as sinister type of homophobia where you're cool with gay people in theory and are more progressive than your mates, until it's time to actually confront your own socialization and make a stand. That's season 1, imo. Where Glee has enough of a critical eye turned towards Finn where they can elevate him from ~other boys~ who are more hostile and actively homophobic but also explore that not standing up against a system is also perpetuating it. In non-pretentious terms, Glee doesn't shy away from Kurt's crossing of boundaries in season 1 but also 100% acknowledges that Finn is too comfortable in his privileged position and too ready to abuse it. The infamous slur scene is Finn resorting to homophobic language because it puts Kurt down and elevates him. And Finn throughout the series season is caving in to peer pressure from other jocks because his own image matters more to him than actually being anti-homophobic.

That story works in season 1, imo, because Finn learns his lesson but with much, much more space for growth. The correct continuation would have been not him having to learn the exact same lesson with Kurt again in 2x08 Furt and not him getting a free pass for every subsequent homophobic action. Alas, he lost all my sympathy when he was centered again and again in queer narratives without learning his lesson, without giving up his privilege to enact real change, without understanding how his actions continued hurting people, without examining his own messed up homophobia that came from his social context. Sure, he and Kurt became brothers but it felt like the show just absolved him of all sins. And proceeded to have him out a Latina lesbian to a homophobic high school/conservative town. With zero remorse or even sign that he knew how messed up what he did was. Because make no mistake, as much as Finn just wanted to hurt Santana in 3x06, he chose to do it by attacking her sexual identity and threatening her personal safety. That's homophobia and a particularly insidious act of it, at that, because everything in previous seasons tells us that Finn should know better than to do that. And he does it anyway. That's not just ignorance, that's cruelty.

So. Is Finn homophobic? Well, I think there's a distinction between being homophobic and doing/saying homophobic things. Finn was meant to belong to the latter category in Glee and meant to evolve into someone who genuinely learns to do better and stand up in the face of homophobia. Glee thinks that's what they did with the ch but I beg to differ. I think Finn is a person who just doesn't grasp the gravity of things and doesn't know how to apologize. See the Sue and baby Robin incident. So even though he does a genuinely great job later on with Unique's situation, I struggle to say he's not still homophobic because he just didn't demonstrate he was capable of that kind of growth. And that's on the writers and their treatment of Finn as a golden boy instead of the messed up kid who makes mistakes and has to learn bit by bit, not just be portrayed as this inherently "good" guy. By painting him as inherently, instinctively good even when he screwed up big time - bigger than anyone else on the show if you ask me - they halted that growth and he remained homophobic.

Mini-Finn analysis/glimpse at my personal frustrations with him aside, I'd say he has huge issues with homophobia, yeah. How can you not think so after everything that happened with both Kurt and Santana. But that's just it, most of the fandom (based on the reddit days, anyway) would vehemently deny this. The show tells us he got over his homophobia, so. When I say with 100% certainty that Finn Hudson has a nasty case of The Homophobia, I know that can be a controversial statement. To wrap up a long story concisely, that is what I'd say though, yeah. Not only was Finn homophobic but he never truly got over it like the show would have us pretend.

#idk if tagging people to chime in is annoying #but i bet dan has even more thoughts on this than i do #so by all means bestie if you see this jump in #i really restrained myself here as those who follow my anti finn rants will know #much to say about him and homophobia and most of the time i get too pissed to really get into it #tried to stay calm here tho because anon wasn't looking for a proper rant i don't think #i just find it funny how this can even be up for debate #by funny i mean it makes me wanna commit violent crimes #anon #glee asks #finn asks #anti finn hudson #implied

[wackymaci]

@marscats37 OH HEY YOUVE GOT JESSE QUESTIONS?? well!!!!

although all wiki progress has been made exclusively on the Maci page and No Where Else, the good news is!! Jesse has his OWN brief section ON Maci's page in and of itself!! how tf did Jesse end up in Elysium indeed??

short answer: Maci adopted him as a pet once Tory moved to the underworld bc mortals do better in pairs

long answer: COPYPASTES ENTIRE LITTLE JESSE SECTION OF MACI’S PAGE BEHIND THE CUT ;;;; UWU UWU UWU,

With Tory's impromptu move to the Underworld, he hadn't left much behind in the mortal world. One such was his only other friend, Jesse - the person who'd summoned Maci from Tory's phone during that fateful night, so many months ago. Maci had only met Jesse once before that night, only just long enough for Jesse to suspiciously clock the puppy-dog eyes that Tory had aimed her way every time he'd thought no one was looking, and long enough for Jesse to have thought of her when Tory had gone through a crisis. From the events of that night Jesse, a sunny, easygoing person who had bafflingly aligned himself at Tory’s dark and moody side since their childhood, had earned himself an immediate spot in Maci’s heart too. Now that he lived in the Underworld, Tory kept in touch with him through the long distance of an entire realm apart until eventually Maci offered to sneak him into the Underworld to visit and hang out in the safety of the Elysium palace, too. She’d already broken the rules with one mortal, why not two? Besides, Melinoe was still on the loose, Hades somehow had not lashed out again with his weapon of Thanatos yet, and since retaliating at the vulnerable people indirectly around Maci clearly their go-to, it was perhaps safer for Jesse to start spending some time in Elysium with them. Tory was Maci’s one mortal exception, but Jesse had already earned her trust to be let in, too. More infinitely adventurous than Tory was, when he wasn’t hanging out in the palace Jesse spent the other half of his Underworld time wildly running around exploring all over Elysium, only stopping at the barrier’s edges when Maci reminded him that he was definitely accidentally killable if he went off somewhere without supervision. Jesse’s open running invitation into the Underworld stood concurrently with Maci and Tory getting closer to Glaukos on a platonic and physical level. As Jesse was already one of the rare people Tory had let down a wall around, when given the option of sleeping with a new third, Tory and Maci approached Jesse to be the new one to slot between them. He didn’t think twice at all before leaping at the opportunity, and becoming Maci's second ever mortal exception. Skipping ahead a little bit in this narrative, it's worth mentioning now that Jesse would become so intimately inseparable from Maci and Tory that he was formally asked to live with them permanently within the palace on Valentine's Day of the next year. There would be a number of people that Maci would go on to meet and adopt into her arms, under her roof, and in her (their) bed; not ever formally dating, just elevated and loved as super-special friends with benefits. Again, the pantheon's standard trend. The palace would continue to be populated with these people Maci latched onto along with Tory, eventually all conglomerating together into one interchangeable family unit as the years continued on... within this special category, Jesse was the first of Maci's little adopted pets, the very beginning of their trend. (Though Maci and Tory's relationships with Hypnos and Pasi, and Glaukos and Oiolyka, would continue with importance - none of the four of them ever moved in!) Jesse would even go on to later marry Laphi, another of Maci and Tory's palace residents discussed in the section below.

honestly its sooo funny as ive been looking at oldschool elysium content like, where all our main characters and our focus were SOOO different than where they are now ;0; like.... look at that up there but how often do i even ever DRAW jesse in the modern day??? A CRIIIMEEEEE HELLO??????

**full disclosure much of jesse's pre elysium backstory history is in the process of being heavy retconned actually but i do have i think Many things straightened out from where he threw himself into the palace onwards with just a teeny handful of exceptions lmao???<333

underrated fave honestly !! anyway yeah the even shorter short short version is bc Maci's a sex pest and Jesse is Extremely Cute + Pre-Tory-Approved

#preview snippets #HAVING A REFERENCE WIKI IS SO SO FUNNNNNN

[craig-f-tucker]

On today's episode of "What's Wrong With Robin?": Cyclothymia! Tune in under the cut where I explain in detail why I think Teen Titans Go Robin has cyclothymia or potentially another brand of bipolar!

(ps I'm making this as a mentally ill person with an interest in mental illnesses lol, this is going to be just as much an infodump about cyclothymia as about Robin)

Cyclothymia a subtype of bipolar disorder, involves episodes of hypomania and depressive symptoms which are not qualifiable as major depression. Note that Bipolar I does not require depressive episodes for diagnosis, and that in this situation i am using the slightly less intense diagnosis with the knowledge that because we only see the sides of Robin's life that are funny or that he shows with his friends, he might have further symptoms to elevate him to Bipolar I or II that just aren't shown on screen.

When it comes to the emotional problems that trouble Robin in daily life, he has:

- Intense emotional reactions, specifically strong irritability and intense excitement

- periods of extreme excitement in which he is unhindered by criticism, talks faster, and is often more productive in things that he enjoys and forces the other titans to be too. (This meets the criteria for a hypomanic episode.)

- if this doesn't sound like a problem to you, to quote an actual episode:

Beast boy: don't you ever get tired of being excited about everything?

Robin (excitedly): Yes I do!!! That's why I'm in therapy to lower my blood pressure!!!

- I list these as "periods of excitement" as this is not a constant state, in other situations he switches to being very irritable and angry, sometimes lonely, and often insecure. These are less intense, and he is usually still very focused on work and forcing himself to fight and be vigilant. The lack of a full major depressive episode despite some depressive symptoms and a continued lack of stability is why I ruled out Bipolar I and II right away, but one can still be depressed while being productive which frankly? I think Robin is, he is incredibly stressed and channels a lot of that into anger.

Cyclothymia can occur in any age group but typically starts during teenage years to early adulthood, a category which Robin falls under as a teenager.

Environmental factors that can contribute to developing this disorder are traumatic experiences and prolonged periods of stress, both of which Robin has experienced or is experience (the whole teen titans thing is incredibly stressful for him, not the crime fighting part the monster roommates who bully you constantly and never listen to you part. He canonically became the disaster he is as a reaction to the stress he dealt with just on his first meeting with them, and he still is with them constantly. Sorry for the titans slander, they're not that bad but that doesn't change the effect they have on Robin which is what we're focused on right now.)

In simple terms, here is which of the Wikipedia diagnostic criteria Robin falls under.

"Cyclothymia is classified in DSM-5 as a subtype of bipolar disorder. The criteria are:

1. Periods of elevated mood and depressive symptoms for at least half the time during the last two years for adults and one year for children and teenagers." ✅️, he has been experiencing this through the series, and according to raven, each new rock animal comes a year after the previous, making a ttg season a year. (Don't worry abt the fact that doesn't make continuity sense, cartoon characters don't age. like in canon they're in a cartoon.)

"2. Periods of stable moods last only two months at most." ✅️ He has never been stable for more than like, an episode or two in a row ill be honest. And considering there are 50+ episodes in a ttg year, so even if we round to exactly 50, greater than 2 months would have to be at least 9 episodes in a row of stability. This has never happened.

"3. Symptoms create significant problems in one or more areas of life." ✅️ Robin was unable to form the team he wanted because of his irritability, and is generally unable to handle being in a team because of it. His stress with his life also causes him to lash out at people and hurt criminals when they're not even doing anything. His hypomanic episodes on the other hand interrupt his ability to fight crime, as he will literally not care about potential disaster because he's just so excited and happy and would rather infodump about his interests.

"4. Symptoms do not meet the criteria for bipolar disorder, major depression, or another mental disorder." ✅️ as far as we can see, he does not have enough depressive symptoms to qualify for depression or Bipolar II, and does not experience intense or interruptive enough mania for Bipolar I. Once again though, we don't see his whole life, it is fully possible he could experience those more intense symptoms and thus suffer Bipolar I or II.

"5. Symptoms are not caused by substance use or a medical condition." ✅️ no substance use here, his behaviour is not caused by a medical condition as far as we're aware. (Once again, slightly limited by not seeing his whole life by which I mean not actually being his therapist.)

Call in now for 2 free shorter BONUS explanations of why Robin could have ADHD and why he could have Narcissistic Personality Disorder! (That's an actual offer if u wanna send an ask lol)

#ttg #teen titans go #ttg robin #robin #robin teen titans go #robin ttg #cyclothymia #mental illness #bipolar disorder

[dannyreviews]

Affliction (1997)

One of the hardest things to do when making an original piece of art is portray the real life surroundings of its plot. The film that goes above and beyond that encapsulation is the Coen Brothers' "Fargo" which is as perfect a film as you can get. But that's not the topic of this post. The following year came a film that has the desolate look of "Fargo", but in a more straightforward Hollywood fashion. Paul Schrader's "Affliction" is a competent piece of cinema that gets its strength more on its substance, but not in the plotting.

In the snowy hills of New Hampshire, officer Wade Whitehouse (Nick Nolte) has a lot of emotional baggage. He's in the middle of a messy custody battle with his ex-wife (Mary Beth Hurt), his friend (Jim True-Frost) is a suspect in the death of a Massachussetts businessman (Sean McGann) during a deer hunt, he is conflicted as to whether to marry his girlfriend Marge (Sissy Spacek) and is still haunted by his abusive childhood at the hands of his father Glen (James Coburn). When Wade's mother dies, he and his brother Rolfe (Willem Dafoe) must confront their personal demons while also getting to the bottom of a mystery involving the deceased businessman and his boss Selectman Gordon Lariviere (Holmes Osborne Jr.) pertaining to a dodgy real estate deal.

"Affliction" has the appearance of a film steeped in mystery and intrigue, but very little of it actually bears any real suspense. The story involving the businessman's death is treated as an ordinary subplot rather than the main story. Another criticism is how the town and its citizens are shown. The desolate nature of the small town lacks any real interest for its urban legends and old wives' tales. The characters are all creations of Hollywood from their mismatched accents (Minnesotan sounding people from New Hampshire) to costumes that look like a JCPenney catalog. It was those characteristics done right in "Fargo" that elevated that film to legenday status, the idea of a mystery being given full treatment, the characters speaking freely in their own dialect and the spontaneous flow of life going at a natural pace. In "Affliction", it's more like make-believe.

The one part of "Affliction" that is done well is its most important aspect, that of a father and son relationship in turmoil. Schrader's succeeds in showing us flashbacks that look like home movies down to the graininess of the film. We understand why Wade is not an effective parent, why he cannot commit to marriage and why he is on the brink of insanity. The narration by Rolfe connects the dots in showing the relevance between the Whitehouse family and the businessman's death, despite the latter's less than stellar use in the plot. When we find out the real story in the epilogue, we've stopped caring.

Nick Nolte gives one of his most effective performances as Wade. He's the guy you hate because of his callousness but the same time feel sorry for him because of his childhood scars. His rugged nature mixed in with his sensitivity is worn all over his face. James Coburn, in a well deserved Oscar winning performance, makes Glen Whitehouse into the Father From Hell, a lowlife with the most disdain for the human race. The final scene between the two is a testament to their acting chops and the lengths they can go to churn out characters with dimension. The rest of the cast (Spacek, Dafoe, Osborne, True-Frost) are also terrific in otherwise thankless roles. The one acting performance that was off-putting was that by Brigid Tierney as Wade's daughter Jill, which was all whining and no human dimension. Her scenes come off as cheap, direct to video family theatrics, not an R-rated Hollywood indie film directed by a Hollywood legend like Paul Schrader.

In addition to Coburn's Oscar win for Best Supporting Actor, the only other nomination was a well deserved one from Nick Nolte in the Best Actor category. "Affliction" could have been a masterpiece like "Fargo" if it only adhered more to the urban legend mentality and breathed life into its surroundings with more visual and characteristic subtlety. As it is now, "Affliction" is "Fargo-lite".

7.5/10

#dannyreviews #affliction #paul schrader #nick nolte #mary beth hurt #jim true-frost #sissy spacek #james coburn #sean mccann #willem dafoe #holmes osborne jr.

[liaromancewriter]

What Could Have Been (2/?)

Series Premise: When Ethan breaks his promise, Cassie is forced to accept they’re not inevitable after all.

