do you believe me now? | 4
in which spencer reid and inexperienced fem!reader are interrupted at the most inopportune of times. he calls you on the first night of his case. dirty talk turns into a hard conversation. we get a glimpse into spencer's past, and we finally learn why he's so hesitant to sleep with you.
part one | part two | bonus chapter | part three
18+ (smut)
warnings/tags: dirty talk, phone sex/mutual masturbation, softdom!spence, obligatory he talks u through it, lots of graphic discussions of sex, established relationship, angst (sorrryyy!)
a/n: so remember how i said you'd need the bonus chapter to fully appreciate/understand this part? i was wrong!! it will come in handy probably in the next part tho:) also idk how these parts keep getting so long im sorry! anyway, i love you all so bad. thank you for bearing w/ my craziness. PLEASE let me know your thoughts on this part!! i adore hearing from you!! kisses
(also special thank you to @fliesforeyes who convinced me phone sex w/ spence could be done!! i will link his phone sex blurb here :)) thank u binx!!
“Three million six hundred eighty four thousand three hundred thirty two times fourteen million seven hundred sixty one thousand nine hundred seventy one.”
You’ve lost count of how many stupid math questions you’ve asked your human calculator boyfriend, just to see if he can actually do them. Spencer is silent for a second, and you think you’ve finally stumped him.
“That one is complicated.”
You sit bolt upright in his bed, looking down at him and pointing an accusatory finger. His brows raise at the manic look in your eye.
“You don’t know.”
“I do know. I meant it would be hard to explain if you aren’t a math person.”
“Bullshit!” You scoff, “you don’t know!”
“It would display on a calculator as five-point-three-eight-eight-E-thirteen. It’s a really big number.”
“Oh, really big, huh?” you mumble, searching for your phone blindly in the sheets and scrambling to open the calculator app. “Um… what numbers did I say?”
Spencer repeats them back to you and you press the equals sign.
You look at it.
And then you set your phone down.
“I was right, huh?” he smiles up at you, probably reveling in your pouty wrongness.
Too proud to admit it, you collapse on top of him, burying your face in his shoulder.
“I don’t like this game anymore. What the fuck even is an e? Why are we doing algebra?”
Spencer laughs, brushing your hair aside.
“The e stands for exponent. It’s to the power of ten.”
“Ever heard of a rhetorical question?”
“Yes, I have.”
It’s hard not to snort even at his dumbest jokes.
“You’re annoying. Let’s do something else.”
You roll over onto your back again, letting your head flop over to look at Spencer, whose hair is exactly the right amount of messy after a long day, falling in impossibly soft waves over the perfect lines and contours of his face. Despite lounging, he’s still in his suit from work—he’d left Quantico and immediately picked you up. There were no solid plans for the evening, so after both of you pretended that you wanted to go out for a while, you ended up back at his apartment.
He looks good. Almost too good.
“Something like what?” he smiles lazily, reaching over and tracing his fingers over your cheek.
“Something… naked?”
His grin widens and he shakes his head.
“Me naked or you naked?”
Pretending to think about it, you roll your bottom lip between your teeth.
“Mm… why not both?”
“Hm. Why do I feel like I know where this is going?”
The mattress sinks underneath your elbow as you prop yourself up, dropping your head over Spencer’s to kiss him.
“Because you’re so smart, and you think it’s a great idea.”
He entertains your kiss for a moment. Just a moment.
“You sound sure of yourself.”
“Because I am!” You finally give in to your impulses, tangling your fingers in his hair and looking at him meaningfully. “It doesn’t make any sense for us to have not had sex. I don’t care about any of your weird, cryptic moral reasoning.”
He grabs your wrist carefully.
“It is not moral,” he scoffs. “We haven’t even talked about it yet.”
“Really? Because I feel like we’ve talked about it a lot.”
He begins to reply, but you realize you don’t want to get into a debate over whether you’ve technically talked about it yet. “I don’t even care! If that’s all that’s standing in your way, then let’s talk about it. Right now.”
Spencer sighs, his eyes darting between yours as he reaches up to cradle your cheek.
“Fine. But I have things to say you’re not going to like.”
“So business as usual?”
He rolls his eyes. You allow yourself a tiny self-satisfied smirk, forever relishing in his poorly-hidden soft spot for your constant teasing. Spencer ignores this. Which is probably for the best.
“I know you probably won’t see it this way, but—sex is different than everything else we’ve done so far. It can be really fun, obviously it feels good, it facilitates deeper feelings of connection—that’s all true. Which is why, in my opinion, it’s incredibly important that you be selective with who you sleep with. Because it’s so easy to do something you regret, and sex is vulnerable. It should always be with someone you trust and—and… care about.”
A pink flush stains his cheeks like watercolor as he stumbles over the last few words. It makes your heart flutter against the confines of your chest.
Maybe best not to think about the absence versus presence of certain four-letter words and what they may or may not mean. You’ll move on to more pressing matters and pretend like it doesn’t ache just a little in your whole body.
You cover his hand with your own.
“Are you going to break up with me anytime soon?”
Spencer’s eyes widen, filling with genuine horror and confusion.
“What? No!”
“Are you going to cheat on me?”
“Absolutely not, I—”
“Then I’m not going to regret it. Issue resolved. Moving on.”
“Honey, I just want you to be 100% sure that I’m what you want.”
“Oh my god,” you groan, flopping onto your back once more. “I have begged you to sleep with me on multiple occasions. We have been dating for months and I liked you even longer before that. I think about it literally every time I see you. I don’t know how to be any surer.”
It’s quiet for a moment as you study the imaginary pattern on the ceiling. The rebuttal you’d been anticipating doesn’t come—instead, the mattress shifts next to you. Spencer enters your field of vision, now leaning over you with a little smile on his face that gives you butterflies.
“Every time?”
“…yes, every time,” you agree, voice considerably thinner than it had been a moment ago. Spencer glances at your lips as he speaks.
“Interesting. And what is it that you think about exactly?”
You groan again, attempting to roll facedown, but he pins your shoulder to the bed. The way he’s sweetly kissing down your cheek and jaw is infuriating because you know it’s a false pretense.
“Ugh, I don’t know! Don’t make me answer that!”
“You said if talking about it was all that was standing in my way, we would talk about it. Now I want to talk about it. Come on,” he says, voice low and cloying against your throat as he attempts to tease the answer out of you. “Tell me what you think about when you think about us having sex.”
You let out a shaky breath at the feeling of his lips skimming your neck, hating how easily he can reduce you to this.
“I… I always wonder what it will feel like. Sometimes I wonder if it will hurt.”
Spencer sighs, interrogation by way of seduction momentarily forgotten. You silently curse yourself for saying something so un-sexy.
“It might, sweetheart. That’s one of the reasons we’ve held back. I… really don’t want to hurt you. I don’t even know if I can.”
You grab his face in both hands, forcing him to look at you with more confidence than you feel.
“Sometimes I worry about it, too. But I like you a lot more than it scares me. I still want to.”
He kisses your palm.
“You’ll be okay. It doesn’t hurt for everyone, and even if it does, you’re resilient.”
“Exactly. So you have to get over yourself.”
Spencer laughs like he wasn’t expecting to, eyes sparkling as he regards you.
“Yeah. Yeah, maybe I do.”
He’s smiling again as he leans down and kisses you—a slow, lingering thing which tastes like spearmint as you part your lips for him.
“Please?” you whisper against him after a long moment. He hums, keeps kissing you.
“What is it that you think you want? You don’t even know what you’re asking for.”
“Tell me,” you beg, chasing his lips. “Tell me what you’re going to do with me. We can talk about it. This is talking about it.”
Spencer exhales deeply, wedging a thigh between yours. Immediately you clamp around it, trying not to grind against him too overtly.
“You want to know what I’d do to you?”
“Yes—” you paw at his jacket. Surprisingly, he doesn’t stop you from pushing it off. Your heart pounds.
