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oracle-of-dream · 4 months

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Something Special

Summary: You've been getting closer to Jay, a wealthy businessman, as you've been booked to sing at multiple events for this business dinner. He invites you as his plus one this time, but you have a song written just for him prepared...

Notes: Some non-sexual works are in order since I haven't released any in a while, so I hope you like it <3

Wordcount: 2.8k

Sitting in a cafe, in a corner seat near the window. You could feel the sunlight shining through the window warming you up from the cold winter air. You came here to find some inspiration for your song. You wanted to write something special for a man who you met here. You could remember the day he walked into the cafe. It was an open mic night, which you went to every single one to practice singing on stage. Most people didn’t really pay attention to you, but one man couldn’t look away from you. It felt like you were singing just to him like the two of you were alone in the room together. That was months ago. The man introduced himself as Jay Park, the CEO of one of the businesses in the area. Some fashion company, and judging from the clothes he was wearing you could tell it wasn’t a lie either… Jay asked if you’d be interested in working a few gigs, promising very generous pay for some classy late-night singer vibes to come to his studio events. The first event was something to remember. It was on a huge stage with a live band. The room was full of people, most of them not really paying attention, the number was enough to even make you want to reconsider performing at all. But Jay spoke to you before the performance, encouraging you, and it turned out to be one of the best nights you’d ever performed.

You scratched your head in frustration, looking down at your notepad. It was full of lyrics from the song you’ve been working on for the better part of two months. You heard that your favorite client liked to have a New Year’s dinner for his company with live music. Meaning that it would be the perfect time to showcase a new song, but nothing seemed to fit the feeling you wanted. Something special…

You heard your phone ringing and answered, “Hello?”

“Hey Songbird, you busy?”

You smiled at the nickname he gave you. “Never too busy for my favorite businessman.”

“Did you eat yet? We could go out to lunch in a bit, my treat!”

“Jay, it’s always your treat when you take me out.”

“Well, I can’t let you pick up the bill. It’s a pride thing, ya know?”

“Pride in what,” you scoffed.

“Pride in knowing I’m taking care of you. I like treating you. And there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you about too...” Jay’s voice was a little tight like he was nervous about something.

You pretended not to know that he was going to ask you to sing for him. “What’s the occasion, maybe another gig?”

“I did have a gig for you on New Year’s Eve, but I found another singer.”

You hesitated, trying to collect your brain before replying. Your face felt a little warm and your smile faded after registering what he’d said.

Jay broke the silence first, “Not that you’re not an amazing singer, I just figured you’d be a little too busy that night since–”

“I’m super busy actually! I gotta go catch up with another client calling. We’ll get back to this another time, yeah?”

“Y/n?”

You didn’t let Jay finish before you hung up the phone. Your face was hot and getting hotter as you thought more about it. It’s just business with him, so it doesn’t matter to him who he hires for events or whatever. Even giving a courtesy call to tell you not to worry about the event. The nerve of that guy! You look back at your notepad and flip to the next page, writing new lyrics to your song, something to show how you really felt about him.

Jay tried calling again after an hour, even texting you. You decided to mute his number while you were in your creative process. Since he had time to hire another singer because he assumed you were busy, then you were too busy to answer the phone.

Three days had passed since you last spoke to Jay. You were still muting his notifications, but couldn’t help yourself from looking at the texts… It was mostly confusion in the beginning. Then trying to explain something, but Jay seemed apologetic. It had been a while since his last message, which was just, “I’m sorry”. That’s when the guilt started to set in. Were you being too harsh to him? It’s not like it's a contract deal or that he had feelings for you, so it didn’t matter if he hired another singer. But you still couldn’t find out why you got so angry in the first place.

You picked up your phone and called Jay. It rang and rang, but there was no answer. Maybe he moved on after you freaked out and ghosted him… You went back to your notepad, looking at the lyrics you wrote. The new ones were mean and it felt horrible reading what you’d written about him. You ripped out the pages and threw them all away, trying to put that part of yourself aside.

You called his office. His secretary Mrs.R answered. She was an older lady who looked after Jay like she was his mother. She was always willing to speak her mind to her boss, which is why he liked her.

“Hello, Y/n! It’s so good to finally hear from you. Mr.Park has been trying to get in contact with you!”

“I know…” Your throat was so dry, it was hard to speak. “Is he in the office today?”

“Yes, he’s here. He’ll be in meetings for most of his evening. Should I tell him you called?”

You thought about it… “No, I don’t want to bother him while he’s at work. I know he’ll cut corners and try to make time to talk to me, I wouldn’t want him to do that.”

“Oh, okay. I would like to ask a question, if I may. What were you planning to wear to the New Year’s Eve dinner? Mr.Park asked me to pick out a suit for him, but I thought it would be best if he matched with you.”

You cocked your head to the side. “Why would he need to match with me?”

“Well, you’re his date, aren’t you?”

“Date!? He didn’t mention anything about that to me.” You tried to think about when he may have asked you.

“He told me he was planning to call you and ask you a few days ago. I told him it’s better to ask in person, so he said he’d invite you to lunch and ask you then.”

You remembered the last time he invited you to lunch… When you hung up on him.

“Actually. Mrs.R, if you could tell him I called. I’d really appreciate it.”

“I’ll let him know right away.”

“Thank you.”

You hung up the phone feeling like an idiot. You kept your phone with you for the rest of the day, checking it constantly, but got nothing from Jay. It was around 11 pm when you really started freaking out. New Year’s Eve was tomorrow and you had no real way of getting to him. You typed out a big paragraph apology to him for not listening to him and begged him to call you.

After a shower to clear your head, your phone rang. You almost fell as you rushed to answer it in time.

“Jay! Look I’m so sorry, I was an idiot for not trying to listen–”

“I’m so sorry dear. I’m not Mr.Park…” You heard Mrs.R’s voice coming out of your phone.

“Sorry… How can I help you, Mrs.R?”

“I was hoping I could drop off this suit for you. I thought you could use it for the event tomorrow.”

“He hasn’t answered me, and I don’t think he will at this rate.” You sighed.

“He’s probably being petty. He’s like that when he’s upset, but I have an idea for you if you’re willing to go through with it.”

Your ears perked at her idea. You gave her directions to your home and she explained her plan about how she wanted you to crash his party to make him see you again. However, she left a lot of things vague with only one thing very clear.

“You can’t talk to him before you get there. If you do, it could potentially give away the plan.” She warned.

You nodded in understanding as you took the bag she brought for you. Inside was the luxury suit, taken from one of the product lines in the company. You walked her to the door and thanked her for helping you, waving her off as she walked back to her car and drove away.

The suit was black with a white button-up, but the fabric was sleek and smooth. Something you’d more likely see Jay wear, but if it was a part of the plan then you knew you had to wear it.

The next morning, you fought the urge to text and call Jay again. It used to talk almost every day, but almost five days of not speaking to him was starting to get to you. That’s when you started getting texts from Mrs.R.

“Okay, first we need to get you into the building undetected. We can’t put you on the guest list as Jay gets a copy of it so he doesn’t forget who’s coming, so we’ll need to sneak you in with the catering business.”

Her plan sounded straight out of a spy movie, but you had no objections. You took your time putting on makeup and the suit, setting your hair right, and plucked your lyric book with you before leaving to head to the location of the party.

Upon arriving, you parked and followed the crowds of people towards the front. Your phone buzzed again.

“The caterers enter from the side entrance, white van. They should be expecting you, so just grab some supplies and help them inside. Once you're in, come find me.”

You texted her back. “Isn’t this a little extra? I could’ve asked him if I could come…”

“Of course it’s extra! He loves this kinda stuff, if you want to show him how serious you are, then you should be extra.”

You sighed as you walked away from the front of the building, to its side, and followed the caterers into the building as they carried in food, utensils, and more. Just as she told you, none of the staff bothered asking who you were. You took a few turns down the several hallways until it opened up into the main ballroom for the event, where you instantly spotted Mrs.R at the reception table.

You rushed over to her, holding an empty tray.

“Mrs.R!”

She smiled as you came over. “Well, who’s this handsome server?”

“So what next in your master plan?”

She took out a sheet of paper. “This is the itinerary. The singer we had was supposed to get here already, but I’ve managed to send them home. Without a singer, Jay will be desperate for a new one. And then that’s when you’ll take the stage. I’ll give you a signal, so hurry and get backstage!”

You didn’t know whether to be shocked or impressed by her control of the whole plan, but you didn’t have time to decide. You rushed backstage, ditching the metal tray somewhere.

A voice came over the speakers, it was Mrs.R! “Ladies and gentlemen. I deeply apologize for the delay on the music, we’ve finally gotten someone who’s ready to give a little ambiance.”

You could see the audience from where you were standing. Jay was sitting towards the front with an irritated look on his face, talking to some other men he was sitting with. The rest of the audience was either eating or talking amongst themselves, which you were used to, but you got the same feeling from your first performance for Jay… Your hands were cold, your stomach churned, and your knees were locking into place.

Mrs.R walked backstage. “Okay, it's your–,” she noticed your stressed expression. “Oh dear, are you so nervous about performing in front of him?”

You shrugged as your mouth wouldn’t open.

“He wants to see you. And I know you want to see him too, I can see it in your eyes. He needs you to be strong right now, so you have to go!” Mrs.R ended her short pep talk by handing you her microphone and giving you a small push toward the stage.

The push was enough to get you to move your feet, and walk onto the stage. White lights shined onto your face, almost blinding you. Some of the audience was hard to see, but you could see Jay. Front and center, still talking. It didn’t seem like he’d noticed you yet.

You positioned the microphone on the stand and nodded to the band to start the first song in the set. You started singing, only looking at Jay. Hoping he’d look back at you…

It was about a minute into the song before he looked at you for the first time in five days. His expression softened and he cracked a smile when he saw you onstage. He nodded his in approval as you sang to him. You went through the first set of the event before being allowed to have a break.

You stepped backstage and Jay met you there.

“You’re here!?” Jay hugged you tightly.

“Y-Yeah… I’m here.” You hugged him back, enjoying every second of him holding you.

Eventually, the two of you separated, and Jay was the first to speak. “Did you get my messages?”

You nodded. “And did you get mine?”

“Of course I did. I tried to call you, but I was in meetings all day and still had preparations for the event. So I didn’t get the chance to call you… And I honestly thought you didn’t want to hear from me anymore.” Jay’s voice was full of relief, and he looked like he could’ve burst into tears at that moment. “Why did you hang up on me that day? I didn’t get to explain myself…”

“I… I felt a bit jealous. And irritated that you didn’t want to ask me if I wanted to sing for your event, and you assumed I was busy–”

“I was going to ask you to be my date at the party. You’d be too busy sitting with me to be on stage singing, is what I wanted to say.” Jay sighed. “I didn’t think you’d get so irritated that you’d hang up before I could give the pickup line.”

You felt more embarrassed hearing him say it. “When you said date, did you mean an actual one? Or just your plus one?”

“I meant, Date,” Jay said flatly. “I wanted tonight to be special, so I could ask you if we could look into something a little… more personal than Singer and Client. I just didn’t really know how to play it.”

“Is that still on the table?” You asked.

“I’m open to negotiations,” he replied smugly.

“Watch it, businessman. I’m not too into contracts.”

“Right, no cages for the Songbird. I remember.”

You blushed at the nickname. “Do you have somewhere a little private? Just us?”

Jay looked around before leading you to an elevator. It was all glass, with a view of the city as it got higher off the ground. He pressed on the 50th floor, letting the elevator rise. Right before the doors opened, he switched the elevator off. “Private enough?”

You looked out at the city lights. “Perfect.” You pull out your notepad from your pocket. “I wrote you a song if you’re willing to hear it…”

Jay leaned against the wall of the elevator. “A private show? I’d love that…” His gaze was locked on you as you prepared yourself in front of him.

You sang Jay the song you’d spent the last two months writing, pouring in everything you’d felt about him. Tell him about the first time you met, your first performance for him, and how he had your heart since that day…

At the end of your song, you saw a firework explode behind Jay. High in the sky. It shined beautiful green and purple colors. You moved closer to see more fireworks.

“Happy New Year, Songbird…” Jay whispered as he held your waist, pulling you close to him. “Do I get a New Year’s kiss too?” Jay spun you around to face him, his face lighting up from the colors of the fireworks. It felt like time had stopped moving as he leaned down to you. He softly placed his lips on yours, drinking your lips under the stars and lights of a new year. A new year together…

#oracle of dreams #kpop x male reader #enhypen fanfiction #enhypen imagines #enhypen drabbles #enhypen #jay #jay enhypen #jay enha #park jongseong #jay park #enhypen x reader #enhypen x male reader

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tenpintsofsundrop · 8 months

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The Patron Saint of Liars and Fakes

Spencer Reid x BAU!Fem!Reader

Summary:

While undercover inside the Separatarian Sect, you and Spencer realize something important: you can't live without each other.

Spencer Reid x BAU!Fem!Reader. Co-Workers to Lovers. Fake Dating. Hurt and Comfort. Set during Season 4, Episode 3.

Word Count: 8,200

Criminal Minds Masterlist | AO3 Link

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Full list of warnings and author's notes below.

Warnings: Lots of spoilers for the canon episode - so if you haven't watched Season 4 of Criminal Minds yet, steer clear of this fic for now (especially because watching the episode provides some context for this fic/makes things make more sense); the reader uses she/her pronouns and has the ability to get pregnant (she is not pregnant during the fic and there's no smut, but due to discussions in the fic, it's not unreasonable that she could get pregnant); fake dating in the form of a fake marriage - the reader and Spencer pretend to be married under the Christian religion to 'appeal' to Cyrus; because of the fake marriage, Spencer uses the term 'my wife' to refer to the reader; lots of mentions of religion (Christianity), religious extremism, mentions of pedophilia/child brides (in line with the canon episode); mentions of systemic sexism and gender roles enforced by cultures of organised religion and religious extremism; use of y/n and l/n (in this case meaning 'your last name'); the reader pretends to follow the Christian religion while undercover but I never stated if she believes in a less extreme version of these things or not (the reader's true religious beliefs are never stated); protective!Spencer, possessive!Spencer; mentions of Spencer being taller than the reader (which, again, I think he would be taller than most people) - the reader's body/body type is not described in any other way; mentions of guns and gun violence (not described in deep detail) - in line with the canon episode; the reader and Spencer fear for their lives; dangerous/live-threatening situations; the reader and Spencer are threatened with a gun; Cyrus is just generally creepy and sexist toward the reader; Spencer is pistol-whipped and the reader is threatened with sexual assault (it does not happen, Spencer protects her); mentions of pregnancy/the reader being pregnant (she is not pregnant during the course of the fic); mentions of the reader being a mother/having kids (Spencer makes up fake kids to sell their fake marriage story); the reader realizes she might actually want to be a mother because of Spencer's fake kids story; mentions of an explosion (as in the canon); love confessions; angst with a happy ending. Hopefully that is everything.

A/N: The title for this fic comes from a Fall Out Boy song of the same name. The theme/lyrics of the song don't really fit the fic, but I love the way that this title fits - how everyone in this fic is lying in some way but Spencer is someone with good intentions while lying. Making him the Patron Saint of Liars and Fakes. I love how it fits. I wrote this while suffering with heat exhaustion so idk if it's good or even makes sense. I rewatched the canon episode and it doesn't 100% align with what happened in the episode in terms of the timeline and stuff, and I am too tired to rewrite the whole fic to make it align with the episode. So uh - alternative canon? But I really love the basic concepts and I do really love how it turned out. I hope you guys like it too!

...

You thought it would be an easy day.

Maybe that was foolish on your part. So far, you hadn’t seen a single ‘easy’ day while working with the BAU. Between chasing down scumbags and then reliving every single gory detail while doing the paperwork - none of it was ‘easy’. It was worthy, accomplished work - making the world a safer place to live in. (At least that’s what you told yourself.) But it was never easy.

There was always someone who made the job easier. Someone who made you smile every single day - especially on days when you didn’t think you were even capable of feeling a tiny shred of joy. Someone who made you feel safe, who you always felt had your back no matter what. So you were glad that he was by your side today, along for the ride.

“Tell us about Cyrus.” Reid prompted.

He looked to the woman driving, your new companion for the day - Nancy Lunde, someone who worked with the state department and had set up the interviews with the children at the Separatarian Sect.

“Benjamin Cyrus. No criminal record. In fact, there’s no record of the guy at all.” Nancy explained.

“That’s odd.” You commented. “Usually someone being accused of something like this would have some past offenses. Especially because it would give him a reason to move into isolation to continue the criminal pattern of behavior.”

“Well, I couldn’t find anything on him.” Nancy shrugged.

“What about the 9-1-1 call?” You asked.

“A fifteen year old girl called in saying that a man was ‘laying with her’ and claimed it as ‘God’s will’. I believe the ‘he’ referred to is Cyrus.” Nancy explained. “The age fits with Jessica Evanson, but I’ve managed to negotiate interviews with all the children, just to be sure. It wasn’t easy.”

“They’re incredibly weary of outsiders.” You commented. “Our boss warned you not to identify us as FBI, right?”

Nancy nodded. “I got you some spare credentials, just in case.”

She took one of her hands off the wheel and reached into her pocket.

“You’re going to be using your real names. You’re going in as Child Victim Interview Experts working with Child Protective Services. No association with the FBI.” Nancy explained, handing Reid your fake credentials.

He nodded, inspecting the IDs before handing you yours where you were sitting in the backseat.

“Oh, before I forget.” You noted, reaching into the pocket of your cardigan. “The rings.”

You pulled out a small plastic bag that Hotch had given to you before you left. It was a bag containing a fake diamond ring in your size and a fake golden ‘wedding’ band for Spencer.

Reid reached over the seat to grab his ring from you, and Nancy gave the two of you an odd look.

“Rings?” She questioned.

“Fake wedding bands.” You explained.

“It was our Unit Chief’s idea.” Reid added on. “He believes that presenting us as a ‘godly’ married couple to Cyrus will make him more likely to open up to us. He’s less likely to see us as hostile outsiders if he believes that we share a similar system of beliefs.”

“It could also have a calming effect on the teenagers we have to interview or the kids there who have had more time to go through indoctrination at the Sect.” You continued to explain. “Even if their parents are hesitant to let the kids speak with us, they may be more willing to have their child speak with us or even leave them alone with us if they believe that we’re fellow Christians, rather than hostile atheists there to poison their children’s minds.”

Reid nodded at you through the rearview mirror.

“Make sure you put on the left hand.” He told you. “That’s the position for marriage.”

You nodded at this.

You placed the ring in the appropriate position, and you couldn’t help but to take a moment and stare at it. It was jarring to have a wedding ring on - especially with the thought that it represented you being married to Spencer. But you supposed, of all the people to call your husband, he would be one of the best. He was honest, intelligent, kind, and… if you were pressed, you would definitely say he was handsome.

But you couldn’t get too caught up thinking about all of that. Because it wasn’t real. It was a false projection you were wearing for the benefit of a self inflated sociopath.

Spencer liked the feeling of the ring. He didn’t take too long to stare at it after he had put it on, because he knew his mind would wander if he did. When Hotch had first proposed the idea of the two of you pretending to be married, Spencer had almost tripped over himself to oppose it - mostly because he didn’t think that he would be able to handle simply pretending to be your husband for the day. It was just too cruel.

Having something he wanted so badly dangled right in front of him and knowing that it was all just a farce - it bothered him, but he delighted in the play nonetheless.

When he caught the fake gold glinting in the light, Spencer had to remind himself that it was fake - that you would just be playing his wife for the day. He had to push back any internal glee that he felt at the idea that he got to be ‘taken’ by you while wearing that ring. It wasn’t real. It was just for the day.

“Isn’t that deceptive?” Nancy asked. “Won’t Cyrus be even more angry if he finds out that it’s not true?”

“He won’t find out.” You replied confidently. “And besides, we use deception in interrogations all the time. It’s a very basic tactic: align yourself with the suspect. Make them think you share the same beliefs, that you’re on their side.”

Reid grinned at this. He always loved it when you spoke so confidently.

…

“We’re looking for Mr. Benjamin Cyrus.” Nancy announced as the three of you got out of the car.

“Then you’ve found him.” Cyrus announced confidently.

He was pretty much what you had expected him to be - dressed informally, slouched over, faking meekness, holding a bible near his chest as though it were a shield. He had planted himself there purposefully, wanting to be the first person to interact with the outsiders as three of you came into the Ranch.

You hovered back near Spencer, letting Nancy make the first introduction.

“I’m Nancy Lunde.” She said, giving a small nod toward the man. “We spoke on the phone regarding the allegation.”

“‘Savages they call us, because our manners differ from theirs.’” Cyrus rhymed off a quote, obviously positioning himself and his group as martyrs being attacked for having ‘different ways’ that the world simply didn’t understand.

“We didn’t come here to hear you cite scripture, Mr. Cyrus.” Nancy reminded him, hoping to keep the religious zealot on track.

“Actually, it’s Benjamin Franklin.” Reid corrected her, talking about the quote.

That did surprise you, but you didn’t find it surprising that Reid knew this fact right off the top of his head. It was just one of the many amazing things about him - his perfect memory and his ability to use it.