Book: Open Heart Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Cassie Valentine); feat. Naveen Banerji Rating/Category: Teen. Angst Words: 1,125

Series Masterlist

Chapter 2: Facing the Consequences. It’s a new day; the past is best left where it belongs. Or is it?

Ethan Ramsey had always known doing the right thing wasn’t easy, but no one told him it could also break his heart. Still, he’d stuck to his decision made during the long flight back.

He remembered their conversation at Derry’s after her ethics trial. How certain she was they could weather anything. He had allowed himself to believe then because he was powerless against her.

The WHO trip had come at a bad time, within a week or so of their new relationship. Or maybe it was fortunate timing.

Their last night together had been incredible. The lingering goodbye at the airport the next morning almost broke him. But absence had given him clarity on the risks they were taking entering into a relationship at this stage of her training.

He wasn’t her direct supervisor, but that didn’t mean people wouldn’t talk. About all manner of things, given the events of this past year. He’d seen firsthand how cruel gossip could be. She didn’t deserve it.

As he watched Cassie Valentine walk away, shoulders slumped in dejection, Ethan almost called her back. Nearly broke his resolve to keep things professional. Barely stopped himself from begging her forgiveness for his temporary lapse into insanity.

But he did none of those things. He shot back the last of his whiskey, savoring the burn on the back of his throat, and slumped forward. He sniffed away the tears threatening to fall and took a deep breath of the cooling night air.

This was the right decision, Ethan thought, pressing the heels of both hands against his eyelids. It had to be.

This wasn’t their time. He could wait two years for Cassie to graduate. Or he might have lost her forever. He told her back in Miami that some things were worth the risk. He’d come to realize some risks were too big to take.

Ethan arrived at the hospital early the next morning to talk to Naveen. He also needed time to prepare himself for seeing Cassie. She tried to hide the depth of her feelings last night, but he’d lost some sleep over how they’d work together on the team now.

Knowing his former mentor’s habits, he took the elevator to the executive floor, marched down the hallway and passed empty workstations. The desk outside Naveen’s office was unmanned; his administrative assistant wouldn’t start work for another hour.

Giving the door a perfunctory knock, Ethan pushed the door open and came to face to face with the man who’d made him the doctor he was. He hated disappointing him, but there was no getting away from it.

“Ethan! Welcome back,” Naveen exclaimed, coming out from behind the desk to shake his hand and slap another on his back in greeting. “Come sit. How was the mission?”

“Good. Although, I’d forgotten how tedious dealing with local governments can be,” Ethan said, taking the visitor’s chair across from the desk. “But we had a great team, and the results looked promising before I left.”

“I keep telling you. Diplomacy is a lost art form,” Naveen grinned. “It’s something you should consider seriously now that you’re back and permanently heading up the team.”

Ethan grimaced at the implication. He was far too impatient and blunt to be a diplomat.

“Come now, Ethan,” Naveen teased. “You know this better than anyone. If you want to advance in your career, you’ll have to apply your excellent bedside manners to people that aren’t your patients.”

“You can’t help being a teacher, huh?” Ethan drawled with a slight shake of his head.

“Yours in particular, my friend,” Naveen said, leaning back in the chair and crossing his hands behind his head. “You’ve come a long way from that hungry but rough intern I took under my wing, but you haven’t realized your full potential. Not yet, anyway.”

Ethan’s brows furrowed in confusion at the cryptic remark. He wanted to quiz Naveen but decided to let it go. He likely wouldn’t get a straight answer anyway.

“Tell me. How was your reunion with Dr. Valentine? I know she missed you,” Naveen said eagerly. “I’ve enjoyed seeing her shine on her own these last few weeks. What a power couple you’ll make, as the kids say.”

The question shook Ethan out of his reverie and reminded him of the reason for this visit.

“Actually, that’s what I came to talk to you about,” Ethan began slowly, trying to find the right words. “She and I are no longer seeing each other.”

“I see,” Naveen said neutrally. “Was this a mutual decision?”

“Not exactly,” Ethan said, unable and unwilling to lie. “We, I mean, I decided it would be detrimental to her training for us to be involved.”

He continued when Naveen didn’t interrupt. “You know how vicious the rumor mill can be, especially for female residents. Plus, our work on the diagnostics team could be compromised if I can’t push her to excel the way you did me.”

Ethan waited for Naveen to say something, anything. But the other man continued to stare at him with a poker face, thrumming his fingers on the arm of the chair.

“I’m disappointed in you, Ethan,” Naveen said eventually.

Ethan sucked in a breath at the tone as much as the words. “Nave—”

Naveen put up one hand for silence.

“After everything that happened this past year, to me, to you, I thought you’d come to appreciate how fragile life can be. And how regrets can destroy one’s peace of mind. But I see now I was wrong.”

“It’s not like that,” Ethan protested, hating how Naveen’s words made him feel.

“Your personal life is your business, Ethan,” Naveen said bluntly. “I will not try to talk you out of this decision. However, I won’t say anything to HR, not yet. I expect you to think long and hard about what changed and why. And, hopefully, correct your mistake before it’s too late.”

Naveen turned toward his computer monitor and placed one hand on the mouse. “I’m sorry, Ethan, but I must catch up on some reports before the day begins. So, if you’ll excuse me…”

Ethan stiffened, feeling the dismissal and disappointment more keenly than a punch. He didn’t care for too many people’s opinions, but Naveen was the exception. He needed the other man’s approval. It was the only measure he’d ever used to determine whether he was on the right path.

Troubled and uneasy, he slid out of the chair and left Naveen’s office, escaping with his tail caught between his legs.

He was doing the right thing, thought Ethan. He’d been so sure last night. So why did he now believe he’d just made the biggest mistake of his life?

-----------------

All Fics & Edits: @annfg8 @bluebelle08 @coffeeheartaddict2 @crazy-loca-blog @doriopenheart @genevievemd @headoverheelsforramsey @lucy-268 @jamespotterthefirst @jerzwriter @lady-calypso @mainstreetreader @peonierose @potionsprefect @queencarb @quixoticdreamer16 @rookiemartin @socalwriterbee @takemyopenheart @tessa-liam @trappedinfanfiction

Submissions: @choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

Ethan & Cassie only: @cariantha @custaroonie @hopelessromantic1352 @mrs-ramsey @youlookappropriate

#open heart #open heart choices #choices open heart #playchoices #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #choices fic writers creations #cfwc fics of the week #open heart fanfics #open heart fanfiction #choices fanfics #choices fanfiction #writers on tumblr #ethan ramsey x cassie valentine

[peejsocks]

bam x f!reader angst

a/n: this is sooo cheesy and silly, i was kind of just fucking around and writing to get inspo for other stuff but i thought it was fun and i did kinda promise bam angst so here it is! there was supposed to be more smut but uhm...you'll see

disclaimers/tags: heavy drinking (which usually doesn't lead to as much fun as you hope irl so avoid that!) ; bam being jealous of johnny and i think that's it! enjoy <3

You're the only one drinking wine and you don't regret it. Since Steve-O is more attracted to alcohol coming from distilleries, when his roomate bought the occasional wine or champagne, it was for fancy events. They never remembered they had it and you always did, stealing a whole bottle for yourself.

Not to sound like a heavy drinker. You only stole a bottle, drinking it from the neck and stumbling through the hallways, when you felt self-destructive and immature. The latest strong motive to ignite that fire for sabotage was Bam 'dumbfuck' Margera. The name itself forces a shiver down your spine, and you take another swig of the comparatively expensive Pinot Grigio.

A love slash hate relationship is the best way you can describe it.

When CKY was getting increasingly more popular, Big Brother magazine wanted a profile on many skater young kids. That said, they just bundled you together in the same weekend for a photoshoot even though you had never met before. The only girl, you clicked well with the guys. Except for Bam.

One of his friends, Ryan, explained that he was just jealous because you were basically the female version of him, meaning you were more likable because you could do all the cool things but had nice hair and tits.

The blonde also let out that you were less prone to crying, another perk.

Ever since, you were associated with the Jackass cast and actually developed somewhat of a connection to them, even Bam. No, especially Bam.

After getting over that ridiculous but on-brand childish reaction, the dark haired boy showered you in attention. Not an idiot, you were apprehensive at first, aware that this was probably just his way to prove himself to his friends. Getting in your pants meant he bested you.

Ironically, the first time you have sex is romantic. There's mood lighting, and a lot of pet names. He could try and tell you he hand't spent time thinking it through, you'd never believe him.

Another surprise is that he doesn't tell anybody. You were sure the second it was done he'd text his hometown buddies about nailing the annoying skater chick. Instead, he asks you out on a real date.

He backs out on it. You don't talk for a while.

Some time later you get a call from Ryan, who claims to have digged your number out of a destroyed old napkin. He asks if you're going to a skateboarding event, you answer that you're not sure since the event holder doesn't promote the women's category at all so you're not that interested. He convinces you to show up by revealing they'd all be shooting for the Jackass movie soon and probably wouldn't have time to hang out later.

Bam and you end up having a quickie on one of the bathrooms at the event. After, he invites you to his hotel room and you ask, facetious, if he's gonna chicken out again. He doesn't, and the sex in his suite is nearly animalistic, the boy's ego clearly wounded.

While waiting for the elevator, you see a redhead stop in front of his door, dressed like she had spent hours getting ready for a fancy dinner. You don't stick around long enough to check if she knocked on the correct door.

Surprisingly, he calls you throughout the Jackass tour. Updating you about the traveling, the stunts and the other guys. You're not sure how to react, so you tell him about what you've been doing too, not wanting to scare him away by not reciprocating his openness.

When he returns, there's silence again. You only know they're back because you're supposed to participate in a campaign for MTV together.

Seeing the boys again was tremendous fun, fucking around backstage like unsupervised children. At some point, Steve-O was giving you a piggy back ride while you covered his eyes and guided him vocally, purposefully knocking shit over and blaming it on the skinny boy. The only one not smiling was Bam, in a perpetual pout, head buried in his laptop.

When things settle down and the MTV crew has to clean up so you can start shooting, you sit next to him. "Hey."

Nothing but a mumbled "Hi" back.

"This doesn't have to be a thing, you know." You push your hair back, out of your face. "No one needs to know, we can just be friends."

He still doesn't look at you, responding with a simple OK. You huff and get up.

The reason why you like him and are this desesperate to keep him in your life is lost to you. He's spoiled, stubborn and bad at communication. He's you. Why would you want another you around?

Probably because he made you feel understood. You shared this very impulsive way to deal with things, sometimes words weren't the best way to communicate what you were feeling and he saw it that way too. That made everything so much easier. And then the unprocessed emotional repression made it so much harder.

You don't know how to tell him you like him, he clearly doesn't know how to tell you he doesn't like you back. Gotta find another way to do it then.

One bottle of wine down, many others to go. Walking out into the roof, your legs feel a little wobbly but it's nice, not the "oh no I'm gonna embarrass myself" level of crisis yet.

Immediately, Johnny spots and calls you to the group you were now so familiar with.

They're all there, staring at you with a knowing look you're missing out on, when the southern man asks, "Do you mind if we kiss?"

"M'sorry?" A hiccup gets in the way of your exasperation. Ryan chuckles and you glare at him.

"There's a challenge. The last couple still kissing wins." He explains through chattering teeth, an idiot to stay out there in the gusty night with no jacket on.

"Wins what?" You ask and he shrugs. "Moral win, then. Cool."

You're about to tell him you'll help find a substitute when you see Bam is actually holding some random girl's hand, probably his pick for the stupid game.

"You know what?" A click of the tongue and you're turning back on your heels, face to face with the ringleader. "How long can it be?"

Nine minutes and forty-seven seconds, is how long you made out with Knoxville. You'd be lying if you said it wasn't nice.

He really committed, leaning in slowly. His hands starting at your hips and then moving up to massage the back of your head, pulling on your hair a few times. So you committed as well, one hand playing with the belt holding his Dickies and the other scratching his neck.

The kiss officially ends when his hands squeeze your ass and you laugh lively, throwing your head back but still hanging off of him.

The rest of the boys whoop and whistle, signaling you had won. Turns out, Bam and the random chick were 3rd place. Ryan and his girlfriend came in second, and since you two looked like you wouldn't stop anytime soon, the gang simply let you keep going for another minute and forty-one seconds.

Not one to shy away from your sexuality, you high-five Johnny, not thinking anything of the situation beyond being awarded the title of winners.

In an uncharacteristic fit of possessiveness, Bam abandons the blonde girl and grabs your hand, leading you downstairs again. If the boys didn't suspect things before, they would have no doubt now. Probably very confused, navigating from one end of the spectrum to another.

"You think it's funny, or something? To use Knoxville?" He's huffing as he tries to open a bunch of doors, probably occupied bedrooms. "Isn't jealousy a little seventh grade?"

"You're the one using the word, not me. Also not me throwing a tantrum." He finally finds an empty suite, pushing the door open and slamming you against it when he shuts it back. "Don't try to play macho, I don't like it."

"You seemed to." His breathing is hot on your face, curls falling on his eyes. "You were all up in Knoxville's mouth, dude. Don't deny it."

You laugh, tipsy. "I'm not denying anything, you saw it right in front of you." That makes his eyes grow darker and your mouth gets dry. "You were holding some other girl's hand, who you then proceedeed to make out with in the challenge just as I did your friend."

"That's the difference, you don't know the girl, Johnny is my friend!"

"Why are we talking like established rules were broken?" You push back on his stance but his face does not move away from yours. "There's no grounds for a discussion if we never even talked about what we were."

"You said you wanted to be friends." He's pointing a finger at your face, the other arm closing in on you against the door.

"No, I said we could be." Both pairs of eyes refuse to look anywhere but right ahead, afraid any movement might reveal a deep desire and therefore declare defeat. "Again, I'm not the one losing my fucking marbles over a stupid make out session. You're interrogating me, even though you're the one who's sleazy hands found another body to grab at faster than I could drink my wine. So why are you puffing in my face like a cartoon?"

You're actually angry now. The balls on this kid to try and make you feel bad for simply kissing somebody when you had absolutely nothing serious going on, thanks to him by the way.

"Bam?" He doesn't move, but his eyes do. To your lips. "See, you can't even articulate a defense. You know what, you're so pathetic, running away scared and then having the audacity to come back with demands. Taking me for some naive skank who, wow, can't fucking resist Bam fucking Margera, big MTV star. Your problem is that I know you're nothing but a babyback bitc-"

Your back hits the door again, Bam's nails digging into the skin of your waist. "Bitch." You clear your throat, eyes darting over the boy's face. An unrecognizable serious look on it.

His right hand comes up, fingers holding both sides of your jaw, palm turned to you. Even slower than Johnny, he leans in.

When your lips meet, it starts sweet. Weirdly, there's a velvety taste of coffee, probably some candy he sucked on before going down that rando's throat.

As his tongue moves in between your parting lips, the hand holding your chin begins sliding down.

First, thumb and index pressing lightly at the top of your neck. He pushes your mouth to open wider, head moving to the side and fingers lifting your face. Tongue doing all the work, meticulous. Then, his hand goes lower, closing around your throat but not squeezing. Keeping you in place, flush to the door.

Too good to be true.

It's his other hand going under your top and scratching up your back that makes you push him away, cutting a moan short halfway through.

"I'm not doing this toxic shit." Unfortunately for you, actual feelings had developed.

You like him, thinking about being his girlfriend and sharing hoodies and breakfast made you swoon like in some Amanda Bynes movie. It's fucking silly, and you're not going to become the ingenuous little girl he was trying to extract out of you. "You should let me go."

"I don't want to." Not my problem, you tell him.

"Go unload your hormones all over that blonde girl. Or down the toilet, same thing." Now you're being juvenile, and it makes you hate yourself. You sigh and run a hand down your face, trying to move past the body trapping you against the door but Bam stops you.

