ratatatatata

she/her 24 and counting

[heavenlybodies333]

Morning Love -S.R

Spencer Reid x Hotch’s daughter!reader

You were dreaming. A warm bed. Silk sheets. A lazy Sunday. Silence.

That was until something audibly clinked. Somewhere just past your sleep-fuzzed consciousness, a mug hit porcelain. Then a soft rustle, drawers opening, a fucking sunbeam sliding across your shut eyelids like a slap from God himself.

You groaned. “No,” you muttered into Spencer’s expensive pillowcase. “No, no, no—Spence.”

A pause. You heard it—the light shuffle of his socked feet across hardwood. The quiet hum he always carried in the mornings. “Good morning,” he said, chipper.

You cracked one eye open, disoriented and already in a mood. “Do you hate me?”

Spencer’s lips curved into a smirk as he leaned against the doorway, mug in hand, hair still mussed from the night before. “Not at all,” he said, sipping his coffee. “I made you tea. I thought you might want something gentle on your stomach. Chamomile, a little honey. Also—bagel, plain, cream cheese, not toasted. I remember you said you hate when they warm it.”

He was so calm. So sweet. So impossibly… morning. And you were lying there half-naked in one of his MIT shirts, eyes swollen with sleep, still sore from how hard he’d fucked you last night on the couch, then against the wall, then finally—mercifully—in his bed. And now? Now he wanted to wake you up with love?

You groaned again and flopped onto your back, throwing your arm over your face. “You’re gonna have to learn to hate me in the mornings, Reid.”

“You’re cranky,” he mused, like he was fond of it.

You swallowed. “Don’t—Spencer, I swear, I just woke up—”

“You’re so pretty when you’re mean,” he said softly, placing the mug down on the nightstand beside you. “I like when you fight me in the morning.”

“Jesus Christ—” He kissed your forehead. So gentle. So sweet. And then? Then his hand slid beneath the sheets, over your thigh, fingers teasing the hem of your panties.

You hissed. “Spence—no, no—”

“You can whine all you want,” he murmured, dragging his knuckles up between your thighs, just barely grazing you through the cotton. “But you’re already wet.”

Goddamnit you were. “I hate you.” you half moaned.

He grinned, nosing along your jaw. “That’s okay. I love you enough for both of us.”

You pushed at his chest, not because you really wanted him gone, but because the warmth of his hand and the certainty in his voice felt like too much too soon. You’d barely opened your eyes and he was already cooing at you like some benevolent god of domesticity.

“I’m not ready to be loved right now,” you muttered, voice muffled under the crook of your arm.

“You were begging to be loved last night,” he quipped under his breath.

You shot him a glare. “That was night-me. Morning-me is a cruel, unholy bitch who wants nothing to do.”

He only smiled wider. You groaned again, partly because you were tired, mostly because you knew you weren’t going to win. Spencer thrived in the mornings—functioned, flourished, even flirted. It was frankly disturbing how alive he seemed before 8 a.m. Especially when you were the daughter of Aaron Hotchner, who hadn’t smiled before noon in about twenty years.

“Tell me again why I’m here and not in my own bed,” you grumbled.

“Because you whined ‘please, Spence, I wanna stay, I’ll be good,’ at 1:47 a.m. right after I made you come 3, 4 times?”

You yanked the sheets over your head. “I’m going to murder you.”

“You’ll have to get up to do that.”

“Fine. I’ll haunt your stupid morning-loving ass from the comfort of this bed.”

He pulled the covers down with a laugh, revealing your disheveled state—the MIT shirt slipping off your shoulder, the faint marks he’d left between your thighs. Spencer’s fingers brushed your cheek, warm and annoyingly tender.

“You know,” he said, with the kind of softness that used to undo you in seconds, “you can be as bitchy as you want in the mornings. I don’t mind.”

You blinked up at him. “Don’t say things like that.”

“Why?”

“Because then I start thinking maybe you do love me.”

He tilted his head. “What if I do?”

You froze, it scared the shit out of you how much you wanted to say it back. Instead, you fell back on your safest vice: sarcasm. “You should consider therapy,” you muttered, rolling over.

He leaned down and whispered at your neck, voice honeyed and dangerous. “I do. Weekly. Thursdays at four.”

You almost laughed. You turned toward him again and searched his face, trying to figure out what the hell he was doing loving someone like you.

“Spence…” you started, but you didn’t know how to finish it.

His gaze softened. “I know.”

You sighed. “You don’t.”

“I know you’re scared.”

You went still.

“I know you don’t wake up easy, or love easy, or trust easy. I know you say bitchy things when you feel vulnerable. I know you hate being taken care of because it reminds you you’re not in control.”

You opened your mouth, but nothing came out. Spencer leaned forward, brushing your hair from your face. “I also know,” he murmured, “you let me hold you all night, even when you thought I was asleep.”