Of course, him saying this immediately drew Cyrus’ attention toward the two of you. So Spencer stepped up to introduce you.

“Hello, I’m Spencer Reid, and this is my wife, Y/N L/N.” He said motioning toward himself and then to you as he introduced the two of you. Hearing him refer to you as his wife - you hated to say it, but it caused a jolt through your system. Almost as if you had been waiting forever to hear him say those words and hadn’t even known it yourself. “We’re Child Victim Interview Experts, here on behalf of Child Protective Services.”

Of course, you couldn’t get too caught up in deciphering how those words made you feel, because you had to focus on the task at hand. The job that you were here to do.

“How far from God’s word must we have strayed for there to be a need to invent a job called ‘Child Victim Interview Expert’.” Cyrus said, his tone even, quiet.

You knew that covertly, it was his way of saying that the two of you didn’t belong there, because he ran the Ranch with God’s word, so nobody had actually been harmed (in his opinion). He believed that he had done nothing wrong. Obviously, he thought your time and resources were better spent with ‘actual’ victims who didn’t have his power wielded over their lives.

“I can assure you, Mr. Cyrus, we try to bring God into our work.” You told him, trying to appeal to him. “The children we visit usually need prayer and God’s light the most.”

Spencer gave you a sideways glance, clearly holding back a grin at how thick you were pouring it on - how much intense, feigned passion you said these words with.

“Well, I can assure you that a lack of prayer and God’s light is certainly not an issue for the children here.” Cyrus said, giving you a clever little grin. He thought that you would simply interview the children, praise him for what a good job he had done, and then leave. “You can go and see the children whenever you like. They are up at the school, as I indicated in our phone call.”

Nancy walked toward the school, and you paused before you followed.

Before you walked off, you looked to Spencer. In a completely silent conversation that only worked so well because the two of you had been in so many tense situations before, thinking around UnSubs and planning miles around them before they could even know it, he gave you a small nod and you instantly knew what it meant. He had established a small bit of trust with Cyrus, so he would stick back and see what else he could get out of the man.

You nodded back, and then - completely surprising yourself, you leaned in and kissed Spencer on the cheek. You were just playing the part, you told yourself. It’s not that it felt entirely instinctive to say goodbye to him with some kind of affection, like the many hugs you had given him before. It’s not that you felt so entirely scrutinized with Cryus’ piercing eyes on you, and you needed the anchor of Spencer’s touch.

You were just playing the part.

Spencer tried not to get caught on being kissed on the cheek like he was some blushing virgin, and instead, focused his attention back on Cyrus instead of watching you walk away. (Even though every single one of his instincts told him that he needed to keep a more careful eye on you because you both had to leave your guns in the car.)

He took a step closer to where Cyrus was leaning on the concrete, and easily picked a topic of conversation.

“Solar panels.” Reid said, motioning to the large devices sitting behind Cyrus on the grass.

“Yes.” Cyrus nodded. “We’re completely self-sufficient here. Food, electricity, water. Benjamin Franklin said ‘God helps those who help themselves’.” He explained. “You look surprised.”

“No, uh, impressed, actually.” Reid easily lied, trying to appeal to his ego.

“Thank you.” Cyrus said. “Most men wouldn’t admit that.”

“Well, I suppose that I’m not like most men.” Reid shrugged in return.

“How long have you been married?” Cyrus asked, motioning toward Reid’s ‘wedding ring’.

Reid panicked slightly, knowing that the two of you likely should have coordinated this story during the plane ride to Colorado so that your answers to these simple questions wouldn’t be different. But he just made up an answer and hoped that nobody else would ask you the same question and find out the deception.

“Three years.” He said. “I’ve been very blessed.”

He used the language purposefully, knowing that the simple phrase could get him on Cyrus’ good side. That, and he hoped it would draw the attention away from any possible signs of his blatant lie.

“Your wife is very beautiful.” Cyrus commented.

He gave a wicked smirk as he said this. It was a simple, fairly ‘innocent’ comment, but it was immediately off-putting to Spencer. It took everything in his body not to glare daggers at Cyrus or throw out some protective comment in return. He could only imagine what was going through Cyrus’ mind as he thought about you, and he hated even imagining it.

Reid knew that it was a basic logical good, the instinct to protect you because you were his partner on this case and he was supposed to have your back. But it was also something more. Something in every fiber of his being that screamed you were his and no man should ever be thinking of you that way except for him.

“Has it been a godly union?”

He was lucky when Cyrus spoke again and distracted him from his mounting rage.

“We try to be as godly as we can be.” Spencer took the simple, diplomatic answer.

“Your wife didn’t take your last name.” Cyrus pointed out.

Nancy had used your name on your false credentials because Hotch had only come up with the fake marriage idea the day before. There hadn’t been time to inform her about it and have ‘Reid’ put on your ID as your ‘married’ name. So he had introduced you by your name to keep everything consistent with the reuse.

It did make Spencer wonder if you would keep your last name if the two of you ever did get married. It made him almost dizzy, thinking about you as ‘Mrs Reid’. Thinking about your kids having his name. Or your name, if that’s what you wanted.

But naturally, he pushed past all those thoughts and formed an excuse.

“Typically, married women aren’t very well perceived in our line of work.” He quickly excused. “She doesn’t even get to wear her ring that often. She couldn’t change her name on paperwork at our office because a working married woman… it’s heavily frowned upon.”

“Well, I’d have to agree.” Cyrus grunted. “A woman shouldn’t be out working. A woman should be at home raising a family.”

“I - I suppose you’re right.” Reid agreed through gritted teeth.

He walked away toward the school before he got too angry again.

…

A few hours later, everything had gone to hell.

Some authority - the police, the military, you didn’t even know - had charged into the Ranch shooting. In response, Cyrus and his followers had come into the school toting large semi-automatics asking you and Spencer if you knew about a raid.

You didn’t. You wish you had known about a raid. You would have warned Hotch and gotten them to call it off. You certainly would not have been there while it was happening.

When they had pointed those guns in your face and forced you into the tunnels - it wasn’t very difficult to pretend to be Spencer’s wife then. Cowering in the bunker, confused and scared, you flung your arms around his waist almost instinctively, and he buried his nose in the top of your hair as he wrapped his arms around your shoulders like a shield, promising you that everything was going to be okay.

Whispered to you like that, coming from him - it was almost easier to believe. Even with the chaos going on around you and the fear pumping through you in response.

Nancy had run off trying to get them to surrender and did not come back. You had a feeling that you knew what that meant.

And now, with the kids from the school ‘evacuated’ into the church, you were being held in the cellar at gunpoint. They had forcefully separated you and Spencer, making you sit in chairs at opposite sides of the room.

Spencer was fidgeting. His eyes kept flickering from the door, to you, to the man standing beside you holding the very large gun.

You knew that you had ugly tear tracks down your face, and oddly enough - you wanted nothing more than to be back in his arms. As you were forced to sit there, just a few feet across the room away from him - you ached for it.

There was a very large possibility that you were going to die today. And you selfishly needed the comfort of being in the arms of someone familiar - someone safe. Someone you knew would never hurt you. Someone who had made you laugh with dumb science jokes and puns for the last five years that you had worked together with him.

When Cyrus charged back into the room with two men flanking his sides, you and Spencer stiffened up once again.

“God will forgive me for what I’m about to do.” Cyrus announced to the room, presenting a handgun from his belt.

Your insides quaked, and Spencer’s eyes grew wide.

You couldn’t contain the fearful whimper that erupted from the back of your throat when he raised that gun and placed it near the middle of Spencer’s forehead. You clasped a hand tightly over your mouth to keep yourself from crying out in protest, knowing that would only make things worse.

“Which one of you is the FBI Agent?” Cyrus asked firmly.

Which ‘one’?

So he knew that you were undercover, that you had lied about your job titles - but he thought that only one of you had done so. Where the hell was he getting his information?

“I - I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Spencer told him quietly, looking him in the eye the entire time.

You hoped that his stutter could be passed off as nervousness from the gun being pointed in his face, and wouldn’t be pointed to as deception.

“Which one of you is it?” Cyrus pressed.

“We are not FBI Agents.” Spencer said, more confidently this time. “We are Child Victim Interview Experts. We were only sent here to ensure the wellbeing of the children. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Well, that last part wasn’t a lie.

“You’re lying.” Cyrus told him, entirely confident in this. “God expells those who lie, devils in sheep’s clothing.”

There was a tense moment, and then Cyrus cocked the gun.

Spencer didn’t flinch. You resisted the urge to scream.

“Proverbs 12:22 says: ‘The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in those who tell the truth.’” Cyrus said, actually citing scripture this time.

He was giving Spencer one last chance to tell the truth. As if using the bible verse to say that his punishment would be lesser if he simply told the truth now.

Spencer didn’t take the bait.

“I’m not lying.” Spencer said firmly. “What? You think I wouldn’t know if - if my wife was an FBI Agent? This is the woman I wake up next to every single morning, the woman I go to sleep next to every single night, we work together every single day, we-”

Cyrus interrupted Spencer’s ranting with a sharp hit to the face, pistol whipping him across the cheek.

This caused Spencer to go flying off the chair, and you couldn’t help when you let out a wounded cry. It took everything in you not to jump out of your own chair and rush to Spencer where he had collapsed onto the ground, clutching his cheek.

“Someone is going to tell me the truth.” Cyrus said gruffly.

“It must have been Nancy!” You said, the idea finally popping into your head.

You seemed to be more clever with the pressure of Spencer’s life being threatened. Cyrus stared you down, turning his attention fully toward you now. You caught Spencer’s eye for a moment and he gave you a small nod - as if to say ‘yes, keep going with that’.

“The woman we came in with! Nancy!” You reasoned, continuing to point the finger at the woman you had to assume was dead. “We - we just met her today. Our boss introduced us to her, but we had never met before that. If she was FBI, we had no clue. We swear.”

Cyrus turned to you then, and tightly pressed the barrel of his gun into your forehead. You could feel the imprint of it so tight in your skin that it hurt, and you could only lean away so far before threatening to knock the chair backwards.

“It’s very convenient to pin this crime on someone who isn’t here.” He grunted at you.

“It’s the truth.” You sniffled out quietly.

“Hmm.” Cyrus hummed thoughtfully, and then, much to your surprise, he removed the gun barrel from your forehead.

You barely had a moment to breathe in relief before he began skimming the gun down your neck, touching the metal whisper-gentle across your bare skin - clearly taunting you. It was something that made your whole body stiff with alarm, and caused Spencer’s eyes to go wide once again.

“Perhaps I should strip you naked to ensure that you’re not wearing a wire.” Cyrus said, teasing the gun along the buttons at the front of your cardigan.

You held back a sob at the thought of it - at the idea that he could make you do almost anything for the fear of you being shot. Truthfully, you were more afraid of what he might do to Spencer if you didn’t comply, but it was all the same in your mind now. His life was just as valuable as yours, and you would do whatever it took to protect him.

Before Cyrus could take these threats any further, a heroic voice intervened.

“That’s enough!” Spencer yelled.

He gathered himself off the floor and oddly enough, none of the men moved to stop him as he came to stand beside Cyrus. Perhaps they didn’t see him as a threat. Perhaps it was because Cyrus didn’t bark any orders at them to stop him. He was entirely unflinching, keeping his focus on you and keeping his gun held between your breasts as Spencer crowded into his personal space, trying to press himself between you and the awful man.

“We’ve told you everything that we know.” Spencer told him lowly, his voice heaving with well controlled anger. It was something that you had rarely ever heard from him.

Cyrus kept his eyes locked on you, so Spencer continued.

“We don’t know anything about the FBI - we have a simple job advocating for children who have been abused. That is it. We came here to investigate a most likely false claim against someone in your community and we truly didn’t mean to get caught up in all of this.” He said firmly, clearly trying to appeal to Cyrus. “So I suggest you get that gun away from my wife before you and I truly have a problem.”

Spencer’s voice was dark, so thick with rage. More pent up rage than you had ever heard from him when he was talking to any suspect, people who had done the worst of the worst. Something about Cyrus threatening you had truly boiled his insides.

The way he said the words ‘my wife’ - growling it out like he was a feral animal and this threat to you had activated every single one of his protective instincts. Hearing it made something inside of you yearn for him on such a deep level that you didn’t know was possible. You wanted to feel that kind of protection cast over you every single day. It made you feel invincible, having Spencer watch over you like that.

Cyrus lowered the gun then, and Spencer grabbed your arm as you dissolved into hysterical tears. Instinctively, he lifted you up into his arms. You thought that you heard Cyrus mumble out ‘my apologies’ as he left the room - but he was barely on your radar. Your entire world became narrowed down to nothing but Spencer, your safety net as he built a wall of protection around you.

He used his height to block you from seeing anything but him, letting you push your face into his chest as you cried. He wrapped you in his arms once again, letting you feel truly safe for a few moments as you sobbed into the fabric of his sweater. Your arms clutched desperately at his waist, needing to keep a hold on him - needing to ensure that he didn’t leave you.

“Hey, shh. Shh. It’s okay.” He said, leaving gentle kisses on the top of your forehead and your hair, rubbing across your back with one hand, comforting you in the only way he could in those moments. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Of course, he wanted to break down too. But he had to be strong for you.

“Spencer,” You called his name in an utterly wounded voice, pulling away from his chest to look up at him.

When you saw his injury up close - a sharp, purple-red bruise that was blooming across his cheek, it looked so utterly painful. Your insides ached at the thought that he had taken a blow for you. You hated to imagine what more they could have done to him if they had not believed your lies.

You instinctively reached a hand up to touch it and he caught your fingers halfway, instead, gently grasping your hand and laying it on his chest. The intimacy felt so oddly rehearsed - so worn in, so ‘normal’. It felt like you had been married to Spencer for years. Like it wasn’t a play at all.

Your two souls had been calling out to each other for years, just waiting for the dam to break. But you couldn’t quite put it into words - not like that.

“It’s okay.” He said quietly, knowing you were horrified by the injury.

He was so gentle, so comforting, so calm. Everything the men pointing guns at you were not. Unlike Cyrus - Spencer Reid was a true blessing from God.

You couldn’t hold yourself back then.

You surged up and kissed him, fully embracing his mouth with yours in a kiss. Though it was so sudden, it was something he easily returned. The kiss so full of urgency, so needy, so passionate. Like he was trying to tell you that it was okay, that he would protect you no matter what.

He would protect you because you belonged to him.

In those moments, the two of you were basically alone. One of Cryus’ men was guarding the door, watching on boredly. But Cyrus was off in the church, funneling people in to prepare for his ‘loyalty’ test. It didn’t matter if he saw you kissing or not - it wouldn’t have sold the reuse of you being married any better.

This was just for the two of you. This was comfort.

When you pulled back from the kiss, Spencer looked stunned, almost as if he couldn’t believe what had happened. You didn’t give him time to question it.

“Thank you.” You said quietly.

It was twofold:

Thank you for protecting me. Thank you for giving me comfort.

Spencer didn’t have too much time to marinate in the meaning of the kiss before Cyrus’ men came back and fetched the two of you, wanting you to observe the loyalty test.

…

After the mock poisoning (which Spencer figured out rather quickly, making you admire his cleverness once again), Cyrus kept you and Spencer in the church with a few of his closest, most loyal followers while all of the low level followers dispersed back to their homes.

You and Spencer were lingering in the back quietly while Cyrus was on the other end of the room, talking to his men about how to proceed. The plans for their ‘final stand’.

“We need to get some kind of signal to the others.” Spencer whispered quietly. “Maybe they’ll take pity on you and let you go if-” He swallowed sharply, cutting himself off abruptly. Oddly enough, he didn’t want to voice whatever was on his mind.

“If what?” You probed. You wondered what the hell you could possibly be thinking.

“If we tell them that you’re pregnant.” He said, whispering so lowly that you almost didn’t catch the words.

You rolled your eyes sharply at this.

You had gotten married and had kids all in one day. What a miracle.

(In those moments, clouded by fear, you couldn’t see it for what it truly was - Spencer blatantly revealing his unconscious desires to have a baby with you.)

“We could convince them to release you. As a show of good faith. A pregnancy would be good leverage in that. You know how religious people are about fetuses-” Spencer reasoned.

“Yeah, and what if they give me a test?” You probed, punching a large hole in his logic. “We don’t know what kind of infirmary they have here. They obviously believe in modern technology. What if they want to give me an ultrasound to check on the fetus after the stress of the day? To prove that they did no harm to the precious unborn child,”

Spencer was easily caught on this point. If they examined you and found that you weren’t pregnant, all the lies would fall apart.

“Well… what if we tell them that you have a baby at home that you need to get back to?” Spencer reasoned, jumping to the next logical conclusion in his mind. “It’ll likely garner the same level of pity.”

“Your imaginary sperm is powerful, isn’t it?” You whispered back sharply. Spencer rolled his eyes this time. But he didn’t redact the plan as unreasonable, so you continued on. “Okay, what do I even do when I get out there? I’m not gonna be of any use to the tactical team. We don’t know what Cyrus’ final play is yet.”

Truthfully, you couldn’t bear to be separated from Spencer. Knowing that he was inside, potentially being beaten up more, potentially being shot and bleeding out from a wound without you knowing - it would kill you with stress. You need to be by his side. You needed to know that he was okay.

“Has God blessed your union with any children?” Cyrus appeared behind you suddenly.

You wondered if he had heard you say the word ‘pregnancy’ or if this was just a random topic that had come up in his mind.

His sudden appearance behind you caused you to whip around and crowd into the comfort of Spencer’s arms again because you were frightened. Naturally, Spencer wrapped his sheltering touch around your shoulders. Your back was gently pressed into Spencer’s front, his arm shielding you protectively as it was wrapped around your chest, holding you with his hand on one of your shoulders, unconsciously stroking his thumb across the fabric of your cardigan. The position had you both facing Cyrus, watching the fan in an offensive way.

And of course, Spencer didn’t miss a beat.

“Yes.” Spencer answered easily. “We have two kids at home. A boy and a girl. Iris and Hugo. Iris is almost three years old and Hugo is eleven months. His first birthday is coming up in June.”

You knew that Spencer could be very good at talking off a suspect’s ear under pressure, but when you heard him rattle off these ‘facts’ so easily, it hit you.

This wasn’t simply statistics or physiological knowledge - this was a very elaborate backstory for your supposedly real marriage. Perhaps he had thought about all of it on the car ride up (which was odd not to share it with you, in case Cyrus asked you a similar question and your answer didn’t match up with Spencer’s).

But if you weren’t mistaken, this wasn’t simply a backstory for your fake marriage during the undercover mission. This was a fantasy of his. Those were names he had lovingly chosen for your imaginary children - kids he had dreamed up in his head and wanted to be real.

Your heart ached at the thought of it. You found yourself missing a set of children that weren’t even real. (And distantly, wanting to jump his bones to make it a reality.)

“Tell me, Mr. Reid, would you find it so shameful for your daughter to marry young?” Cyrus asked.

You found it odd to hear Cyrus call Spencer ‘Mr. Reid’, but you realized that he hadn’t introduced himself as ‘Doctor’ in this setting. You held your tongue when you felt the need to correct him as you had so many other people, wanting Spencer to receive his proper title.

Your mind almost couldn’t focus on the question that Cyrus had asked. Of course, he was trying to get Spencer to stroke his ego once again. Basically admitting that the whole reason the two of you had come here was true - he was being vastly inappropriate with a young member of the church, and getting away with it. And he saw nothing wrong with it.

And he was trying to get an outsider to admit that he saw nothing wrong with it too.

When there was a moment of silence - Reid obviously torn on how to answer the question, Cyrus continued.

“Is there really something so wrong with a blooming young woman marrying a man who will protect her under God’s laws?” He probed, his voice so entirely confident. Clearly confident that he was right.

“Well, I’m not sure if I would let my daughter get married so young.” Reid said, finally speaking up. “I just know that I would want her to marry a man that would protect her, and be the best possible fit for her. Someone who would cherish her and be good to her no matter what.”

His answer made you swoon. You reached up and gently gripped his forearm in response, giving a light squeeze to show your approval. He leaned in and kissed the back of your head - dizzyingly, you were imagining him walking your imaginary daughter down the aisle before you had even gotten married yourself.

Maybe it was being so close to death, being threatened in such dangerous territory that was causing your life to accelerate at light speed in your mind. If you were going to lose everything, you might as well enjoy the escapism of a fake life with a beautiful man in your mind instead of being stuck on the heart pounding terror of being held hostage, right?

Surprisingly, his words drew a smile from Cyrus.

“You’re a protective father, aren’t you?” Cyrus asked.

“Of course.” Reid confirmed.

“I can always admire that in a man.” Cyrus nodded. “A man should always pride himself on protecting his family.”

There was another moment of pause, and you were hoping that the topic had been dropped completely.

“Do you have a picture of your children with you?” Cyrus asked.

You wondered if - in a different version of reality, where you and Spencer really were married, where Hugo and Iris really did exist - if you had a picture of them in your pocket, would Cyrus only be asking this so he could use the picture to taunt the two of you? What other purpose would he have for knowing what your children looked like?

“Unfortunately, no.” You answered. “I keep my family pictures on my desk. In my office. We - we’ve just been praying to get back to them safely.”

Cyrus seemed perturbed at you mentioning that you had an office. Something dark flickered over his features for a moment and then disappeared.