“Well… we both know how anxious you get,” he muses, pressing his lips so delicately to your fluttering pulse-point in emphasis, and then back to your mouth. His thigh pushes harder against you to supplant the absence of his lips as he speaks, though he kisses you sporadically and between sentences. “You’re hard to get out of your head when you’re nervous, you know that? I watch it happen. One minute you’re with me, and then you start overthinking, and getting self-conscious. The only thing that seems to relax you is letting me touch you—so first I would touch you like I’ve touched you before. I’d make sure you know how pretty you are and how good you deserve to feel.” You whimper inadvertently at his words, arching into him and grinding against his leg as he pauses to kiss the sensitive soft spot below your jaw. “You’re going to need to be really ready to let me in. Do you know what I mean by that?”
As he asks, he pushes his thigh against you harder. Your body responds immediately, arching into him and seeking more friction. When you squeak, he takes it as a no.
“I mean I need you relaxed and wet. You’ll excuse my crude language.”
You pull at his tie, breathing heavier now and so turned on it’s almost painful.
“What are you gonna do after that?”
“What else is there to do but fuck you after that?” he breathes. “You want me to tell you how I’d fuck you?”
Something about it makes you whine salaciously. You’ve heard him curse—you’ve even heard him talk about fucking you. But it feels more real now; when it’s low in your ear and you’re covertly undressing him and he’s pushing your shirt over your stomach promisingly.
“Yes, please.”
He hums against your jaw, nipping and brushing his lips over the skin as he considers. Leaves you waiting.
“I would have to take my time with you. You’ll be overwhelmed. I know you think you won’t, but you will. I’m going to have to be so, so careful with you, angel. It’s going to drive me insane. But it will feel good for you.”
“Why careful? I don’t want that.”
He chuckles. A chill runs down your spine.
“Yeah, you do. You’re going to want me to be careful when I’m—” he pauses, pressing his thumb to your bare lower tummy and dragging up to a spot below your belly button. He presses down lightly again. “Right here. Approximately.”
The surface of the sun has nothing on the temperature of your skin in this moment, as you writhe underneath him in both arousal and embarrassment. Mostly, burning need. You feel almost sick with it.
“Please don’t make me wait anymore. Just do it, please, Spencer. I need it to be you, I don’t want it to be anyone else. I promise I’m ready.”
It’s silent for a moment. Your heart quickens. You sense his walls wearing away, his instinct to keep you intact for god knows what reason crumbling. He’s finally going to give you what you’ve been begging for.
Spencer opens his mouth, eyes glimmering—
And then his phone rings.
You both freeze—he melts dejectedly before you do, more accustomed to an ill-timed phone call and realizing the finality it can present.
He’s breathing heavily against your neck, as if maybe whoever it is will just hang up. But the phone keeps ringing.
“I’m sorry.”
Your stomach sinks as he sits up, grabbing his phone from the side table and rubbing circles on your inner thigh as he answers.
“This is Reid,” he says, lackluster.
If you wanted, you could hear what Penelope is saying—but you don’t bother listening. It’s going to be a case. Spencer is about to leave. The details are his problem.
“Okay. I’ll be there in an hour.”
He hangs up, tossing the phone onto the mattress and not speaking for a moment, just continuing to rub your leg apologetically. Watching you almost mournfully—taking in your disheveled hair, your likely blown-out pupils, the shirt pushed almost over your chest.
“I have to go right now,” he finally manages with a heavy sigh, gently pulling your shirt back into place.
You sit up, shedding all the hopes that had been building for the evening, and try to sound chipper—though all you feel is bitter disappointment that goes deeper than you understand.
“I know. Go ahead, I can get a cab home.”
He frowns, running his hand over the back of your hair.
“I don’t love the idea of you standing on the sidewalk waiting for a car in this part of town so late. Do you just want to stay here for the night and go home tomorrow?”
You force a smile. Great. So you’ll be spending the night in his bed after all—just without him.
“Sure. Thanks.”
“Yeah.”
Neither of you are feeling particularly grateful.
Soon you’re walking him to his own door. Both of you come to a stop in front.
“I’m sorry,” he sighs again.
“Spencer, it’s fine. It’s your job. You don’t need to apologize. You were very clear about this part when we started dating.”
“I know, but… it’s easier in theory than in practice.”
You smile. If Spencer is a reflection of you, it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. His hair is still messy from your fingers running through it and he’s missing his tie. You hope all his coworkers see and feel bad about taking him away from you.
But it’s not their fault. You just want someone to blame.
Instead you mould yourself to his body, wrapping around him like you belong there. He returns your embrace, pressing his lips into the crook of your shoulder and rubbing your back in that way he always does with you.
In that moment, your affection for him becomes so profound it’s like a chemical reaction—everywhere he touches burns and you love him so fucking much it aches in every inch of your body the way your muscles do when you have a bad fever. Love is the most terrible of afflictions, you realize. It is a fever dream. It’s every fiber of your being screaming to tell him how you feel, to beg him on your knees not to go because you love him like a child loves a parent or a bee loves honeysuckle or the ocean loves the horizon. Pared down to your most basic components, the barest version of yourself, you require him. Your soul needs his soul.
“Spencer?”
“Hm?”
It’s nothing more than an absentminded hum against your skin.
“I…”
Should you be looking him in the eye when you say this? Should you say it right before he has to leave? Just because you say it doesn’t change the fact that he’s about to be gone for several long days. Maybe this is a terrible time to admit something that suddenly feels so true and so consequential.
He senses your internal conflict, pulling back despite your resistance and holding your face between his hands.
“You what?” He murmurs, soft eyes bouncing back and forth between your own. Fuck—you feel so observed, now. Like he can read your mind.
“I forget.”
FUUUUUUCK.
Spencer blinks. Processes. You watch the disbelief crystallizing over his eyes like ice freezing over a lake.
He knows.
He knows you didn’t forget, and he probably knows what you were going to say, and he’s going to tell himself he was wrong to spare your dignity.
Everything hurts when he kisses you. You wonder what regret tastes like.
“Well, let me know if you remember.”
It’s too gentle and at the same time he can’t hide the edge with all the tenderness in the world. You nod as if in a trance, already looking forward to dissociating as you lie in bed and stare at the dark ceiling.
Two small goodbyes are exchanged, slightly stifled now, as if shared between drunk strangers who have sobered up and are mutually embarrassed about how candidly they’d interacted before.
You close the door behind him, doing up all the locks, and meticulously flick every light switch in the apartment off before climbing into his bed—though you don’t really feel like you deserve to be there anymore.
But perhaps this is all an overreaction. It’s not like you owe it to him to say I love you, or anything—it was bad timing, anyway. And why can’t he say it? In fact, why hasn’t he said it?
Maybe you have it all wrong.
Maybe he doesn’t feel that way about you.
You fall asleep before you allow these questions to make you sick.
24 hours go by.
24 hours go by and you really had meant to leave his apartment—it was just that you woke up late, and your phone was dead so you couldn’t call a car, so you charged it while you made breakfast, and then you ate, and then you decided to take a shower and wash your clothes, and then it was two in the afternoon and you hadn’t left yet and you decided to walk to the store and replenish the groceries you’d used up.
Maybe you got a bit distracted looking at flowers and other beautiful things at the market and by the time you got home it was 5:00, so you decided to wait until seven to skip rush hour. And then eight, just to be sure.
Before you know it, it’s midnight, and you’re dozing off in his bed again (teeth cleaned with the brush you’d bought at the store—maybe this whole situation hadn’t been entirely unwitting on your part.)
Throughout the day, you tried to let all your anxiety about the previous night melt away. If it’s something that needs to be addressed, Spencer will address it. Everything will work out in the end. That thought is how you’re able to doze off.
You’re almost asleep when your phone lights up and begins buzzing on the side table. You wince as your eyes open, not adjusting well to the harsh bright display and unable to discern who’s even calling you at this hour. Stupidly, probably because you’re half asleep, you answer without checking.
“Hello?”
Your voice is groggy, quiet with sleep.
“Shit, did I wake you?”