Your eyes stung. “That’s low.”

He grinned. “That’s profiling.”

You glared at him, but it cracked around the edges. “You gonna keep being sweet to me?” you whispered.

He nodded. “Yeah. ‘Fraid so.”

“And what happens when I push you too far? When I say something awful? When I throw a mug at your head at 7 a.m. because you made eggs and the smell makes me want to die?”

He raised a brow. “Then I’ll duck and make toast next time.”

You stared at him. “You’re serious.”

“Completely.”

You let yourself sit up finally, crossing your arms under your chest, still tucked in his shirt. You looked at him, “You’re weird.”

“Mmhm.” He sipped his coffee. “But I make great tea.”

You eyed the mug beside you. You didn’t reach for it.

Instead, you dragged the sheet back over your head, curled fetal again, and whimpered, “I want to die.”

There was a pause. Then the soft creak of the bed behind you. “Not before you eat, you don’t,” he said gently, like you were a child refusing breakfast. His hand slid slowly up your spine, rubbing in lazy circles. You flinched at first—still unused to being touched like this, like you deserved softness. Your father sure as hell never showed this side of himself, and no one else had ever lasted long enough to try.

“I hate how good that feels,” you mumbled.

“I know you do.”

Spencer laid down beside you, spooning you from behind, his warmth folding around you like a second blanket. You hated that he was good at this. You hated more that he seemed to know what you needed before you even opened your mouth.

“How is it you know exactly why I want?”you asked suddenly, suspicious.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, far too smoothly, as his hand found the waistband of your panties again.

You gasped, slapping at his arm. “It is too early!”

He chuckled, mouthing along your bare shoulder. “You sound shocked.”

“I’m sore.”

“I’ll be gentle.”

“You’ll be annoying.”

“That too.”

You turned over sharply, catching his wrist. “Spencer, I’m serious. I’m not used to this,” you whispered, staring at the hollow of his throat.

“I know.” His fingers grazed your elbow, feather-light. “That’s why I’m here.”

You shifted, resting your forehead against his chest. “You’re too nice.”

He laughed softly. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is. To me.”

“Because you think kindness is conditional.”

You tensed. Spencer didn’t press—just waited. He always did. After a long, loaded silence, you sighed. “You ever wish I was… easier?”

“Never,” he said without pause. “But I do wish you’d believe me when I tell you I can handle you.”

He tilted your chin, coaxing your gaze up. “Let me take care of you.”

Spencer kissed you—soft and sweet. One of his hands slipped under your shirt to find your breast, his thumb circled your nipple, drawing a breathless moan from your lips.

“You’re still sore,” he whispered, voice wrecked with restraint.

“Yeah,” you said, pulling his hand lower.

“So I’ll be gentle.” he says looking up at you as you rolled your eyes, but then he dipped lower, and your protest dissolved into a moan as his tongue flicked over your nipple, hand kneading the other breast with careful, practiced affection.

He shifted between your thighs, letting his fingers dip beneath your panties, grazing the tender, swollen ache that pulsed just beneath your skin. You gasped, as he lowered his head kissing down your stomach to your inner thighs. His soft lips brushing over your swollen sore clit. He placed a small warm kiss on it before beginning to slowly lap your needy cunt.

You writhed against the sheets, grabbing at his hair, your sleepy huffs melting into broken gasps as he licked slow, deliberate strokes against your clit, sucking just enough to make your hips twitch.

“You taste so good in the morning,” he groaned, the vibrations making you sob.

You’d argue, but then two fingers pressed inside you and curled just right, and all you could do was whine. He worked you like he’d invented the concept of orgasms, coaxing you into one with lazy precision.

“Spence—fuck, Spencer—”

You arched off the mattress, legs trembling as you came with a cry, yanking his curls so hard he moaned into your cunt.

He didn’t stop until you whined again, batting at his shoulders. When he finally rose back up, his lips were slick, his eyes feral.

“Still hate me?” he asked, grinning.

“Yes,” you rasped, breathless. “But it’s deeply confusing.”

He kissed you again, messy and hot. “Then let me confuse you a little more baby.”

Your heart stuttered. God, you hated how much you liked when he called you that. “Spence—please—”

He kissed you again. “Can I fuck you?”

You whimpered. “God, yes.”

He climbed over you slowly, pushing your knees apart, guiding himself against your slick entrance. He stayed there for a beat, just holding—just being—before sinking into you with a groan.

You clawed at his back. “You said gentle.”

“This is gentle,” he rasped. “You feel too good.”

He moved slow, deep—each thrust a careful, devastating drag that had you writhing beneath him in seconds.

“I love you like this,” he whispered. “Fucked out and mean.” You whimpered something unintelligible, thighs shaking.