“Well… if it is right, God will grant you that safe passage.” Cyrus said.

Just when you truly thought the conversation was done, he said something to you that entirely grinded under your skin.

“I find it entirely odd that a mother of two young children spends her days working a job where she takes care of other people’s children, rather than staying at home with her own youngins where she belongs.”

He said, using that same entirely confident, righteous tone that he always did. Even though you were not really a working mother, you had a hard time not boiling with anger at the sexism ripe in his statement.

“How much must you be missing of your sweet angels lives to instead partake in the horrors of devils you shouldn’t have to witness.”

Of course.

You had a hard time not rolling your eyes at this or saying something harsh that would set him off. Instead, you reached up to Spencer’s arm around your shoulder, squeezing his fingers, trying to keep your patience.

“I’ll have you know that Y/N is an amazing mother.” Spencer piped up, knowing that Cyrus respected him enough as a man that he wouldn’t beat him simply for speaking up. “Her nurturing and caring makes her infinitely better at her job.”

Again, you knew that there was so much personal truth in Spencer’s words. He thought that you would make an amazing mother to his children - at least theoretically. He was entirely firm in that conviction. And he thought that your natural caring made you amazing at the job you did as a Profiler. He knew this from the quality of work he witnessed you doing every single day.

You didn’t know it - but it was just one of the many things that had caused him to fall in love with you.

Oddly enough, Cyrus’ words prodded at something deep inside of you. It made you imagine a life for yourself where you weren’t spending your days witnessing horrors from unspeakable devils - but instead, at home, looking out for Spencer’s imaginary children.

You would have said it was the fear of the day, clouding your mind. But maybe it was the clarity of being so close to death that made you realize what - and who - you truly wanted out of life.

…

Hours later, after some of the hostages had been released (the ‘non-believers’ who had failed the loyalty test), Cyrus had requested that some food be sent up. Spencer gave you a sharp look when he saw the message written on one of the takeout lids.

The team would be storming in to end the hold-out at 3am. You had to somehow ensure the safety of the hostages by then.

Obviously, the fake pregnancy idea was still warping through Spencer’s mind, but you had come up with some much better.

“Cyrus,” You called out his name gently, getting his attention. “You said that you have a nursery here?”

It had come up, during his long winded bragging about how perfect the Ranch was. Something about how mothers didn’t have to raise their children alone. The children were raised as more of a ‘group effort’ and women took ‘shifts’ in the nursery, allowing the women to rest or get chores done in the interim.

“Yes, we do.” He nodded.

Spencer stared at you with his jaw set, wondering what you were doing but not daring to speak.

“I - I’ve been missing my children dearly. I was wondering if I could go to your nursery and see if they need any help? It would do my soul good to be around young ones right now. After all the commotion of these days.” You spoke meekly, trying to play the part of the shaken up, dainty woman well.

Which was too difficult, seeing as you were playing up the fear you had already experienced.

He grinned. It was a rather menacing smile, and you tried your hardest not to show any further fear, or disgust.

“That sounds like a splendid idea.” He nodded. “Christopher, why don’t you escort her down to the nursery and then come back? We need you here for our final preparations.”

You were finally falling to those gender roles that he had been pushing on you since you had arrived. He didn’t suspect a thing. He simply thought that you were a God fearing woman falling to your natural womanly instincts, needing to care for children lest your womb shrivel up and you die.

Spencer rose from his seat and Cyrus stopped him.

“Just your wife.” He said, putting a hand in front of Spencer’s chest to stop him. “There are still some things you and I need to discuss. Man to man.”

You went over to Spencer and didn’t hesitate to plant a kiss firmly on his mouth, which he returned with vigor. This one lasted only a moment - it was something precious for the two of you. You didn’t need to put on some pointed show for the men in the room.

“It’s okay.” You told Spencer quietly, brushing your fingers gently over his uninjured cheek.

You could tell that he was dying to ask you what your plan was. But he kept the words trapped in his throat, unable to speak in front of the many temperamental villains lurking about.

“Come on.” Christopher grunted.

Spencer gave you a longing look as you left. He didn’t want to think it, but as he watched your figure retreat out the door, he feared that it would be the last time he ever saw you.

…

Your plan worked flawlessly.

Getting to the nursery meant that you had unsupervised access to the women and children, especially away from Cyrus’ prying ears. Because you were a ‘delicate’ woman, nobody suspected you of having ulterior motives. You easily found a crack in Kathy, Jessica’s mother. You spotted her as the one who had made the original 9-1-1 call, wanting to get her daughter away from Cyrus. You convinced her to help you get everyone out, and you felt intense relief when you were met with a familiar face in the cellar as everyone escaped through the tunnels.

“Where’s Reid?” Morgan easily asked you, glancing behind your shoulder as if waiting for him to appear.

“He’s still up at the church.” You told him. “I had to separate off to help get the women and children out-”

“Go on, we have to get you out!” Morgan urged, trying to gently usher you along.

“We have to go get Reid!” You argued, trying to turn around.

“Go, go on, I’ll go get Reid!” He told you.

You were about to argue back, but you were cut off by a scuffle behind you.

Jessica was yelling about Cyrus - how her mother had betrayed her, tricked her.

Morgan pushed Kathy toward you and ran off screaming for Jessica. You took Kathy’s arm, gently convincing her that everything was going to be okay as you guided her the rest of the way out. You had to focus on this, convincing yourself that everything was going to be okay. You had to tell yourself that Derek was going to get Spencer out - that they were both going to be okay.

When you got outside, you were hyper focused on marching away, taking a path away from the church as directed by the officers in charge. You froze in your tracks when you heard it - an earth shattering boom. The ground beneath your feet shook. You felt a puff of hot air swell to touch your back.

You let go of Kathy’s arm and whipped around, and you couldn’t even pay attention to where she went. You almost thought you heard her weeping, but your mind couldn’t process it as your eyes were glossed in bright orange flame.

It was the church.

“Spencer?” You gasped quietly. “Spencer!”

You couldn’t help it, but you began to run toward it. Your feet carried you faster than you could think, and before you got more than a few feet across the ground, you felt a sharp grip on your upper arm.

“L/N!”

Hotch’s voice, sounding far too distant for the position he held right behind you, viciously gripping onto you as you fought against him, trying to get toward the fire - trying to get to Spencer.

“Hey! Hey! Stop it!” Hotch tried to order you around, tried to get you to stand down.

He got a hand around your waist, and you continued to kick like a wild horse, fighting against his grip as hot tears poured down your face.

“He’s in there!” You sobbed. “Spencer is still in there.”

“Calm. Down.” Hotch ordered sharply.

You collapsed back into him sobbing, all of the fight leaving your muscles at once. You couldn’t fake the reality in front of you.

“You running in there and getting hurt isn’t going to change anything.” Hotch told you quietly, a somehow distant murmur into your ear.

Through the blur of your tears and the sharp orange glow, you saw the shape of two bodies. You heard coughing as someone emerged from the blast, hobbling down the stairs at the front of the church. You forced your eyes open wider, trying to see who it was, and then:

“Y/N!” Spencer called out your name gruffly through the smoke he had inhaled, and you easily shucked off Hotch’s grip to race up the stairs to get to him.

He was leaning on Morgan for support and you were worried that he was hurt. But the moment you were close enough, he tore himself away from Morgan and the two of you met in the middle. In a pattern that was easily developing, you fell into the safety of his arms, holding him tight enough to bruise him - never wanting to let go.

“You’re so stupid, you’re so stupid! Why would you do that to me?”

You sobbed out, gripping both sides of his face, staring into his eyes, needing the recognition that he was right there, right in front of you.

He stared back with glassiness - intense fear, adrenaline, and something small that told you he was thankful for you, and needed you now more than ever.

Of course, your words were simple anger at the situation, not at Spencer himself. The terror of thinking that he was dead still pumping through your veins, causing you to shake.

“I know.” He said quietly. “I love you.”

His voice wrapped around the words so tenderly - it was the most sincere declaration you had ever heard from him. As if to say ‘I know how much that scared you. I know what this ordeal has done to us and I only meant it more because of how scared I am’.

“I love you too.” The words flew from your lips so naturally it hurt. You took a moment to recover, entirely shocked by your own lips. And then, you only found the need to say it growing more inside of you. “Spencer, I love you.”

You pulled him toward you with the grip you had on his face, and he easily met you in one of the most earth shattering kisses you had ever experienced.

It was no longer a show, it was no longer about displaying the fake marriage for someone else’s benefit - if it had ever been about that in the first place. It was about the two of you. It was about feeling that comfort, that safety. It was about the fact that your two souls were drawn together since the day you had met. The fact that you had always felt safe with each other. You had always been the other person’s shelter from the storm.

And you poured every ounce of those feelings into that kiss.

You combed your fingers through Spencer’s hair, taking a harsh grip on the back of it, holding him there so he couldn’t pull away from your lips. He wrapped his arms around your waist, fisting the back of your sweater. Both of you entirely refused to come up for oxygen, not even caring who saw the epically passionate, public display of your love for each other.

Unbeknownst to you, Morgan and Hotch exchanged a look with raised brows as it happened. You and Spencer didn’t care. You were barely perceiving the world around you as the two of you kissed.

“You know if you’re not careful, people are actually gonna think you two are married.” Morgan said, being his usual sarcastic self.

Rather than pulling away from Spencer’s lips to sass him back - you simply flipped Derek off over Spencer’s shoulder.

On the ride home, JJ handed Derek five dollars. He had the over/under that the two of you would get together before the end of the year. JJ said that it wouldn’t happen for another five years, at least. Derek handed the fiver to Emily when she reminded him that the ‘fake marriage’ bit had actually been her idea.

When Emily and JJ relayed the story to Penelope, she squealed so loudly into the phone that JJ dropped it.

Hotch pulled you aside later and warned you that the fake rings were just cheap costume jewelry that Garcia had gotten and they would tarnish soon if you kept wearing them. He also recommended that you and Spencer put in the paperwork with HR if you were ‘serious’ about the relationship. You knew that it was him wishing the two of you his best.

A few days later when you came into work and found the HR request for an update of relationship status sitting on your desk, already signed by Spencer, you couldn’t help but to smile.

...

A/N: okay, I do have to admit, the ending kind of sucks imo (like the last few paragraphs) because I highly resisted the urge to end this with 'baby making' smut where y/n is like if 'you want kids for real, then we can have kids', and then Spencer just goes nuts. because I did like the more cheesy/romantic love confession ending, and I was getting way too tired to write smut for this. idk if I should do that 'x amount of reblogs for part 2' thing or if I'm just happy with this being a standalone oneshot?? idk. if people ask for a part 2, then I will set a reblog goal for it. and I will work on a part 2 for it after Lesson Two is posted.

#sundrop writes #spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x self insert #criminal minds #criminal minds fandom #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds x y/n

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wave2tyun · 2 months

Text

cool hot sweet love (beomgyu's ending)

word count: about 1k

a/n: don't read this if you haven't read cool hot sweet love first :0

you woke up at noon with a pounding headache, barely gathering the strength to roll out of bed. it seemed like you didn’t know your alcohol limit that well after all. yeji, however, took notice of how wasted you looked once you got back home, and left some water and hangover medicine on your nightstand, which you gladly took.

you did your usual morning routine to make yourself look presentable again, then started cleaning up the big mess you created in your room while being in a rush yesterday. you gathered the clothes on the floor, spotting a white button-up shirt thrown on your desk chair. confused, you picked it up, memories from last night coming back in an instant, making your cheeks burn again. ‘shit. i should probably return this to beomgyu’. you folded the shirt, feeling something strange in its pocket. putting your hand inside, you discovered a small piece of paper with text on it:

‘meet me at sunset? -beomgyu :)’

you frowned, feeling both excited and nervous about facing him again. still, you wanted to know what this was about, and went to search him at the bar at the appointed time.

the beach was deserted, no tourists around and no workers either. your shoulders slumped; you stopped in your tracks, worrying whether that note was really meant for you, or for today. you took a step back, about to go back, when suddenly the instrumental of a song started softly playing through the speakers around you. so there was someone here after all. you leaned forward, eyes spotting a familiar mop of red hair behind the counter at the bar. unconsciously, your feet led you towards it. you were anxiously playing with your fingers, not knowing what to expect.

“you’re here.” beomgyu smiled once he saw you “i was afraid you wouldn’t notice my note” he tilted his head down, scratching his neck nervously. the fairy lights scattered around the beach started to light up.

“what’s all this about?” you asked, in awe beomgyu’s preparations.

“just come with me.” beomgyu answered shortly. his fingers wrapped around your wrist, guiding you towards a picnic blanket, carefully placed on the shore. there was a plate full of the vanilla cupcakes you adored, with 2 glasses of the famous cherry daiquiri on the side.

“i noticed you liked these, so i wanted to make you more” beomgyu said, pointing at the cupcakes “don’t worry, soobin taught me how to make them.” he added bashfully.

you sat down next to him, still a bit unsure about the context behind this. beomgyu handed you the sweet treats which you both ate in silence. it was a comfortable silence though, there was something about beomgyu that always made you feel at ease around him.

beomgyu played with your fingers, occasionally placing small bits of the fine white sand on your arm, then brushing it off. “could you close your eyes for a bit? there’s this song i really want to show you.”

you nodded, closing your eyes to take in the music as beomgyu pressed play.

you nervously bit your lips ‘was that soren-?’

And if there was a place that I had to choose

Or a memory that fades that I cannot lose

If there was a place that I could call home

Before I die, you oughta know

It’d be in your arms tonight

you felt beomgyu’s gaze on you, heart fluttering as you continued to pay attention to the lyrics.

The green in your eyes

Are like the leaves in the summer

And it changes with the weather

The pink in your cheeks

When you slightly lose your temper

Makes me love you even more

the chorus played once more, the instrumental at the end of the song slowly fading away into the night. you opened your eyes, making eye contact with the boy that has been relentlessly tugging at your heart all summer.

“no one’s got me feeling quite like you” beomgyu spoke softly, wanting his words to be heard by you, and only you “you don’t have to give me an answer right now, maybe it was the push of the alcohol, but i just wanted to get these words out before my heart got captured by my own worries again-“ you cut him off, grabbing his face and giving him a kiss on the lips “is this enough to relieve your worries?“ you slightly pulled away, whispering against his lips “more than enough” he answered back in a daze, eyes full of sweet desire looking into yours. you could feel his hot breath on your skin, his lips were open, softly grazing yours. he grabbed the back of your neck, bringing you closer for another kiss. he kissed you slow and tenderly, taking his time to feel you, to show you all of his emotions, his adoration towards you. you both smiled into the kiss, stopping just for a second to breathe before he gently caressed your lips again, too impatient to feel them once more. his tongue grazed your bottom lip, the taste heady and familiar.

cherry daiquiri.

you couldn’t help but let out a gasp when he gently bit it, nibbling on it. “gyu-“ you wrapped your hands in the strands of hair sitting at the base of his neck. beomgyu left a trail of kissed on your jaw “you’re so pretty, did you know that?” he whispered as he moved to make his way down your neck to leave more kisses. he buried his face in the crook of your neck, his hair tickled you as he was busy nipping on your skin,“wait-“ you took his face in your hands and lifted his head up to make him look at you “i want to kiss you too” beomgyu’s cheeks burned at the mere thought of your touch on his body. he put his hand over yours, speaking in a hushed tone “i want to be the one to take care of you tonight.”

taglist: @huekalover3000 @maybabe00 @sunoooism

#wave2tyun #txt #txt fluff #txt x reader #txt fic #txt imagines #txt scenarios #txt smau #txt headcanons #txt beomgyu #beomgyu fluff #beomgyu scenarios #beomgyu imagines #beomgyu fic #beomgyu x reader #beomgyu headcanons

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lowkeyrobin · 1 month

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handsome bros and reader doing tubbathon together? just being super chaotic, im thinking that one clip where scott and aimsey r singing ceilings by lizzie mcalpine, and then tubbo asked if she had schizophrenia.

in oneshot format preferably

also could i be 💿anon, if it's free?

oooo okay, I haven't even written yet but so sorry if it's short/weird in general, I had no idea what to do here for some reason lmao ; and yes ofc! welcome 💿 anon :) ; also wrote this while sick with no functioning braincells so ignore the weirdness lmao

HANDSOME BROS ; tubbathon

summary ; chaotic tubbathon moments with the handsome bros

warnings ; language, cringe, talk of fetishes, troom troom & 5 minute crafts (everything said about these channels is real btw)

word count ; 916

masterlist

"Did you listen to that song I sent you?" You ask, turning to Tommy next to you.

He shyly and slowly shakes his head no.

"Bro, why not?"

"I forgot! I forgot, I swear" He half-laughs, raising his hands in defense before the play fighting and shouting began. "I meant to listen to it when you sent it to me but I was eating with Molly and fell asleep watching a movie"

Ranboo raises an eyebrow, "What song?"

"Yeah! by Ludacris"

"Oh my God I love that song!" Ranboo and Freddie exclaim in unison, sending the three of you into fits of laughter.

Tubbo is silent as he sits in front of his setup, just watching you talk for a moment. He then speaks up, confused.

"Tommy, have you never listened to Yeah?"

"No, I don't think so" The blonde answers with a shrug. "Y/n was talking about how it's an American classic or something"

"You sound so stupid right now" Ranboo chuckles.

Within the span of the next minute or so, it turned into you, Ranboo, and Freddie singing a portion of the song since Tubbo couldn't play it on stream, the two T's just watching and listening. This was quite usual, just, odd, but it made sense because the three of you were all running off of adrenaline and coffee at this point. The sun had set long ago, it was about midnight, and you were all having a sleepover anyways, so why not make the stream fun before you all passed out?

"Up in the club with my homies, trying to get a lil V-I, keep it down on the lowkey" Ranboo, starts, pulling you into the song halfway through the line as the others begin to smile and laugh.

"You should know how it feels" You look to the Webcam with the weird TikTok fuckboy look, a sideways L made from your pointer finger and thumb under your chin.

Freddie joins in by the next line, on your left, slinging an arm around your shoulders, which starts a slight school-play-remix of the song.

"I seen shorty, she was checking on me, from the game she was spitting in my ear, you would think that she know me" Freddie runs a hand through his hair to fix it up a bit.

The three of you turn it into a full-blown trio song, singing together as Tubbo and Tommy laugh and smile, with the chat spamming the lyrics along.

"I decided to chill, conversation got heavy, she had me feeling like she was ready to blow!" Ranboo giggles, trying to maintain their composure. "She's saying come get me, so I got up and followed her to the floor. She said baby let's go!"

The loudest point of the song now came, with Tubbo moving towards the side so you could be in full focus of the camera while Tommy records you three to the side, wanting to show Molly.

"When I told her, I said yeah! Shorty got down low, said 'come and get me!"

The three of you begin dancing in your seats as you sing along, hiding laughter, which was evident in the way you sang-shouted. You go through the whole song, including a tap-dancing bit from Ranboo, which you didn't understand whatsoever. But, as time passes, the five of you begin to delve into the deep abyss of 5 Minute Crafts and Troom Troom on stream, creating a whole section of commentary together.

"This has to be fetish content." You comment, watching in creeped-out-awe as the video is just about people sitting on and squishing things.

"I can't see how it isn't" Ranboo shrugs, "Who is watching this?"

"Probably like, middle aged moms, you'd think" Tubbo replies, "Or like, brainrotted YouTube Kids children"

"Probably the latter"

The group votes on no more Troom Troom, feeling genuinely weirded out by some of the stuff on their page. You get Tubbo to pull up 5 Minute Crafts, a much better option.

"I hope that slide caves in" Tommy comments, seeing a thumbnail or a slide being made out of cardboard boxes.

"Me too, brother" You smile, "I mean how would it not? That child looks like they're maybe 80 pounds, this is a safety violation"

"Oh my God" Tubbo speaks, resting his head in his hands.

Freddie is the first to laugh, doubling over in his chair as Tubbo clicks on the video with the cursed thumbnail. "Did you see that?"

"Y/n was right, this has to be fetish content"

"What fetish includes eating off of toilet seats!?" Tommy loudly questions, seeing you stare into space out of shock and concern.

"That's probably the worst idea to solve that problem too, like, it'll still roll off and it hurts to have a whole toilet seat around your neck, ceramic or not" Ranboo chuckles, repositioning to sit criss-cross in their chair.

"Oh my God" You cringe, "Why are we putting pounds of garlic into a stick of butter??"

"I bet you that texture is so rank when you taste it..." Tommy cringes as well, seeing the oil being frozen after baking for reusable purposes. "It looks chunky!"

Freddie fake gags, crying about how he wanted to go home.

"Okay, no more!" Tubbo chuckles, clicking away to the YouTube home page. "Enough of that, I feel myself losing braincells"

Tommy shouts, hands to his mouth to create more sound. "Troom Troom for president 2024!"