Your back is turned to him, hand on the knob, one of his big hands holding it with you and the other snaking around your stomach. He whispers in your ear, nuzzling your neck, and it makes you shiver. "Why can't this be easy? Why isn't this enough?"

"Because I want you and you want everyone. That is not good enough for me." Actually handing him the truh fills you with hot shame, another telling sign that this whole thing is not good for you. "Tell me right now you're not looking just for fun, and I'll stay."

Silence.

All you want to do is guide his hands down your pants and give in, but instead you grab your remaining dignity and walk out the door. This time you're sticking to your comfort zone.

—————————————————————————

pfft who would get attached and suffer this much over that loser? totally not me

ps i called this short lmao sorry

#bam margera x reader #jackass #johnny knoxville #jackass fanfic #steveo #🤷🏻‍♀️

[waitimcomingtoo]

Swedish Fish

Pairing: Tom Holland x Reader

Synopsis: at an awards show where you and Tom are nominated for a lot of awards together, you poke fun at the rumors about your relationship

Masterlist

“Hello!” A journalist greeted you and Tom as you approached her on the red carpet of a low stakes award show. “You two are looking amazing.”

“Thank you.” You beamed, feeling the excitement of the night settle in with your first interview.

“Thanks so much.” Tom nodded in appreciation as he rested his hand on your back.

“So you two are nominated for quite a few awards tonight. How are you feeling? Nervous? Excited?” The journalist asked before holding her microphone out to the two of you.

“I’m really excited to be here. I’m more excited to be Y/n’s date, though. Look at her in this dress.” Tom stepped back so the camera could get a better look at your long red dress. “She’s better than any award.”

“Stop it. I don’t want to be flushed in the interviews.” You leaned against him as you briefly buried your face in his neck to hide your blush.

“Aw.” The journalist pouted at the camera. “So you two came here together?”

“We did. Almost all our nominations are together so it seemed like the right thing to do.” You explained as you kept one hand resting on Tom’s shoulder.

“That was my excuse for why I asked her.” Tom joked. “I really did it because I wanted to make everyone jealous that I had the prettiest date.”

“Oh, please.” You rolled your eyes. “He just wanted me as his date because he knows I bring snacks.”

“You brought snacks?” The journalist laughed into the microphone.

“I did.” You nodded excitedly. “I have like 6 types of candy in my bra. I have cookies and chocolate in my purse. You don’t even want to know where I’m hiding a granola bar.”

“I really want to know now.” The journalist raised her eyebrows at you.

“I’ll find out later and let you know.” Tom winked and you smacked him playfully.

“It’s the Nature Valley kind though so I’m scared to eat it.” You laughed. “They’re so crumbly.”

“Maybe you can step outside and eat it. Like a little snack break.” The journalist suggested.

“I could. I’ll do it during one of the boring speeches.” You joked.

“Who’s speech would you leave during?” The journalist asked you.

“Probably Tom’s.” You stated and he nodded along it humor you.

“Yeah. I tend to ramble.” He shrugged, making you laugh.

“Alright well I’ll let you guys get to the rest of the carpet.” The journalist said. “Thank you for chatting.”

“Thank you! Enjoy the night.” You waved goodbye to her as Tom picked up the train of your dress to make walking easier.

“She didn’t ask if we were a couple.” He whispered in your ear as you posed in front of the photographers.

“Are you upset that she didn’t?” You laughed as you looked at him.

“Frankly, I’m a little offended.” He said through a smile while keeping his eyes straight ahead.

“Don’t be. I’m sure we’ll get asked soon enough.” You told him. As far as the public was concerned, you and Tom were just friends. After being nominated for multiples joint awards for your performance as a couple in Far From Home, you had made a plan to tease the media if you won in an attempt to get them to stop asking if you were together.

“They better.” He grumbled in your ear before the both of you laughed.

He kept his hand on your back as you walked to the next journalist, the train of your dress in his other hand.

“Hi!” The journalist smiled happily at you as you stopped in front of him.

“Hello!” You matched his energy with a bright smile.

“Hey. How are you?” Tom asked politely.

“I’m doing well, thank you.” He nodded. “You two have quite a buzz around you tonight. Apparently you’re the couple to watch.”

“Any couple that’s half Tom Holland is a couple to watch. Haven’t you heard of Gyllenholland?” You raised an eyebrow and laughed.

“But that’s a bromance.” The journalist protested. “This seems more like a romance, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Unfortunately, we’re not together. There’s just something about me that he doesn’t like.” You sighed dramatically and looked away, making Tom and the journalist laugh.

“It’s the face. I can’t get past it.” Tom played along as he squished your cheeks between his fingers.

“So you’re really not a couple?” He asked as if he didn’t believe you. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Nope. Just friends.” You shook your head.

“Best friends.” Tom grinned at you before pressing a kiss to your cheek.

“You two are adorable.” The journalist commented. “And you’re nominated for a lot of awards together tonight, aren’t you?”

“We are. And that’s the way it should be. I think people enjoyed our movie as much as they did because of what we created together. It was a two person job and I’m glad it’s being acknowledged as such.” You answered honestly, making Tom’s heart soar.

“Not all of the nominations are for the both of us, though.” Tom brought up. “Y/n is nominated for best actress. And guess who’s presenting that award?” He smiled proudly.

“That’s right! Congratulations.” The journalist praised you.

“Thank you. I’m really grateful for all the nominations.”

“I’m so proud of her. I can’t wait to give you that award later.” Tom looked at you fondly.

“If I win.” You reminded him.

“Of course you’ll win.” He scoffed. “I voted for you everyday.”

“Thank you.” You rested your head on his shoulder momentarily to thank him for his support.

“So if you do win one of the joint awards, who gets to take it home?” The journalist asked you.

“We’ll just have to win them both I guess.” Tom shrugged playfully.

“I hope you do.” The journalist smiled. “I’ll see you guys out there. Good luck.”

“Thank you.” Tom shook his hand before leading you towards the entrance of the building.

“Should we find our seats?” You asked him as you checked your lipstick in a compact mirror.

“Yeah. Let’s go.” He nodded before taking your hand and walking with you inside.

~

An hour later after a few performances and wards had been given out, it was time for you and Tom to present an award. You nervously chewed your bottom lip as you waited for your cue, going over your prepared speech in your head.

“You ready?” You whispered to Tom, sensing he was as nervous as you were.

“I’m never ready to read, especially not in front of thousands of people on live television.” He laughed nervously. You gave him an assuring smile as rubbed his back to calm him down.

“Hey, if you can’t make out a word, just squeeze my hand. I’ll help you out.” You told him. Tom smiled back and slipped his hand into yours, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“We haven’t started yet.” You laughed at his action.

“I know.” He shrugged. “I just wanted to hold your hand.”

Before you could respond, a man with a headset came up to you and gave you a thumbs up.

“You’re on in three, two…”

“Hello everyone. We are here to present the nominees for best actor in a horror film.” Tom announced into his microphone. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see any of these films because the ticket guy always thought I was a child.” He feigned a sad face, making the audience laugh. Their positive response calmed your nerves as you held your own microphone up.

“But don’t worry. I made sure I explained the plot to him once I got home.” You added.

“Only two of them made me wet the bed.” Tom read off the prompter, one of the lines he and you hadn’t written yourself. He made a face that you couldn’t help but laugh at, calming you even further.

“I can’t believe you read that line.” You laughed into your mic.

“I know. Who wrote that?” He wondered and the audience laughed along.

“Tonight, Tom and I are nominated for Best Onscreen Couple.” You continued. “Our chemistry on screen has left a lot of people wondering if we’re a dating in real life. We’re not, by the way.”

Tom was quiet for a moment as he blinked in confusion, hesitantly raising his microphone to his lips.

“We’re not?” He asked you as if this was the first he was hearing of it. It wasn’t, of course, as you had rehearsed this many times. Your face fell just like your practiced as the crowd laughed.

“No, we’re not.” You answered him flatly.

“I just - I thought we were.” His eyes darted around as he played dumb.

“Tom. We talked about this.” You said out of the corner of your mouth.

“But…but we make out all the time.” He said and the audience erupted with laughter. “Like what about that time in your trailer?”

“That was strictly platonic.” You shrugged.

“And in the elevator?” He asked.

“You had something stuck in your teeth. I was just being a good friend and getting it out.” You smiled smugly as you looked out at the crowd.

“All those times in my car?” He emphasized, making even you laugh.

“I was method acting.” You said simply.

“But - but it was months after production wrapped.” He reminded you, earning some applause as the audience caught on to what you were doing.

“I like to get really deep.” You insisted.

“Oh.” Tom looked at the floor for a moment before snapping into a smile. “And here are tonight’s nominees.”

You paused and let the audience laugh at your bit before reading the nominees off the prompter. Tom put his hand on your back, making you look at him. You smiled widely at your successful joke and he smiled back before taking your hand and giving it a squeeze.

~

You were sitting in your seats once again, impatiently waiting for the first category you were nominated for to be announced.

“I’m kinda nervous.” Tom leaned over to whisper in your ear among the buzz of the crowd.

“Would bra candy make it better?” You chuckled as you pulled a small Swedish Fish out of your décolletage.

“Has this been on your bare body?” He laughed in disbelief as he took the candy.

“Maybe?” You said sheepishly, looking around for anyone who might overhear.

“I can’t stand you.” His whole body shook with laughter as he popped it in his mouth. “It tastes like how your perfume smells.”

“Really?” You grimaced. “I don’t know how I feel about it.”

“Me either.” He sucked it out of his teeth. “Can I have another piece?”

You shoved his playfully for the bad joke before fishing another out for him.

“Here.” You placed it in the palm of his hands. “Wait, shhh! They’re announcing the winners.”

“This is really chewy.” Tom commented ad he struggled the swallow the candy. You ignored his problem as you excitedly gripped his arm. He continued chewing but managed to slip his hand into yours and clutch it anxiously as the nominees were read.

“And the winners for best onscreen kiss are…Tom Holland and Y/n L/n in Spiderman: Far From Home.”

The audience erupted into applause for the two of you, but all you could hear was Toms incessant chewing.

“Stop chewing. We gotta go.” You giggled as you pulled him out of his seat.

“Mhhhfh hmhph.” He said through a mouthful as he pulled you into a celebratory hug. You held hands on the way up to the podium as the infamous kiss played on the enormous screen. You hugged the presenter before standing in front of the microphone and beaming at the crowd.

“Hi! Thank you so you much for this award. Its always such a huge - - woah.” You trailed off and looked at Tom up and down, gulping loudly into the microphone.

“What’s wrong?” He asked you.

“There’s a lot of sexual tension up here.” You blew out a breath and fanned yourself. “Whew.”

The audience laughed at your bit but you were determined not to break.

“I was about to say.” Tom tweaked his head and rubbed the back of his neck, looking anywhere but at you. You both fidgeting with your clothing in an attempt to look busy as you avoiding eye contact.

“Um.” You laughed awkwardly into the microphone and gripped the podium. “What was I talking about?”

“I believe your last word was ‘huge’.” He said weakly, finally making eye contact with you. A chuckle went through the crowd as more caught on to the joke. You held each other’s gaze for a moment before quickly looking away.

“Right.” You nodded. “This is such a huge…a huge… sorry, what’s this award for?” You pretended to wipe sweat of your forehead as you turned around to read the screen.

“I believe it was Best Kiss.” Tom said before taking a deep, dramatic breath. You stared at each other for a long time, the only sound in the room now being your swallow breaths.

“Are we - - are we about to kiss?” You asked through a forced laugh before making your face completely serious. Tom raised his eyebrows before nodding and beginning to lean it. You leaned in to and right before your lips could touch, your heads snapped towards the crowd.

“Thank you so much!” You held up the award with a huge smile. “We love you guys! Thank you!”

This got a much bigger reaction than the last time as people cheered and laughed at your performance.

“That went well.” You gripped Toms sleeve in excitement as you walked back to your seats. “We got a lot of laughs.”

“I got a lot of laughs. You were a little flat.” He teased, pretending to flip hair behind his shoulder as you sat down.

“Mmm. Love you too.” You cupped his chin and narrowed your eyes at him. The actors and singers around you congratulated you on your first win on the night, all saying you got them with the fake out kiss.

The evening continued with an elated cloud over your seating area as you and Tom soaked up the win.

“Is it just me, or are the cameras hovering around us?” He said suddenly, calling your attention to the many cameras pointed in your direction. You waved at one and the camera man waved back.

“Trying to catch a stolen kiss I presume.” You shrugged as you gripped the award.

“Like we’d ruin the surprise.” He scoffed and put his arm around your shoulders. The second award you were nominated for together was next and your leg was already bouncing.

“I’m gonna be more disappointed in not doing our acceptance speech than I’d be in losing if we don’t get this award.” Tom said, practically reading your mind.

“I know.” You squeezed his knee anxiously. “Fingers crossed.”

“Good luck, darling.” He pulled you in closer and pressed a kiss to your temple.

“I don’t need luck when I have the best screen partner in the world.” You raised your eyebrows at him as you leaned into his body. You stayed in that position as Vanessa Hudgens read the nominees.

“And tonight’s winners for Best Onscreen Couple…Tom Holland and Y/n L/n!” She announced with a smile.

“See?” You smirked at Tom as you stood up.

“Guess I should tell you you’re welcome.” He teased as he scooped you into a tight embrace. He gathered the train of your dress in hand and helped you out of the aisle.

“I’m shaking.” You whispered to him as you made your way to the steps of the stage. “I’m gonna fall.”

“I got you, darling. I won’t let you fall.” He said as he took your hand with his free one and helped you up the stairs. You hugged Vanessa tightly once you got to the podium, whispering in her ear about being a fan.

“Thank you so much for this award.” Tom began your rehearsed acceptance speech. “I’ve always wanted to win best couple.”

“Onscreen couple.” You leaned towards the microphone to correct him. He looked at you in confusion but kept a smile on his face.

“What?”

“We won for best onscreen couple.” You pointed behind you. “Not best couple.”

“Oh.” He nodded like he understood. “So what did we win Best Couple for?”

“We didn’t, since we’re not a couple.” You said slowly, bringing back your joke from earlier in the evening. The audience chuckled as Tom made a show of reading the award and the screen behind him.

“Are you sure?” He asked suddenly, as if he didn’t believe you.

“Oh My God.” You groaned as you rubbed your eyes.

“Cause I feel like we are.” He gestured between the two of you. You shrugged a little and scooted closer to him while batting your lashes.

“I mean…do you wanna be?” You feigned shyness as you tucked some hair behind your ear.

“I don’t know.” He fumbled with the buttons on his suit jacket. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.” You shrugged and looked away. “What do you want to do?”

“I could get my mom to text your mom and they could set something up.” He suggested as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“Okay.” You smiled and picked up the award. “Maybe later we could like, you know.”

You shrugged and he laughed shyly.

“Uh Huh.” He nodded eagerly. “Or we could do like whatever.”

“Yeah.” You let out a shaky breath. “Whatever.”

The two of you smiled in appreciation at the crowd before walking off, award tucked in the crook of your elbow and hands intertwined.

~

“This is the one I’m most excited for.” Tom told you as you waiting for Best Actress to be announced. Tom was the one presenting it, which only made your anxiety spike.

“But it’s just me.” You laughed as you looked at him.

“I know.” He shrugged bashfully. “You don’t need me to win. You’re the real reason people voted for us.”

“You’re just saying that.” You shook your head and put your hand on his bicep.

“Cause it’s true.” He insisted. “You got this.”

“Thanks for voting for me.” You answered sincerely, dragging your fingertips along his cheek.

“How could I not?” He tilted his head before getting tapped by one of the stage assistants. “I gotta go. Good luck.”