“I love you when you’re soft,” he continued. “I love you when you’re screaming at me. I love you when you can’t even look me in the eye.”

You tried to protest—you always tried—but then he angled his hips just right, and all that left your mouth was a broken moan.

“Let go,” he whispered as you came, clinging to him, breath stuttering in his ear. “Good girl,” he murmured, when you started to pant. “Just like that.” He followed soon after, pulsing deep inside you with a soft grunt and a kiss to your jaw.

For a long moment, there was only breathing. And then you whispered, voice hoarse, “I think I hate mornings a little less now.”

He laughed, holding you close. “I’ll convert you yet,” he said.

You smirked, resting your cheek against his chest. “We’ll see. You still have to survive me throwing a mug at your head.”

“I told you.” He kissed the top of your hair. “I’ll duck.”

a/n: this fic made me blush I love them

[hananothannah]

[earthtomia]

criminal minds recs

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ aaron hotchner

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ spencer reid

[hananothannah]

i hope you got eaten every night

[geminiwritten]

── profiled ; aaron hotchner

summary: you've spent years convincing the bau that your love life is chaotic, casual, and completely detached—while quietly dying every time aaron hotchner looks at you. but when your dating profile attracts the wrong kind of attention and your unit chief is forced to look a little closer, it turns out there are very few things more dangerous than being profiled by the man you're hopelessly in love with.

notes: i've been a little conflicted about posting lately, but... it's my birthday, and i want aaron hotchner—so here you go! i've been working on this for a while and had a very very smart friend help me with the "profiling" parts (especially reid) so i hope y'all enjoy! i also really wanted to actually write the smut, but this fic hit the block limit so hard and fast it actually hurt. as always, please please let me know what you think!

warnings: swearing / cursing, blushing, italics, reader wears a skirt (and heels), reader has a cat, implied age gap, best friend!reid, some pretentious ranting, horny thoughts, likely incorrect behavioural and psychoanalytical information, likely incorrect technical information (sorry garcia), canon-typical themes (homicide, etc. referred to off page), stalker / stalking behaviour, ambiguous use of "online dating" (because i tried to keep it vaguely around s6/s7 era), kind of rushed ending? and... fade to black / implied sex (i’m so sorry) 18+ only still, mdni.

word count: 19001

MONDAY 9:25AM

Working for the FBI means having secrets is difficult. Working with the BAU makes it downright impossible.

Not because your colleagues are nosy—no, they’re just… perceptive. Which means if you want to keep something to yourself, you need to know how to manipulate their perception. Even if it doesn’t work on all of them—you glance at Reid, already seated at the round table with his nose buried in a book—at least it works on most of them.

At least, it works on Aaron Hotchner.

Your boss. Your unit chief. The man who absolutely cannot find out about your big, fat, massively inconvenient, deeply inappropriate crush on him.

Reid glances up from his book as you drop into the seat beside him. “You’re wearing a skirt.”

You cross your legs and lean back. “Excellent observation, Reid.”

“It’s impractical,” he says simply. “Especially with heels. Your centre of gravity shifts forward by almost fifteen degrees, which shortens your stride length and reduces balance recovery time. You’re significantly more likely to trip while running.”

You roll your eyes. “Good thing I’m not planning on fleeing the scene of a crime today.”

“Ignore boy genius, baby girl,” Morgan says as he steps into the room, heading straight for the espresso machine. “You look good.”

You flash him a grin. “See? Somebody appreciates me.”

Reid hums as he glances back down at his book. “Interesting how your clothing choices become statistically less practical in direct correlation to Hotch’s proximity.”

Your stomach flips. “Spence.”

He lifts one shoulder. “What? He’s not listening.”

You glance back at Morgan, whose eyes are glued to his phone, brow furrowed just slightly as he waits for the whirring coffee machine to fill his cup.

“That’s not the point, Spencer,” you mutter, turning back to him. “You need to—”

The conference room door swings open again and Hotch walks in—files tucked under one arm, the rest of the team trailing behind him.

“Morning,” he says, dropping the files on the table. “Hope everyone had a good weekend.”

Morgan snorts. “What weekend?”

“Yeah,” Prentiss mutters, dropping into the seat beside Reid. “I was here until five on Saturday finishing geographical profiles.”

“That’s because you alphabetise your paperwork,” you point out.

She gives you a look. “I enjoy being proficient.”

“Well,” you say lightly, leaning back in your chair “some of us managed to finish our paperwork on Friday and still have a very enjoyable weekend.”

Garcia gasps dramatically as she falls into the last empty chair, coffee in hand. “Ooh, look at you. Was there a man involved?”

You shrug one shoulder, biting back a smile. “I’m choosing to plead the fifth.”

Morgan points across the table. “That means yes.”

“Or,” Reid says without looking up from his book, “it means she enjoys making people speculate.”