“Spence?” you whisper, stomach flipping at the sound of his voice on the other line. You feel caught, still sleeping in his bed.
“… yeah,” he chuckles. “Did you not check who was calling before you picked up?”
“I was asleep,” you pout. “Kinda.”
“Okay. Go back to sleep, honey. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
You sit bolt upright, phone balanced between tense fingers and speaking directly into the microphone.
“No! No, I’m awake. What’s up? Why did you call?”
A longer stretch of silence—you’re too sleepy to comprehend what it might mean, though never too sleepy to worry about it. With a pang of pain, you recall your strange goodbye, the words you hadn’t said.
“I just needed to hear your voice,” he sighs. You frown, staring at nothing in particular in the pitch black room.
“Oh. Is everything okay?”
“As much as it can be.”
“Right.”
More quiet. You chew on the inside of your cheek, stricken with a sudden feeling of awkwardness that you haven’t had with Spencer in a while.
“I’m sorry… I don’t really know what to say.”
“That’s okay,” he says, and you can hear the smile in his voice which makes you feel a bit better, “why don’t you tell me about your day? Or you can absolutely go back to sleep, if you’re too tired.”
“Don’t ask me about my day,” you whisper, flopping down on the bed once more. Shame seeps into your voice. He laughs.
“What? Why?”
“Because if I tell you you’re going to think I’m super weird and you’re going to break up with me.”
Laughter tapers off into gentler tones.
“I already think you’re super weird. It’s actually one of your most attractive qualities.”
Blood rushes to your cheeks.
“But it’s like… borderline crazy.”
Immediately, he replies, “for better or worse, I also frequently find myself attracted to crazy.”
“Thank you for calling me crazy and super weird,” you grumble.
“I also called you attractive twice. Tell me.”
When his tone takes on that easy, assertive quality, and it’s sort of raspy and low because it’s late and he’s been talking all day, and you can hear the lazy smile on his face—you imagine him laying on his hotel bed, arm slung over his eyes in the dark as he grins into the microphone—you have a very difficult time saying no.
“Fine. Guess where I am right now.”
“Um, I would hope you’re in bed?”
You smile to yourself, basking in the victory of successfully throwing him off his game even slightly.
“Guess whose bed.”
Silence.
“What an interesting question.” That cocky smile, the low drawling is back, and you chew on your lip, ignoring the shiver that runs down your spine. “If it’s not mine or yours, we’re going to have issues.”
“But if it is yours? You’re not going to call the police on me?”
“Why would I call the police? To tell them there’s a pretty girl in my bed and I don’t want her there?”
“To tell them your psychopathic girlfriend broke into your apartment and might be holding hostages there.”
Spencer laughs; a brittle, drawn out thing, flat and quiet as the desert.
“If you were a psychopath, calling the cops would be a waste of time. I would handle you myself.” The idea of being handled has your thighs clenching. “But—yeah, don’t invite anyone else in.” More humor finds its way into his voice, momentarily relieving some tension that had sneakily begun to build. “Having people in my space makes me anxious.”
“But not me?” Your whisper is half flirtatious, half insecure. Spencer’s reply is soft, as if he’s picking up on this from hundreds of miles away.
“No, not you. You are always the exception.”
“Good,” you say, cheeks aching as you half-bury your warm face into his pillow. “Because I made myself really comfortable. You have a nice shower, by the way.”
Spencer groans.
“You’re killing me.”
“What? What did I do!”
“Don’t talk to me about my bed and my shower. I might start to think you’re intentionally being a brat.”
“You asked me about my day! I’m just telling you what I did!”
But you’re also intentional teasing him for sure. After a pause, he sighs in defeat.
“You’re right. I did do that. Tell me what else happened.”
“Well,” you begin, all too eager, “I had to put my clothes in the dryer after I got out, so I borrowed some of yours. But then they were way comfier than mine, so after I went to the store I put them back on, and—”
“Okay.”
“Okay what?” you frown.
“Tell me what this is.”
“I—I don’t know what you mean.”
Lying to a profiler is usually pointless.
“I’m not stupid, sweetheart. Tell me why you keep talking about my shower and my bed and my clothes.”
Caught red-handed. Your skin heats up.
“I don’t know. I miss you.”
He hums in a way that blurs the line between sympathetic and patronizing. Even through the phone you can feel the bass of it in your bones. It changes the frequency you’re vibrating at. It’s hypnotic.
“But that’s not really why you’re being intentionally provocative, is it?”
“No,” you admit quietly. “I’m still upset you had to go last night.”
“So you’re frustrated and you’re taking it out on me?”
Your brow furrows. Well, when he puts it like that…
“I’m not taking anything out on you.”
“I think you are. And I don’t appreciate that, because I’m on your side, honey. Do you think I prefer being in a hotel bed by myself or being in my bed with you?”
Somehow, he makes you feel like a scolded child. But he makes it appealing in ways you don’t understand.
“Your bed with me,” you murmur, skin prickling with the coldness of his absence even as you curl under the blanket.
“Right. So why don’t you tell me what I can do for you right now, instead of punishing me for things that are beyond my control?”
“I wasn’t punishing you,” you mutter.
“No? You weren’t intentionally talking about using my shower and sleeping in my bed and putting on my clothes so that I’d have to think about what I can’t have right now?”
“I—”
“Believe me when I tell you I have been thinking about what I can’t have, all day. Your efforts are entirely redundant and you can’t say anything about yourself that is even close to as dirty as the frankly disrespectful thoughts I’ve been having about you for seventeen hours.”
The lack of air is making you so dizzy your vision goes gray at the edges.
“What… what thoughts?”
“None that you need to concern yourself with.”
“You can’t just say something like that and then not tell me!” you insist. He’s obviously giving you a taste of your own medicine and it’s fair but it doesn’t mean you have to like it.
“I can do whatever I want,” Spencer corrects cooly in a way that pisses you off beyond belief because he’s right. It triggers some adolescent immaturity within you—a desire to get back at him, so to speak. He wants intentionally provocative? He can have it.
“Fine. Then so can I. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it even if I could.”
“Spencer,” you warn. “If you don’t tell me what you were thinking I’m gonna—” you look around the room for ammo. “I’m gonna look through your nightstand!”
“Go ahead. I’ll warn you, it’s not very interesting.”
“Sounds like what someone who has something hide would say,” you mumble, crawling across the mattress through tangled sheets and using your phone flashlight to open the drawer.
Spencer is patient and silent as you take in its contents—a small blue leather-bound notebook (full of what looks like Russian), a fountain pen, a glasses case, various kinds of vitamins, and—
“Spencer Reid,” you say, dragging out his name and pretending nothing is fluttering in your stomach, “what are these?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see what you’re referring to.”
“Take a wild guess.”
“Oh, I have one. But I’d like to hear you say it.”
You realize you may have gotten yourself in deeper than you meant to by going through his stuff. Well—they don’t say karma is a bitch for nothing.
“What are you doing with a box of condoms?”
He chuckles and you feel it in your whole body, warm as you stretch across his mattress and eye the box like it might jump out at you.
“Those are years old. I’ve used three since I bought them.”
“Don’t tell me that,” you whine. “I don’t wanna think about all the other women you’ve seduced.”
“You wanted them to be for you, huh?”
You flush. Honestly you hadn’t even thought about that.
“I… I don’t know. I kind of just assumed…”
It’s silent for a second and you frown, realizing you hadn’t even considered protection when you’d imagined sleeping with him before.
“You assumed what, honey?” he asks, voice soft.
“It’s dumb. I can’t tell you.”
“You can tell me anything. I’m not going to think it’s dumb, I promise.”
You chew on your lip, letting your eyes unfocus on the box as you muster the courage to be honest.
“Whenever I imagined it… we didn’t… use anything.”
The words make you cringe even as you’re saying them. So does the quiet that follows.
“When you imagine us sleeping together, we don’t use a condom?”
“Ah!” The phone drops to the mattress as you cover your ears and roll onto your side, curling into yourself once more. “You didn’t have to say it! You make me sound so weird!”