He brought your hand to his lips and kissed your knuckles before following the assistant backstage.

You ran your hands over the arm rest, wishing Tom was still beside you to calm your nerves. You only had to wait about twenty minutes before Tom walked on stage with the envelope in hand.

“Nice to see you all again.” Tom greeted. “I know it’s strange to see me without my partner in crime, but she’s busy running through her acceptance speech in her head. Have I pissed off all the other Best Actress nominees? I bet I have.” He joked, earning a few laughs.

“Here are tonight’s nominees for Best Actress.”

You clapped for very nominated actress, noticing the wink Tom sent you when your name was displayed on the screen. Finally, it was time to announce the winner.

“And the winner of Best Actress is…” Tom’s eyes flicked up from the card before looking down again. You shut your eyes tightly and it felt like there was no air in the entire room.

“Y/n L/n.”

Your eyes flew open when you heard Tom call your name. You looked at the stage first, seeing him clapping and whistling for you with a proud smile. The people around you congratulating you, patting your back and rubbing your shoulders as you walked towards the stage. Tom had tears in his eyes as he met you at the top of the stairs, helping you stay balanced in your way to the podium. Tom got there first and took the ward off the podium and held it out to you.

“Here you go, baby.�� Tom handed you the award.

Before you could take another step, he took your face between his hands and kissed you firmly. He smiled softly at you once he pulled way as you touched your fingertips to your lips in surprise.

He stepped back and let you move towards the microphone, still feeling flustered from the kiss and the win. You looked at the crowd and felt your mind go blank and they roared with applause. You looked over your shoulder at Tom, who gave you an assuring smile and mouthed “go on.” You blew out a breath and turned back to the audience, having a better grasp on what you wanted to say now.

“I can assure you, I was expecting that as much as you were.” You let out a breathy laugh and the audience laughed too.

“Thank you so much for this. This award means a lot to me.” You held up the award to punctuate your sentence. “I went into this movie thinking it would be a great opportunity to do something different than what I’m used to. I certainly didn’t go into this movie thinking I’d meet the love of my life.” You paused and smiled as a hush fell over the crowd. “Tom and I fell in love over scripts and cups of coffee at midnight, so much in love that I’m not sure I deserve this award because I wasn’t acting. Every soft touch and stolen glance, that was just me being in love with my scene partner.”

You stopped and let the audience clap for your statement, looking over your shoulder at Tom before continuing.

“I guess the secrets out now.” You laughed as you shook your head. “We had a running bet on who would accidentally reveal it first. So in addition to the three awards I won tonight, I will be getting twenty dollars.”

You heard Tom chuckling from behind you and felt compelled to finish up so you could hug him.

“All jokes aside, the number one person I want to thank tonight is Tom. I couldn’t have done this without you. And I’d never want to. I hope I spend the rest of my career sneaking Swedish Fish into award shows with you. Thank you.” You held up the award one last time before turning to Tom. He wrapped his arms around your waist and lifted you off the ground, spinning you around as he pressed a lingering kiss to your cheek.

“Sorry about that. I couldn’t help myself. I was too proud of you.” He smiled as he set you down. You began to walk backstage together, hand in hand.

“It’s all right.” You assured him. “I always appreciate a romantic gesture.”

Tom stayed quiet as you made your way back to your seats, a strange look troubling his handsome features.

“What is it?” You asked as you sat down again. Tom pursed his lips as a shy smile lit up his face.

“That was the first time you said you loved me.” He said timidly as he scratched behind his ear. Your mouth opened and shut as you found yourself at a loss for words. In the excitement of the moment, you hadn’t even realized you admitted your real feelings for him. You’d only been dating two months and while you loved him whole heartedly, you had never had the guts to tell him. Tom looked at you expectingly as he awaited your answer. Knowing there was no going back, you shrugged it off.

“Well I do.” You said finally, making his smile grow. “Is that all right?”

“Is that all right?” He laughed and took your hand in his, pressing a kiss to the back of it. “Yeah. That’s all right.”

“Good. Because I do love you.” You leaned into him and rubbed your nose against his. He scrunched his nose as you made contact, still holding tightly to your hand.

“I love you too.” He said for the first time, feeling a weight lift off his shoulders. “Congratulations, darling.”

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#tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland x actress!reader #tom holland x famous!reader #tom holland fanfic #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland fluff #peter parker x reader #peter parker x y/n #peter parker x you #spiderman #marvel #iron man #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker imagine #Tom Holland imagine

[oneshot-wxnderland]

Lab Partners With Benefits Pt. 3 | Percy Jackson

Summary: Another week, another lab and Y/n and Percy are feeling a different kind of tension this time.

Category: fluff 

Part 1 | Part 2

–––––––––––––––––––

          Percy had been kicking himself all week. He had forgotten to ask you for your number before you left his place and now you probably thought he was just some asshole looking for a one-time hookup. And he didn’t want that. And he hoped you didn’t want that either. But he wasn’t really sure what he wanted. 

         It’d been a hot minute since Percy was in any kind of relationship and he wasn’t sure if he was even the relationship kind. Even if he did want to be, his life just didn’t lend itself to dating mortals. There was always some monster popping up that he’d have to fight, or quest he’d have to go on, or emergency at camp he’d have to run off to, and Percy was a shit liar. It’s what messed up the last time he’d tried to date somebody. He was constantly blowing off dates and rain-checking everything because the gods are needy attention seekers. 

          He’d seen superhero movies before and related a lot to when they had similar issues. Percy’s not saying he’s Spiderman or anything, but he does live in New York and save it from constant peril – so yeah, he’s Spiderman. 

          This time, however, he was really considering trying again. Trying with you. And Percy had a plan. 

          Sliding into his seat when there were only a few other people in the room yet, Percy felt pumped up. He woke up early, showered, had a FaceTime with the boys to discuss the game plan, and got to class ahead of you so that he was ready to give you his number the first chance he got before he lost his nerve. That was part of Jason’s advice: offer his number to you instead of asking for yours. He claimed it would make Percy come off more vulnerable and less pushy. Leo mostly just spouted different cheesy lines that Percy would never use. Frank didn’t say much but Hazel piped in every now and then when she took the phone from him. 

          “So, you’re lab partners,” Hazel started. “Do you talk outside of your lab?”

          “No, that’s why I need her number.”

          “But you said you did homework together at your place right? So how’d that go? Did she seem interested?”

          Percy paused. 

          “Yeah, it went... fine.”

          Hazel was blissfully unaware of the blush that was creeping up his neck but Jason didn’t miss it. Or the way he suddenly needed to roll up his sleeves and fiddle with them. 

          “Did you just do the homework?” Jason asked suspiciously. 

          “We uh... kissed...” 

          “Niiiiiicee, Percy!” Leo hollered. “That’s my boy!”

          Frank retook the phone from Hazel and hastily gave an excuse to go before leaving the call and cutting off Hazel’s confused protests.

          “I don’t know what to tell you, man,” Jason shook his head. “This is way beyond my level now. Piper and Annabeth are nearby I’ll go get them-.”

          “No!” Percy cut him off. That’s the last thing he wanted. The girl’s won’t know or care what to do so they’d ask Piper’s siblings and then the entirety of camp would know. “It doesn’t really change anything. I’m going to give her my number and then the ball’s in her court and I don’t have to worry about it.”

          “But your balls were in her court, weren’t they Percy.” 

          “Leo I am going to kill you when I get back to camp and that is a threat.”

          Leo left the call.

          “I’m sure it’ll be fine, just don’t do your game-time face because it’ll scare her off,” Jason tried to get the conversation back on track.

          “What face? I don’t have a scary face?” Percy added another item to the list of things to not do when he saw her.

          “Yes you do. It’s when you’re charging into battle but this isn’t battle is it Percy?” 

          “You’re lucky,” Percy lamented while he grabbed his backpack. “You just woke up and were already with Piper. All the hard work done for you.” 

          “You got this man, just be yourself.” 

          Percy decided to throw that particular bit of garbage advice away. 

          Now he was sitting in his seat, got there early, and he was even wearing his nice t-shirt, so what could go wrong.

          As soon as you walked in the door all of his carefully curated bravado deflated inside of him. You walked towards your shared table and he had to expel childish nerves he hadn’t felt in years. He’s in college now, for Hades’ sake. He was a man.

          “Hey,” you greeted as you sat down.

          “Hi.” That was stupid. Men don’t say ‘hi’. He should’ve said ‘hey’ back.

          “You’re here early,” you commented and Percy just nodded like an idiot. 

          The plan was to giver you his number as soon as he saw you, but he couldn’t just blurt that out of nowhere. 

          “How’ve you been?” 

          There. Establishing a conversation and definitely not stalling.

          “I’ve been good.” The small amused smile on your face calmed him down a little. He’s got this.

          Class started before he could slip his number in casually but Percy wasn’t deterred. He wasn’t going to let geology get in his way.

                    While you were reading the data you had to chart on the graph, you noticed Percy’s usual fidgeting get even worse. Glancing at him from the corner of your eye, you saw him concentrating intensely on the paper and trying to contain his frustration. You recognized the signs since one of your friends has dyslexia, but you knew he wouldn’t ask for help.

          “So we have to plot the points on the graph and then draw the elevation lines, right?” You asked casually, looking over to him for confirmation. He nodded his head, but still continued to squint at the numbers which all were very small print and close to each other.

         Muttering the numbers as if to yourself but loud enough for him to hear, you got to work. 

          Percy sat back and smiled a little, knowing what you were doing. He looked over at you, from your furrowed brow to your crossed legs bouncing with your tapping foot. With a contented sigh, he recalled what it felt like to be in between those legs. Having them wrapped around his hips while you moaned his name. 

          His eyes trailed up your body, memories that were attached to each part flooding through him like a highlight reel of his deepest fantasies. Then he got to your bare arms and the goosebumps on the skin shook him out of it.

          “Cold?” he asked, interrupting you trying to help him which he really should have been listening to. 

          “Yeah, a little.” 

          “Here.” Percy shrugged off his hoodie and held it out to you before pausing (and slightly panicking.)

          Hold up, is this weird? Am I being weird right now? Should giving her my hoodie come before or after we exchange numbers? I guess doing it before could be a good test of whether she would be interested in exchanging numbers. But this is couple stuff. Her wearing my hoodie. That usually comes after numbers. But she’s cold now and I can’t seem like an asshole withholding warmth unless she accepts or declines my number. 

           Luckily, you didn’t seem to notice his panic as you took the hoodie from him without hesitation and put it on. “Thanks.”

          He calmed down as he watched you roll up the sleeves so that your hands were free to work and he felt a different kind of warmth spread through him. He liked the way you looked in his hoodie. 

          You caught him watching you and it threw you off. This wasn’t the heated gaze that had made you melt before, this was... softer. But the moment was ruined when you glanced down and saw that he hadn’t drawn a single point yet.

          “Hey,” you tapped your pencil on his paper. “Focus.”

          “Sorry.”

          You worked well together for a while. The rhythm of plotting points distracted Percy from his nerves. That is until he felt your hand on his forearm.

          “What’s this?” You asked, finger tracing the SPQR of his tattoo and making him shiver.

          “Oh, it’s a band.” 

          “What band?”

          “The Super Popular... Cool Rockers.”

          “They spell Cool with a Q?”

          “That’s what makes it cool.”

          “Ah.”

          Percy went back to the worksheet, congratulating himself on his quick thinking when he saw you pull out your phone. 

          “What are you doing?” he asked, totally nonchalant. 

          “Looking up the Super Popular Qool Rockers.”

          Percy snatched your phone. 

          “Oh, you won’t find them.” He dodged your attempts to grab it. “They’re really underground.”

          “You’ll be really underground if you don’t give me my phone back.” Percy hastily returned your phone, as if the threat scared him. You tried to glare at him, but found it too hard to suppress your smile once his broke out. “Thank you. Now will you tell me what it really means?”

          “Maybe one day.” People started packing their things and leaving since class had flown by faster than Percy liked. Sensing his window of opportunity closing he decided to Hades with it. “Depends if you go on a date with me.”

          You took your time standing up and gathering your things while pretending to mull it over in your head. Which Percy really did not appreciate. 

          “Maybe one day,” you answered him with a coquettish smile and took a few steps towards the door. “Well, aren’t you coming?”

          Percy was too concentrated on restraining a fist pump to puzzle out your meaning. 

          “We didn’t get much work done today, so we better finish what we started at your place.” You winked at him and strided out the door.

          With a mischievous grin, Percy was quick to follow. 

#percy jackson #percy jackson smut #percy jackson x reader #percy jackson x you #percy jackson x y/n

[imagining-in-the-margins]

Lost Time ❤️ (S.R.)

Summary: Reader and Spencer spend their mandatory leave taking the Spring Break Spencer never got to have. (See Requests Here) A/N: This piece bounces between Spencer and Reader’s POV! Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader Category: Smut/Angst (NSFW, 18+, Happy Ending) Content Warning: Mutual pining, dub con (sexual assault – reader victim w/ non-canon character), self-hatred, penetrative sex, unprotected sex Word Count: 11.2k

MASTERLIST

It was that time of year again. The BAU was taking its annual leave. The two weeks, which almost never actually lasted two weeks, where the office would be empty. For most of the team, the time was a blessing; their days would be spent with significant others or family, friends, or fame.

Not me, though. For me, it meant two weeks away from the only friends I really had. The days would be spent in the park playing chess or at cafes, lazing around and counting the seconds until I could stop pretending like I had anything else to do. I didn’t mind it that much, really. I was used to being alone, and it wasn’t like it would be forever. If it had been another year with another team, I might have even looked forward to the time off.

But it was hard to be happy about it that year. It was impossible, really, to look forward to days where I wouldn’t see her. Especially knowing that she would probably be spending the two weeks having the time of her life with her absolute piece of shit boyfriend.

I couldn’t explain that to her, though. I couldn’t give away just how lonely I was or just how much I absolutely hated that horrible asshole. So, when she caught my elevator on her way out of the building, I asked the question I already knew the answer to. At least I wouldn’t have to wonder.

“So... what are you going to do on your time off? Do you have plans with your boyfriend?”

(Y/n) looked at me with an expression I could only describe as utterly bewildered. For a second I thought I must’ve said something wrong, but then the thought came to her with a jolt.

“Oh! No, we...” she trailed off, her voice getting significantly softer and sadder, though she tried to hide it with a laugh. “We broke up, actually. Like two weeks ago.”

Don’t look happy. Don’t look relieved.

“Oh, I’m sorry. You didn’t say anything to me about it.”

With a gentle jab of her elbow into my side, she teased, “Aren’t you supposed to be a profiler or something?”

I’m such an asshole.

There was no avoiding the butterflies in my chest and the way my shoulders straightened from the news. The fact she’d touched me made it even worse, and my entire body practically swayed to chase after her.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Please say no. He doesn’t deserve our time.

“Nah. It doesn’t matter,” she mumbled with a shrug. It gave me some hope that she’d maybe finally listened to my, granted, vague advice about her abysmal taste in men.

That hope only lasted a matter of seconds before it was crushed.

“He was probably too good for me anyway.”

“I don’t think that was it.” The bitterness laced through my words so powerfully it stained my tongue. I regretted it only to the extent that it hurt her, but that hurt seemed fleeting and minimal compared to the way a smile eventually bloomed over her cheeks.

It looked a little too sad for my taste. Still beautiful, though.

I wanted to watch her hand as it started to stir, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her smile for even a second. Even as she pressed her palm to my cheek, I only barely strayed to look into her eyes.

With a heavy sigh, she said, “Why can’t more guys see me with Spencer tinted glasses?”