"And I thought what we had was already awful"

#lowkeyrobin #mcyt x reader #mcyt preferences #mcyt oneshot #mcyt x gn reader #tommyinnit x reader #ranboo x reader #badlinu x reader #freddie badlinu x reader #tubbo x reader

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qveerthe0ry · 2 months

Text

Lions Ain't the Kind - Part One

Summary: Frankie hasn't dated in years, but now he knows what he's looking for. He's just not so good at asking for what he wants, and you're willing to help him work on it. Word Count: 8,156 Pairing: Frankie Morales x NB/Gender-fluid! AFAB! Reader Rating: 18+ Explicit Warnings: 18+ mdni, subby!Frankie, soft dom! reader, talks about gender non-conformity, sickening fluff, Frankie is way too cute and sweet for his own good, kissing, making out, handjob (m receiving), anal fingering (m receiving), dirty talk, Frankie has a praise kink, no use of y/n, no physical descriptions of reader Beta: @perotovar (my angel ilysm) A/N: Sorry for talking about this for a month straight without posting it lol! The title is from the song (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear by Elvis Presley which I admittedly haven't listened to but I saw the lyrics and knew immediately it was my Frankie. I hope you enjoy, and I'm always open to criticism and thoughts and thots!

Frankie hasn’t dated in years. He hasn’t really had the time, between his first child being born and navigating co-parenting with his ex, along with healing some very deep trauma and getting and staying clean.

It just hasn’t been on his mind, if he’s honest. He’s been busy finding himself, as Pope calls it. And he’s not wrong. It’s taken a long while for him to be comfortable in his own skin, to come to terms with the things he’s done and the baggage he can now store in an overhead bin, rather than carry it around with him at all times.

But now, he’s ready. He knows himself, and as a result, he knows what he’s looking for.

Someone kind-hearted and down to earth. Someone who’s independent and established, but not just looking for a hookup. Someone with a sweet smile and a desire for enjoying the little things in life.

Someone like you.

He’d swiped right and left dozens of times on men and women alike, but as soon as he saw your profile on whatever dating app he’d downloaded, he was hooked.

You were gorgeous. He felt the heat from your smile through his phone screen, so happy and genuine and sweet.

You were funny, the answers to those weird icebreaker questions full of witty remarks.

You were smart, clearly, from your shoutout to your alma matter and the ‘boring’ job you mentioned in your profile.

He honestly figured he had no chance at all. His face is only getting more wrinkly, and his hair more gray, and he’s never been the sharpest or funniest guy in the room.

So when he swiped left and you matched, he was stunned. He was even more shocked when you messaged him before he could even think of what to say to you.

Hi cutie 🥰

Despite the fact that he was home alone on his couch, he had the sudden urge to look behind him, as if you’d be talking to someone else. The back of his neck got so warm, and your boldness only made him more into you.

So he messaged you back

Hi :) how are you?

I’m surprised we matched, honestly. Pleasantly surprised 😊

Same here :) Why the surprise though? I’m sure you match with everyone

Not at all, it’s hard to find people whose type I am on here. I usually use the queer dating apps but I opened this one out of boredom. What are the chances?

What are the chances, indeed, Frankie thinks, as he gives your profile another look over. Frankie doesn’t understand how you aren’t everyone’s type. He feels a little bit like he’s talking to a celebrity, looking at your pictures and just a snippet of who you are on this reductive dating app.

I like the odds :)

——

As your conversation continues normally over the next few days, Frankie learns a lot about you. He also learns a lot about himself.

It’s been so long since he’s played the field, so to speak, that he’s rusty as all hell and a bit awkward. He’s afraid to flirt too much, every message deleted and re-written at the risk of sounding too cheesy or too forward or too much.

You aren’t afraid to flirt. You send ‘good morning, handsome’ and ‘sweet dreams, pretty boy’ texts every day and night. You tell him your day would be better if you could cuddle someone, you tell him when you’re taking a relaxing bath that you wished he were there to join you.

And to say that Frankie likes it is a massive fucking understatement.

He adores it, he thinks about you constantly, all day long while he works without access to his phone, all evening long while he waits on your replies, all night long, when you’ve bid each other goodnight out of nothing but courtesy for each other’s sleep schedules.

You lead him along like a timid puppy on a leash, showing him new things with patience and care and it drives him insane. He wants to meet up with you so bad, or even just call you on the phone to hear your voice. He thinks about it, late at night, if it’s higher or lower in register, if it’s smooth or raspy. He wants to learn everything about you.

That being said, he’s not sure if he’s ever met someone who’s ‘non-binary/gender-fluid’ before. He doesn’t get out much, he hardly talks to anyone who he hasn’t known for years.

So he googles. It doesn’t really help. He understands what it means, but he doesn’t know what it means to you. He wants to ask you a million questions, but is afraid to bring up even one, and ruin the moment, or sound like an idiot.

You’re so kind though. So he bites the bullet.

Can I ask you a question?

Your response comes almost immediately, now that it’s evening time, both finished with dinner— his takeout vs. your leftover spaghetti.

Of course, pretty boy ❤️

He still flushes deep when you call him that, heat spreading all throughout his face and neck and chest.

How did you know you were non-binary/ gender-fluid?

He frets over the text a bunch before he sends it, making sure he worded it the same way you did in your profile. His heart pounds as he waits for your response.

I’ve always just kind of known I didn’t feel like a man or a woman. I used to think everyone felt somewhere in between, and it was just normal to not feel like I checked either box, but then I realized no one else around me felt the way I did. And then I learned all the terms and whatnot, later on, and knew that’s what I am. Just kinda in between, neither and both, sometimes one and sometimes the other. If that makes sense?

His smile splits his cheeks as he reads your in-depth response, eating up every bit of information you’re willing to give him.

That makes perfect sense to me. Thank you for sharing :)

It doesn’t scare you off?

Frankie scoffs, as if anything about you could scare him off. At this point, you could show up on his doorstep with a dead body in a bag, and he’d throw it in his trunk, dispose of it, and then ask if he could maybe kiss you.

Not at all. Nothing about you scares me :)

——

It’s a few more days before Frankie works up the courage to ask for your phone number. You tell him you were wondering when he was going to finally ask for it. It makes him itchy to think about you waiting for him to ask, making him be the one to do it. In a good way. In a way that kind of makes him stiffen up in his briefs if he thinks about it for too long.

But now, as he settles in from a long day at work, his grin splits his face from ear to ear as he reads your text.

Can I take you out tomorrow night?

He likes it… a lot. He feels so fucking new to all this, like a fumbling newborn calf taking its first steps, and how forward you are eases him so thoroughly.

I’d love that :)

Meet me here at 5 for dinner. Casual dress, but I’m sure you’ll be handsome in anything 😘

It’s the longest 22 hours of his life, and it’s the shortest, all at the same time. Texting you, making funny jokes like his bones aren’t about to creep right out from under his skin with all the nerves buzzing his body. Thinking about you, dreaming about you, one right after the other. When he wakes in the morning it’s like he didn’t get a wink of sleep, his anxiety drumming up a million different scenarios of how it could go right and wrong.

Calling Santi mid-morning on a Saturday when he knows he’s spending time with his family, because if he doesn’t talk to someone about this he may just float off into the ether.

“I’m so fucking nervous, Pope, what do I do? How do I act? Can you just stake out at the bar and feed me lines through an earpiece?”

“Pendejo, fucking— grow a pair man. You’re cute and funny, you’ve got this.”

Reading your texts with pupils shaped like hearts:

I can’t wait to see you tonight, cutie ❤️

and

I finally settled on an outfit

and

Is it weird that I’m not even nervous? I’m just excited to finally meet you

It is weird, Frankie thinks, but doesn’t dare tell you. It’s weird how he can’t even eat the plain toast he made for lunch without feeling bile rise in the back of his throat, and you’re just excited. It’s weird how he’s never, ever felt so gone over someone, and you haven’t even met yet.

It’s not weird, it’s sweet :) I’m excited too <3

It’s not a lie, but he’s omitting the truth a bit. He’s excited but he’s nervous, picking meticulously through his closet to find something casual but not too casual, something he likes the look of himself in, something he thinks you’ll like the look of.

It only gets worse as he stares at google maps. The restaurant is 2.6 miles away, 11 minutes from his house. It’s 4:30, and he wants to leave already, but thinks maybe it’s better to deal with the anxiety in the comfort of his home rather than the parking lot, in case you’re there early too, and you can see how much of a fucking wreck he is.

He watches the minutes tick up in the corner of his phone screen. At 4:36, he gets up, fusses in the mirror one last time, and leaves.

When he parks in the lot in front of the bar & grill, you’ve already texted him.

I’m here a little early, got all green lights. Saved us a table near the back. See you soon!

It’s 4:52.

He takes a deep breath through his nose, closes his eyes as he lets it out gently, counting just like his therapist taught him. And again. And one more time, and finally that anxious tingling in his fingertips is muted a bit and his heart rate is only slightly above normal.

4:54.

He pulls the key from the ignition, gets out of the car, and makes his way to the door.

He finds you instantly.

You’re looking at him, and you’re smiling, and getting up from your chair as he approaches you. He barely even hears you greet him with all his blood rushing in his ears.

“Hi, Frankie,” you say, and your arms stretch out to invite him in for a hug.

He melts into your arms, his strained “hi” muffled in the crook of your neck. You squeeze him tight to you, and he hears you chuckle next to his ear.

“Knew you’d be even cuter in person.”

He huffs out a laugh as you release him, and the tips of his ears burn. But you’re smiling so sweetly at him that it eases his nervous bones.

“You look— can I call you handsome?”

Fuck, he thinks, so fucking awkward.

But your grin gets even wider.

“Only if you mean it.”

“I do,” he sighs, “like straight out of the cologne ads I’d rip out of my older sister’s magazines.”

He holds his breath as you react, the flutter of your eyelashes and the quivering of your lips and your laugh, bubbly and bright and soothing.

And he isn’t lying, not even a little. You’re rugged but soft, romantic and alluring, and he can’t take his eyes off you.

Even as you take your seats across from each other, and the waiter comes to take your drink orders, and as your gorgeous eyes flit across the pages of the menu. He can’t stop looking, watching your mouth curve into a smile as you talk about your week and ask him about his.

It’s pathetic, really, when the waiter asks if you’re ready to order, and you ask if he knows what he wants, because he hasn’t taken a single glance at the menu himself. He just hopes to god the dim lighting of the bar hides his flushed face and tells you to order first while he skims the menu.

He ends up ordering exactly what you got, and floundering when your hand finds his on the tabletop. He watches your fingers trace his own from his nails to his knuckles, and flips his palm up for you to rest your hand in his.

“I’m glad you came out with me tonight,” you tell him.

His eyes flicker up from your joined hands to your smiling face, and his nerves completely melt away from the heat of your gaze.

“Thank you for asking me,” he says.

“Would you have asked me, if I hadn’t asked you?”

He bites the inside of his cheek, and there’s a teasing glint in your eyes.

“Eventually,” he nods, “I mean… probably.”

Your eyebrows turn up in question, and he realizes how that sounds, jumping to backtrack.

“Not like that! I just mean— You know… You’re uh… well, I feel like you’re way out of my league. And so maybe I’m a little… intimidated.”

You smile, then, and sigh, and squeeze his hand as you call him a sweet boy. It makes the room feel like it’s a hundred degrees warmer, like Frankie’s clothes are suddenly two sizes too small.

“You aren’t so good at asking for what you want, are you?”

He laughs then, and shakes his head.

“Not really, no.”

“We’ll have to work on that, then.”

He clears his throat, and tugs at his collar with his free hand, breaking his gaze away from your face as you chuckle. He looks to find a waiter, or maybe an HVAC guy that could crank the AC to sub-zero temps for the remainder of the date.

No luck.

The rest of the date goes well. Surprisingly well. Frankie was worried that he’d be so out of practice that he’d freeze up, or say something stupid, or do something stupid, like knock over a drink or get food stuck in his teeth.

But you’re just so easy to talk to, to click with. Of course, you’re the one who facilitates the conversation, asking him about his favorites— movies, TV shows, music, time of year.

But he likes to think that he keeps the ball rolling well enough, is aware enough to remember to ask for some of your favorites— holiday, food, cocktails.

By the time the check comes, he hardly realizes you’ve both had empty plates in front of you for a while, talking and laughing through your meals like you’re just catching up with an old friend.

He protests when you grab the check, because of course he does. You’ve given him this incredible night, your comfortable company, your sweet smiles, and he feels like his offerings pale in comparison.

“I asked you out, Francisco,” you tease him, having just learned his full name a mere 20 minutes ago.

And he can’t really protest anymore, what with the shiver that’s tingling his spine and the goosebumps he tries to hide by gripping the chair underneath him. So he lets you pay, and thanks the waiter, and feels a rush of sadness when they come back with the check to sign. He really doesn’t want this evening to end.

The apprehension falls second to the sensation of your hand on the small of his back, leading him out to the parking lot.

“Where’s your car? I’ll walk you there,” you say, your thumb pressing a soothing circle into the base of his spine.

So he walks to his truck, a little self-conscious about the out-of-dateness of it, and how he didn’t think to run it through a car wash before this. But mostly he’s just nervous about ending this date on a good note.

“This is me,” he says, barely above a whisper, stopping at his driver’s side door.

You smile at him when he turns to you.

“Thanks again for coming out with me. I really did have a great time.”

This makes him smile through the unease, even as your hand drops from the small of his back.

“I did too. Would you uh… wanna hang out again soon?”

Your face lights up, and Frankie wants to capture it in a bottle and take it home with him. Keep it at his bedside to use as a nightlight.

“Are you asking me on a date?”

He chuckles and looks down to his feet like maybe it’ll redirect the flush in his face. You grab his hand, hanging by his side, and luckily you don’t make him speak again because he doesn’t know if he’s even able.

“I’d love to. Really.”

He smiles when he looks back up at you, only briefly, because you drop his hand and take a half step back.

“Call me about it.”

“Wait!”

Your brow arches at him, because you weren’t really going anywhere, but Frankie’s mind is running a thousand miles a second. He thinks back to all the times you’ve goaded him into asking for what he wants, so far, and how it hasn’t bit him in the rear yet.

“Can we— I… Can I kiss you goodnight?”

Your smile softens, and you take that little half-step back closer to him, and he feels all the tension leak from his shoulders.

“Yes, you can. Thank you for asking.”

He huffs, and smiles at you, and you’re reaching out to cup his jaw and grab his hip, and Frankie closes his eyes far too early, but it’s okay, because he feels your body heat and then your lips.

He can’t hold back the hum that rumbles from deep in his chest, or the way that he goes a little boneless in your grasp. He finds your forearm and squeezes it, and your bicep too, anything to ground himself as your lips part and your tongue teases the seam of his lips.

But then you’re pulling back, and it’s over far too quickly, and Frankie is also acutely aware of how tight his jeans feel. His face feels like it could melt right off of his skull.

“Call me soon, Pretty Boy.”

He nods, speechless, and watches you disappear between the cars of the parking lot. On his way home, he’s already fretting over whether or not he should text you tonight, and what kind of date he should plan, and if his breath was okay when you let him kiss you.

——

Frankie is perfect.

You’re still not sure how you found this diamond in the rough that is Tinder. You thank every god you know the name of that you got bored and opened the app on auto-pilot that night.

First of all, he’s so cute. He’s handsome in such a boyish way, with his dimples and unruly curls and patchy beard.

But he’s also so kind, the way he talks to you like it’s a privilege, the way he asks careful and curious questions about you like he truly wants to know the parts of you that are deeper than what’s on the surface.

Every simple text from him makes you smile, the way he always tries to make you laugh or cheer you up when you’re overwhelmed with the demands of life, as you often are.

And meeting him in person solidified everything you thought about him.

He seems like the textbook definition of a golden retriever boyfriend, if you ever get to call him that much. You hope you do.

In fact, it seems like it’s moving quite quickly in that direction when Frankie asks if you’d be down for a movie night. Some blockbuster he missed in theaters is finally streaming, and he thinks you’ll like it.

You don’t tell him that you didn’t miss it in theaters, or that you thought it was just okay.

You do tell him you’d be down to watch it, only if he came to your place, where the walls are thin and your surrounding neighbors all know you and watch out for you. Just in case he’s really good at acting like a sweet, safe guy.

You find yourself giddy as the weekend approaches, daydreaming at work about how the night will turn out. You tell him to come in comfy clothes, because you’ll be damned if you wear jeans in your own home, even for this sweet man. He doesn’t seem to mind one bit, that’s my favorite kind of outfit :) is his cute response.

You get everything ready the day of; your coziest blankets hang off the arms of your sofa, your fridge is stocked with fresh fruits and your pantry with candy and microwave popcorn and chips (I’ll eat whatever you get :) his answer to your questioning of his favorite movie snacks, of course.)

And then you sit around and wait, excited nerves coaxing your body to straighten things up that have been straightened up a million times already. When Frankie texts you his ETA, you park yourself on the couch by the door and stare at it until there’s a knock on it.

You may count to ten before you get up to open it, just to hide how eager you’ve been to see him again.

Your throat does get a little dry when you answer it to find him in a dark blue t-shirt that hugs his arms and light gray joggers that hug… Other things.

“Hi handsome,” you smile, pushing down all the nerves and the less-than-PG thoughts.

“Hi. I um… I brought these. I noticed you ordered them on our uh– well, at the restaurant, and I didn’t want to show up empty handed.”

You watch a flush break out on his face, and his neck, and wonder how far under his collar it actually spreads.

He’s holding up a six pack of your favorite beers, and he’s smiling so shyly, and you have to crowd in closer to him to press a kiss to his heated cheek.

“That’s so thoughtful, thank you.”

He giggles— giggles, Jesus Christ— and you take them from his hand to let him come through the door.

You set the beers in your fridge to let them chill as he kicks off his shoes. You watch him from the kitchen as he takes in your place with his pretty brown eyes.

“It’s really cozy in here,” he tells you as he fiddles with his own hands.

“Snuggle up, get comfy, I’ll bring us some snacks.”

He nods, so obedient, and hovers by the couch before settling on the seat in the middle.

Sly move, you think, and you can’t hide your stupid grin as you gather some snacks.

When you turn off all but one lamp and deposit the junk food on the coffee table, you notice he’s inched himself closer to the arm of the couch, like he was second-guessing himself. That just won’t do, you think, as you settle in right next to him, so close that the length of your body is pressed against his.

He doesn’t look at you, just stares at the Roku City scrolling across your flat screen. For a second you think he might be uncomfortable, but the way his breathing is uneven clues you in on his nerves.

You reach over him to grab the blanket in the arm of the couch, and you feel his muscles tense up when you press against him.

“Frankie?”

“Huh? Sorry, yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head and sighs, heavy and long, before looking at you.

“I’m so nervous.”

He smiles in spite of it, lopsided, dimples so cute that your lips quiver with the urge to kiss them.

You smile back, and drape the blanket over both of you, patting his leg through it.

“Nothing to be nervous about, Francisco.”

It gets a laugh out of him, a huff through his nose, and his shoulders lower the tiniest bit. You slowly reach up to cradle his jaw in your palm, careful not to spook this little baby deer of a man, but his face leans into your touch.

“If it helps, I think it’s really sweet that you’re nervous.”

“Thank you… I think?”

You laugh at him, and watch as your reaction makes his eyes brighten. You want to kiss him. You want to smooch the absolute daylights out of him, but there’s still 3 hours of a pretentious movie to watch, and there will be plenty of time, if he’s amenable.

So you just pinch his cheek before you let go, and try not to look so smug at the heat that consumes his face as you get the movie up and running.

Fifteen or so minutes into the film, Frankie has relaxed into the couch, though he’s stock-still beside you with his arms glued to his own sides. You just want to cuddle, at least. You’ve been thinking about it for weeks— getting his warm, solid but soft body against your own.

You’re certain he won’t be the one to initiate it, but that’s all fine and dandy. You rearrange yourself a bit, and sling an arm over his shoulders. He looks away from the movie towards you, and you give him a smile that must be comforting.

He sinks lower on the couch, and leans against you, his messy curls pressed against your shoulder while his arm drapes over your lap. You think you hear his satisfied hum under the dialogue of the characters, and you let your head rest against his.

This is nice. Frankie’s so warm against you, the most comforting weight all lax against your side. Your hand creeps up from his shoulder to his head, and his hair is so silky when you finally work up the gall to run your fingers through it.

You can feel the way it affects him when he shivers and presses even closer into you. You watch the movie like that for a while, snacks untouched, fingertips stroking his scalp as his soft curls slip through your digits. Every once in a while his head tilts to look up at you, piercing brown, and each time you smile back down and ruffle his hair.

It’s just after the first big conflict of the film when you feel Frankie shift against you. His arm moves in your lap, and you watch his thick fingers grab your thigh over the blanket.

It shocks you how such a simple gesture makes your temperature rise. You hum and let your nails scratch more firmly against his head. You can hear him gasp, and feel him move impossibly closer, like he’s trying to fuse the two of you together. You glance down at him, past the curls you’ve lost yourself in, and his eyes are closed. Further, the curve of his nose and pout of his lips, his chest that’s heaving with his excited breaths, you notice a suspicious tent in the blanket, and you don’t want to assume, but the context clues are all there.

Frankie is hard.

You can’t blame him. You’ve been aroused since you pressed his body against yours, a slow simmering underneath the surface that’s made you feel so comfortably warm and relaxed.

You shift, and you swear you hear a barely-there whine leave his lips. You move just enough so you can press your free hand to his chest. Under your palm, you can feel his heart beating, a pace that’s concerningly higher than appropriate for sitting and watching dialogue in a movie.