“It’s not weird,” he laughs, because he can probably imagine exactly what you just did, “I just wanted to make sure I was understanding you. That said… we would definitely use protection.”
“Do we have to?”
The quiet words take even you by surprise—and they seem to stun Spencer as well. Several false starts are punctuated by a sigh as he gathers his thoughts.
“We really should, baby. That’s the kind of thing we need to take seriously.”
“But you’re… you’re good, right?”
Thankfully he picks up on your meaning.
“I am. I wouldn’t touch you if I weren’t.”
“And I’m good. So...”
“Hm. And has anyone ever explained to you where babies come from?”
You groan in frustration.
“Spencer, I’m being serious! There are ways to negate that.”
“Honey,” he murmurs, “I understand that. But it would be irresponsible of me to say yes. We can talk about it in the future, but—”
“I’m telling you it’s already dealt with. The chances of an accidental pregnancy are slim to none.”
The new information hangs in the air for a moment until Spencer speaks—to your surprise, his voice is low and humorous.
“That is… good to know. But even so—I’m setting a dangerous precedent if I always let you get exactly what you want.”
“Is it such a bad thing that I just wanna—I wanna know what it feels like? You don’t want that?”
“That’s not what I said. I want to know exactly what you feel like. I’m just hesitant to give in so quickly because it makes me look weak.”
You laugh breathlessly, caught between being turned on by the first part of his sentence and amused by the sarcastic second half. Your thighs clench and your hand absentmindedly wanders between them.
“You know what I was thinking about?” you ask. Spencer hums curiously. “I was thinking about when you let me, um… when you let me touch you how you touch me.” He hums again, but you can hear the amused curve of a smile in it now.
“When you had your mouth all full of me and you looked so pretty?”
“When I—yeah,” you agree, too caught up to deny his compliment as your fingers brush your most sensitive spot through clothing. “And how you got me all messy after. And I was wondering what it would feel like… inside me.”
He sucks in a breath. Your legs brush against each other and you twist slightly as you pretend like you’re not touching yourself just a little bit.
“You want me to come inside you?”
“Yeah,” you whisper, brain short-circuiting at the way those words sound in his voice.
—
On the other side of the line, Spencer isn’t doing a fantastic job of thinking clearly either. His dick is half-hard already and it’s only getting worse with each little noise you make that you don’t seem to realize you’re making.
“Really? That would be very messy, baby. I’m surprised that’s what you want.”
“But I really want it,” you breathe. He’s not even looking as he slips his hand under the waistband of his pajamas and palms himself, his other hand rubbing tiredly over his face as his phone rests on his chest. This was not how he intended for this call to go, believe it or not—but he’s here now.
“Yeah? Is that why you’re touching yourself right now?”
You go silent—which is more or less exactly the reaction Spencer had been expecting. Patiently he waits for you to deny it, in three, two—
“’M not.”
Now, he could explain how he knows that’s a lie. How your breathing pattern changed, and your voice got softer and airier, and how you started speaking with smaller words in fragmented sentences. But he doesn’t feel like explaining any of that.
“I know that’s not true,” he murmurs. “You know what? It wasn’t fair to get you all worked up last night and then leave. I don’t want you frustrated, honey. I want you to do whatever you need to do.”
You make a little gasping noise, and Spencer can imagine the way your back would arch when you did it. His own hips buck slightly as his dick twitches under his fingers.
“Where are you touching?”
“Um—over my clothes.”
Cute.
“Go under them for me. Tell me how it feels when you’re touching yourself like that.”
It takes a moment, in which all he hears is the rustling of fabric, until you’re whispering, “feels… it feels good. I wish you were here.”
He inhales, freeing his cock and squeezing the base.
“I know. Just listen to my voice, pretty. I’m right here.”
Spencer allows himself a few slow tugs as he imagines what’s happening in his bed. You make a squeaking noise, like a held-back moan, and his eyes screw shut.
“I need them inside,” you whine, and he knows you’re referring to his fingers—the ones currently stroking his own leaking cock.
“You can use your own, just give yourself a minute first. Remember what I said about needing to be ready?”
“I am ready��” judging by the surprised chirp you interrupt yourself with, you’ve proven yourself right. What surprises Spencer is the weak sound of disappointment you make next. “Spence, it doesn’t feel the same.”
“We’re different sizes, honey. Your hands aren’t as big as mine. But you can still make it feel good.”
He almost says, 90% of the nerves in the vaginal canal are located in the lower third—in other words, within approximately 2.36 inches from the opening, which you can most certainly reach—but he refrains. He’s not sure if that’s good dirty talk.
“You have a really sensitive spot about three inches up, right in front. It’s going to feel a little different than the rest of you when you touch it. I want you to try and find it for me, okay?”
“Okay,” you breathe, ever-eager to please even from a great distance. There’s a quiet moment. “I can’t—I don’t think I can r—oh,”
The moan is so pretty Spencer can’t help speeding up the motion of his hand, hissing slightly as his fingers brush against the angry tip with every pump.
“Did you find it?”
“Yeah,” you whine, a weak, high-pitched thing. “Oh my god.”
“Be gentle,” he warns with some effort as his own hips jump slightly. “You’re really sensitive there. If you’re not careful you’ll make yourself sore.”
“I don’t care—holy shit—” the way your voice rises and tightens to a squeak at the end has Spencer moaning as he fucks his fist. A black hole forms and warps time, turning every minute into a second and every second into an infinity until he has no idea how much time is going by. He drags his thumb over the tip, smearing precum over his cock and whining as his jaw drops at the feeling. “Oh my god, Spencer,” in that same strained, high voice. “’M gonna—ah!”
He gets the general sentiment.
“What, baby? You’re gonna make yourself come all over your fingers? Is that what you wanted to tell me?”
“Mhm!”
“Yeah, I bet you are. It feels good, huh?”
“Yes,” you cry.
“See? You don’t need my fingers to feel good. Mine barely fit, you know that? I have to hold your fucking hips down whenever I put my fingers in you because you can’t stop squirming. I don’t know how you think you’re going to take my cock.”
“Spencer!”
He knows.
“Come, baby. Let me hear you.”
The delicate sounds you make as you bring yourself to orgasm tip him over the edge of his own—grunting as he comes all over his fist.
“Jesus,” he strains under his breath, the word dragging out into two long syllables as his hips buck involuntarily and cum drips down his knuckles. He’s lightheaded and he’s created a mess and it all happened so quickly. “Fuck,” he breathes, a rasping chuckle as he reaches for the towel he’d dropped on the bed after his shower earlier. “You conscious over there?”
“I’m conscious,” you slur, breathing heavily. “I’ve never had an orgasm by myself before.”
“Are you proud of yourself?” Spencer smiles, wiping his hand off and making sure he’s otherwise clean. “You should be. I am.”
He’s barely kidding.
“I’ll be proud when I can do it without your help,” you tease.
“But I’ll always want to help you with that.” His already warm face flushes further as he goes over what he’d said. “Sorry I was so vulgar.”
You laugh. He blushes even more.
“Are you? I think you secretly love being vulgar.”
“I don’t know why! I have no idea where it comes from. I would never speak that way in any other context. I should probably work on that. Sometimes I look back on the things I say and I’m genuinely appalled.”
“Well, don’t stop on my account. Personally I enjoy it.”
“Yeah, I think I’m corrupting you. You probably shouldn’t enjoy it.”
The truth of it weighs heavy on his mind, but he’s pretty sure his voice alone doesn’t betray that and you can’t sense it through the phone.
“Oh, my god. Do not do that falling on your sword shit. I like being corrupted by you. If you stop I’ll be very upset.”
“Well god forbid you get upset,” he teases gently. Idly he wonders if the reason he’s suddenly feeling so depressed is because his cortisol levels were already high from the case, and then he jarred his system with an orgasm, spiking his dopamine and ultimately causing it to plummet without the oxytocin release that post-coital physical contact would usually provide.
Or if it was something else. It could also be something else.