If they don’t look at you like I do, they don’t deserve you. I thought the feelings louder, hoping that she could hear them. Considering she let her hand fall, I don’t think she did.

“Honestly, I just want to... get away. You know?” she started, recognizing the confused look on my face before she thought about how to explain. “Like in college when you got dumped by your shitty boyfriend who cheated on you. You just spend the next holiday vacation on a beach somewhere getting your heart broken by another douchebag.”

There was an awkward silence after she finished, but only because I was trying to figure out if that was really all the context I was going to get. When she started to pout, I panicked.

“I relate to absolutely none of what you just said,” I said to explain the silence, “But I think I get it.”

It was a lie, but she didn’t bother pointing it out. I got the impression I’d only managed to make her feel worse by reminding her that these kinds of things only seemed to happen to her.

The elevator reached the garage, and she waited for me to step off before she followed. Deducing that she was going to see whether or not I hung around, I made a point of only stepping out of the way of others before I turned my attention completely back to her. I really, really didn’t want her to leave yet, even though I had no idea what to say.

She looked comfortable in the ambient noise of the wind caught between the cement. I let myself hope that I played some small part in that feeling.

“Maybe I’ll just go by myself. That’s not pathetic, is it?”

My laughter was probably not the result she was hoping for, but I couldn’t help it. The idea just seemed so silly. “No, you’re not pathetic,” I stated like the fact it was. “If I did it, it would be pathetic. But you? No.”

Her whole body reacted to my voice, her arms jumping up in an excited wave before she shouted, “Oh! Spencer! What are your plans?”

Okay, don’t sound pathetic.

“I don’t have any. I was just going to see if I could finally look into some new theories and catch up on recent scientific journal releases.”

Or, worded differently, I would be sitting on my couch and imagining how much better it would be if you were there with me.

(Y/n) narrowed her eyes, drifting closer to me until our arms were pressed against each other. I tried not to let her see how quickly the contact drained the air from my lungs.

“Can you do that from the beach?”

“What?” I asked, just hoping to keep my mind focused on her words instead of the way she spun around to grab hold of both of my hands.

“Come with me!” she cried so excitedly I thought my heart might burst.

I wanted to tell her yes immediately, to throw myself into her life in any capacity she would have me. I wanted to sweep her off her feet and take her away to a world where she would know love unlike anything she’d experienced before. But my brain had latched on to the most recent red flag in the sea that was her romantic preferences.

“With you? To the beach?” I asked first, to clarify. My heart ached when she bounced her head and held tighter to my fingers. There was no nice way of saying the next part.

“Go with you to... get your heart broken by some guy? I don’t know, (y/n), I might get in the way of that.”

Her body language faltered, but only for a second before she brought back the same enthusiasm from before I pointed out the gaping hole in her plan.

“Come on! It’ll be fun!” she urged through a bright, toothy grin, “You’ve never had a spring break experience and I’m the perfect wingwoman!”

That last word felt like a punch to the gut, yet another reminder that even in a world where the two of us ran off into the literal sunset together, it was never as a couple. She would always belong to someone else.

But how could I say no to her? How could I look at her, bouncing on her toes and hands wrapped around mine, and not want to follow her? How could I hurt her and pretend like I loved her at the same time?

“Okay.”

I heard myself say it before I realized what had happened. (Y/n) looked equally concerned that she heard me wrong.

“Okay?” she repeated.

“Yeah…” I answered, letting the words come slowly in the hope it would make them sound more genuine. Because they were. “I’ll go with you.”

“Really?” She was bouncing even quicker, knocking both of our bags against each other and eliciting a rather embarrassing giggle from myself.

“I can’t promise I’ll be the best wingman, but I’ll be better than a college girl... I think.”

There was no second-guessing what I’d said, or worrying about whether it was too weird, because as soon as the words left my mouth, she had thrown her arms around me. I caught her in my own, not bringing her closer through sheer force of will. Instead, I let her adjust the pressure exactly how she wanted to and cursed my satchel for getting in her way. But she didn’t even seem to notice, burying her face in my shirt and mumbling the words against the fabric,

“Thanks, Spencer. You’re the best friend in the world.”

Don’t look hurt. Don’t let her see how much it hurts.

Avoiding the thought as best as I could, I cleared my throat when she started to pull away. “You know I hate the beach though, right?” I started with a bit of a whine. Before I got any further, she cut me off.

“It’s non-negotiable.”

“Alright, fine,” I sighed, “You win.”

But from where I was standing, I wouldn’t exactly say that I lost.

The crisp white sheets of the resort hotel weren’t new to me. I swore, no matter how many stars a place had, they all used the same bleached-out supplier. I guess I just hadn’t really had time to think about how much they sucked when I was exhausted from work. And the few times I did go in my free time, I was usually way more distracted by the other person in the bed with me.

Maybe that was why the sheets felt so strange then. Because while I wasn’t at the beach alone, there would be a set of two doors between me and him.

“It feels weird not rooming with you,” I announced to the man who stood on the other side of the threshold, carefully cleaning the wheels on his suitcase before he would let it touch any other surface in the room. The action made me smile because for a brief moment I forgot just how strange it was.

I was just so used to his idiosyncrasies. I actually quite liked them.

“I’m just on the other side of the door,” Spencer chuckled, pointing to the barriers that had remained wide open since we’d arrived.

“Yeah, but, I don’t know. I’m used to staying in the same room as the team, you know?” I tried to argue.

It didn’t work.

“Not really? We usually stay in our own rooms?” he returned with knitted brows and another nervous laugh. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to deflect or if he was actually just oblivious to my very poor attempts at flirting. I figured it was probably the former and let it go. After all, I wasn’t really his type. And considering he wasn’t a raging asshole, I guess he wasn’t my type, either. No matter how badly I really, really wanted him to be.

“Fine, then. I guess you won’t get to cuddle with me tonight,” I said with a triumphant huff.

That time, the laugh he gave was genuine, fading off into the calm, comforting feeling flowing between the rooms. “I’m not really what they call a ‘cuddler,’” he explained simply. Unfortunately for him, I knew him a lot more than he gave me credit for.

“Oh, I don’t believe that for a second.”

The boy who begged to share a blanket with me on the jet couch could not convince me that he would not love a proper cuddle. No way.

Almost sarcastically, Spencer challenged my conclusion with his own observation. “I don’t know, I’m pretty stingy with physical touch.”

I figured it wasn’t worth the argument when I could see from his little smirk that he knew I was right, anyway. Because it was true that Spencer was usually stingy with physical touch with most people— but not with me. Most of the team would get the semi-regular hug from him. I’d even been told by JJ that he’d taken even less time to take that leap with me. It didn’t mean anything, though. He’d grown a lot since he started at the BAU. He was just a different person. It wasn’t anything special about me. Which was why I didn’t linger on the topic, instead shifting it to the remarkably more relevant.

“What about sunscreen?”

Spencer, the non-cuddler that was apparently still fixated on cuddling, didn’t catch on. With an adorably confused look, he asked, “What about it?”

Again, I was too used to him to be surprised by his obliviousness. I held the bottle up to him as I tried to lessen the smile on my face as I clarified, “Will you help me put it on?”

“S-Sure,” he squeaked. That time, it was less obvious if he was trepidatious because he was uncomfortable with putting it on me, or if he would have reacted that way to anyone. He had just told me he was stingy with touch, after all. But he came to me too quickly for me to be concerned. I also saw the way his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat when I finally pulled off my shirt, revealing my back and shoulders to the man who had definitely seen them before.

I wrote it off as him being a gentleman, but it was hard not to feel a little uneasy at how badly his hands trembled when they did finally touch me. I told myself it was just because he wasn’t used to touching half-naked women, but I had no reason to believe that. Spencer didn’t talk to me about his love life… at all. Trying to spare my feelings, I guess.

The same preservation couldn’t be attributed to me. Without even thinking about the sultry nature of the noise that escaped me as he rubbed my shoulders, I drawled, “Your hands are so warm.”

If he was trembling before, he was positively shaking now. Still, Spencer said nothing. He just kept trying to smooth out the stripes of white down my lower back that arched at his touch.

“What’s it like having big hands?” I asked, hoping the terrible conversation choice would help distract us from the way my ass pressed against him.

Spencer was too far gone. Despite the constant clearing of his throat, he managed to finish as quickly as possible and practically threw my coverup back at me before turning away.

“I’m not sure I understand the question,” he mumbled, taking a seat beside me and crossing his legs in a very transparent manner. I didn’t want to think about the effect touching me had on him, but I couldn’t help it. He looked so pathetically polite while he tried to distract himself by poorly applying sunscreen on his arms and face. Like I would blame him for being a man who was attracted to a woman’s figure.

There was still little reason to dwell on it, though. Instead, I just took his hand that had run out of sunscreen and resorted to nervously ruffling his hair. When Spencer looked up at the contact, all he would find was my palm flattening against his, slowly stretching out our fingers to see how different they were.

“Have you ever seen Tarzan?” I asked, unable to hide my inspiration for too long.

“Can’t say that I have.”

It wasn’t that surprising, considering. But it was an unforgivable thing, nonetheless.

“Let’s watch it tonight,” I suggested, intertwining our fingers and pulling him back off the bed.

Spencer laughed as he fell forward, apparently no longer insecure about any signs of attraction. I wondered if it was because I had a similar effect on him as he had on me, but I didn’t ask. No, I just pulled him closer, wrapping my arm around his waist in a very poorly conducted waltz that involved almost no movement. He played along, anyway, moving his two left feet and almost crushing mine in the process.

“I thought you wanted to go find some… ‘douchebag’ to break your heart,” he muttered between missteps.

“I figure I have all week for that,” I sighed, leaning forward in the hope that it would lead to him holding me closer. When it did, I realized that I’d made a mistake. Because the second I was caught in that embrace, I knew I’d never want to leave.

“You never know when someone might come snatch you away from me,” I whispered into his shoulder that smelled of sunscreen and home.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be around,” he reassured me.

I wanted to believe it. I wanted to think that he would always be there. But the truth was that it wouldn’t be fair to him. I wasn’t what he needed and we both knew it.

Spencer Reid had enough pain and heartbreak to last a lifetime. The last thing he needed was another mess.

“Come on,” I said as cheerily as I could with the regretful thoughts demanding my attention, “Let’s go to the beach.”

And as usual, he didn’t put up a fight. He just followed me with that same solemn smile and his hand holding onto mine for dear life.

Despite the setting, (y/n) reminded me more of a faerie or a sprite rather than a mermaid. I decided this after about the third hour of watching her prance along the beach. Between the radiant smile and laugh that seemed never-ending and the way her skin was already practically glowing from the kiss of the sun, it was impossible to draw any other conclusion.

Then again, the way she managed to drag me out into the ocean was definitely siren-like. There were few other explanations for how she could convince me to step into the vast unknown that was the ocean.

That being said, I didn’t regret it. Not even a little bit. How could I when it made her so happy? Even as the waves pummeled us until we were rolling along with them, she never stopped smiling. She’d emerge from the depths with an excited shriek before clinging to me like she was a second skin.

She said it was just because I was taller, but we both knew she was a better swimmer. I let the horrible excuse go because I really, really didn’t want her to let go. Even after my skin started to turn red under the ruthless star, I didn’t want to leave if it meant I would have to exist without her holding me anymore.

But, of course, eventually she tired herself out so much that even I couldn’t keep her up. We still took our time drying off and settling back onto land. We reminded ourselves just how different things were out here, separate but still together. I still didn’t feel lonely, though. I couldn’t when she refused to let go of my hand the entire way back to the hotel. She didn’t have the excuse of the waves anymore. She didn’t have any excuse at all, actually. I don’t think she needed one, either.

Once we got back to the hotel, though, we had to split up. Our showers seemed so long, even though I knew realistically that we had taken the usual amount of time one would expect for two tired sand-covered people. I just wanted to see her again. Every second away from her was agony.

Not that it was all that different from the time I spent with her. Loving someone unattainable is pretty goddamn exhausting. And as it turned out, I wasn’t the only one feeling that way.

“I’m exhausted!” she whined as she threw herself directly into the middle of my bed, “The sun drained me.”

And of course, in my traditional fashion, I couldn’t be normal for five seconds in response to what was definitely not meant to be a question. So, I immediately burst into a rant to distract myself from the fact that not only was she laying on my bed, but she was also doing so in the tiniest pajamas I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

“It’s actually really fascinating why that happens. Aside from the usual predictions like dehydration and overexertion, the sun also makes you tired because the warmth increases your heart rate and metabolic rate, even if you’re just sitting. And that’s not even considering the sudden introduction of melatonin after you’re removed from the sunlight.”

There were only a couple of avenues to take in response to my nonsense. She could, as usual, acknowledge and dismiss what I’d said, or, if she felt particularly brave, she could engage. The former usually came with a bit of a sting, but this time was… different.

“Come lay down,” she slurred.

“With… you?”

She gave a breathy, sultry chuckle as she responded, “Is there someone else here?”

But I couldn’t, right? She couldn’t mean it. It had to be a joke. Why would she want me to lay with her? I mean, she was in my bed. But still — was this a pity thing? There were a million insecurities bubbling to the surface, and I almost listened to them.

Almost.

All it took was one powerful enough thought to overtake everything else. It was the simple and overwhelming realization that this might be my only chance. There were certainly few other opportunities like this one, with her sleepily begging me to join her while she writhed around on the sheets that I’d brought to replace the hotel issue.

She didn’t know that part about me and hotels. She’d never stayed in my room long enough to find out. She’d definitely hadn’t laid in it, and definitely not with me there, too. So I did it. I seized the day and literally every ounce of confidence I could muster in my body and I joined her.

… Kind of.

Although I didn’t lay down with her, I sat on the edge of the bed. It was close enough that I hadn’t outright rejected the offer, but far enough away that I could test the waters and ensure she really knew what she was requesting. It became very clear to me very quickly, however, that she knew exactly what she was doing. She also made sure I knew that she did not appreciate my hesitance.

With both hands, she grabbed hold of my arm and used all of her strength to literally drag me into the center of the bed. Between my nervous, awkward laughter, I somehow managed to scramble up onto the mattress before she dislocated my shoulder in her insistence.

Once I was there, though, I couldn’t laugh anymore. I couldn’t breathe. My lungs had completely given up any semblance of functioning the second she rolled over to face me. Our noses brushed against one another and her breath fanned over my lips. She smelled of mint and purity, and I was losing any control I had managed to maintain this far.

But while my eyes were stuck on her, she looked away from me with no effort at all. I guess she decided that there were better places to be, because she sunk into the sheets and nuzzled her face into my chest so quickly that I almost worried she’d slip from my arms entirely. But she didn’t. She stayed there, pressing her ear against my chest and undoubtedly being deafened by the pounding of my heart.

“Wow. You are warm,” I nervously chuckled, hoping to muffle the sound.

“So are your hands. Still,” she mumbled back without budging at all.

I could say the same for the lump in my throat, which refused to move no matter how hard I tried to clear my throat. Deciding that I’d rather suffer than disturb the girl half-asleep on my chest, I just croaked out a weak, “So what now?”

“We still have to watch Tarzan,” she grumbled. It was admirable, really, how dedicated she was to the half-baked plan, considering I could practically hear her snoring.

“Are you actually going to be able to stay awake that long?”

“Of course. I’m an adult,” she sneered, “I don’t need naps.”

Unsurprisingly, she was wrong. So wrong in fact that by the time the first music note hit, she was already fast asleep. It bothered me less than I thought it would. In fact, the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest were even more comforting than the gentle thrum of the musical score.

I drew the rest of the words against her skin with gentle strokes across her back, wondering how in the hell a cartoon about a man convinced he was a gorilla could so perfectly describe the strength contained in the woman in my arms.