His head turns toward you, his hair slipping through the grasp of your knuckles. He looks up at you with those puppy eyes and his pupils are so dilated that it makes you take a deep breath. He turns his body toward you next and there it is the hard line of his cock pressed against the outside of your thigh. You see him shudder at the friction, watch his eyes grow droopy as they flicker down to glance at your lips.

“Can I kiss you again?”

And he asks so sweetly, voice a little hoarse from the silence, that you couldn’t dream of denying him.

“Yes, Frankie.”

His lips tremble until they meet yours, so soft and chaste, a stark contrast to his scruffy beard and mustache. His breath hitches; you can hear it and feel it. His chest shudders under your palm and pushes air out to gust against your cheeks. You feel his prick, too, twitching against your thigh as your tongue peeks out to tease his pouty bottom lip.

He pulls back so much quicker than you want him to, but it’s also such a reward to look at him this close. His lips shiny, his cheeks flushed, his irises completely usurped by his pupils. His mouth hangs open and you can’t help yourself as you slide your hand from his chest to his jaw and pull him into you once again.

A surprised little noise works its way out of his throat, and his hips jerk forward, and then he’s groaning as his cock throbs against the outside of your thigh. The noise makes that feeling in your gut draw deeper, lower, and you make one of your own in response.

His hand rests dutifully still on your thigh, but you can feel his fingers twitching as your taste buds rub against his– a friction that has no right to be as delicious as it is. You want him to feel you up, to touch you all over, to give in to the desire that’s blatantly pressed against you. You want to hear these noises he seems to be holding back, the whimpers that just barely make it past his vocal chords before he cuts them off.

You pull away this time. Pride swells in your chest as you look at what you’ve already done to him. His curls are even messier now that you’ve run your fingers through them over and over. His eyes are all glassy when he looks at you, pouty lips slick and red.

He sits so still, aside from his heaving breaths, like he’s waiting for your command.

“Tell me what you want, Frankie.”

His eyes widen and christ, if they get any wider they’re going to suck you in like a supermassive black hole.

“I– I’m okay, I like this.”

You raise an eyebrow at him. He nods, trying to convince you, as he not-so-subtly pulls his erection free from its trap between his body and your thigh. His eyes cast downward, but you swiftly grab his chin in your hands to bring them back to you.

“Francisco,” you mumble, “ask for what you want.”

He gasps and bites his plush bottom lip, hard enough that there’s little indents when he opens his mouth. He shuts it again, and squirms against you, and finally opens it once more.

“I want you to touch me.”

His request comes out hardly above a whisper, all broken and breathy, and his gaze settles somewhere behind you.

“Is that all?”

He nods quickly, eyes snapping back to you.

“I swear– I just wanna feel your hands on me.”

Your smile widens as his face gets so serious, eyebrows knitting together.

“That’s good, that’s really good,” you mumble.

The shudder that visibly rolls through him is like a shockwave, sending every one of your nerve endings on-edge. You huff, an amazed little breath at this fucking guy in front of you, so responsive and timid and utterly fuckable.

“You like that? Like being good for me?”

He nods again, more apprehensive this time, but he can’t hold back his whine when his hips press against you. The possibilities of all the things you could do to this man stretch far and wide; it’s entirely overwhelming.

“Sweet boy,” you whisper, because he is, “c’mere.”

You pull the blanket off of you both, and Frankie reaches down to adjust himself so it isn’t so obvious, like you haven’t felt his cock twitching against you this entire time. It’s so endearing you think you could cry, but you’re much too turned on for sentiment at the moment. Instead, you guide him to straddle you, hands on his slender hips until his thighs cage your own.

For a moment you just watch as he sits patiently, obediently, waiting for your next words like his cock isn’t leaking a pretty little damp patch into his sweatpants. His chest heaves with every breath, and his tongue licks and bites at his swollen lips, and his eyes stay trained on your mouth in anticipation.

“So pretty,” you whisper.

His long eyelashes flutter at your compliment, and he turns his head to try and hide his reaction, but it doesn’t mask the way his prick twitches under gray fabric. Your hands find his waistband and tease the edge and you delight in the way he shivers.

You need to feel more, so you press your hands under his shirt and hum at what you find. A soft tummy and smooth skin that makes way for a small trail of wiry hairs. It’s all revealed to you a moment later when you hike his shirt higher, reach for pecs that are more solid than you imagined, and the smallest nipples you think you’ve ever had your hands on.

You look back up to his face for permission with a quirked brow, and he nods eagerly, grabbing the back of his collar to shed the material and bare himself and it’s so lovely. There’s so much tan skin, hardly any of it is obstructed by hair, just the errant freckle here or there. And you can’t help it, you have to lean forward and take one of his nipples into your mouth.

He gasps your name, but one of his hands finds the back of your head to keep you in place. You hum around the little nub, so small you have trouble getting your teeth to bite down on it, but you do and then he groans, his hips jerking in your hold on them.

“Is this how you wanted me to touch you?”

You lean your head back to look him in the eyes, to watch a pained expression flit over his face as he tries to come up with an answer he thinks you’ll like.

“I like this too,” he nods, “but I, um… fuck–”

He cuts himself off to hide his face in his hands. He is so cute and so sexy at the same time, it’s making your brain go haywire.

“Tell me, Frankie. Be good for me, Pretty Boy.”

He shifts on top of you as he looks up at your ceiling. You soothe your hands up and down his flanks and wait patiently for him to find the words.

He drops his hand from his face, fists clenching down by his sides, but he finally looks down at you and smiles, shy and sweet, just a hint of that dimple you adore rearing its head.

“Touch my cock? You got me so hard.”

You smile bright at his request, and nod, and press a kiss to his sternum.

“Anything you want,” you mumble, “just gotta ask. Just like that.”

He looks pretty proud of himself. There’s a twinkle in his eyes as you look up at him, and you take a playful bite of his skin and savor the gasp it coaxes out of him.

“Let’s get these off, yeah?”

Your fingers sneak under his waistband and his skin is so hot under there, searing. You only have a few moments to bask in the warmth before he stands up to remove his pants and briefs in one bashful move.

Jesus.

He’s so gorgeous, bare for you, vulnerable, excited. His foreskin is all pulled back, revealing a delicious looking string of pre-cum from his slit. You desperately want to lean forward and taste— but he didn’t ask for that, and you won’t give it to him unless he does.

Stunned a bit silent, you pat your lap, urging him to settle back over it. Much to your delight, he does, quick and obedient. An approving hum bubbles up out of your chest, and he preens as he sits on your thighs.

There’s a very wicked feeling in you as you stare at him, completely naked, while you haven’t shed a single layer of clothing. Control, and trust, and power. It’s overwhelming in a way that makes your lungs feel too inflated for your rib cage, to know you could take advantage of it, and to know you never ever would.

“Good boy,” you whisper, finally, testing those waters.

Frankie’s dick twitches between you two, and you huff and smile and wonder how something so perfect and precious has literally landed right in your lap.

He’s been more than good, and so with one hand you grab his hip to steady him, and the other takes his cock as gentle as ever. A sharp inhale inflates his chest as you stroke the smooth skin, a teasing, feather-light touch that makes his legs tense up in your lap. You watch him disappear and reappear through the loose circle of your hand, watch another clear droplet bead from his slit when you squeeze him tighter.

“Does this feel good?”

He’s watching your hand work when you look back up to his face. He nods, a jerky movement that seems to shake his entire body, and he’s so on-edge. You feel it in the way he shifts his weight on top of you.

“Words, Frankie,” you urge, a soft smile on your face.

“So good.”

You hum, taking in the way his eyes flutter open and closed, the way his adam’s apple pokes out when he leans his head back.

You reward him by speeding up your strokes. You squeeze his hip with your free hand, kneading at the soft flesh there, while you lean forward to press kisses into his virtually hairless chest. His skin is so hot it feels like it could burn you, flushed such a pretty color, just like you knew it would be.

He whines when you gather up more pre cum with your thumb and gently massage it into his frenulum. You look up to find him staring down at you with glassy eyes, bottom lip tucked tight between his teeth.

“Can we kiss more?”

His voice is breathy, and you nod, and a fresh wave of arousal flushed through your system when his lips eagerly meet yours.

It’s sloppier, this time. Noisier, too, as you tighten your grip on his cock and begin to properly work your hand up and down his length. You steal his breath and his noises straight from his lungs, feel every shudder he pushes out when you twist your wrist just right or squeeze tighter.

His hips start to meet your thrusts, rutting into your hand, such a desperate little thing on top of you, all for you. You want to encourage him to take his pleasure from you, and so you slip your hand back from his waist, find the perfectly pert globe of his ass with your palm.

“Haa— shit.”

His words muffle into your kiss as his hips stutter in rhythm and you lean forward to smirk into the bald patch of his beard.

“Yeah?”

A gasp wrecks through his heaving chest as he nods.

“Please, fuck— please.”

You hum into his jaw and squeeze his cock and his ass respectively.

“Please what, Pretty Boy?”

He leans back. You watch him squeeze his eyes shut and shake his head from left to right.

“Tell me what you want, Frankie. Know you can.”

A big gulp of air, and then he opens his eyes to look at you, then blinks them shut again as his head lolls back in his shoulders.

“Touch me there. I— I can’t—”

“Shhh,” you take mercy on him, bringing your hand up from his backside to cradle his jaw in your palm. He tilts his head into your touch and opens his eyes.

“I got you, sweet boy,” you remind him.

He nods in understanding, shifting to kiss the heel of your palm. You let him rest his lips there as he catches his breath, feel them quivering every other upstroke of your hand on his prick.

But as he makes to move, you hold his jaw steady in your hand. His eyes flicker back to your face, and you wonder if you look as wrecked as you feel, if he can tell how beside yourself you really are.

Slowly, so he can pull away if he wants, you trace the pad of your middle finger along the seam of his lips. You’re awestruck at how they instantly fall open for you, greedy, something you’re definitely looking forward to exploring more later.

For now, you watch with hooded eyes as he takes it into his mouth, tongue curling and lapping at it. You briefly wonder if fingers are erogenous zones, beyond turned on at how warm and wet the inside of his mouth feels, how he suckles and releases, bobs his head over and over until you snap out of it.

“Good boy. Fucking perfect,” you sigh.

He gets a cocky little goofy grin on his face at the praise, but his prick twitches against your grasp. You squeeze it for good measure, and more of his pre-cum dribbles over your knuckles.

You lean into him again, and he leans into you, holding each other up. Your mouth finds his pebbled nipple once again as his prick drags across your shirt and saturates it. He hisses at the friction, then gasps when your hand grabs his ass cheek again.

You pull it as best as you can with one hand. It isn’t too difficult with how it fits so perfectly round in your palm. You squeeze it, massage it, note how the littlest hint of peach fuzz feels against your clammy hand. You wonder how it would feel under your tongue, too, how it would taste, how the fatty flesh would feel between your teeth.

His hips stutter forward when your finger, slick with his saliva, strokes the very top of his crack. And you don’t mean to tease too much, but his jerky movements and satisfied sounds when you do are like music to your ears.

Finally you find his hole, fluttering around nothing, so little and tight, all for you.

“Ohmygod.”

Frankie sounds pained, so much so that you look up from nuzzling his chest to watch his face. His brows are drawn tight with how his eyes are squeezed shut, and his mouth is hung open, slick with a little drool around the corners of his lips. Without context, maybe he would look pained, too, but the way his cock throbs and dribbles in your hand paints a completely different picture.

And what a pretty picture he is, gulping for air above you, thrusting his hips back into your finger and forward through your fist, like he’s so out of his mind that he can’t even make it up.

You apply more pressure to his impossibly tight pucker and sink your teeth into his skin at the way he whines for you. You do it again, and again, a patient little rhythm until it relaxes and the very tip of your finger slips into his warmth.

He groans, clenching tight around you.

“Okay, Frankie?”

He laughs, a little puff of air, and you feel it where you’re inside him.

“Gonna make me come,” he chokes.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, don’t— fuck— please don’t stop.”

You hum into his chest, squeeze your hand tighter around his prick as you speed up your strokes. He’s groaning now, deep and low and constant, like he couldn’t hold it back if he tried.

You wiggle your finger against his rim, tugging him open for you, toying with the elastic muscle. He’s so pliable everywhere, opening up to you, happily taking what you give him.

In a stiff moment you think he isn’t into it, because he freezes up and goes silent. You make to slip out of him, but his warmth just drags you in.

And then his cock jumps in your grasp, and his hole clamps around your finger as he gasps your name, and he’s coming.

He shakes with it as he soaks your shirt and drips over your hand. You stroke him through it and marvel at the way he feels in your grasp and around you, violent waves of pleasure that you can sense where you touch him.

You look up to watch him tremble through it and he’s gorgeous. Sweat drips from his messy curls at his temple and paints a glimmer down his neck, all pulled taught as his head hangs back. His chest tastes salty under your tongue where it heaves, you can’t get enough of the flavor, or the wicked beating of his heart under your lips.

And his noises, fucking delicious, wrung-out curses that just keep tumbling from his red lips. His stomach trembles with his shaky breaths, and he sounds so wrecked as the last bit of his orgasm tricked down the back of your hand.

His whispered chants of “fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,” slow to a stop just as his joints unlock and his muscles relax. You take it as a sign to loosen your grip on his spent cock and carefully slip your finger back out of him. It earns you one last whimper before he sags into you, a boneless little heap in your lap.

You unhand him to hold him against you, wipe your hand on the discarded blanket beside you so you can stroke his back with one hand and his fuzzy little buttcheek with the other.

You tell him how good he was for you, how pretty he is when he comes, how much you loved getting to do that to him.

It takes a while for him to catch his breath, and his huffs tickle that sensitive spot on your neck just below your ear.

“Holy shit,” he sighs.

You nod, because he’s correct. Holy shit, indeed.

His voice is a little hoarse, and you’re conflicted. You want to hold him as long as he’ll let you, but you know you should get him some water and at least a towel.

You shift under him and he whimpers, wraps his arms tighter around your shoulders.

There goes that idea.

You hold him closer, and smirk at the contented sigh that leaves him.

“I think… I think I just imprinted on you.”

It startles a laugh out of you, and he chuckles too, a tiny happy sound against your collar bone. You turn to kiss his heated cheek, and he lets you, before he turns his own head to fuse his lips to yours.

This kiss is lazy, unhurried, and the adrenaline from making him fall apart is slowly making way for more of that sticky-sweet arousal from earlier.

“I wanna make you come,” he mumbles against your lips.

You shake your head, but kiss him some more, as to not give him the wrong idea.

“Another night, Pretty Boy.”

He makes a disappointed sound, but continues to kiss you until you have to part for air. His brow is turned upward in question when you pull away.

“Did I do something wrong?”

You’re shaking your head before he even finishes his question.

“Not a single thing, Frankie. Just wanted to take care of you tonight.”

His shoulders relax at that, but his face is still confused. It’s a cute look on him, with his pouty lips and big brown eyes.

“You’d tell me right? If I made you uncomfortable? You can tell me. I don’t wanna upset you.”

And christ, you feel your heart melting and oozing through your rib cage at how earnest his voice is.

“I promise, I’ll tell you.”

That seems to quell his nerves, as he sinks back into you again with his sweaty curls pressed against your shoulder.

You’re sticky in more ways than one, and Frankie’s only getting heavier in your lap the sleepier he gets, but a giggle bubbles up out of you when you realize you’ve never been more comfortable than you are right now.

Frankie huffs in response, and you press him even tighter against you.

You don’t know where one-and-a-half dates and one sickeningly hot orgasm places the two of you. And maybe it’s greedy to think about with a handsome, sweet man in your arms, but you can’t push down the overwhelming feeling of wanting more.

next part

#x reader #sub! frankie morales #frankie morales x reader #nb reader #gender-fluid reader #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal fanfiction #frankie morales #frankie morales fanfiction #ppcu fanfiction #pedro pascal cinematic universe #frankie morales smut #triple frontier fanfiction

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starry-bi-sky · 4 months

Note

ive been hesitating to ask this bc youve been on a roll with the clone^2au (which i am frothing over) but could i poke you for some childhood friend au? bc GOD i wanna see how danny reacts to reuniting w jason or how the rest of the batfam react to learning jason never told danny of his resurrection or wondering if dannys gonna put jokers dead body on a display/offering to jasons grave. i havent been normal about this since i first read it and was wondering. thank you for your writing.

RAAAAHHHH DON'T BE HESITANT I AM JUST AS FERAL OVER MY CHILDHOOD FRIENDS AU AS I AM WITH CLONE^2 I AM DELIGHTED BY THIS. Like.,,,, i literally love them,,, so much. I can't listen to The Crane Wives without thinking of them.

(which is my fault - the ao3 fic of them has literally only crane wives lyrics for each chapter title and summary (posted AND the ones not written) so of course im gonna associate with them.)

(if you wanna listen to some of their songs while thinking of cfau here are my recommendations: "Once & for All", "Here I Am", "Hollow Moon" is a Danny AND Jason song to me, this would be my go-to song for an animatic of CFAU if i had the skills for it. "Tongues and Teeth", "Curses" and "take me to war" is a heavy cfau danny song to me, and of course, "the moon will sing")

Like they're BEST friends dude, they're two sides of the same coin and when they were kids they would do this thing where their 'fingers crossed'/'double-crossed' was them hooking their index fingers in the fingers crossed gesture.

and i'm actually currently rewriting my original post into a more fic-like format, and when I'm done I'll post it on here under the cfau tag - with the original post still in tact. But its,,, gonna be so long dude,,,, the original behemoth was just over 9000 words,,, and I've written 3k words already of the new one and we haven't even reached Jason and Danny reuniting at the gala yet,,, i need to get back to that,,,

and then to answer your questions!! god im almost hesitant to answer because i dont wanna spoil the little fic i had planned for it but also like,, its not like im gonna spoil everything, right? and answering the questions isnt the same as writing the scene down so!!

i love danny and jason's reuniting, like i've thought about it SO much and I've thought about it happening after Danny kills the Joker. I know the reveal could have been before that, and it could have been equally just as dramatic but like??? Thematically, doing it after danny kills the joker is SO good. To me at least.

Because like?? Jason's been in somewhat denial about danny's plan to kill the joker for months. ever since danny told him that he wanted to at the gala. And from Jason's pov its not even technically a plan. He sees his best friend for the first time after five years and his best friend still isn't over his death. He hasn't stepped foot in Gotham since his funeral and now suddenly he's here.

And he's still so full of grief over his death that he tells a masked vigilante that he's going to kill the guy that did it, who lives in said masked vigilante's city. And danny's got that look in his eyes that Jason knows so well that means he's being serious. And yet he still doesn't know if he should believe him or not.

And then he does. Danny kills him. And Jason can't fucking believe it. And when he goes and sees Danny, Danny's hands are still covered in blood. And that reunion? God like a fucking firework show. Danny's so fucking angry, and pissed, and hurt, and so goddamn overjoyed that he's alive and here that he sends them both to the ground, and if he doesn't calm down he's gonna take out the power in a five block radius.

there's just so, so much yelling on Danny's end. And then so much crying, first from Danny and then them both. because god, you're alive. you're here. i've missed you so much. i'm never letting you out of my sights again.

and Joker's death! God I don't want to actually say too much about that, but the way I have it set up thematically makes me actually not want danny to take any part of the joker with him as an offering. and he may actually forego that particular ghost etiquette and offer something else as an offering to Jason in substitute to not bringing him the Joker's heart/head/ritualistic body part.

Because you know what the last thing a man whose been spending the last two decades of his life building himself up to be larger than life would want? A death that's unremarkable. :) and that's all i'll put on the matter for now.

and the batfam!! they technically already know that jason hasn't told danny he was resurrected, and plenty of them have mixed feelings on them. largely bruce and dick i think, considering they saw firsthand how close jason and danny were when they were kids.

Dick was honestly surprised at first when he found out that Jason hadn't told Danny he was alive - and on one hand he understands the reasoning for it, and on the other hand he isn't sure if it was such a good idea. Especially after he sees Danny again after he arrives back in Gotham and sees just how badly Jason's death was still affecting him. But it's not like he's going to try and convince Jason to tell him - he can make his own choices, even if Dick has questions about them.

Bruce has much the same thoughts as Dick, so there's not really much to add here other than he might bring it up once or twice to Jason like, vaguely. And then immediately drops it when Jason shuts him down. He might actually somewhat...?? prefer that Jason hasn't told Danny because that raises a lot of questions and could jeopardize their identities. However, again, Jason can make his own choices and there's not much Bruce can do about it other than disapprove from afar.

Tim who knew of Danny from stalking the Wayne family shares similars sentiments of being surprised that Jason didn't tell Danny, but again, yeah, understands the thought process to some extent. Doesn't bring it up ever.

Everyone else who hadn't seen firsthand how close Danny and Jason are don't really have much opinion on it -- Jason didn't tell his best friend he was alive, great, he also didn't tell them either so it's not like its that much of a surprise. It would've been more of a surprise to them if Jason had told Danny before he told Bruce and co. Damian may make a comment or two about Jason not telling Danny, but its not about how he can't believe he didn't tell him or anything like it.