For the millionth time, he wishes he was with you. Part of him also wants to go to sleep. But mostly he wishes he was with you.
—
A comfortable silence settles over the conversation. In the ditch between words, you’re mapping constellations in the texture of Spencer’s ceiling. If you squeeze your eyes almost shut, you can imagine it really is the night sky. You can imagine he’s really here.
You think about what he said—his apparently mindless vulgarity. Did it mean anything? Or was he just rambling to get you off?
“Spencer?” you murmur.
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask you a question?”
He sounds earnest, perhaps a little tired, as he replies, “always,” through the little metal rectangle on your chest. He likes me and my questions are important to him, you repeat to yourself silently as you work up the strength.
“If Penelope hadn’t called, last night… were you going to have sex with me?”
Your lip tastes like his toothpaste as you chew it. Spencer sucks in a breath of air like he’s about to speak—and lets it fizzle out like foam on a carbonated drink.
“I don’t know,” he finally admits, lamely. “That wasn’t my plan, but you can be extremely convincing when you want to be.”
“But why can’t it be your plan?” It’s an almost whine, pouty and childish—but the next words are quiet and pained. “Is it something I’m doing wrong?”
“No, no! It’s not you. You’re perfect. It’s—it’s complicated. It’s a me thing.”
Such trite words—such a ubiquitous, simple excuse sounds almost comical from his mouth when you know he’s capable of all the eloquence in the world. It’s not you, it’s me. It’s ridiculous.
“Okay. Let me simplify this for you,” you begin with an uncharacteristic assertiveness that surprises even you. “I want to have sex with you. Either we are going to have sex or we’re not. So your future branches in two diverging paths. In one, we have sex, and then we keep having sex. In the other we never have sex ever. If you want to ever have the privilege of fucking me, then we just have to do it. Otherwise it simply will never happen. And I’m not eternally patient, Reid.”
Go me, you think, slightly breathless from your monologue.
“Watch your mouth,” he says dryly. Something about the chastisement makes your stomach flip and your whole body tingle. “When you talk to me you call me Spencer. I will also accept Doctor Reid.” You wrestle down a smile, refusing to let him change the subject. A delayed sigh from him sobers up the conversation. “You know what I want. I’ve been very clear with you about that. But…”
“But…?”
Another sigh. A deeper, shuddering sigh, like his breath is searching for balance. Like Spencer is in a precarious position for which he was unprepared.
“But—but to be completely honest… I worry that you’ll regret choosing me. And I know virginity is a social construct and I’m not implying that your worth will somehow be diminished if we have sex but regardless of my views on virginity as a construct, having sex for the first time can be weird and scary and it’s incredibly intimate and I don’t want you to regret your first time like I regret mine because you chose the wrong person.”
The words come at you so rapid-fire it takes you a moment to process them. And aside from all the ways you want to reassure him that you will not regret choosing him—that you could never, ever regret anything about him—one thing stands out.
“You regret your first time?”
Something between a scoff and a sigh travels through the line. You can tell he’s not annoyed at you for asking so much as he’s flustered himself with all his own words as he occasionally does.
“Yeah. Yes. Sometimes I do. The person—she didn’t… like me as much as I liked her. And I was really, really in love with her, and she knew that and she knew she wasn’t in love with me—or maybe she was, I don’t know—but my point is, when one person likes the other more than the other person like them, things get complicated. And however you feel about me—that’s fine. It’s fine. I don’t want you to feel bad if we don’t feel exactly the same way about each other. I understand that this is newer for you, it’s different, I—I just don’t want us to do something we can’t undo because I don’t want to relive that. And I’m not saying it will never happen but I just don’t want you to make this choice when… when right now, I think we’re in different places emotionally. Regardless of that, I want you to choose the right person. I don’t want you to choose me and then find out that we feel differently after we sleep together and leave you feeling like you signed up for something you didn’t understand. I’m sorry. Maybe telling you this is selfish. But I’ve been thinking about it and trying to ignore it and I think I just have to be completely honest.”
Your ears ring like Spencer just fired a blank right into the microphone. Like you just got backhanded across the face and now you have the world’s worst case of whiplash.
Every finger is numb and your blood is so cold it feels blue as it slithers thick through your veins.
What you want to do is scream. What you want to do is go back to last night and stop yourself from almost telling him I love you, slap yourself and keep your cards a little closer to your chest. Because now he knows, and he doesn’t feel the same.
You want to scream bloody murder.
But when you try, when you unhinge your jaw and part your chapped lips and expect a bellow to come hurdling up the corridor of your throat with so much force it rattles your bones, all that falls out is a small, “oh.”
Maybe that’s worse.
Spencer doesn’t reply. You hate yourself for feeling obliged to fill the silence.
“I didn’t realize you…”
I didn’t realize that you don’t love me back.
I didn’t realize I like you more than you like me.
I didn’t realize you’d tell me to masturbate in your fucking bed and then drop this not even five minutes later.
If Spencer Reid was able to talk to you over the phone with the same amount of affection and familiarity as always, like everything was still okay, knowing you love him and he doesn’t love you the whole time, he is not who you thought he was.
“I’m sorry,” he lamely says again, like it could ever help.
More silence. Now you can’t bring yourself to speak, so Spencer does.
“I realize how awkward this is. I really didn’t mean to put you in this position. Especially not over the phone when I—god, I’m stupid. I’m sorry. But can we—can we talk about this in person when I get back? Please?”
Is that what grownups do? Is the proper etiquette for him to take you out to dinner and explain why he’s not in love with you? Is he going to break up with you?
What does one even wear to a breakup date?
“Okay,” you whisper. Your eyes sting, your everything stings, like you’ve been wrapped in a shroud of briar. Sheets that were soft a moment ago feel like sandpaper on open wounds. You feel like an open wound.
Spencer sighs. It’s a sound of relief that confuses and hurts you even more.
“Okay. I—okay. Thank you. Um—I’ll let you go back to sleep, now.”
“Okay,” you repeat—as if any of this were okay. But you can’t keep being that stupid girl who feels it all so much harder, who loves easily and begs to be loved in return, too naive to assume that someone who treats her so kindly might not reciprocate her feelings. It has to be okay, because if it’s not, you’re silly and dramatic and you’re just proving him right.
“Goodnight,” Spencer whispers, and you can’t help but feeling that it’s the last time you’ll ever hear those words from his mouth while you’re in his bed. And he’s not even fucking here.
So you pull the blanket a little higher. You let your tears stain his pillow because they’ll be invisible by the morning. It will be like they were never here. Like you were never here.
“Goodnight.”
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Not Special, Part Two
(Part One is here)
Oscar Tennyson grabbed his purchases and hurried after the rest of his crew. As usual, they were walking quickly on their longer legs and bellowing for him to keep up. The teeth-and-scales Mighty had no patience for human weaknesses. Of which there were many.
But, as Oscar had just learned, there were some strengths as well. And he couldn’t wait to show them.
He scampered onboard before the door shut, wondering if they would actually leave without him if he dawdled too long. Probably not — who would handle their finances and hunting permits? They’d have to hire someone else, because they certainly didn’t want to do it themselves. But he didn’t want to test that.
He had much better things to test. While the stark metal walls vibrated with the engine’s revs, Oscar wove between scaled biceps and tails to his own quarters. He pressed the panel by the door, which was oversized and cracked like all of them on this ship. The Mighty were not fans of fiddly little buttons or keys. Not when they could have panels big enough to punch, which only broke sometimes.
When Oscar stepped through and closed the door behind him, he felt immediately relieved. This was his private space to decorate as he chose, without worrying that someone would take things down or make fun of him. Ship rules were clear about personal quarters. Oscar’s fake orchids and real cactus made the room homey, along with more posters than the walls could hold. They spilled onto the ceiling, lining it with nature scenes from Earth, sports figures he admired, media announcements, and a good number of fluffy kittens. This was the one spot on the ship where he could feel comfortable, and he was making the most of it.