Because there was nothing that I wanted more than to protect her. I wanted to keep her right there, the one place I could shield her from any of the men who wouldn’t love her right. I wanted to feel her breath against my neck and her heart gently matching with mine.

I took in the moment to the best of my ability. I barely watched the movie, too caught up in the sight of her at her most vulnerable. I selfishly wished she would realize just how much better she slept in my arms and want to do it more often. But I knew that was silly. She was just tired from the beach.

This was a once in a lifetime event, and I needed to remember that. But it was so hard to not wish for more. To not hope and pray and beg whatever gods that might exist to recreate this moment over, and over, and over again.

But of course, it didn’t work. After a while, she started to stir in my arms just enough to alert me that she’d woken up.

“Is the movie over?” she said through a dramatic yawn. After that was done, though, she just returned to her previous position with her cheek pressed tightly against my chest. That was, until I regretfully caught her attention with the honest answer.

“It ended… an hour ago, yeah.”

She shot up so quickly that our faces almost collided. I prevented disaster by a couple of seconds and a few laughs at the state of her hair after she’d fallen asleep in such a ridiculous angle. I was sure mine was just as bad, but she was too sleepy to notice.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” she whined like it was all some massive inconvenience instead of exactly how I’d wanted to spend the entire trip. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to tell her that. I had a fantastic explanation that also doubled as the perfect cover.

“If you’ve been asleep for longer than 30 minutes, you shouldn’t wake up until after the 90 minute mark so your body is able to complete one sleep cycle, so you don’t wake up feeling groggy.”

“I don’t know…” she trailed off. I saw the mischievousness forming in her eyes, but I was powerless to stop it. Per usual, I was weak to her whims. Then, with an accusatory yet playful tone, she snickered, “Spencer Reid, I think you enjoyed cuddling with me.”

When I scoffed, she took it as yet another challenge. This time there was no clever comeback or caution. No, she threw herself on top of me with enough force that her impact knocked the little air from my lungs.

“Admit it!” she dared. It wasn’t until I shook my head ‘no’ with my lips pursed shut that I realized our noses were touching.

“Fine,” she grumbled, narrowing her eyes to focus more on the impossibly close quarters. Whatever she found there must have been convincing, because she let out an exasperated sigh before she conceded with one final threat. “Your secret is safe with me.”

My hands made their way to her waist without my instruction, but I wouldn’t have stopped them even if I could have. The little gasp of breath she took in response fueled something dangerous in me. I felt the familiar tightness forming, but couldn’t bring myself to make her move. She was still on all fours, hanging her face above mine and letting the cutest little flush form over her cheeks. I had to wonder if it was from the position or because she felt that feeling, too.

Regardless, I had to do something to break us from this moment before something happened that I would regret.

“I appreciate your discretion,” I finally replied in a register lower than I’d expected. The rumble it produced in my throat was just enough to make my mouth move closer to her. But just before they touched, just before she closed her eyes and gave in my prayers, she turned away.

Barely audible and entirely out of breath, she quickly rasped, “I’m starving.”

The disappointment I felt wasn’t nearly as suffocating as I thought it would be. Because as much as I’d rather have kissed her and consumed her until there was nothing left of us, I knew we’d have to face the real world again eventually. And I still had the rest of the trip left, right? There would be other nights.

Right?

“Let’s get food,” she said as she stood up, leaving my bed a little bit colder in her absence.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when it stayed that way. If I’d really wanted her to come crawling back to my bed that night, I should have begged her to. But I didn’t. I gave her the space I assumed she’d need and simply enjoyed her presence from whatever distance she created.

Still, I couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief when she wished me goodnight and left the door between us open.

There would be other nights.

Right?

I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. I’m not really sure why I decided to pursue some of them. Most of them, really. But there is always this feeling deep in my gut that tells me the mistake is inevitable. So certain, so sure, that the energy taken to try to avoid it would be even more fruitless than my attempts to pick up the disaster in its wake.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes. It was inevitable one would happen this week.

But something about this time was different. Normally when I had someone else on my bed, I was at least able to enjoy the warmth of their skin pressed against mine. His hand on my back should have been comforting, a reminder that for the brief period of time that he stuck around, I wouldn’t be alone. This encounter would be the glue holding together the broken pieces I barely recognized as myself anymore. I’d done it so many times before.

So why did his hands feel so cold? Why were his fingertips sharp despite dull nails, and why did the gruff sound of his voice whispering my name feel the same as metal scraping against a chalkboard?

He didn’t kiss me, and for once I realized that I didn’t want him to.

With one hand against his chest, I applied just enough pressure to hopefully catch his attention. When nothing changed, my voice came out, too meek and too scratchy to sound like an order.

“Actually, I don’t think I—”

He kissed me then, but the alcohol on his tongue tasted more like acid.

“Wait,” I mumbled, pulling my face away but still able to feel where he had touched me. Louder and harder, I cried, “Stop, I just—!”

His hand grabbed hold of mine, and for a brief second, I realized why they felt so cold. My mind replayed Spencer’s palm pressed against mine. I thought about how perfectly they interlocked. It’s cheesy to say it was like the pieces of a puzzle, and truthfully, it isn’t entirely true.

Because puzzles have imperfections. Our hands didn’t.

But my hands were pinned against the bed under someone else. I looked into his eyes and I saw something that terrified me. I saw myself, splayed out with a self-inflicted vulnerability. I looked away because the darkness felt less painful than facing myself. I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t. They were too busy, too stuck on the soft yellow glow coming from under the door.

I heard my name, but it sounded so far away. It sounded wrong. It hurt. The hands on my body felt like scratches on a sunburn that didn’t exist. My lungs filled with the smell of regrets that I still had the chance to end if I could just make myself move.

“Please!” I croaked, and something in the way he returned a laugh told me that he was choosing to interpret the desperation as the opposite of how it was intended.

Self-preservation was a powerful thing. Self-hatred was stronger. Until that night, I was convinced that there was nothing strong enough to combat it.

But then the light flickered away, drowning me in a darkness and pain so overwhelming, the fire in my stomach burned through my throat until the words burst out like plumes of smoke.

“I said stop!”

My eyes snapped back up to meet a disgusted rage in a stranger’s eyes, snuffing out the newfound confidence and leaving me paralyzed underneath him once again.

“I’m sorry. I-I didn’t mean to yell,” I blubbered, regretting the words before they ever even touched my tongue, “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have—”

I hated that I meant them, and I hated that he knew that. But to his credit, he abandoned me almost immediately. I realized that his hands weren’t as cold as I’d previously thought, and a guilt shrouded my thoughts and prevented me from noticing the way the light in the room next door had turned back on.

“I’m sorry. I just… I don’t really feel well. I guess the sun and alcohol aren’t a good mix,” I joked, chasing after the wrong person out of fear and shame and something else.

“Whatever,” he mumbled, gathering his things with a haste that hurt me even though I wanted it to be over faster.

My thoughts ran separate from my mouth, pathetic pleading to the man already halfway out the door, “Maybe I can call you later.”

The door slammed shut just hard enough to rattle the paintings practically nailed to the wall. I wondered if it was possible that the force was also the reason tears dripped from my chin, but I knew I couldn’t blame him for that.

It was my fault. I made a mistake. And this time, I had an audience.

My eyes fell to the sliver of light still peeking under the door beside me and I felt the nausea crash into me much like the waves against the shores we shared together earlier. The seasickness spread, making my vision rock and my breath catch as I suffocated under the weight of what I’d done.

With my hands and forehead pressed against the door, I hoped he’d be able to hear me when I quietly called, “Spencer? A-Are you still awake?”

Silence followed, but I could still hear him within it. I could hear him weighing his options, trying to decide whether it was worth it.

Eventually, he answered, “The door is still unlocked on my side.”

“Oh… Right,” I breathed, letting numb fingers flip the latch and pull the door open to reveal his, still slightly ajar, just as we’d left it before.

At first, all I saw was an empty room. It wasn’t until I pushed the heavy door open that I spotted him, his forearm pressed against the wall and his head resting on it. But the most painful thing about it all was the way his chest heaved with heavy breaths that sounded just like mine had earlier. Like he was still caught in the fray he hadn’t really been a part of.

I don’t know what made my arms seek him out, but they did, wrapping around him despite tremors and trepidation. Spencer didn’t move; his body remained frozen in place but still shaking until he let out a deep breath that felt connected to my own lungs.

Then, he turned within my embrace, enclosing me in a familiar warmth that extended beyond the physical. His fingers, while undoubtedly tighter and more insistent in their grip on my shirt, didn’t hurt.

It felt… safe, which was terrifying in an entirely different way.

“Do you want to watch another Disney movie?” I heard myself ask, muffled in the soft fabric of his shirt.

Again, Spencer paused, his answer coming slow and strained. “Sure,” was all he said. But there was another answer in the way his hands never completely left me, lingering on my arm and guiding me with absolutely no signs of force until we both stumbled into his bed.

Within his hold, there was nothing but a comfort that induced its own guilt from my selfish indulgence in him.

And I thought to myself: Why do I do this? Why let myself feel something that could never actually be mine?

“Are you okay?”

The question caught me off guard, and I opened my eyes to see Spencer staring back at me from the other pillow.

“What?” The syllable broke in my mouth, and I cleared my throat before I continued, “What do you mean?”

“I heard you... you…” he crackled. The words must have stung him as harshly as they hit me, because he never finished the thought. Instead, he pulled me tighter to him until there was no avoiding the red-rimmed eyes that were still filled with nothing but empathy as he repeated, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I lied. He knew it was a lie, but he didn’t say anything. He held the words back with his tongue between his teeth and his jaw steeled shut.

“You know how I am,” I laughed nervously, “Can’t really blame him for leaving, can I?”

Spencer’s nostrils flared and his teeth ground together. The tension permeated every inch of him, but he never let me feel the pain that forced the words between still tight teeth, “That wasn’t your fault,” he said, “It is always okay to change your mind.”

Butterflies flooded the spaces that desperately craved air, leaving me only able to shrug unsurely before I whispered, “I guess.”

“It is,” he said again, the words harder to ignore when they were spoken with his whole body holding me like I was made of already cracked glass, “Always.”

I bit down on my lip and tried to laugh, but all that came out were almost silent sobs. He caught the tears that flowed down cheeks still hot from the sun and embarrassment, but he had no air in his lungs, either. Together, we struggled to find oxygen in the too-small room, knowing damn well that breaking apart would be easier, but not wanting to let go.

Somewhere within the battle of wills and worn out hearts, I managed to slur, “I’m sorry, Spencer.”

He waited until I was comfortably nestled against him, my face hidden from him while his hard-beating heart beat clearly against my ear. It wasn’t until he knew I could feel the way it sped up when he asked, “For what?”

“Everything.”

There was no verbal answer provided, and I told myself that the fact he didn’t let me go was already more than I deserved.

I’d always hated the beach. The sand stuck to everything, and the crashing of the waves, the incessant cawing of the seagulls, and the chatter of tourists created a cacophony of sound that I’d simply rather be without.

But I had never come to the beach at night, and I had never come to the beach with her.  It took less than an hour for me to fall in love with the rumbling water that seemed farther away when the sun wasn’t glaring off of it.

The moonlight, pale and unforgiving, was drawn only to the woman lying beside me on the blanket. I was so lost in the way her profile somehow seemed flawless that when she turned to see me, I didn’t even try to hide my shameless staring. A gentle curve appeared on her lips, and I couldn’t decide if it was because she was flattered or uncomfortable. She looked too beautiful for me to think it was the latter.

“Tell me something about the stars,” she said, breaking the silence and drawing my attention back to the sky if only for a second.

“Like what?” I asked. There was so much to say, but my breath seemed better spent on her than the fiery gases light years away. I looked back at her, and her following words reflected what I saw.

“Something beautiful.”

She didn’t expand on the thought, and I followed her eyes to the sky and considered what natural wonder might compare to the vision next to me.

“Okay… Well, you see that star?” I settled, scooting closer to her and tilting my head to the side so that we were almost touching.

“I think so?” she laughed as she closed the few inches between our shoulders. “The one that looks brighter than rest.”

“That’s Sirius A, meaning ‘glowing’ or ‘scorching.’ It’s also been designated ‘canis majoris.’ It’s the brightest star in our sky, only outshined in our perceptions by the full moon and the International Space Station. But in reality, it is more than twenty times brighter than our sun. It just doesn’t feel that way, since it’s 8.6 light years away. Which is actually pretty close, considering.”

Normally when I talked this much, people would either tune out or tell me to shut up. (Y/n) wasn’t most people. Not only did her eyes stay wide and full of wonder fixed to the sky, but her hand also strayed over my lap until she found mine to hold on to.

After only a little bit of hesitation, I took the offer. She laced her fingers between mine like they were always meant to be there before whispering, “Keep going.”

I wished she wasn’t talking about the stars. I wished she was talking about us. But I knew better than to assume that, and so I continued with my impromptu astronomy lesson.

“It was one of the oldest recognized stars, and ancient civilizations like the Greeks and Polynesians used it to track the progression of Summer. It’s actually where the term ‘dog days’ comes from. It was the entire basis for the Egyptian calendar, although they called it ‘the Nile star.’”

“A star by any other name,” she interrupted with a goofy smile.

She was the only person who could interrupt me as much as she did and yet never hurt my feelings. It was like it was her way of showing that she was still listening. I wouldn’t complain even if it wasn’t. I just loved hearing her voice, especially half-breathless and threaded with laughter.

“Exactly,” I mumbled, even though what she’d said made little sense in the context. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was her smile that never waned, even as I continued. “That star was what would signal the rising of the river that would revitalize their lands. A symbol of hope and life.”

“What a well-loved star,” she sighed. The sound reminded me of the waves still rolling in the distance. I wanted to stop the lecture and point it out to her, but I was worried that comparing her to something as vast as the ocean might come off differently than I intended.

But what I really meant was that she was so breathtakingly beautiful. So full of life and strength and perseverance. I wanted to liken her to the ocean because of the way I found myself caught in the riptide of her. The way I had been lost in her since the moment I met her.

I stayed there; my mind stuck in the gravitational pull of her until she tore me away from it with a question I would’ve already answered if I hadn’t been distracted.

“Does it have any planets?”

I cleared my throat and my mind before I gracelessly answered, “No. Well, probably not. We aren’t really sure, but it’s probably too young for that.”

“How lonely,” she mumbled back. The answer turned her smile to a frown, and I tried not to blame the stupid star for making her sad. I didn’t stop myself from blaming the people who had hurt her, though. There was nothing to stop me from resenting anyone who ever made her feel alone.

I just needed to show her that even when it felt that way, she wasn’t. I squeezed her hand just hard enough that she broke from her reverie. She didn’t look at me, though, and I had my suspicions that she didn’t want me to see the sadness in her eyes.

“It’s not exactly lonely,” I explained, hoping that the literal truth might serve as some sort of metaphor, “It has a companion star, although astronomers didn’t find it until much later. And one day it’ll probably have planets that orbit it, too. Just like ours.”

Just like us, I wanted to say, but I was scared to be too bold.

I’m right here, I called to her from my thoughts when she turned to face me. Our noses were almost touching, and I felt that same soft breath ghost over my lips as she spoke words I could barely understand over the sound of my heartbeat.

“Do you think people will lay on the beaches of those planets and tell beautiful stories about our sun?” she whispered into the little space that remained between us.

“If they’re lucky,” I replied, my words crackling like softwood in a fire.

Be bold, something in me called, or be quiet forever. And I must have lost my mind, because I wanted to listen to it. I watched as her gaze bounced between my lips and my eyes, and I swore I heard her giving the same desperate plea.

Be bold right now, it said even louder, or be quiet forever.