#dpxdc #dp x dc #dp x dc crossover #danny fenton is not the ghost king #cfau #childhood friends au #danny and jason are such best friends i love them so much #BUT YEAH ASK ME MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT CFAU I'LL SCREAM #AND THEN TRY AND ANSWER THEM TO MY BEST ABILITY #like i could go on RANTS almost SPECIFICALLY about rath (dan) and then about jason and danny #and their friendship like i've thought about this au with a combined soulmate au and immediately hated the idea because no!#no! i can't call them soulmates. i can't it doesnt fit. their bond goes DEEPER than that. its *better* than that #this wasn't written in the stars it was forged in the back alley streets of gotham with all the broken glass under their feet #and the smell of nicotine weaving itself into the fabrics of their shirts. their souls aren't intertwined because the universe said so #they're two balls of yarn tangled together because they batted it at each other and decided to play cats cradle. and then never bothered #to untangle the string from one another. you'll never know where one ends and the other begins #i actually have a cfau miscellaneous facts post in my drafts that i need to finish too and i might do that today because of this ask <33 #the fastest way to starry's heart is through her ask box #asking me questions about my aus is the fastest way to make me make more content about them ajshld #see: clone^2 (i've been coasting off the fanart i got from them for the last two days) and now this #i need to stop more before i start waxing more poetic about jason and danny's bond with one another.#also also jason is equally as feral about danny as danny is about him (see: him plotting joker's demise since he was 14) its just not #showing as much since a lot of this is from danny's pov. like dw this isn't one-sided obsession its mutual.#see: jason seeing danny's scars and immediately wanting to find out who caused it and getting murderously angry about it #its not a starry post unless its long #idk maybe im just obsessed with the idea that relationships are chosen and forged with time and that the bonds we have arent because they #were predetermined but because we made them to be. Like how clone^2 said 'i choose to be brothers' and how danny and jason said #'i choose you. i will always choose you. you're my other half. the one who watches my back. i choose you.'

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westviewtroubles · 1 year

Text

Heartbreak Prince

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Female Reader

Synopsis: Someone knocks on the door of Eddie's trailer, and you don't realize how much it breaks his heart to see you hurt.

Word count: 2k

Warnings: angst and fluff, comfort, explicit language and cursing, underage drinking.

A/N: I haven't posted since July, and honestly, it's been because I've been busy with life, and because there wasn't anything or any character that inspired me. Even my birthday went by! But because of a similar event in my life, I was inspired to write this :D Kind of sad, no? I hope you enjoy this, my writing skills might be rusty, but I tried my best!

The sound of music blaring through the trailer Eddie lived in wasn't anything unusual, the crappy stereo in his bedroom blaring Judas Priest with the volume knob turned all the way up, the boy pretending that the occasional crackling of the cassette wasn't bothering him.

He could hear the rain pattering against the steel roof of the trailer, tapping his guitar along to the noise in deep thought. Never before had he felt so uninspired, so bleak. In front of him laid the notebook where he usually wrote lyrics in, the page in front of him completely blank except for the messy drawing of a clown he had scribbled at the edge of the paper.

Eddie had been feeling this way for a while now; for the good part of the past month, there had been nothing new added onto the pages of that book but bad scribbles and the occasional math homework when he actually got bored enough to work on it.

His sulking was interrupted by a loud rapping coming from his door that almost startled him to his feet, the boy put his guitar back in its usual place as he stumbled to the front door, almost tripping on a pair of black jeans he had left on the floor.

A wide grin took over his face as he peeked out of the window, seeing a familiar girl standing there, but as he opened the door, the smile on his face slowly crept away.

You stood there in a rain-soaked brown cardigan covering your short t-shirt and your jean shorts, your arms crossed in front of your chest and a bottle of whiskey in your tight grip, a look of fury on your face that he hadn't seen before; one that he knew wasn't aimed at him.

"What's wrong?" He asked, letting you into the trailer as you took an angry swig out of the bottle, "What were you doing out in the rain? I could've come get you-"

"He cheated on me." You said with a grunt, taking another swig out of the bottle, Eddie worrying that the liquid would spill with the amount of motioning you were doing with your hands as you spoke. "I can't believe it. He actually cheated on me!"

"I think we're done with this." He muttered quietly, taking the almost full bottle out of your grasp and placing it on the table without you even so much as noticing, too busy pacing around the trailer with irritation. "Who cheated on you?"

"Aaron." You scoffed, Eddie furrowing his brows as he leaned against the counter, "You know, the dick who-"

"I know who Aaron is, but didn't you break up half a year ago?"

"That's not the point!" You ran your hand through your wet hair, pacing around while trying to straighten out your thoughts. "We broke up five months ago, but during gym, I heard Lacey say that it was her and Aaron's seven-month anniversary. This means that while he was dating me, he was two-timing me with fucking Lacey! That hag knew we had been dating for way over a year! Everyone knew! She was bragging to her little friend about how she stole him from me!"

"Shit-"

"He told me it was because we both had too much baggage, I guess his baggage was the fact that he was fucking Lacey Jones in the back of his pickup!"

Eddie felt his heart stop in his chest as he noticed the red scratch on your cheek, blood matted around the wound. His hand took hold of your chin, turning your cheek to him as he inspected it.

"What?" You asked irritatedly, your brows furrowed.

"What's on your cheek?" He asked, causing you to beeline towards the closest mirror in a fury, a chuckle leaving your lips as you inspected your face.

"Guess that bitch must've gotten a scratch in." You laughed.

"I think we should clean that up."

"Yeah, you don't know what kind of bacteria that wench could have had on her fake nails before I ripped them off."

Eddie made his way towards the bathroom, searching through the cabinets for some kind of antiseptic; he was sure that Wayne kept a whole collection of them with the number of scratches and wounds Eddie had come home with.

"Did you actually rip her nails off?" You heard him call out from the bathroom, letting out a laugh.

"At least two."

"Why would you even attack her? You've gotten over him already, haven't you?" He said, approaching you with a bottle of disinfectant in his hand and a roll of toilet paper in another as he motioned for you to sit down.

"I got over him a long time ago," You said, sitting down on one of the kitchen chairs, "But it wasn't because I liked him, or anything. It was because he betrayed me and because she felt all too happy-go-lucky that she got my sloppy seconds. You should've heard what she said."

"What did she say, then?" Eddie asked, putting some disinfectant on a piece of toilet paper and grabbing your chin softly to lift it up.

"She said that I was so pathetic. That I was a tease, who couldn't keep Aaron because I didn't want to sleep with him. That I was a boring little freak he was just leading on until he found someone he actually wanted. That he would never really love someone like me, someone who had so many issues. She was so proud of it, proud of taking him from me like he was some kind of prize. She acted like she won something."

You didn't even feel the sting of the antiseptic, nor the wetness gathering in your eyes, keeping your gaze to the ground as Eddie held onto your chin, lifting it up as he pressed the toilet paper on your cheek as softly as possible.

"She was wrong." He said quietly, a chuckle leaving your lips as you sniffled quietly, "I'm serious."

"What if she's not, though?"

Eddie scoffed, throwing the used paper into the trash can as he took hold of the bandage, "Because the moment that she's not going to be the perfect little girlfriend Aaron wants, he's just gonna go to the next one. Guys like that always do that. It doesn't have anything to do with you, and everything to do with the fact that he was an asshole who didn't deserve you. I knew that from the moment I met him, and I knew it all throughout your relationship."

"Why didn't you tell me that, then? That you knew that he didn't deserve me?" You let out a little chuckle, looking up to see your friend shaking his head slightly, "What?"

"Because I was afraid it'd seem like I was jealous." He said, pressing the bandage over the wound on your cheek.

"Why would it?"

"Because I was." He said casually.

"What?"

"We're done?"

"What do you mean done?"

"I meant your cheek." He chuckled, Eddie thinking that the puzzled look on your face made you look adorable even with the smudged mascara around your eyes. "Do you want something to eat? You should at least change into something else, I should still have some of your clothes in my closet. Or you can wear something of mine, whatever you're most comfortable in."

"Hold on," You said, pointing your finger at him, "Why were you jealous?"

"Why do you think?"

"I don't-"

"Because I like you. I liked you before you were dating that douche, while you were dating him, and after. Even when you were forcing me to watch those crappy romantic movies you secretly cried to, telling me that you'd kill me if I told anyone."

"Why didn't you tell me?" You stood up, looking into his eyes, trying to see if he was lying to you. For you, his eyes were like the mirror in Snow White. Every time, even with the simplest things, you could look into Eddie's eyes and know if he was lying to you. But as you stared intently into his brown eyes, everything inside of you was telling you that he was being truthful. "Why didn't you tell me you liked me?"

"Because I was afraid that you'd look at me the way that you're looking at me right now. Like I'm a stranger." Eddie said weakly before clearing his throat, evading your intent gaze. "We probably just have plain spaghetti, hasn't been time to buy anything else yet. Hope that's fine."

As he was turning away from you, you took hold of his wrist, the boy turning back to you with confusion, and it was now his turn to study your face.

"You're such an idiot."

But there was no time for him to look for the meaning behind your words as he was taken over by the taste of whiskey and the feeling of your cold lips on his, your wet body pressed against his warm one, blending into one as your hands tangled into his hair.

When he finally realized what was happening, he pulled you closer to his body by your waist, a definite feeling of victory inside him to finally know what it felt like to kiss you, what it felt like to tease your tongue with his. He had never felt so confident, and so inspired.

You were only supposed to give him a small kiss, but as you felt yourself being lifted up onto the dining table, your mind was in a haze from the feeling of his lips on yours, his hand on your waist feeling like they were going to burn a hole through your clothes, the heavy breaths exchanged between you covering the distant music coming from Eddie's bedroom.

As you felt his lips travel to your neck, you pressed yourself closer to him, the hungry kisses he was leaving on your neck causing you to let out a whine.

But the wordless exchange between you was interrupted by a loud clank, and as he pulled away from you, you could see that the open bottle you had left on the table you were sitting on was now knocked over, the liquid spilling everywhere.

"Shit!" You exclaimed, hopping off the table and picking it up with a laugh, looking at the puddle of whiskey that had spilt on the table, the bottle still half-full.

As you turned back to look at Eddie, both of you burst into laughter. His hands were still around your waist, and yours were still wrapped around his neck. You pressed your face to his chest, shaking your head in laughter.

"I should clean that up." He said after a while, and you looked up at him with a dazed smile, nodding at him.

"I should get changed."

"Yeah."

The dazed feeling inside of him was made worse when you got on the tip of your toes, pressing a quick kiss on his lips, a wide smile on your face as you tucked your wet hair behind your hair before turning, rushing into his bedroom.

And as he looked up at the ceiling, leaning against the table, he pressed his hand on his chest, hoping that his heart wouldn't burst out of his chest.

#eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson fics #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson x you #eddie x y/n #eddie munson angst

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silvervioletvalentine · 1 year

Text

❣️! Strange love !❣️

Pairing : max verstappen X femOC (Cherrie)

Word count : 6.1k

Warnings: pure fluff / Cherrie being a menace. Max permanently being exasperated. That’s it I think xoxo

As Max stepped out from their bedroom in confusion after a while of not hearing his girlfriends loud voice bellowing out the lyrics to the songs that were blaring from the radio in the kitchen , he could only hesitantly poke his head around the corner with trepidation .

Because when his girlfriend went quiet , it was not a good sign.

The only time she ever shut her big mouth up was either when she was sleeping or doing something that she knew he wouldn't agree with.

Which was a lot . Because the love of his life apparently liked to keep him on his toes and was determined to give him Grey hair as soon as possible.

He spent about fifty percent of his time worrying about racing and the other fifty percent worrying about what the hell Cherrie was going to do next.

She was an absolute nutcase who didn't seem to ever think twice . She just did whatever strange idea popped into her head without even considering the consequences.

It was often Max that was left to deal with them. Rushing to fix whatever mess she had made and apologise to anybody that she had brought into her chaos as well.

He got asked a lot about why he was with her if he spent half the time scolding her or dragging her away from bad decisions.

She wasn't exactly the type of girl that people pictured him with.

She wasn't serious . She wasn't level headed or competitive . She wasn't like him at all.

Instead she was loud , obscene and careless. And barely ever did she take anything seriously .

He could remember the time that he had crashed a few months ago and instead of his girlfriend fretting over him and being in tears with worry, he had returned back to his trailer to find her waiting for him with some hello kitty plasters in her hands and a mischievous smile on her pretty face .

He hadn't been in the best of moods so he had huffed in annoyance at her .

"You can't be serious!" Yet he had stood still and let her plaster one on his cheek where there was the smallest of scratches from where he had pulled off his helmet too roughly.

She had merely laughed and patted him on the shoulder with a shrug . "That looked insane on tv. What did you do that for? Made my heart jump!" She had exclaimed as she hurried back over to the couch to continue watching the rest of the race that was playing out.

Max had gaped at her , hands pressed firmly on his hips in disbelief at what he was hearing.

"I didn't do it on purpose!" He had exclaimed looking at his girlfriend with a small pout when she had started to cheer on Charles in front of the tv instead of coddling him like he had stupidly expected.

Huffing to himself as he pulled off the rest of his suit and flung it aside , not caring where it landed.

He was too busy side eyeing Cherrie moodily , wanting her to make a fuss over him .

Having at least expected more than a little pat on the shoulder! But he should have known that his adrenaline junkie , uncaring , so fucking strange wonder of a girlfriend would act like this.

He had once watched her get stung by two jellyfishes and laugh about it. Forcing him to take a picture of her painful leg while he nearly had a full blown panic attack , hurriedly Googling if you could die from jelly fish stings.

So him crashing into the wall and getting out completely unharmed probably didn't even make her flinch.

She was a nutcase!

"I can't believe you're cheering on another man after I've just lost like that! Don't you have any pity for me Cher?" He couldn't help but wine as he threw himself down on-top of her so that she had no Choice but to pay him attention.

She had just smiled and ran her fingers through his hair , still not taking her eyes away from the screen not matter how hard he huffed and puffed.

"You haven't lost . You'll win the next race and then the next one after that .." she simply replied. Letting out a small cheer as Charles overtook Lewis around the corner bend.

Ignoring the way that Max was scowling up at her from her lap as she did so. Instead she just gently patted his cheek and even gave it a little pinch.

Realising that she wasn't going to give in, he let out a loud sigh of defeat. Snuggling his face into her thigh as he wrapped his arm around her leg and got more comfortable .

"You think I'll win?" His voice was quiet and unsure, needing reassurance after that little disaster of his.

There was no hesitation in her voice as she answered him "every time you get into that car I believe that you can win Max. I wouldn't be dating you if I thought you were a loser!" She joked .

Referring to the comments that had been made about her being after his money and only dating him for the fame. Cherrie thought they were funny because she hadn't even been that interested in him at first .

And max had spent the whole summer stubbornly following her around until she agreed to go on a date with him.

And well, the rest was history.

He was stuck with her annoying ass now.

But he had wanted her annoying ass first , so it was all his own fault really .

He had known how odd she was from the beginning. The first time that he had saw her while on holiday , she had been stood in front of a board with a smile on her pretty face while a blindfolded man threw knives around her head.

Watching the way she had giggled after it was done and asked the man if she could try doing that to him as well , and well, he had been hooked since then.

And true, she stressed him the fuck out sometimes but she also gave him some of the best , funniest and most insane memories of his life .

Everyday was an adventure with Cherrie by his side , she would drag him along to all this crazy shit that he would have never even had known existed if it wasn't for her.

So when people wondered why he was so firm in his belief that she was the one , he merely smiled and told them the same thing.

It was the way she made him feel.

She made him feel normal, she made him feel alive.

Since the moment he had met her butterfly's had become a permanent residence in his chest, no matter how much time passed between them, he still looked at her smile and felt the love right through his whole fucking being.

'But she makes you worry!' They would frown in confusion as to why he was willing to put up with a woman who permanently did stupid shit and had him on the edge of his seat.

I love her . He would simply reply. And when you loved someone you constantly worried about them. It was normal.

Perhaps his girlfriend wasn't exactly a hundred percent normal but the feeling he got whenever she did something stupid was.

But mostly it was because she loved him too. And she liked him.

She liked being around him no matter what mood he was in.

A lot of people didn't like to be around him because they thought that he was too brash and blunt , too boring and serious .

But not Cherrie.

She loved him and she liked him.

She had told him that she loved hearing him rant to her about the troubles with his car and crew even though she hardly understood the terms he was saying.

It's your passion. She had whispered to him one night after he was finished telling her about how he wasn't satisfied with the new engine that had been fitted and tested that day. Any other woman would have bored out of her mind but not her.

Never her.

Instead she had a pretty smile on her face as she rested her chin on his bare chest and looked up at him with a soft sigh. Contentness a heavy blanket around them.

You mean everything that you say. I can feel it.

And he loved her and liked her too.

He loved being by her side in the morning while she sat up in bed and tried out some brightly coloured eyeshadow that would start out on her eyes and then spread down to her Cheeks.

Getting Glitter everywhere as she drew art on her face without a care in the world while he silently laid back in bed and took pictures other without her even knowing .

He loved watching her try new foods after he had spent all night convincing her to do so. The way that she would scrunch up her nose and let out a little hum as she tasted it. Although she would never admit that he was right . Instead she would just swap their plates around and give him a apologetic kiss.

He loved the way that he was the one that she ran to when she had news or even just to tell him stupid shit that meant absolutely nothing.

He liked that he was always the one that she wanted to know about it first .

He liked the way that she would take the lead in a busy crowd and reach back for his hand without even saying a word. He would let her pull him to whatever destination she had in mind, knowing that no matter what they did she would make him happy.

He liked the way that she wasn't afraid to stick up for him either. Having picked up on some of his own bluntness and curses , she wouldn't hesitate to go up to someone that had wronged him and call them out. Refusing to budge until she had forced that person to apologise to him face to face , sincerely.

Max thought it was funny that his five foot four girlfriend was such a wildcard. It always was the short ones that were the craziest after all.

What she lacked in height she made up for in impulsiveness .

His friends often liked to tease him about how he looked like a concerned father with a naughty child that was acting out . He supposed they weren't that wrong to think so.

He knew that he was the mature one in their relationship, that wasn't a secret .

So with her lack of loudness making him uneasy , he walked into the kitchen with worry and then paused by the doorway at the sight in front of him.

Making direct eye contact with his girlfriend who was sat cross legged on their dining table with only her lace knickers on, with scissors held up to her head as she tried to cut herself some bangs. A heap of hair already covering her lap .

He could see that she had also hacked at the ends of her hair too. It now rested to the middle of her waist instead of the bottom of her back like it had an hour ago.

He sighed loudly , not at all surprised.

“We have dinner in half an hour Cher." He stated matter of factly as he glanced down at his watch with worry.

"Was now really the right time for a new look?" He asked her as he walked over to her and gently took the scissors from her hands before she could do any more damage to her pretty hair.

She just smiled and laughed a little at the look on his face . Smoothing her hand over his smart dress shirt with a appreciative hum.

"You look handsome." She told him as she leant up to kiss him. Momentarily forgetting about the mess of hair she was dealing with.

Max didn't. He let her kiss him for a moment longer before pulling away and looking sternly down at her.

Patting down her new bangs so he could see how uneven she had cut them, shaking his head at her in exasperation.

"You look insane. Couldn't you have waited baby? Keep still a minute while I fix it.." he told her firmly as he began to fix her bangs for her.

Lifting up the scissors to her hair and Cutting off the longer pieces till they were all even , grabbing the brush from beside her and brushing through them to make sure that it was right.

Missing the way that Cherrie was gazing at him fondly as he focused on cutting her hair. Sectioning the rest of her her hair into two parts and pulling them to the front of her chest so he could see what he was working with.

"My dress is low on the back so I wanted my hair to rest at the end of the fabric so it covers it." She simply informed him of her brilliant idea.

He rolled his eyes in amusement as he started cutting the end of her hair straight.

Typical. He thought with a smirk .

“why the bangs then? What does that cover?" He murmured with a small smile, one that he just couldn't help but let out whenever she was near.

Cherrie just hummed "absolutely nothing. I just thought they'd look cute. Don't you agree?" She pressed when he was finally done. Shaking out her hair and shooting him a pleased grin , her dimples showing.

Max wiped down the hair from her skin the best he could , trying to ignore the fact that the love of his life was sat in front of him with just a thong on.

They had a important dinner to get to. He reminded himself firmly as he tore his eyes away from her pierced tits and back up to her glimmering eyes instead .

"Don't play cute with me. You know I think you look good in anything." He warned her playfully as he helped her get down off the table.

"We're going to be late. You can be the one to tell them why this time! I'm not covering for you again!" He told her seriously. Fed up with her constant lateness.

Having been the one to take the blame the last time she had made them late because she wanted to finish watching the football match first. Even though max had told her that they could simply record it on their tv so she could rewatch it when they got back instead.

You would have though he had told her to kill one of the players with the disgraced look she had shot him at his rational suggestion.

“It’s not the same! I want to see it as it happens! That’s like messi being in our house and instead of seeing him we just get someone else to take a video so we can watch it when he’s gone! Don’t be ridiculous Max!” She had yelled at him dramatically before shoving a football jersey over his head and grabbing the beers, shoving one into his hand with a grin as the game started.