The bag of refueling station supplies crinkled as he set it on his small table to remove the contents. A high-end store might have had Waterwill bags that evaporated after a day, but this place used regular old plastic. Inside were food cubes, bottled water, and the purchase he was most excited about: six cans of very weak caffeine.
He scanned the label. It was just like the other human had said. Tall cans in dramatic colors, but not much of substance inside. At least, not as far as the average human was concerned.
Oscar couldn’t wait until dinner time.
Before then, he had a permit to submit and several other things to check. The ship should be on the way to Argosha, which was notorious for welcoming outsiders in to hunt the Dagger Birds that were giving everyone so much trouble, but he had better get their paperwork in order anyway.
He grabbed his tablet and left his safe haven, heading back into the public parts of the ship where he could face taunts from any direction. Really, these guys were just like his cousins. At least it was familiar.
Fending off tiresome conversation — “How’s the weather down there?” “Why don’t you ask your mother?” —he reached the bridge and found a corner to stand in. The captain and the pilot were arguing about where to land when they reached Argosha.
“The main site will have more people to admire our ship!”
“The new one is closer to the hunting grounds!”
“Dagger Birds are overrunning the place; everywhere is a hunting ground!”
“Do you want to pay the damages for shooting a building instead of a bird? We can take it all out of your pay, if you want!”
“Fine, but if we land on some overgrown hedge and the ship is scratched, you get to pay for that!”
“Fine!”
The pair of them stopped yelling and sat back in their seats as if nothing at all was the matter, because it wasn’t. Polite disagreements were always held at that volume.
In the brief lull while the pilot manipulated the controls with more force than a lesser console could withstand, Oscar spoke up. “I’d like to come too.”
Both dinosaurian heads turned to stare at him in surprise. “Why?” the captain demanded. “One kick from a bird, and you’re useless to us.”
“Thanks,” Oscar said flatly. “I’ll keep out of the way. I want to take photos of your fighting prowess; I should be able to sell them.”
Both of the Mighty preened at that, as he’d known they would. Ego was big here. The captain agreed, and Oscar didn’t let slip any hints of his secret plan. He just finished working on his tablet, then retreated to his quarters to practice Dagger Bird mating calls.
The air on Argosha was breathable but hot, at least this part of it. Oscar was ready with his Tool in his pocket. (He’d gotten out of the habit of calling it a phone, since the Mighty were right in that it did a near-infinite number of things.) (He still smirked quietly at the potential innuendo, but it was a conversation he didn’t really want to have with giant dinosaur aliens, so he kept that to himself.)
“This way,” announced the captain, pointing in what looked like an arbitrary direction into the wilderness. Whooping with the alien equivalent of testosterone, the crew raised their blasters and tromped off the landing pad with Oscar following close behind.
True to his word, he did take some pictures as he went. But he was waiting for his moment.
It didn’t take long to come. The shouting scared off all the wildlife, then the Mighty found a boulder to crouch behind and wait for the creatures to come back. They played a silent counting game to see who was best at guessing when they’d spot something worth killing.
Distant footsteps on leaves made them smack each other in excitement, but nothing appeared between the trees.
Now or never, Oscar thought. Knowing better than to startled his crewmates, he whispered, “Here, let me.” Then he took a deep breath and let loose with his best imitation of a Dagger Bird seeking a mate. “Woarrrrrrk!”
While the Mighty shushed him and wondered what he was doing and started to figure it out, an answering woarrk sounded from nearby.
Then another, then, three.
Oscar wondered if he’d overplayed his hand.
No less than five large and eager Dagger Birds crashed through the undergrowth at once, croaking and flapping, taking offense at each other’s presence. The Mighty all roared and leapt out, firing in every direction.
Oscar dashed for a tree he’d been eyeing, the one with lots of branches, and didn’t stop climbing until he was out of beak-stabbing range. He held tight to the trunk, catching his breath and watching the chaos. Belatedly, he remembered to take out his Tool and snap some photos.
This was actually a good angle. He got a great shot of the captain aiming down the throat of a wide-open beak, then another a split second later when the beak snapped shut inches from his head. Another of the engineer shooting one from beneath. Two of the pilot tackling the largest bird and sinking teeth into the back of its neck where it couldn’t reach to stab.
Other species did their trophy hunting from a distance. The Mighty liked the fight as much as the kill. Their blasters were set on a deliberately low setting, and their teeth were sharp.
Safe up in his tree, Oscar grimaced at how bloody things were getting down below. He yelled another bird call to distract the one about to spear the crewmate who’d been knocked to the ground, and he got a cheerful “Nice save by the little guy!” which was as close to a thank you as he was going to get. The crewmate scrambled up and bit off a chunk while the bird was distracted. A couple of the crew looked like they were bleeding their own blood, but most of it was coming from the Dagger Birds, which were just as stubborn as the stories had said. Not one of them ran off. The last to die fell on top of somebody, which just added laughter from the rest of the crew to the triumphant cheers.
Oscar took a picture of the bird being dragged off his disgraced crewmate. That photo he wouldn’t sell, but would keep as minor blackmail if he ever needed it. Sticking it up on the wall to remind everyone of this moment could be a valuable strategic move.
“We are the MIGHTY!” bellowed the captain, and the whole crew joined in with a deep-voiced cheer. Oscar climbed down to more approval than he’d gotten in the last month.
“Good work by our human here! Who knew you could do that?”
“That’s sure an efficient way to hunt!”
“We should bring you out every time. That was great.”
Oscar took the praise with pride, not bothering with modesty. That was just another word for weakness as far as these guys were concerned.
He managed to dodge when one of them made to slap him on the back with a large bloodstained hand, which just made them laugh more. Luckily the captain directed everybody to gather their kills for dragging back to the ship, rather than chasing the human and messing up his clothes.
Oscar took a position on the lowest branch of his tree, taking a couple more photos as the victorious hunters figured out how to get it all home. If anyone had asked Oscar, which they never would, he’d have suggested going back for a hovercart, or taking them one at a time. But of course they did neither.
Definitely the type to insist on carrying all the groceries in at once, Oscar thought as his crewmates strained to drag the giant carcasses through the undergrowth. He hopped down and kept pace out to the side where there was no blood on the leaves.
They finally made it back to the ship, doing nothing to clean up the smears of blood they left on the landing pad. Oscar darted off to his quarters as soon as the door opened. The rest of them could handle getting the birds into cryo storage, or chopped up right away, whichever they saw fit to do. The lowest-ranking one without significant injuries would be in charge of clearing the blood from the hallways, but only after they’d all taken a walk through the water-and-air blast chamber that passed for a shower here. It had always reminded Oscar of a car wash.
He kept to himself until dinner, sorting his photos while everyone else dealt with the catch and the mess and the injuries. The mechanical medsystem on this ship was just as efficient as the shower. They’d all be in decent shape by mealtime.
And mealtime after a successful hunt was also drinking time.
Oscar usually ate in his room, wanting nothing to do with the raucous meat-tearing and drunkenness. But today was different, because he’d learned something valuable about the liquid they were getting drunk off.
Oscar considered the cans he’d bought, then decided it would have more of an impact if he just took one of the communal supply. So instead he grabbed his new food cubes and a premade tin of spaghetti from his mini-cryo, and followed the sound of laughter.
They were already a little drunk when he got there. Sprawled across chairs with a table full of meat slabs spilling over the edges of the plates. And as expected, there were tall purple cans everywhere.
“Heyyyy, it’s the little guy! Let’s hear it for the human with the surprise talent! Maybe you’re not useless after all!”
“Thanks,” Oscar said as they pounded fists against anything in reach as a form of applause. He leaned against the open doorway and shuffled his belongings so he could get a fork in a meatball without setting down the food cubes. “That was pretty easy where I’m from. You guys really can’t do that?” He popped the meatball into his mouth, casual as you please.
The Mighty of course, thought this was funny, and took it in stride. More gulps from their drinks, more savage mouthfuls of food, and a few questions about the surely-excellent photos he’d gotten, which would make them all look amazing.
Oscar said he’d share the best ones. These would make fine decorations in their own quarters, and would probably be appreciated by the right paying audience.