“If they’re really, really, lucky…” my voice trailed off, but my free hand found its way to her cheek that was still warm from the earlier sun. As I stroked her cheek, she came closer, her lips just barely touching mine as I finished, “they’ll find someone even more beautiful to share that moment with.”  

I think that she smiled in response, but I couldn’t be sure. Because as soon as she had the chance, she closed the space between our lips. Just like that, she kissed me like it was the most natural thing in the world. She let go of my hand, but only so she could lace her fingers through my hair and pull me closer. That action alone made me gasp, and she took full advantage of the opportunity by sneaking her tongue between my parted lips.

Meanwhile, my hands struggled to decide how to hold her. Eventually, they settled on not holding her at all. Instead, the two of us rolled until I had her pinned beneath me on the blanket. I would’ve felt bad about the escalation if she hadn’t already wrapped her legs around my waist like the cutest little koala. Her whole body clung to me the same as the sand, and I found myself hoping that I would also find her everywhere.

The first time she moaned into my mouth, my heart nearly stopped. It sounded so much smaller than I imagined, so gentle and shy and not at all like the rest of her. I wanted to hear it again, and again, and again, until it echoed in my mind like the crashing of the waves.

“Spencer,” she purred against my lips before she even took a breath. That sound was even more beautiful than the last. Her hands, too, were wandering from my hair down my back. She arched her own until our chests touched, and I wondered if she could feel the way my heart reached out for her.

I didn’t trust myself to say her name without it sounding like, ‘I love you,’ so I kissed her, instead. I kissed her with all of the passion and admiration that had stayed locked inside of my chest for over a year, and suddenly I wondered how it had ever fit. There was no stopping it anymore. I didn’t want to.

I didn’t want to stop kissing her, but I had to. Like every supernova in the endless oblivion, the moment reached its inevitable end gracelessly and with a bang. This bang, though, was actually the persistent blaring of a car alarm somewhere in the distance. Although not deafening, it was enough to shake us both from the moment.

The two of us had already reacted exactly like our job had prepared us to when we realized that we hadn’t driven to the beach. By that point, it didn’t matter that it wasn’t our car, because the momentum had come to a screeching halt.

“We should probably head back, huh?”

She said it so nonchalantly that I wondered if she could still feel me on her lips the way I still felt her on every inch of my body. She wasn’t even looking at me, her eyes stuck to the blanket as she fiddled with her top and her hair and tried to pretend like nothing had happened. Like we hadn’t just lost ourselves so much in each other that we forgot all about the stars.

“I have sand on basically every inch of my body,” she chuckled as she brushed the particles off of her. It felt like she was trying to do the same to me.

“Yeah, sure,” I forced the words out like they didn’t hurt, “Let’s head back.”

I used to love this part of the beach. After spending all day in sand and sun, I looked forward to stepping into the shower and watching the evidence of a day well spent flowing down the drain. It felt cleansing. It made me feel new.

But this time, there was no relief as sand fell and disappeared at my feet. Because in that moment, all I saw were failed attempts to wash Spencer from my skin. A fruitless attempt to force myself to forget the way it felt when he kissed me.

It felt wrong.

The plushness of the robe didn’t feel like a comfort or a luxury. It felt like a costume, an attempt to hide away and hope that Spencer wouldn’t see just how hard I’d tried to avoid this exact situation.

But the second I stepped over the threshold into his room, I couldn’t avoid the truth. His eyes roamed over the exposed skin of my legs but stopped on my face. He looked at me, unlike any man I’d ever met. So full of such a pure adoration that it made my chest ache. It reminded me of just how lonely it felt when he wasn’t there.

I approached him with steps full of trepidation but lacking any regret. How could I think this was wrong when my legs moved towards him without my permission. My body sought him out so clearly and strongly that I couldn’t deny myself the pleasure derived from his company.

So why was it that my hands reached out, but stopped before they touched him? They stayed suspended just beside his face, begging him to do something to take the last step to close the distance between us.

He didn’t. His hands came to mine just as slowly as I’d come to him, and he led them away from his face and down to his chest. Silently, he pressed our hands against his heart like the harsh beating held a morse code message for me. Words in a language I didn’t understand.

I was so frustrated that I had to bite my tongue to hold back tears that slipped out, anyway. That was the only thing that tore Spencer’s hands away from mine. He wiped them away with so much tenderness I could only cry harder. Gentleness was such a foreign feeling that my body must have mistaken it for pain.

A different kind of pain. An ache that I wanted to throw myself into and drown in. A feeling so overwhelming that there was nothing else except for the two of us, lost at sea and hoping to never find land again.

“Break my heart, Spencer,” I whispered, surprised to hear my own voice but glad to have broken the silence. “Kiss me again.”

I could see the thoughts behind glassy eyes, that same desire to let go of the control and the fear. But his words betrayed those thoughts, and with a sad, pathetic voice, he answered, “I… can’t.”

I felt my dreams slipping through my fingers, even though my hands held tightly to his shirt. Everything I’d ever feared was coming to life in front of my eyes, and I tried to fight the inevitable with everything I had.

“Why not?” I begged in the form of a question.

“Because it means something to me,” he replied, and I felt the familiar words like a punch in the gut. I’d felt them before, but he still felt the need to explain it to me like it wasn’t currently tearing my soul apart at the seams, “Kissing you means too much to me.”

I laughed. It was a breathy, exhausted chuckle that made his frown falter for just one self-pitying second before our eyes locked again and he saw the full force of the feeling behind it.

“Then do it,” I said with an almost silent whine, “Please.”

I should’ve known better. It would take more to convince him than thinking things really hard. But the mere thought of spilling my heart out to him was its own kind of paralyzing. My mouth wouldn’t move, and while his lips opened and closed, he also couldn’t make the words come through. Until they did, weak and scratchy.

“I can’t do it unless… It means something to you, too.”

The words, spoken by a bona fide genius, were simply too stupid to acknowledge. I couldn’t even formulate enough words to explain just how ignorant they were. So I didn’t even try to string together a sentence filled with the frustration and admiration I felt for this absolute idiot in front of me. No, I just forced my way through the little space left between us until our lips met again.

They were so much shier this time, our hands inching by instead of flowing freely over one another. His breath came out hard, and our cheeks slid against one another with salty tears. They were the evidence of how much our bodies were overflowing with love, unable to contain the feeling any longer.

The kiss was shorter, too. It ended abruptly, with my lips breaking away to take in a shaky breath and force out an answer, just in case he needed it. Because he deserved to hear it.

“It does mean something to me. It always would have.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?” he whined back, his pitch wavering with his hands that still weren’t entirely comfortable holding me like this.

I thought about the question because I didn’t know the answer. I closed my eyes hoping that it might clear my mind and make it easier, but even then, all I saw was him. I was faced with all the lies I’d told myself to keep us apart. There was no denying that I’d loved him for a long time, and if I was really being honest, I’d seen that same love reflected in his eyes. But I ran away from it and into someone else’s arms. Always someone who I knew would never look at me like he did.

Then the words came, through small sobs and with a life-altering wave of relief. The truth came out, genuine and untainted and raw.

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”

And he tried to accept the answer. He tried to see what I saw in myself, but his eyes were too clouded, too colored to see me exactly how I was to him. He looked at me like I was perfect exactly as I existed in that moment, because to him, I was.

“You deserve so much better than that.”

Those were the last words he spoke to me before our bodies crashed together like waves on the shore, always returning to kiss the surface of sand that would mix with the water to create something new. Spencer didn’t just kiss me. There was something else there, too, something deeper than a meeting of mouths.

For once, I didn’t try to identify it. I let the feeling flow through me, opening my mouth to him and feeling the way our bodies started to tangle together faster with each passing second. I barely registered his hands tearing my robe open, noting how I didn’t feel even the slightest tinge of fear as I stood bare before him.

His arms wrapped around my waist felt more comforting than any fabric, and when he spun us around, I fell back onto the sheets trusting that he would follow me. Which, he did… after he took a few seconds to appreciate the sight he’d worked so hard to have displayed for him. But seconds were all that he allowed himself, with hands too excited to find me again.

We tore the last barriers away in a mess of clothing and covers until we were back to where we were on the beach, with him hovering above me and protecting me from everything else. Within the confines of his arms, I felt safe in a way I’d never experienced before. My breath got faster to match my heart, and Spencer must have seen the way it made me shake. Because he kissed me again, returning me back to equilibrium before he spoke the unavoidable truth again.

“You’ve never let anyone love you right.”

But the meaning behind the words was lost on me, my mind too stuck on one word to move past it. My thoughts paused, but my body continued to explore the way it felt to slide against his. Somehow, my skin burned hotter with each second I got closer to asking him the question I needed him to answer.  

“You… love me?” I finally said aloud, granting myself the grace to stop all movements while I waited for his response. It came seconds later, with a full-hearted enthusiasm presented with a little bit of a laugh.

“Yes,” he whispered through it all, “I love you.”  

I bit down on my lip, but the laughter came through, anyway.

“You love me?” I asked again, just hoping to hear it again.

Spencer understood the request, and right before he kissed me again, he repeated the words. “I love you,” he said, again and again, each time our lips broke apart enough to allow him to speak.

“I love you,” he said for what must have been the millionth time before I could manage to return it.

My “I love you” was returned through uncontrollable giggles, urged on by his lips tickling my neck and his hand working its way over my stomach with soft, barely-there touches. There was so much joy, so much love, that by the time his hand landed between my legs, I’d almost forgotten what was going to happen.

It had never been like this before.

Everything shifted when he brushed knuckles over my sex, reminding me of what we were about to do. The laughter stopped, but it wasn’t replaced with an apprehension or sadness that I felt so often. It was pure, unadulterated joy so unfamiliar to me in this context that I’d almost interpreted it as a mistake.

But then he said it again.

“I love you,” he said, and the anxiety transformed to lust that couldn’t be sated by his finger delving between my folds. My back arched to meet him, and his mouth chased after my lips to make sure that we were never too far away from one another. The slow movement of his hand mimicked the softness of his tongue as we freely explored the new parts of each other.

“Please,” I slurred, earning a chuckle from the man above me.

He knew what I was asking for, and although his retreat was slow, it was in the best way. My body continued clinging to him for as long as I could, begging for his return however he would allow. When the head of his cock pressed against me, I felt my lungs cease all function. I froze, trying to memorize exactly what it felt like to be in this moment with him before everything changed.

“Spencer…” I sighed, relishing the way the name tasted on my tongue.

Before he began to sink into me, he gave me one last assurance. “I’ve got you,” he promised, “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

And despite the words sounding so honest, I still had to ask, “Do you mean it?”

He didn’t mind. He never did. That impossible, wonderful man would sing my praises until his voice wore out and he was forced to write them on every surface he could find.

“God, yes, I would do anything to make you happy.”

The words were paired with more feathery kisses and an unbearable pressure as he entered me so slowly I thought I might scream. I tried to pull him forward, to bring us together faster, but Spencer stubbornly took his time. I could feel his lips curve into a smile against my throat that forced me to return my own, trusting that he would feel it all the same.

“You do,” I answered just in time to be cut off by his hips swiftly snapping forward, entering me with a momentum that carried through my whole body. A deep, guttural moan tore through my chest that so strongly contrasted all of the noises we’d made so far. It was a desperate, animalistic sound that demanded an equal energy from him.

It was a challenge that Spencer was ready to meet. He wasted no time in increasing the force behind each movement. With one hand resting against my cheek and the other digging into my hip, we continued to blend together into a new creature made up of cries of pleasure and overwhelming relief.

Each passing second felt like a lifetime that would still never be enough. There was so much happening that my mind couldn’t decide what to focus on, instead choosing to let my body act of its own accord and Spencer’s guidance.

It was… easy. He commanded each of my muscles with nothing more than a glance. Like he could feel every part of me. I swore it was like his soul held my heart in his hands, helping it beat in harmony with his own until we couldn’t tell them apart. He read my mind and answered all of the fears and the thoughts until there was nothing left but happiness and home.

He felt my ending before I’d even noticed it was approaching, and somehow, he created an even gentler touch as he asked, “Are you ready?”

There were no words I could say to explain the feeling, and I knew he didn’t need me to speak to understand, anyway. I nodded and let our lips catch together again as my body tensed around him.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered, and I believed him.

I gave in to the pleasure and the safety of his embrace. Still, even in the greatest heights of pleasure, I never lost the clarity in how it felt to be held by him. When my vision went white, I saw his eyes in the light. My nails dug into his skin and pulled him over the edge with me until we were shaking messes of euphoria and catharsis.

His movements faltered as he filled me with a warmth that spread beyond the physical. I felt the very essence of our beings twine together so tightly that they would never be separated again. He found a home in me, and I held onto that feeling until our bodies collapsed together and brought us back to the hotel room bed.

But even as the yellow lights and strange artwork became obvious again, I didn’t feel any different than I had seconds before. Because that feeling wasn’t forged through atmosphere or alcohol, as it so often was for me.

I still felt at home because that was where I was.  

The feeling persisted even after we fell into bed together again, silent and seeking each other out among the sheets. His embrace was more insistent, hungrier in a strange contradictory way. I had a couple theories why, but I had the grace to let him off the hook… sort of.

“Alright. Admit it.”

“What?” he murmured into my shoulder, burrowing his face in my chest like he could actually melt into me if he tried hard enough. But he couldn’t hide from the I-told-you-so I was chasing.

“You know.”

“Fine,” he sighed after a moment of pouting that got him nowhere. “I like cuddling with you.”

“I knew it.”

“You did,” he happily chirped. If you’d told me even an hour before that Spencer would accept his defeat in grace, I would have never believed you. But there he was, openly admitting that I had been right all along while proving my point.

I pried him away from my chest because I needed to prove to myself that it was all real. That Spencer Reid had really told me that he’d loved me. I needed to see the love in his eyes to convince myself that happiness was really possible and within my grasp. And when he looked up at me, he told me all of that and more with a dopey, lovesick smile.

“I…” The words caught in my throat, fighting past one last obstacle. My heart stubbornly held its final wall up, trying to prevent me from giving Spencer all of me.

But I wanted to. I wanted him to see the ugly because I knew he would still find it beautiful. I wanted him to feel the weight I’d carried for so long because, despite skinny arms and a fit test that would beg to differ, I knew he was strong enough to carry it.

“I didn’t realize it could be like this,” I finally admitted, smashing through the theoretical brick to find Spencer patiently waiting on the other side with open arms.

“That’s okay,” he promised, “I’ll never let you forget it.”

(Tell me what you thought of this fic here!)

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[mercy-burning]

Heatwave

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader Summary: The air conditioning is out at the BAU, so things get very hot—in more ways than one. Category: Smut 18+ (penetrative sex, unprotected sex, creampie / minor breeding kink, sex in an elevator) Warnings: Sex, language (As always, if there’s anything I missed, please let me know what I should include in warnings! I want to be as mindful as I can about what I post. Thank you!) Word Count: 3.7k

MASTERLIST

***

"Oh, fuck, that's it!"

The exclamation nearly knocked Spencer off his feet. He would know her voice anywhere, so he didn't have to look to know that it was Y/N, but he looked anyway, sure enough spotting her on the opposite end of the bullpen, sorting through files at her desk.

If Hotch was any closer, he would have given her a warning look to signal his distaste for her swearing in the office, but his door was shut while he talked with someone so it never came.

"Wha—what did you find?" Spencer got out after clearing his throat to compose himself. It was bad enough he had already been distracted by her before, thinking about what it would be like to feel her hands weaved through his hair as she kissed him, but then she had to say that sentence of all things, slightly enhancing the fantasy.