So Max had been forced to yet again lie to his friends.

'I couldn't find the car keys. Sorry guys .'He had told their friends with a grimace as he held out the seat for his girlfriend who was already tipsy from downing beer after beer during the match , once they finally arrived an hour later .

Cherrie absolutely buzzing from her teams win. She hasn’t stopped beaming since he managed to finally drag her out of their home and into the car.

He supposed the face paint with her favourite players number on her cheeks really hadn't helped to sell his lie either.

But Cherrie refused to be the one to take the blame despite everybody knowing that the reason he was always late was 99.9% always her fault.

Cherrie just huffed at him as she pulled her dress over her head , wiggling her body from side to side as she tried to adjust it. Leaving Max to stare at the low neck and cut out sides and back with an open mouth.

Swallowing Thickly as he looked at her in awe. Feeling like he was going to have a stroke as he tugged at the collar of his shirt , his skin flushing just from the sight of her.

He didn’t think that there would ever be a day where her beauty didn’t make him breathless.

"Please baby! They're already pissy with me for making us late to your birthday party a few weeks ago!" She whined as she leant down to slide her feet into some high heels. Placing her hand on his shoulder to keep her balance .

Max snorted as he ran his fingers through her newly cut hair to help it frame her face like he knew she liked it.

"Once again. That was your fault. Because only you could make me late to my own surprise party." He mused beyond amused at the reminder of that day .

His friends had spent two hours in a darkened room waiting for him to come through the door so that they could jump out and surprise him.

Only Cherrie had taken him one look at him wearing the new tight shirt and even tighter jeans that she had bought him before dragging him to the backseat of his car .

It was only after the third orgasm that she had came back up for air with a shocked gasp , eyes wide as she blurted out 'your party!' Before quickly pulling her dress back down and dragging him out of the car while he hurried to button up his jeans again.

His friends had taken on look at his lipstick covered face and neck , as well as her swollen lips and messy hair before rolling their eyes and scolding her for not being able to keep her hands off him while max just helped himself to his cake while laughing hysterically .

Cherrie looked up at him pleadingly as he ushered her out the door while muttering about how late they were. Again.

"Please max! Just tell them that you had stomach troubles or something! I don't want them to know it's my fault again!" She pleaded to him.

Max merely shot her a unimpressed glance as he shoved her into the passenger seat of his car with a huff.

"Absolutely not. I'm not taking the blame this time! Forget it! You’re on your own with this one!”

Max gave their friends a apologetic smile as they finally arrived at the table, everyone looking up at them exasperatedly .

He glanced between their unimpressed expressions and his girlfriends pretty face with her newly cut hair and sighed in deafest.

"Sorry we're late ..I had some stomach troubles." He blurted out .

Shooting cherrie a look as she tried not to giggle from beside him.

Having already known that he wouldn't let her take the blame no matter how much he wanted to throw her under the bus.

He loved her too much to actually do it.

Charles looked over at him with a concerned frown "like food poisoning or something? I hope there's not a bug going around." He questioned him worriedly.

Max grimaced as he pulled out a chair for Cherrie and carefully tucked her into the table before sitting down beside her. Placing his hand on her thigh.

"Maybe. I'm fine now though. Don't worry." He muttered not looking at him in the eye in case the lie was written all across his face.

Then he ended up catching eyes with Daniel who was already grinning between them, his cheek in his hand as he eyed Max’s girlfriend in amusement.

"New hair?" He asked making max frown at him in bewilderment as he wondered how the hell he had noticed so quickly .

“You didn't have bangs this morning Cherrie ." He said knowingly.

Then max remembered that Cherrie always met up at the cafe with Daniel after her morning work out and fought back a annoyed groan.

Turning his head to squint his eyes in disbelief at his sheepish girlfriend who had seemed to forgotten that little detail .

"Did you cut them while max had the shits?" Daniel joked. Already guessing what had happened but ribbing him for it.

"Max has the shits?" Pierre called down the table , only catching the end of what he said.

It seemed to set a chain reaction as everybody started questioning him about his bowel movements .

Max's Face went bright red as he glared at his giggling girlfriend who he had lied for. Shaking his head with a annoyed huff as he pinched her thigh in retaliation.

"No I don't have the shits!" He exclaimed a little louder than he meant to. Making a few peoples heads turn towards their table.

He wanted to dig a hole and bury himself in it. He was going to take Cherrie with him too for putting him in this awkward position!

Their was a pause before Cherrie snorted and muttered "try telling that to our toilet."

Max smacked the back of her head .

"That's it! No wine for you!" He yanked the glass from her hands with a scowl. Sliding the bottle away from her as well in punishment .

That was the last time he covered for her. He lied to himself . No more!

He ended up telling his health coach that he had injured his wrists from his gloves being too tight when he asked him why his wrists were red.

Too mortified to admit that it was because Cherrie had the idea to tie him up and make him see god an hour before he had to get to the paddock.

Just another normal Wednesday.

As Max stood by the side of the track that overlooked a lake, looking over the barrier down at his girlfriend who has thrown herself in after stripping naked , he couldn't help but sigh.

Hands on his hips like a concerned parent as he watched her splash around , frown deepening even further as Daniel also threw himself in as well.

He had just won p1 and Cherrie had decided to skinny dip to celebrate . He mightn't have been so annoyed if it wasn't for the hundreds of cameras that were following them around all day.

He really didn't want his girlfriend's naked body to be seen by anybody but him.

Feeling his blood pressure rise as he watched Daniel splash at her as the both of them laughed loudly , playing Around like little kids.

"Not so close Daniel!" He snapped down to his also naked friend in exasperation and worry as he saw how close the both were to each other . He did not want any part of Daniel's body to be touching hers.

Daniel just laughed and grinned up at him cheekily .

"Who's going to keep her warm then?! Just get in! It's nice!" He called up to him , Cherrie shouting her agreements as she leant her arm against his shoulder and beamed up at him happily .

Seemingly not giving too shits that everybody could see her tits as she waved up at him happily.

It was times like this that max often wondered if she did drugs when he wasn't looking.

It would make a lot of sense. It really would.

"Absolutely not! All of you need to get out and put your clothes back on! Especially you baby!" He shouted at them sternly as he took the towels from his assistants hands that he had asked her to run for.

Daniel cooed at him "aww he's nicknamed me baby how sweet! I knew you'd come around to our love Max!" He teased him. Deliberately putting his arm around cherries bare shoulder just to wind him up some more .

Max hated it when the two of them were together because all Daniel ever did was encourage his girlfriend to do crazy shit and instead of talking her down from the ledge , he jumped off it with her!

"Shut up! Watch your hands Daniel! I'm serious!"

Cherrie just laughed at his furious expression, not caring at all.

"I'm so proud of you by the way! Watching you get soaked with champagne was really hot!" She shouted up at him honestly.

Eyeing his sticky racing suit with a raise of her brow "are you sure you doing want to jump in and wash it off?" She double checked.

Max just deadpanned at her. Shaking his head with a exasperated groan. Giving up.

"You're very lucky that I love you Cherrie because you're getting on my nerves." He informed her bluntly before pulling out his phone and pressing a familiar contact.

He then looked at her in the eye smugly as he brought his phone up to his ear.

"But If you won't listen to me then I guess I'll just have to call your father-" he threatened her. Pulling out the last card in the pack, the one that he knew would work without any hesitation.

Grinning slyly when she let out a sharp gasp and quickly pushed herself away from Daniel who was calling him a party pooper as they both pulled themselves out of the water.

"Don't ring him! You bastard!" She ran over to him completely naked . Making him pocket his phone in amusement . She then Let him wrap her up in the towel till she was swaddled in it like a big baby.

Chuckling to himself as he wrapped one around her hair too, rubbing at the fabric to dry her quicker .

Daniel side eyed them as he wrapped himself in his own towel . "Are you sure you're not her daddy max? You're always telling her off like one!" He joked while laughing.

Max couldn't stop the smirk that pulled at his lips , eyes twinkling as Cherrie placed a kiss on his neck and whispered in his ear about how she was going to personally congratulate him for winning when they got home.

"I'm just a concerned boyfriend who doesn't want the whole world to see his girlfriends boobs." He said as he then wrapped her in a dressing gown as well. Flipping the hood up to keep her warm.

Daniel just smirked "too late mate." He then turned to look at Cherrie with a friendly smile .

“They’re very nice. Lovely and round." He told her casually as though he was complimenting some fruit .

Cherrie beamed back at him happily. "thank you! Grew them myself!" She joked . The both of them ignoring Max's eyes glaring daggers at them.

Shaking his head with a disbelieving huff as he decided that he had enough of the two of them being around each other .

He hauled his girlfriend away before they decided to do some more stupid shit together that would make his blood pressure rise rapidly.

"Love you." Cherrie muttered to him quietly as they made their way back to his trailer . Tucked underneath his arm where she belonged .

Max softened , any annoyance he felt quickly fading at the honesty in her voice .

He just sighed fondly and gave the side of her head a gently kiss .

"I love you." He simply replied. So utterly in love that it overwhelmed him.

Because If be didn't love her like he did , he would have ran away screaming from her years ago.

She was an absolute pain in his ass.

It was a clear fact that was further proven to him when she tried to breakup with him one night after they had been arguing over why he thought it was a bad idea to get a dog.

He couldn't believe what he was hearing when she first told him that she wanted a pug.

He had looked at her in disbelief , feeling the need to remind her the obvious.

“You're allergic to dogs." It was said bluntly and in bewilderment as he wondered what the hell she was going on about.

They couldn't get a dog when she was allergic to them! Had she gone mad?

Cherrie had frowned at him like what he told her was a lie . As though she didn't start sneezing and coughing up a lung whenever she touched one.

"I can take medicine to help. I want one Max. It's too lonely when you're not here with me !" She had exclaimed , upset with him as she threw herself up off the bed .

Flicking on the lamp as she glared down at him unhappily .

It was three o'clock in the morning and max couldn't believe that she had woken him up for this shit.

Rubbing at his eyes tiredly as he squinted up at her from the bed. Judgement across his face. He found it hard to have patience with her when it was this early in the fucking morning!

He had just been nodding off too!

"Don't be daft! You'll make yourself ill! And how can you be lonely when you constantly have those hippies around here when I'm gone? Don't think I can't smell the lavender oil that they leave behind!" He warned her. Huffing in annoyance.

Cherrie just wouldn't let it go. Tired and emotional herself and max had known that it was a bad idea for them to watch a heartbreak chick flick film before bed.

But he had still let her put it on anyways .

And now he was paying the price because his girlfriend was a melodramatic drama queen who had watched a film about a man who didn't love his girlfriend anymore , who had also refused to let them get a dog in the film as well.

Clearly she had gotten it into her head that they were doomed to be like the characters too. Having tested him all night long with utter bullshit.

"They say a man is falling out of love when he spends more time on his phone when his partner is right beside him to talk to." She had muttered with a scowl when he had been replying to some work emails on his phone before bed.

Knowing that she had heard it from that stupid movie , he had merely glanced up at her in amusement .

"Do you like your diamond jewellery and expensive clothes?" He had returned to her . Their huge closet filled with her shit already giving him the answer .

She had just frowned harder. Not answering him.

He smirked triumphantly "these emails I'm answering about promotions will get you more of those things . So shut your trap and get back into bed." He scolded her.

Only perhaps he should have settled her mind further than that before they went to sleep.

Maybe then she wouldn't have been trying to break up with him because he wouldn't let her get a dog.

"We need to break up max . This isn't going to work. You obviously don't understand my needs anymore-"

Max Couldn’t have scoffed any louder if he tried. Finally Sitting up in the bed with a loud, annoyed groan as he eyed her in disbelief .

"Your need to annoy me you mean?" He yawned, casually leaning back against the pillow with a small amused smile playing on his lips .

The look on his face only seemed to piss her off even more but he couldn't help it.

She was being completely ridiculous!

She then sniffled loudly, dialling up her drama.

"why are you smiling? Are you happy that I'm not your girlfriend anymore?" She almost cried . Glaring back at him tearfully.

Max just snorted , rolling his eyes at her .

“We're not breaking up stupid. Now Get back into the bed!" He snapped at her tiredly .

Pointing sternly to the space beside him, impatiently patting it to further get his point across when she made no love to do as he said.

"No! You obviously don’t want me to be happy!"

"Because I don't want you to get a pet that's going to make you never breathe properly again?!"

"You're being dramatic! I'll just take the medicine for my allergies!"

Max groaned loudly , covering his face with his hands as he tried not to lose his shit at her.

"Me? You're being crazy." He ground out "I never said we couldn't get a pet. Just not a dog that you’re allergic to !"

There was a long pause before Cherrie blinked away her tears and cautiously approached the bed again.

"A cat?" She murmured hopefully. Already crawling back into the bed and sliding underneath the covers now that her hysterics were over. Knowing that she was about to get her own way again.

Perhaps also opening that bottle of wine during the movie was a bad idea too.

Max had forgotten how emotional she got after drinking it. It was like she went through five stages of grief when she drank red wine.

He wrapped his arms around her shoulders with his eyes already closed, kissing the side of her head with a little laugh.

"Fine but you're changing the litter tray." He warned her. Feeling her smile brightly against his chest.

"I will! I promise! You won't have to do anything!" She had promised him gleefully . Giving him a kiss before promptly falling back to sleep now that she had gotten her own way.

Leaving max to sigh to himself as he tried to go back to sleep. Having a feeling that she wouldn’t be that helpful at all.

It just wasn’t in cherries nature to pick up cat poo.

Yet another lie of here that was proven as two weeks later he was knelt down with a grimace as he cleaned out the litter box for the fluffy ginger cat that was nudging him against his leg.

Glaring up at his girlfriend who was dancing around the kitchen while singing to the radio , without a care in the world.

Instead she was too busy rambling on about how she was going to get herself some pole dancing lessons, jumping from one subject to another. Filled with endless ideas ths never seemed to stop.

Sighing to himself as he finished cleaning it up and set out some food for the fur ball as well .

Then he got to his feet and pursed his lips as he eyed the love of his life with a feeling of acceptance.

This was going to be the rest of his life.

Pretending that he wore the trousers in their relationship and acting like he wasn't ready to do anything he could to make her happy .

Even if it meant cleaning up cat poo so that she didn’t have to.

So with that thought in mind, how he must be crazy to love her even more than he did yesterday despite how much she drove him up the wall.

He knew it was time.

He walked over to her and gently grabbed her hand , making her look over at him with a curious

smile on her pretty face.

"What's up handsome?" She had chirped obliviously at him. Leaning forward to give him a quick kiss.

Not even noticing the way he pulled something out of his Jean pocket and slid it smoothly onto her finger , his eyes locked with hers as he let out a small laugh at how oblivious she was.

"I'm gonna be your husband." He decided to tell her bluntly .

Because he had no doubt in his mind that if he decided to plan a fancy proposal that she would somehow find a way to ruin in.

Not on purpose but that was just the way she was.

So instead he settled on simply letting her know instead.

Cherrie looked at him with wide eyes before finally noticing the diamond ring on her finger.

Then she did the most her thing possible and laughed loudly in response .

Casually shrugging her shoulders as she wrappped her arms around his neck and gave him a soft kiss.

"Okay. Sounds fun." She simply said once they pulled away to breathe again .

"Yeah?" He grinned . Looking between her eyes to be sure. His heart squeezing in his chest, so full of love for his little pain in the ass.

She just beamed back at him happily. As in love with him as he was her .

"yeah. I'm gonna be your wife."

Then she tilted her head cheekily "can we get married in Vegas after you win the race there?" The pure confidence that she had that he would win that race made him grin like a lovesick idiot.

Squeezing her hips and blinking back happy tears from his eyes as he kissed her again and again and again.

They could get married in the basement for all he cared. As long as she was officially his to worry about for the rest of his life , he didn't care.

She may have been a little strange but she was his wildcard . Nobody else's.

He wouldn't change her for anyone.

#max verstappen imagine #max verstappen x reader #f1 imagine #f1 x reader #formula one imagine #f1 fic

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ofthecaravel · 1 month

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Heaven In Time

Chapter 1: Thoroughfare

Danny Wagner x Sam Kiszka

Summary: Danny, en route to California to find love, picked up small town runaway Sam on a Texas thoroughfare and has been on the road ever since. While Sam adjusts to life as himself, Danny's wondering if he's found love without even leaving the South.

Tags: Religious trauma, mentions of homophobia, Anxiety, very sweet little crushes, idk all very soft when its not Tense

Words: 5.4k

A/N: HEAVILYYYYYY inspired by Thoroughfare by Ethel Cain, even borrowed a lyric here and there. Any and all credit to my beloved Hayden. First chapter of ??? maybe 4?? but I haven't decided. There's going to be more mention of Sam's questionable Southern Baptist Christian upbringing in those and I understand that may not be everyone's cup of tea so feel free to scroll if that may be upsetting for you.

“Do you think we’re gonna get arrested?”

Over the gentle splash of the thin, chlorinated water, Sam heard Danny’s long sigh. Usually he laughed at all of Sam’s misplaced little comments and queries, but sometimes he just sighed. Sam knew he didn’t mean anything harsh by it, but it definitely didn’t feel good.

“Not if you don’t say anything,” Danny answered plainly. A smile ghosted his tired face as he rotated to face Sam, who stared back as he awkwardly bobbed with his long hair trailing behind him like a veil. After however many dusty miles and state lines they’d crossed, it always felt good when they had a motel to crash at instead of the cramped cabin of Danny’s pickup. And it felt twice as good when the motel had a pool, especially when it was nice and late at night and there was no one else around. Sam wasn’t much of a swimmer, but he was happy to tread water and watch Danny float. His broad chest would peek just over the surface of the water and his eyes would close while his dark curls moved like the fingers of lazy clouds.

Yeah, Sam was happy to watch that.

“It doesn’t feel right,” Sam murmured, watching his fingers flex anxiously under the water in the refracted view the harsh fluorescents provided. With the country sky full of nothing but mosquitoes and the occasional whistling breeze, the yellowing pool lights were the only thing illuminating them. Sam felt suddenly self conscious thinking of how washed out he must look in this rare moment where he was the one being watched. He turned to the side, only offering Danny his profile.

“They won’t know the credit card ain’t mine until we’re in Arizona,” Danny insisted in a hushed voice. “And even then, I didn’t give the desk my real name. We’re golden if you can keep that mouth of yours shut. Can you do that for me, cowboy?”

“Sure I can.” Sam bristled, but knew Danny’s request was justified. Ever since Danny had taken pity on him and picked him up on that thoroughfare back in Texas, Sam never seemed to be able to do the right thing. He had gotten as far as he had in an attempt to remove himself from the suppressing influence of his uber religious hometown, but so far it seemed like he was still dragging it along with him. It was an embarrassing first impression to leave on someone as great as Danny was turning out to be, but he hadn’t left Sam behind yet, so Sam figured he must have some redeeming qualities that kept him around.

“Atta boy,” Danny smiled, his eyes closing as he lolled his head back and drew in a deep breath of the cool night air. “Christ alive, I needed this. How long do you think we drove today?”

“5 hours?” Sam guessed, thinking back on the day. “Felt longer ‘cause of the sun.”

“Damn that sun,” Danny cursed. “Burned the hell out of my nose, too.”

“We can get lotion or something at the next gas station,” Sam offered. Truthfully, he found the ruddy blush on Danny’s nose and freckled cheeks extremely flattering, but he knew it had to hurt. Growing up in Alabama, Sam knew a thing or two about sunburn.

“With what money?” Danny laughed humorlessly, sighing again and running a hand over his face. “Although at this point, I’d be willing to skip a dinner to get my hands on some lotion. Mm. Not that I don’t appreciate your presence, but...”

Sam blinked blankly, feeling an implication pass him by like they often did. He didn’t say anything in return and sank a little further into the pool, trying not to feel even more stupid than he already did. Being tired certainly wasn’t helping, but he was really starting to feel the weight of all of his graceless actions from the past week pile on him as they swam in silence. Hopefully Danny would want to head up to their room soon and Sam could just try again the next day.

Danny noticed Sam’s silence and opened his heavy eyes to observe him with a worried look. Sam’s neck was craned and the sharp point of his nose grazed the water as he continued to stare into the palms of his submerged hands. He was halfway to prayer by the looks of it, and Danny guessed that probably wasn’t too far from the truth. It was a state of mind Sam never really seemed to leave. Danny remembered the scandalized look on Sam’s face when they’d shared their first diner meal together and Danny had picked his fork right up and gotten to work when the waitress had brought their plates. Now he knew to wait and let Sam save them with a quick round of grace before eating. Sam had never asked for his hand to hold when doing it, but somewhere between the Texas border and New Mexico, Danny had offered it up and they’d been doing it that way ever since. It sure made it a hell of a lot more tolerable for Danny to wait for Sam’s long winded recitations with his slender hand in Danny’s. He really didn’t mind too much, especially after he’d begun collecting little glimpses of the seemingly excruciating evangelical life that Sam had left behind in Alabama. Danny didn’t pry, but there was a lot about Sam that he didn’t know. He watched Sam lit up in the pale, shifting luminance coming from the pool and realized with a strange, absent pang that he wanted to know. Maybe all of it, actually.