Then came the moment he’d been waiting for. The captain raised his drink in another cheer, and somebody noticed that the human was the only one without a can in his hand.
“Get the human a warrior’s drink!”
“Bet you he passes out after one sip.”
“Nah, he can take at least two.”
Oscar smiled quietly. If they’d been paying attention, they might have changed their bets at that smile. He set his food down in the hallway to free his hands. When one muscular, taloned arm offered him a can of their most potent intoxicant, he took it. Oh so casually.
Then he whipped his head back and chugged the whole thing.
“Oh! Human’s gonna die!”
“I’m not cleaning up the puke!”
“What the supernova! There are better ways to go than that!”
“Somebody drag him to medical so we don’t have to find somebody else to do the boring stuff.”
“Yeah, he was just getting interesting.”
Oscar ignored all of them, giving the empty can a thoughtful look. It felt like the same thin aluminum he remembered from Earth. And if there was anything his cousins had taught him, it was the proper way to dispose of a beer can.
He dug his fingertips in and crushed it against his forehead. Then while the room reacted to that, he wiped off the drips and threw the can across the room. When it went into the trash on the first try, he was internally very glad, but he didn’t let it show. Instead he picked up his food and resumed eating. “What’s the big deal?” he said. “Is that what you guys have been getting drunk off? How quaint.”
“How in all the black holes—”
“No, he’s gonna fall over any second; just watch.”
“Quaint, that’s hilarious.”
“He’s totally bluffing. Just wait and see.”
Oscar was enjoying being the center of the crew’s attention today. He made a show of sweeping his eyes across the various cans in the room. “None of you has finished a can yet, I see. Was that supposed to be strong?”
There was widespread laughing and elbowing of each other, most of them still clearly convinced that the silly little human was going to throw up and die any second now.
So Oscar set down his food, walked over to the table, and chugged a second one. It was a bit more liquid than his stomach was really happy with, but that was a small price to pay for the uproar that followed.
They exclaimed; they renewed their bets; they drank from their own cans; they got visibly drunker and abandoned their bets.
Oscar leaned against the doorframe, eating spaghetti and food cubes.
After one particularly unsteady crewmate tripped onto the table full of meat, and someone pointed out that the human wasn’t wobbling at all, Oscar said, “You guys don’t know much about my species, do you? Half of what I eat would liquify your insides.” He held up a food cube, eyeing the different colored specks of all the ingredients that made it balanced for an omnivorous digestive system. He laughed. “You guys just eat meat. How boring!”
They only got drunker after that. Oscar was pretty sure that the nearest two wanted to pat him on the back, but the floor was moving too much for them to make it all the way to the doorway. Somebody offered him a raw slab of Dagger Bird. He turned it down with casual scorn.
“Nah, meat isn’t worth eating unless it’s passed through fire. That’s weakling meat you’ve got there. Get back to me when it’s cooked brown.”
They loved that. The party was an epic one, only winding down when most of the crew was too drunk to reach more drinks. Oscar demonstrated his steadiness by picking through the mess to drop his food containers in the trash, then move back to the door.
“Well, it’s been fun,” he said. “I’ll send in the med-drone to make sure nobody’s going to wake up dead. Let me know if you want to get your tails handed to you by any more Dagger Birds. I’ll call ‘em in close for you again.”
He got groggy approval to that.
Oscar left with a smile on his face, and a mild amount of caffeine in his blood. Maybe after stopping by the medcenter, he’d use that energy on some exercise. Thoughts of the run to the hunting grounds, and the way his crewmates had paced themselves, suggested that it wouldn’t take much practice for him to out-endurance the Mighty on the VR treadmill.
I wonder what else I can do?
~~~~~~~~~
By popular request, this is the sequel to the story I posted last week, which is part of the ongoing series of backstory for the main character in this book. (It started that way, at any rate, and turned into a sprawling series in its own right. Fun stuff.)
Patreon opens the day after tomorrow, on May 1st! There's a free tier and everything if you want to keep up without strings attached! And you can even request more delightful nonsense like this.
Onward!
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I have a hotch request and if you don’t write it I completely understand☺️
So you’re dating hotch for a couple months and you’ve only went over to his house like 5-6 times(so that’s how many times you’ve hung out with jack) anyway, you go to use the washroom or something before you leave to go home and jack asks his dad if you’re his gf and if you’ll be having a sleepover with them (as you’ve never actually stayed there before) and his heart becomes all warm n fluffy
A/N: Hi! I don't usually write for Hotch, but I decided to give it a crack because this fits pretty well for @imagining-in-the-margins KidFic challenge! It was a fun challenge to write, so thanks for the prompt! I changed it up slightly, but I hope you still enjoy it!
Warnings: mentions of anxiety, step-family dynamics, etc.
10 months of casual dinners, midnight strolls, and stolen kisses, and you still weren't ready to accept that you were in love with your boss.
Aaron Hotchner was a complicated man, and loving him wasn't as simple as your heart wanted it to be. You worked together but rejected any favouritism he may have shown you. You slept together, but you never stayed in his bed. You kissed him, but you never told him you loved him, even though you were sure you did.
You just weren't sure you were ready to be a stepmother.
As a child of divorce, you'd been graced with two step-parents growing up, and while neither were story book evil, they weren't exactly the most welcoming either. You'd bounced between your mother and father's houses, trailing duffle bags, afraid to take up too much space for fear of ruining your parents’ newfound and direly earned happiness.
Jack had the misfortune of being both a child of divorce and having lost his mother entirely too young and entirely too suddenly.
When you'd joined the BAU, off the back of Haley Hotchner’s death, Aaron had been a man in mourning, a man scarred by circumstance and regret. But he'd been brave, and he'd been loving, and he'd worked so hard to give his son a good life.
Five years later, and it seemed obvious now that you had at least respected the man from the very beginning, if not pined for him quite openly.
There was that final hurdle left to cross, though, and you weren't sure if you'd ever be ready to do so.
A phone call startled you out of your worries as you sat on your couch, dissociating after a long and hard won case. The shrill ring startled you into action as you frantically searched for wherever it was this time that you left your phone.
“Hello, yes, I'm here, hi,” you said, finally finding the phone abandoned under some couch pillows.
“Y/N, it's Aaron.”
“I know, Aaron. Caller ID, welcome to the 21st century,” You couldn't help smiling into the receiver, so smitten with the man your face was just doing whatever it liked.
“Right. Look, I wouldn't usually overstep like this, but Jessica and I have to go upto Roy's retirement house, he's not dealing too well with the new environments, and all of Jack's regular babysitters are enjoying the spring weather. I'd ask his friends' moms for an impromptu playmate but-”
“But you'd rather he be with someone you trust? Aaron, it's fine, I'll come over and watch Jack for a few hours.”
He sighed into the receiver, and after a few more niceties, you ended the call, still grinning like an idiot.
You were still grinning like an idiot when your earlier anxiety came back and hit you straight in the chest. You'd met Jack before, but you'd not so subtly avoided any kid based conversations and meet-ups for the last 10 months.
You had no idea how to entertain a nine year old boy, but you decided quickly that you couldn't half ass it.
The drive to Hotch's house was almost embarrassingly familiar to you now, having been there so often in the past few months. Jack enjoyed regular sleepovers with his aunt and schoolmates so you could enjoy regular sleepovers with his father, a fact that you had to remind yourself to keep private as you knocked on the door.
“It's open,” Aaron called from inside, and you hesitantly opened the door and stepped in, bag of last-minute toy purchases stuffed under your arm.
From the door, you could see Aaron in the kitchen, hands deep in soapy water as he washed lunch dishes and pots, sticking his head out to smile at you.
“Aaron Hotchner, domestic goddess. Who’d have thought?”
“I'd ask you to keep this to yourself at work.”
“Of course,” you said, stepping a fraction closer to him. “Anything to keep the mystery alive.”
He leaned in for a quick kiss, and you reciprocated, letting it linger a second as you smiled into his touch.