It also didn't help that the air conditioning in the building was currently out, and in the middle of August. So when he looked up, he saw a low-cut, baby pink tank top with lace detailing on the hem, and a pulled-up hairdo that perfectly exposed her neck, which was currently glistening in a thin sheen of sweat. The way she leaned back in her chair, her legs crossed under a loose, knee-length floral skirt as she mulled over her file was giving him too many bad ideas, and it was a wonder he hadn't been caught or called out yet—everyone could always tell when he was thinking or off in his own world.

"Oh," Y/N said, briefly craning her head to meet his eyes. It took everything he had not to shudder when their gazes finally met. "I just misplaced one of my files, that's all. I was afraid I'd lost it. But it's right here," she said with a nervous laugh. "I didn't... bother you did I?"

"Oh! N—no, you didn't bother me at all, I... I was just wondering, that's all. I—I'm glad you found your file." He hated that he stumbled over his words, but when she looked at him like that, that sickeningly sweet kindness in her eyes that never wavered when she talked to him, he couldn't help it. She was easily the most intimidatingly angelic presence he'd ever met, in every capacity possible.

Even as she quickly frowned and shifted slightly in her chair, her eyes didn't lose that sparkle. But it was still evident that she was uncomfortable, so Spencer spoke again. "Are you okay?"

She set the file down on her desk and sat up straighter, bringing her back up off the chair as she uncrossed her legs. "Yeah, I'm fine, it's just the heat. I hate it. I'm definitely more of a cold, rainy day-type of girl, I guess."

Odd, considering you're just about the warmest soul I've ever met, he thought. Even as she talked about her distaste for the heat, she kept her voice light and her eyes kind.

"Hmm," is all he said, shortly and barely loud enough for her to hear.

The rest of the day seemed to pass by rather quickly, which Spencer was thankful for; the longer the day moved forward, the hotter it got, and it proved to be more distracting than he wanted to admit.

But soon he would be able to go home and take a cold shower, for one thing to cool off, but for another to relieve some of this feeling Y/N had been making him feel. He tried really hard throughout the day not to look at her, but he always found himself drawn to her anyway, and each time it happened he thought of dirtier and dirtier things, scenarios that he was positive could only happen in his wildest dreams.

But as usual, things didn't seem to work in his favor today. Just as he and Y/N were about to get onto the elevator, Hotch walked by, calling to them. "Sorry to ask you guys of this, but could you stay another hour or two? There are more files I need to get sorted, and I know it's hot, so I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but it would be helpful if I had an extra set of hands."

Two more hours at most, he could manage that, right? And at least he'd have more files to keep him occupied, something to focus on.

Hotch sent them to the file room with a list of the files he needed, and then it was just the two of them, stepping onto the elevator and sealing their fate.

It wasn't four seconds after the elevator started moving that it stopped and the lights inside dimmed red.

"Wait, what's happening?" Y/N asked, slightly panicked.

Spencer was just as puzzled. "I... I'm not sure. Maybe it has something to do with the heat?"

About a minute passed before she sighed, shoving her phone in her bag. "Yeah. Just got a text from Garcia, the power in the building shut down so they could fix the air conditioning. It's gonna take like a half hour."

"A—A half hour? Really?" He tried not to show how nervous it made him, but truthfully he didn't think it would work.

Y/N sighed. "Yeah... It's... fine, though, I mean, maybe someone will try to get us out."

"But we're in between two floors..."

Another sigh. "And it's hot as hell in here. Great... So much for going home early."

Spencer snuck a glance over at her, almost immediately regretting it when he looked her over. Under the deep red glow of the emergency lights, she looked absolutely sinful. Her bag was dropped on the ground and she leaned against the wall, her arms crossed and pushing up her breasts. Her head was leaned back and her eyes closed as she took deep breaths, no doubt trying to stay as calm as one could be in this situation. He noticed every breath she took, her chest rising and falling and her skin glowing. And in that moment he embarrassingly felt something stir in his lower stomach, only made worse by the fact that it was, as she'd phrased it, 'hot as hell' in the elevator. He was hot and practically squirming as he stood there, ogling Y/N like she was the only woman he'd ever seen before.

As if it couldn't get any worse, she opened her eyes quickly and caught him staring at her chest. He didn't seem to notice because, well, his eyes were elsewhere, so she closed them once more and smirked to herself for the briefest of seconds, an idea striking her brain like a match.

She brought her arms to slowly un-cross and stretch outwards to her sides, arching her back and puffing out her chest as she gripped the rail of the elevator. The moment she opened her eyes, she saw that Spencer's head was directed pointedly to the floor. She smiled a little, keeping her arms stretched out across the rail as she took him in.

The first thing she took notice of was how his hair stuck to his face, wavy and damp with sweat. His fingers tapped against his legs, and that's what she looked at the longest. Every time his middle finger tapped the outside of his thigh, she imagined that he was doing it to her clit, and she could practically feel it throb to the slow, steady beat of his finger. Her hands gripped the rail tighter and she crossed her legs, contemplating whether or not she should take advantage of this moment to finally do something about this tension she'd been feeling between them for the past year and a half.

The truth is, she'd always had a crush on him since they started working together. But when she started her job at the BAU, he was... a little odd. Every time she would join in conversation, he'd made it a point to look almost inconvenienced by her presence. At first she had to wonder if maybe he just didn't like her. And if that was the case, she didn't want to make it worse by asking him about it, so she left it alone. But then she noticed how he was like that with everyone, and then over time he seemed to get better. Eventually he warmed up to her and the two of them became fast friends. He'd quickly transformed from a guy who always seemed annoyed with everyone and into the adorably shy, brilliant man everyone had told her he was when she first got the job.

Now there had been almost two years' worth of a different kind of tension between them, and in this moment in the elevator, Y/N wanted to do something about it. Or at least try.

She thought for a moment, trying to find the best way to bring it up. Should she be straightforward? You know, flat-out tell him that she's liked him for a long time and wanted to kiss his face off? Or did she want to have more fun with it? Because she admittedly loved seeing him get flustered every time he noticed her noticing him staring at her, but if he really didn't feel the same way, she didn't want to come on too strong and ruin this thing they'd built.

Ultimately, Y/N decided to try a little of both.

She cleared her throat to catch his attention. "Hey, Spence?"

When he looked up at her, his stomach flipped again. Fuck, she was just so breathtaking, her arms spread and her legs crossed like she was the queen of the elevator and he was trespassing just by being there. Her chin was tilted upwards, exposing more of her neck, and it almost made him fall over. "Y—Yeah?" he stammered quietly, trying and failing to sound calm.

"What should we do to pass the time? I'm bored."

If he didn't know any better, he would have sworn he she was suggesting they— No. There was no way. He'd been a total jerk to her when they first met, and even though they were much friendlier now, Spencer wasn't sure she could ever want to do anything like that with him.

Right?

"Um... I—I don't know. Your phone works, doesn't it? Do you, um... Do you have anything you could do there?"

She shrugged, tilting her head to the side. "Battery's almost dead, and I want to save it in case something happens and we get stuck in here for longer than thirty minutes... I was thinking, actually... We haven't really gotten to know each other that well, and maybe would play... like 20 Questions or something."

"Oh..." He swallowed, shifting on his feet and blinking. "Well, um... W—what do you want to know?"

"Hmm... Favorite color?" She knew it was purple, but she wanted to hear him talk. Get him comfortable.

"Purple. What's yours?"

She leaned forward off the rail a little, and Spencer swallowed again, suddenly feeling a burst of warmth through his body.

"Light pink," Y/N said softly, "like so light that it's almost white."

He glanced down at her chest again, only for a moment to take in her shirt, which he'd remembered was the same color.

She continued. "What's your favorite snack food?"

"Pretzels."

"Me, too. Hmm... Favorite candle scent?"

"Peppermint."

"Spearmint. Favorite Star Wars movie?"

"Return of the Jedi."

"A New Hope. Favorite sex position?"

"Doggy."

She didn't say another word.

He wasn't even aware of the situation until about five seconds later, when she raised an eyebrow at him and his whole world came crumbling down.

As he visibly struggled to find words, Y/N only continued in conversation. "That surprises me. I would have thought you'd be more of a cowgirl guy."

If the way her voice sounded when she talked to him was the handle, then the way her eyes bore into his own was the blade, both of them coming together to create the weapon that would be his ultimate demise. The only thing missing was that twist of the blade, the one that would make sure he was gone for good, and the moment she leaned completely off the railing and took a small step towards him, he realized that final ingredient was her touch. If she touched him, he was done for.

"Aren't you gonna ask me what mine is? That's how the game works."

There's no way she wasn't flirting with him... Right? He was never good at picking up on those kinds of things, but she was being so obvious about it, stepping closer and closer to him with her chest puffed out and her head tilted to the side to reveal her neck. She was inviting him in, right? Especially after asking him to ask her that question.

That question...

Right.

"Um..." Spencer swallowed before speaking, his voice barely discernible. "What's... y—your favorite sex position?"

"Doggy. Especially standing up," she said with what was most definitely a flirty smile. "Looks like you and I have quite a bit in common."

"Y—yeah, I guess we... do..."

By now she had him backed against the other side of the elevator, and as soon as he felt his back hit the rail, he swallowed again, bringing his hand up to the collar of his shirt to relieve some of the heat he was feeling.

It didn't work, unsurprisingly.

"Look, if... If I'm overstepping, you should tell me. But I've liked you for a long time, and I feel like I'd be dumb to waste the perfect opportunity to tell you... So... The elevator probably won't be fixed for another twenty minutes at least, and since we're already on the subject... Maybe we should find another way to pass the time?"

Spencer noticed that she was careful not to actually touch him unless he gave her the go-ahead, and if anything it made him want her even more. She was giving him an out, and he knew that if he told her 'no', she wouldn't push it.

But here she was, in all her beautiful, radiant glory, practically inviting him to indulge in some of his biggest fantasies, and he would have to be brain-dead to pass that up. Even if he was a little nervous.

He tried to give her permission in a way that didn't make himself come off as some obsessed admirer, a shaky, breathy laugh exhaling from his throat before he spoke. "Well, it's already hot as hell in here, so... What's a little more heat?"

At first he regretted saying it, scared it was stupid and most definitely a mood-killer, but the way she practically lunged at him completely washed away all the worries written in the sand. And when her body pressed firmly against his, her lips coming to capture his in the most burning kiss he'd ever had, the waves crashed even stronger, loud with searing desire as warm as the August sun.

Immediately he brought his hands to cradle her face, loving the way he almost engulfed her with their size. He moved his lips against hers eagerly as her hands worked at unbuttoning the top buttons of his shirt. She only got the first few done before pulling away, and despite the heat, Spencer felt cold without her pressed up against him.

It took a moment for him to realize what was happening, but when she suddenly turned them both around and bent forward, leaning out to grab the rail, he felt warm again.

She turned her head around to look at him with a smile through a bit bottom lip as she reached one of her hands under her skirt and slowly pulled her panties down. Almost as soon as they hit the floor, pooling around her ankles, she lifted the skirt up and revealed herself to him, slowly running her fingers through her pussy.

"It's all yours, Doctor Reid," she said lowly, spreading her legs as far as they could go with her panties still confining her ankles.

He hadn't even realized he'd undone his pants until they were at his feet and his dick was in his hand. How had she managed to have that great of an affect on him?

He promptly decided he didn't care how, as he stepped forward and brought himself up to her ass and ran the head of his cock through her pussy, briefly meeting her fingers as he did so. "Are you sure?" he asked. Because once he started, he wouldn't be able to stop. He already lost his mind just being in her presence, but being this close to her, fucking her in a broken elevator would surely hinder his ability to think about anything rationally, let alone at all.

"Fuck me, please," she all but begged, pushing herself back a little to encourage him. Either that or she was just desperate, though there was a good chance it was both.

In any case, that was all he needed, the trigger that set him off, and within seconds he was plunged deep inside her, the both of them softly moaning out at how it felt.

Spencer set a steady pace, his hands firmly gripping her waist as she pushed back to meet his every move. Each thrust forward was another twist of the blade that sealed his fate, only made more brutal by the pure filth that dripped from Y/N's lips, a symphony of long, drawn out moans and curses that sounded just as loving as they did pornographic.

When she bent forward even more, so much that he could see her hands outstretched on the rail, it gave him the deepest angle he could possibly be at, and she clenched herself around him, calling out his name.

"Fuck, Y/N, keep doing that," Spencer breathed out, shutting his eyes at the sensation.

He could hear her laugh a little. "That feel good, baby? Huh, you like when my pussy clings to you?"

Each word was fuel that quickened his pace inside of her, and joined with the way his hands were wrapped around her, the very tips of his fingers felt her stomach bulge at every snap of his hips. He spread his right hand across her lower stomach to feel it, groaning out as he did.

He didn't even realize he'd said his next words out loud, but after she groaned out and clenched around him tighter, he knew she'd heard and liked what he was saying.

"God, I wanna cum inside you so fucking bad..."

She turned her head again to see him as best as she could, doing the most to come off as desperate as she felt. "Fuck, Spence, do it, please, I want your cum inside me, please..."

A few more quick thrusts inside of her was enough to make her cum, her mouth open in a silent scream as she stopped moving back against him and just let him pound into her. He followed closely behind, brokenly moaning out her name as he stilled and pulsated inside of her.

"Ohh, that's it," she said to him with wonder as she stayed clamped tightly around him, trying to get every last drop. "Fuck, that feels so fucking good..."

In a moment of blind lust at her words, Spencer pulled out just until only the tip was inside, before quickly and deeply fucking into her once more, holding himself inside for about five seconds as she cried out. He repeated that so many times he couldn't keep count. Or maybe it was only two times, and he was just to drunk on her to notice. However long he did it for, they both relished in the feeling before they were both overstimulated and out of breath.

While any other time he would have loved to see his cum drip down her legs, since they were at work he decided to lift her panties up instead, relishing in the way she whimpered when they were on all the way. He made sure to pull them up tight, so she could feel his cum soak them as she stood upwards.

He scrambled to put his pants back on as she caught her breath, leaning against the wall of the elevator with her legs crossed and her eyes closed. He watched her intently as her hand drifted under her skirt and rubbed herself through her underwear, letting out whimpers and ragged breaths upon feeling what he'd done to her. The sweat that had just started to form on her body earlier due to the heat was now dripping down her neck and over her chest, and he was once again mesmerized by her.

"God, you're beautiful," he whispered aloud. Of course he'd meant to say it to himself in his head, but he wasn't thinking straight. She'd utterly wrecked him.

Y/N opened her eyes and smiled, taking him in as well. His hair was wild, all over the place and just as sexy as she'd found it before. The top buttons of his shirt were undone, no thanks to her, revealing a glistening chest and making her pussy throb once more, knowing what they'd just done and how... hot the whole situation was, for lack of a better term.

As if she needed a reminder, more of his cum seeped into the fabric of her underwear, warm and ever present, which made her bite her lip and sigh. "Yep... Doggy is definitely my favorite position."

"Especially standing up," he added, a small smile adorning his lips.

They laughed as the elevator lights came back on, and the weight of what they'd just done came crashing down as with it.

Y/N shuffled to the other side of the elevator to grab her back, almost gasping at the way his cum felt in her panties when she moved. She was afraid it would come out, but there was nothing she could do to stop it except for hope.

The two of them were quiet when the door opened and Garcia met them in the lobby.

"Oh, thank God! I feel so bad I didn't warn you in time before you got stuck in th— Your faces are all red, geez! Was it really that hot in there?"

Thankfully the heatwave gave them both an alibi.

"Y—Yeah," Spencer said with a nod, stepping out of the elevator. "That's twice now I've been stuck in an elevator, and I really wish it would stop happening."

The girls laughed as the three of them made their way to cooler air.

Spencer and Y/N fell in step behind their friend and shared a knowing look as the approached the file room.

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