“Not a star in the sky,” Danny commented dreamily, tilting his neck back to stare at the pitch black sky after another long minute of staring at Sam left him feeling flushed. “It was always easy to pick ‘em out when I was on the farm, but I really have to squint when I’m in cities sometimes. It’s a crying shame.”

“We had to have all the lights out in town at a certain time so I always got to see the stars,” Sam replied in a small voice. “My brothers were always looking for Castor and Pollux, but we got lost after finding Orion every single time. Always forgot whether to look up or down or west or what.”

Sam smiled at the memory, remembering watching his older brothers bicker in whispers in front of the window while pressing fingers to the glass and eventually calling Sam in for help. Their parents fell asleep fast and heavy, so nights were usually when he and his siblings really got to be themselves. Sam found himself tired during the days almost all the time, but he’d carried his drooping eyelids with a bounce in his step. Even on the rare instances when he dozed off during study or services, he’d take a ruler to the knuckles with a smile.

“I’ve always been partial to Orion,” Danny agreed, searching it out as he said it. “Probably because it’s easy to find and I’m a simple man when it comes to stuff like that.”

“You’re plenty smart,” Sam complimented. He finally lifted his head from his gloomy stance, his ear resting on his shoulder as he turned his smile on Danny. “Especially with maps. We’d be halfway to Argentina if I were the one navigating.”

“I wouldn’t mind that at all,” Danny laughed. “We can go there after we find love in California, how about that?”

“Perfect,” Sam complied, feeling a familiar sour rush of adrenaline when reminded of their end goal. It was ignorant to feel shocked over and over when he thought about it, especially considering that talk of Danny’s unknown Californian love were some of the first words Danny had ever said to him. Danny had pulled up next to Sam on the side of the road in his beat up pick up truck, told him not to run, and asked if he wanted to go see the West with him.

“‘Cause love’s out there,” Daniel had explained after Sam had hopped right in. “And I can’t leave it be.”

And Sam had agreed. Out of luck to spend and no more energy in his body to spend on walking, it was the perfect escape. It still was. It’s just that the more time he shared with Danny, the more he disliked the thought of Danny sharing time with anyone other than him. Sam was suddenly very sure he was greedy and selfish and wicked, and he made plans to pray on it after Danny had gone to sleep.

“Smart,” Danny echoed with an airy laugh, finally lifting his hair from the water and shaking his head slightly. “I don’t know about all that. If this were a movie, I’m pretty sure I’d be the muscle of the operation.”

“I guess that’d make sense. How much can you lift?”

Danny gave Sam a mischievous look and shrugged, hoping the smirk creeping onto his face didn’t give away his plans for what he’d do next.

“Not sure,” Danny answered coolly. “How much do you weigh?”

Before Sam could respond, Danny rushed forward as fast as the water allowed and grabbed Sam around the waist, boosting him up with a noisy splash. Sam shrieked initially, but it gave way to a surprised laugh, every nerve alight with buzzing heat as Danny lifted him up. Danny could only manage to keep him up for another few moments before buckling at the knee from the close contact, allowing Sam a little time to plug his nose before Danny dunked him under.

Sam met the shifting blur of the pale water and felt a jarring, overwhelming peace as the water swallowed all sound and sensation and he began to sink to the bottom. For a second, he thought he might like to stay there forever, just floating and free from everything he didn’t understand about what was happening to him, what had already happened. What he wanted to happen.

Sam didn’t even feel the sizzle of his lungs begging for air until he opened his eyes best he could and saw the blur of what was waiting for him up above.

Now, Sam had obviously been far too young for him to remember his baptism, but as he brought himself back to consciousness and pushed himself out of the water and into Danny’s arms, he imagined it was a similar experience. Without really thinking, his arms went around Danny’s neck and he breathed in a great, shuddering gasp, desperately filling his chest with air as Danny’s arms reflexively wrapped around him and kept Sam pinned to his chest as he coughed.

“Fuck, Sam, did you forget to breathe?” Danny whispered urgently, resisting the urge to shout and wake the other motel patrons. “I mean, pardon my French, but you scared the shit out of me for a second there!”

“Sorry,” Sam choked out as he began to control his breathing and let it give way to an embarrassed laugh. “I got distracted for a minute.”

“Yeah, I’d definitely say you were coming up on a minute!” Danny sputtered, patting Sam’s back in a last ditch effort to knock any water loose. “I’ve never seen anyone go that long underwater. Good lord. You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m okay, I promise,” Sam insisted, leaning back to flash Danny a sincere look of assurance. Curiously, he didn’t feel the need to unlock his arms from behind Danny’s neck when doing so. In the same way, Danny didn’t feel the need to release his grip on Sam, keeping their bare chests flush as Sam comically mimicked drawing in deep breaths and releasing them to demonstrate his capability.

“Fine, fine, I believe you,” Danny relented, despite the anxiety still fluttering in his chest. “Just don’t scare me like that again. I get nervous enough when you’re out of my sight, and now you’re telling me I gotta worry about you when you’re right in front of me? Phew.”

“What do you mean you get nervous when I’m out of your sight?” Sam laughed, his dark brow crinkling inquisitively as his stomach gave a little flip.

“Just worried you’ll get to wandering,” Danny replied with faux nonchalance. “Don’t want some lawless vagabond picking you off the street.”

“Ain’t that what you did?”

Danny tossed his head back and let out a loud laugh, knowing he needed to be much quieter than he was but doing nothing to rectify it. Sam burst into a round of hushed giggles and attempted to put his hands over Danny’s mouth as he shushed him theatrically. They goodnaturedly tussled for a minute before Danny finally let Sam go, pushing him back and looking away with a nervous laugh still running its course in his chest.

“I got enough law in me to keep an eye on you,” Danny continued on, flicking his wrist lightly to splash Sam. “Can’t have you leaving me to drive the rest of the way on my own.”

“Well, I only ever leave if there’s not much worth staying for,” Sam muttered. It wasn’t entirely true when considering the importance of what he’d left behind in favor of hitchhiking aimlessly in pressing Texan heat, namely his family. He felt guilty saying it, but Danny took his words with pillow softness. His laugh melted into a shy smile that fell on Sam like a kiss on the forehead.

“Lucky me, I suppose,” Danny smiled, punching Sam gently on the shoulder. “I’ll do my best to make the rest of the trip worth staying for.”

“You won’t have to try too hard,” Sam replied sincerely. “I’m having a lot of fun so far.”

“Yeah?” Danny questioned with an amused arch of his eyebrow. “You’re having fun coughing up dust in the passenger seat of a beat up truck that doesn’t work half the time? You’re having fun having to share flat, suspiciously stained motel beds with some sorry hick you met two weeks ago?”

“Well, when you put it that way, it sounds terrible,” Sam laughed. “But it is fun. It’s the in-between stuff that’s fun.”

“Like what?” Danny prodded, giving Sam another playful little splash.

He asked without any real pressure, but there was a big part of Danny that really needed to know if he was making this spontaneous road trip a good time for Sam. It seemed a little ridiculous to some extent considering that when Danny set off, he wasn’t expecting any kind of lingering company in the slightest. At the end of the day, Sam was a borderline neurotic runaway that Danny had taken a chance on after some strange gut feeling had told him to take a left and not a right while driving aimlessly. But at the same time, Danny was really starting to like him. It both confused and warmed him.

“I don’t know!” Sam sputtered. “It’s always fun to look through gas stations for stupid knick knacks. That mood ring keychain was pretty cool, you have to admit.”

Danny only laughed in response. The tacky keychain had pretty obviously been for kids, but with the way Sam’s eyes had lit up when he pressed his thumb to the heat reactive surface, Danny had found that fact the least important part of the equation.

“It’s fun when the diner menus have stupid names for the sandwiches,” Sam continued, feeling increasingly more embarrassed talking about himself. “And I definitely have fun when I get to listen to my station on the radio.”

“And you can continue to have that fun in half hour intervals,” Danny asserted, trying not to roll his eyes while recalling Sam’s beloved church music station. “Anything else?”

“Hmm. This is pretty fun,” Sam answered with a quick, impish shrug. “Even though you tried to drown me.”

“Hey!” Danny scoffed while Sam sailed into another round of delighted giggles. “I’ll show you drowning!”

Danny reached out and they wrassled again, a flurry of arms and bickering laughter as Danny pretended to try and dunk Sam under the water. Once again, Sam’s arms went around Danny’s neck as they struggled, and once again he made no move to remove them when Danny slowed. However, this time around, when Sam felt the careless adrenaline fueling him with a whisper of unknown courage, he seized it and gave Danny a quick kiss on the cheek. It was no more than 2 seconds of his lips on Danny’s slightly stubbled skin, but it struck Danny like a slap to the face. Sam released his grip on him and gave him a good natured smile.

“Seriously, this is so fun,” Sam insisted. “But we’ll never sleep if we keep being rowdy. Bed?”

“Good thinking,” Danny replied a little too quickly, successfully fighting a quiver in his voice and letting out a silent, choked sigh when Sam turned his back on him and started making his way to the edge of the pool. Facing away from Danny allowed Sam a moment to let his innocent, grateful gesture sink in. He began to panic slightly, rushing out a hurried mental prayer that Danny hadn’t taken it the wrong way. Sam almost turned to apologize, but decided it would be more awkward if he did, instead electing to haul himself out of the pool and grab his towel as if nothing out of the ordinary was raging inside his head.

Meanwhile, Danny definitely wasn’t taking it the wrong way. But he was taking it in a very surprising way. Feeling sudden and immense guilt, he realized that he was really going to have to book it to the hook where his towel hung in order to cover the “reaction” he was having to Sam’s little kiss. Thankfully, he was able to make it without Sam seeing. Danny felt grateful for his Southern charm when Sam finally did turn his doe eyed smile back on him and Danny was able to steer their conversation in a new direction as they walked to their room and he kept his towel tightly wound around his waist.

But neither one of them really recovered from it. Something so small and instantaneous weighed heavily in the back of their minds as they went about their separate nighttime routines and turned away from each other when Danny turned the light off.

After an infuriating hour of staring up at the flaking ceiling and listening to the muffled whistle of a keening wind outside the window, Sam finally heard Danny begin to snuffle and sigh, signifying sleep. He released a pent up sigh and rubbed a hand over his eyes as he tried to manifest sleep. A few hours prior he had been nearly nodding off at dinner, but now that he was alone in the inviting dark with Danny, it was hard to keep his eyes closed. Usually he whispered himself to sleep with psalms that lulled him into a fuzzy, dreamless void, but it felt wrong to do so with the imagery pervading his mind. None of it was graphic, simply a replay of how it felt to float in Danny’s arms. And how safe he felt with Danny’s hand on his back. How the feeling of his mouth on Danny’s cheek made him wonder how it would feel if it were the other way. How it would’ve felt if Danny had picked that moment to turn slightly, causing Sam to catch his lips instead of his stubble.

It was shameful, but Sam felt himself tensing and carefully guiding each muscle so that he could turn over to lay on his side facing Danny’s back. Unable to lay alone with his thoughts any longer, he decided that the sight of the body next to him would be enough to quell the uncomfortable desire in his chest that was beginning to frighten him slightly. However, he was startled to find that Danny had turned over at some point as well. Sam’s heart flitted and jabbed at him from his ribcage as he took in the sight of Danny’s cheek pressed to the pillow, his mouth ever so slightly ajar as he drew in deep breaths. He was laying on his chest, and Sam fought the urge to trace the swells of muscles in his arms as they came to cross underneath the pillow beneath his head. There was a needling, demanding pull in Sam’s stomach now, one that yanked and strained the longer Sam took in the sight of Danny’s placid, perfect face in the spectral moonlight. It puppeteered him to slide a trembling hand up and delicately cup Danny’s freckled cheek. Sam felt as though he was doing something exceedingly terrible when his thumb traced a gentle journey over Danny’s skin that still buzzed with heat from his light burn. Danny drew in a big breath and released it through his nose, stern eyebrows knitting slightly in a dream as Sam screamed at himself in his head to move his hand, flip back over, and just go to sleep. Yet it seemed like such an insurmountable task now that he’d felt Danny’s breath on his wrist. Worse, it reminded Sam of the proximity of Danny’s lips to his own, only inches away and closer even to his fingers. Sam’s mind raced as he became obsessed with possibility.

His dreams were quickly dashed in a moment of blinding, white hot panic as Danny sniffed and stirred, stretching his arms slightly as his eyelids fluttered. Even with Danny rousing, Sam couldn’t find the strength to move his hand. He kept it resting with soft pressure on Danny’s cheek as he panicked about whether or not to feign sleep. All the while, Danny blinked fully and his eyes came into focus. Sam settled for a fake, heavy lidded gaze, doing his own round of “half asleep” blinking as Danny studied his expression. Danny let out an amused huff through his nose and his arm facing Sam loudly disturbed the sheets as it lifted from under the pillow and his hand clumsily tapped against Sam’s own on his face.

“You’re dreaming, Sam,” Danny mumbled, his voice low and grumbling as he fought to speak without falling asleep again. “Go to sleep.”

“Not dreaming,” Sam whispered tiredly. He watched as Danny’s hand stretched and rested fully over his own, Danny’s fingers curling a little as his eyes closed again and he began to doze.

It was such a little thing, but that pull inside of Sam snapped. There was something overwhelming him, and in his exhausted, newly freed state of mind, he saw no other option but to succumb. For the first time, when he felt the compulsion to pray for his salvation, he ignored it outright.

Shifting forward, Sam used his hand on Danny’s face as leverage to gently pull himself forward and press his lips to Danny’s. He did so with no real pressure, simply lingering as long as Danny would allow him to and trapping a shivering breath inside his lungs as his eyes closed at the relief. He fully expected Danny to spit and push him off the bed, leaving him right then and there to hop in his truck and find California all on his own like he was supposed to. His fingers pressed into Danny’s skin at the thought, holding on to him as long as he could before this impulse came back to bite him in what he was sure would be seconds.

Instead, he was met with the ginger push of Danny’s lips meeting him halfway. It only lasted for a couple of seconds, and Sam could taste the lingering whisper of mint toothpaste on his breath behind the numbing warmth of his tongue, which did no more but tap momentarily at Sam’s closed lips. When Danny’s lips unstuck from his, Danny barely pulled away to speak, giving Sam the luxury of their close proximity for longer than he ever could have dreamed of.

“Now you’re just getting my hopes up,” Danny breathed with a laugh that lasted only a fraction of a second and seemed more like a punch of air from his chest.

Not really understanding what Danny meant, Sam flew into another panic. He could no longer feign a sleepy stare and blinked rapidly with restless nerves waking him up all the way. His heart pounded in his ears and he prayed his hand wouldn’t prickle with sweat from the dread beginning to course through him. All at once, he could hear a chorus of a hundred voices from back home reminding him of the great, divine consequence of what he was doing.

“Sorry,” Sam apologized, his eyes immediately prickling with anxious tears. “I just…”

“I just don’t want you waking up tomorrow and feeling all…you know, guilty or whatever ‘cause of something you did half asleep,” Danny murmured. He cursed his moral compass pointing him to true north, even in this miraculous circumstance when the dial seemed to be spun on its axis entirely.

“I’m awake,” Sam argued in a whisper. “That’s why I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that with you sleeping, that’s-”

“I was awake, too,” Danny replied simply. “I mean, when...”

An infuriating, tense minute passed between the two of them. There was much to be said, and also nothing at all. Too little time had passed in each other’s company to have any kind of profound feeling to confess, and yet there was a confounding magnetism that left them staring into the other’s eyes with heavy breath and rattling hearts. Danny’s hand eventually fell from where it had lain over Sam’s, but before Sam’s heart could sting with hurt at the loss, he felt Danny’s arm adjust to wrap around his waist and pull him closer. With this motion, their lips connected again, and Sam breathed in sharply through his nose as he attempted to fall into the rhythm of this disarming, second ever kiss. The matchbox capacity of the motel room and the sleeping world beyond its cracked windows were swallowed up by the fervor of Danny’s shuddering breath and the heat rolling off his skin. Sam heard the chastising chorus in the back of his conscience begin to sing again when Danny’s hand on his lower back tightened its grip. His heart hammered thinking about roaring hellfire and scores of taunting devils, but when Danny carefully rolled Sam onto his back and Sam opened his eyes, he saw only an angel.

“This sure is a step up from your little gesture in the pool,” Danny acknowledged, caging Sam in with an arm at his side and another by his head.

“I was only saying thank you,” Sam muttered sheepishly, struggling to speak with his throat so dry and his muscles so alive with flickering reactions he fought to suppress.

“What are you saying now?”

Sam fell silent. He had no experiences to draw on or words in his vocabulary to place what he felt about Danny. Kind, gracious, handsome Danny, hovering over him with the patience he doled out time and time again when lesser men would have rolled their eyes and drove off.

“I think…” Sam started, fighting to sort his scattered, uninformed feelings. “I’m still saying thank you.”

Unexpectedly, Danny’s eyes flickered with apprehension. Sam’s eyebrows knit with confusion when Danny leaned back to straddle Sam’s hips, suddenly wearing a somber expression. Sam’s bottom lip quaked and pouted as he hurriedly propped himself up on his elbows.

“What?” Sam blurted. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, fuck, I fucked it all up, didn’t I?”

“I just really hope you don’t feel like you have to…do anything for me just ‘cause I’m giving you a ride,” Danny said earnestly. “I’d be really sore if you thought of me that way. I don’t expect a single thing from you.”

Sam’s heart gave a deep, aching clench as Danny’s words sank in. He felt his eyes nearly welling with tears again as he watched Danny look down at his hands in his lap before flicking his eyes up to Sam, probing him for a response.

“No,” Sam replied firmly, pushing off the bed to sit straight and stare up properly into Danny’s eyes. “No, no, that’s not it at all. I would never. Never ever. You should know that, Danny, come on. I, it’s just…”

He trailed off again, blushing with embarrassment as the words finally came to him, plain and true.

“I just like you is all,” Sam admitted, thankful for the shade of night to conceal the flush he knew was painting his face pink. “I’m sorry.”

“You keep apologizing when you got nothing to apologize for,” Danny accused quietly. His hands were close to shaking as he tried to calm himself down, but it was hard not to shiver at Sam’s confession.

“Sorry. Product of my upbringing, I guess.”

“Well, I got a bone to pick with a lot of things about your upbringing, if I’m being perfectly honest.”

“Me too,” Sam whispered truthfully.

Danny studied Sam’s face with that familiar worried look he found himself sporting every day now, taking a minute to smooth Sam’s hair back and get lost in his dark, doll-like gaze.

“I know it wasn’t part of the plan,” Sam went on with a small, shameful voice.

Danny let out an airy, one note laugh through his nose and rolled his eyes, finally plucking up the courage to cup Sam’s cheek as Sam had done to him.

“I’m not even sure what ‘the plan’ is anymore,” Danny sighed, finding it difficult to look anywhere but Sam’s rosy frown. “I know what I said, but I think deep down all I really wanted to do was go. California just seemed like the best place to start.”

“So…” Sam coaxed, unable to stop himself from tilting his chin into Danny’s grip. “When will you know where you’re going?”

“Now that I’ve met you, Sam? I think I know where I’m headed.”

Before Sam could bring up any matters of direction, of Danny’s supposed destined Californian love, or of what was to become of them as a them, Danny kissed Sam for a third time. Nothing special, nothing mind blowing. Yet with it, Sam felt every saying about the magic number, three strikes, and the Holy Trinity itself fade in comparison. And when Danny laid him down again, Sam swore he could see the stars.

The next morning, Sam sat in the passenger seat of the truck with his head hanging out the window, chestnut hair spilling behind him in the wind as the bare fields and pale blue sky rolled on by. With his shirt unbuttoned to remedy the heatwave, anyone would’ve been able to see the small, tender bruises lining his collarbone and marching down his chest. Beside him, Danny kept one eye firmly on the empty road and the other on his passenger. On a whim, he took a hand off the wheel to fiddle with the radio, adept fingers spinning the knob until a choral worship song came crackling over the waves. Sam turned his head at the music and made a fond sound, shoving Danny’s shoulder with a light push and settling back into his seat. However, after a minute of listening, Sam found himself reaching to change the station. He settled on a rock station blasting a song dripping with bass and drums, nodding his head along to it curiously as Danny shot him an incredulous smile.

“I fear I’ve corrupted you,” Danny laughed, reaching out to muss Sam’s hair.

“Good,” Sam hummed. “I needed it.”

“Yeah, you did. Just remember you promised not to go running off on me. And no bar fights. And before you ask, tattoos are a solid maybe.”

Sam laughed, pressing up against the headrest as he kicked his boots up on the dashboard and allowed himself to recline. For a moment, it crossed his mind that this might be one of the first times in his life he felt truly comfortable. It also crossed his mind that Danny’s persistent worry of Sam running off into the night was becoming increasingly more ridiculous. As he looked at the man driving next to him, who was miraculously unaware of the midday sun setting his curls and perfect side profile alight, Sam knew with confidence there was nowhere else he’d rather be.

Chapter 2!

#the day i stop writing fanfics based off of ethel cain songs is the day i die #i will never stop or get better or learn #gvf #greta van fleet #danny wagner #sam kiszka #sanny gvf #greta van fleet fanfiction #greta van art #karoufiction

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