Drying his hands on a towel near him, Aaron called across the apartment for Jack.
“What's up, Dad?” He asked, peeking out of his bedroom door.
“This is Y/N. She works with me and Uncle Rossi. She's going to take care of you for a while while me and Aunt Jessica and I visit your Grandpa. Come say hi.”
Creeping out of his room slowly, Jack came to stand just in front of his father's legs as Aaron put his hands on his shoulders, proudly showing off his mini doppelganger.
“Hi, I'm Jack.”
“Nice to meet you Jack, my name is Y/N.” You stuck out your hand, and he shook it. You noticed how small his hands were, but how strong his grip was. He was confident, but he was still just a small kid, and you were even more motivated not to mess this up.
“What's in your bag?” He asked, flicking his eyes down to it every few seconds, as if he was itching to stick his nose right into it.
“Jack, manners, please.”
“It's okay, Hotch. I brought some toys. Your dad mentioned that Santa's gave you a Nintendo at Christmas, and I thought I'd show you a few of my favourite games.”
His face lit up as he quickly stepped closer to you, hands on the bag as he waited for you to offer it up, now openly ogling the bags contents, knowing it was for him.
“You didn't have to bring anything, Y/N.”
“I wanted to make a good first impression.”
After being dragged to the nearest sofa and sitting through a five minute walk through of all the house rules, urgency exits and remote locations, you were left alone with Jack Hotchner, remotes in hand ready to play Mario Kart.
“Okay, now all that's left to do is choose the course you want to race on. Which one do you want to play on?”
Jack had chosen to use Bowser as his character and chosen Toadette for you quite cutely, and you'd quickly finished cart selection, too.
“We should go through them in order, so we complete them all,” he said after a moment of deliberation.
You giggled at how seriously he was taking it. And then the first race in the Mushroom Cup started, and you were seriously impressed by how quickly he'd picked up this game. Either kids were just better at video games in general, or you had a prodigy on your hands.
His serious face was a carbon copy of Hotch when he was hunched over paperwork, and he gave you the same quietly disapproving frown every time your character momentarily overtook his. It was adorable seeing the two reflected in one another.
By the shell cup, you were nearly exhausted, despite having spent the entire time glued to the couch.
“What do you think about taking a snack break?” You asked, looking over Aaron Jack, who had turned himself upside down on the couch somewhere in the last three matches and was still beating you.
“Okay. I'll show you where Dad hides the good snacks,” he said, quickly rolling off the couch as if his bones were liquid.
You, on the other hand, cracked as you stood, the irony not lost on you as you hobbled your way to the kitchen.
Opening the cupboard under the sink, Jack routed around for a few seconds before returning with a small box of Reeses Pieces, which you gradually accepted alongside a glass of apple juice.
“You're a good kid, Jack,” you said, ruffling his hair as he playfully swatted your hand away.
“Yeah, that's what my dad always says.”
“Your dad is a very smart man.”
He nodded and then went back to quietly eating his candy, somewhat lost in thought.
You weren't sure if you were supposed to ask him what he was thinking about, or avoid the topic and dive straight back into video games, so you just ate your candy, too, standing together in the kitchen, Mario Kart music playing in the background.
“Do you like my dad?” He suddenly asked, swallowing down one more bite of apple juice. You'd forgotten that kids were the bluntness people on the planet, not yet having learned the necessity of delicately creeping closer to the actual topic of discussions like adults.
Jack had landed a sucker punch right to your guy, and you were suddenly choking on Reese's Pieces.
“Umm,” you said, catching your breath again and hoping your embarrassment wasn't plain as day on your face. “Yes, I respect your father a lot, Jack.”
“But do you like him?” He said again, eyes wide and expectant as he looked up at you.
“My dad can be a little scary sometimes. I heard some of my friends' moms saying so at Mitchell C's birthday party last week. They said he's scary, but he's so sad and lonely.”
Your heart sank in your chest as you watched Jack worry about his dad, worry if Aaron Hotchner was lonely or sad.
“Jack, your dad isn't lonely or sad. He has you, and Aunt Jessica, and-”
“And you, right? Because you like my dad?”
“R-Right. He has me, too.”
“Great. Let's keep playing. The Banana Cup is next.”
As suddenly as it had started, your serious talk with Jack was over and he bounced his way back to the sofa, clicking go on the next race, as you ran to quickly take your place again, too.
Five hours later, and you were being shaken softly awake, controller still in your hands as you blinked your eyes open. Somehow, it had gotten dark, and both you and Jack had simultaneously fallen asleep on the couch.
Now Hotch hovered over you, carrying the sleeping boy in his arms as he woke you up. He mouthed ‘coffee?’ and you nodded quickly, sitting up further and grabbing the nearest remote to turn off the Nintendo.
With Jack situated in bed quickly, you made your way to the kitchen. Aaron joined you after making sure Jack was still asleep, walking up behind you and wrapping two arms around your middle, leaning his head against your shoulder and exhaling. Despite the shiver down your spine, you leaned further into him, enjoying the feeling of him in your sleepy state.
“How was it?” He asked, a hint of uncertainty in his voice. You were almost sure that he was conducting this conversation from behind as a means of convincing himself not to read into your every movement and expression.
“It was great. He's a great kid, you know?”
“So I've been told.”
“He's worried about you, too. He said the moms at his school think you're scary and lonely. Which in suburban house mom translates to romantic hero, though I don't think he realizes that.”
You felt the grumble of a laugh behind you, the sound low and comforting as you let your eyes flutter closed again, content in his arms.
“Jack…misses his mom. Rebecca is great, but he likes talking to the moms at school. Maybe a little too much, I don't know.”
“You miss her, too.” It was a statement, not a fact.
“I do,” he said sadly, holding you tighter. “Is that a problem?”
“No. No, god no. Aaron, I-” your voice broke, and you hesitated slightly, clearing your voice. You squirmed in his grip until he released you enough to face him.
Doing so may have been a mistake, though, as you locked eyes with him and so desperately wanted to kiss him, to claim his mouth with yours, and let him lift you onto his kitchen counters.
You squeezed your nails into the palm of your hands to ground yourself and took a steadying breath.
Which was when Jack decided to make a reappearance.
“Dad?” He said groggily, wiping the sleep from his eyes as you had only moments earlier.
You quickly broke apart as Aaron smiled disappointedly, almost as if he were expecting the interruption.
“Hey, bud. Did you sleep well?”
Jack nodded, tilting his head a little as though still disorientated.
“Did I fall asleep on the couch?”
“Sure did. Both of you, actually.”
Jack looked at you then and smiled sweetly up at his dad.
“So Miss Y/N is staying tonight?” He asked, suddenly a little excited and expectant.
“Well, Miss Y/N has her own house, so we can't just expect her to-”
“Yeah, I'm staying,” you blurted out, cutting off Hotch mid-sentence. He raised an eyebrow at you, but you ignored him and smiled down at Jack.
“And if you head back to bed now, I'll make some pancakes for you in the morning,” you whispered conspiratorially with the boy, who raced back to his room.
Before shutting the door fully, he stopped by his dad and tugged him down to whisper level, saying something before yelling goodnight and taking himself back off to his room.
“What? What was that?” You pouted, pointing an accusatory finger at Aaron.
“You first,” he laughed back, leaning on the nearby counter.
“I promised him pancakes in the morning. What did he say?”
“Oh, nothing,” he said, pulling you closer to him again. “He just said you had an interesting conversation earlier.”
“Was it the one where he asked me if Mario speaks English, Italian or Japanese, because I couldn't answer that question for sure.”
“He said,” he leaned down to your ear to whisper the next words. “That you told him you like me. And he thinks you meant like-like.”
You flushed hot and avoided eye contact. A childish part of you wanted to deny it, to scoff and run away, like you were on the playground and not in a dimly lit kitchen at midnight. But you couldn't.
“I do. But I'd probably say love and not like-like, seeing as though I'm not nine.”
“I love you, too,” he whispered, noses touching as he descended to capture your lips once more.
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