“Aw, Spence,” you tease. “Don’t sound so bitter.”

He finally looks up from his book and fixes you with a look so flat it borders on threatening—because he knows what you’re doing. It’s what you always do. It’s how you manipulate their perception. How you keep your secret.

You perform.

You scroll through dating profiles, talk about men, brag about your weekends without ever being too specific. You flirt with almost everyone on the team—Reid more than the rest, because he’s your scapegoat... and your best friend.

He’s the only one who can see through the charade. Not because he’s emotionally perceptive, but because he did the math. He noticed the pattern. He realised very quickly that every time Hotch walks into a room or says your name, you react in a way that can only mean one thing:

Hotch is the secret you’re trying so hard to hide.

Because if you give a team of profilers an easy explanation—harmless flirting with a messy dating life and a weakness for attention—they won’t notice the way your entire body betrays you whenever your infuriatingly gorgeous boss gets too close.

Hotch clears his throat. “Well, lucky for all of you, it’s a quiet week.”

Reid shuts his book and sets it on the table.

“No active cases as of this morning,” Hotch continues. “Which means we’ll be catching up on consults, court reports, and the mountain of paperwork everyone’s apparently been neglecting.”

His eyes meet yours for the briefest second, and your pulse skitters.

“I’m bored already,” Morgan sighs, leaning back in his chair.

Hotch ignores him. “We’ve got two local consult requests from Fairfax County and a follow-up review from the Richardson case. Dave, I’ll need your notes finalised by this afternoon.”

Rossi nods once. “You’ll have them.”

“Garcia,” Hotch continues, “the Milwaukee office wants that digital forensic review by Wednesday.”

Garcia gasps softly, pressing a hand to her chest. “But I already colour-coded my entire week. That review wasn’t supposed to be due for another fortnight.”

Morgan blinks. “You colour-code your schedule?”

“Obviously,” Garcia says. “How else would I maintain my sparkling personality under crushing institutional pressure?”

Reid straightens. “Technically, organising information activates the same reward pathways as—”

“Don’t,” Prentiss says immediately.

Reid frowns slightly. “I was just going to say gambling.”

You snort softly before you can stop yourself, covering it quickly with your hand. Reid shoots you a look. Prentiss just shakes her head. And when your eyes finally flick back to the front of the room, Hotch is already watching you.

Not the team. You.

Your stomach twists.

That signature Hotchner scowl should not be as hot as it is. It shouldn’t make you cross your legs a little tighter or make your heart race the way it does. You should be used to that scowl by now. You’re on the receiving end of it often enough—whenever you crack a poorly timed joke or flirt a little too hard with Morgan.

Yet somehow, you still feel like you can’t breathe until his gaze finally shifts.

“Moving on,” he says evenly, “JJ will forward the consult details after the meeting.”

He spends the next thirty minutes briefing the team on consults and court appearances while you do your best to stay focused—but it’s hard. It’s hard because every time you look at him, your gaze drops to his mouth and your mind fills with all sorts of filthy ideas. Then he starts moving his hands as he explains something and you can’t help but wonder what they might feel like wrapped around your waist, your thighs, your throat.

His voice is a low rumble at the back of your mind, warm and firm, but you have no idea what he’s actually saying. All you can do is think about how that voice might sound, wrecked and rough, telling you how pretty you look when you—

“The briefing ended three minutes ago,” Reid says.

You blink hard. “What?”

He closes his notebook with a sigh. “The meeting’s over. You can stop internally monologuing now.”

You frown. “I’m not—”

He gives you a look.

“Ugh,” you groan. “You’re so annoying.”

You push up from your chair and walk out of the conference room without waiting for him, but you’re not surprised that he’s right behind you by the time you reach the bullpen. You drop down at your desk with another indignant huff, watching Reid do the same from the corner of your eye.

Everyone else is already settled at their desks—keyboards clicking, pens scribbling—and there’s a fresh stack of files next to your computer with a sticky note on top that reads: Fairfax files. Prioritize pages 12–18. – Hotch.

You want to laugh at the little sign-off, as if anyone else would have put these files on your desk. Your fingers trace over the note once before you peel it off and stick it to the bottom corner of your computer screen.

Reid snorts. “You know most people throw those away, right?”

You glance sideways at him. “I don’t want to forget the page numbers.”

He hums. “Sure.”

“You know,” you say, turning your chair to properly face him, “you’re being particularly judgemental today. What’s your problem?”

He stares at you for a moment, then glances back at the sticky note still attached to your monitor.

“I’m experiencing prolonged second-hand embarrassment,” he says plainly. “And repeated exposure tends to increase irritability.”

You roll your eyes. “Yeah, well—you’re increasing my irritability.”

He nods. “Good.”

You frown.

“I’m attempting corrective behavioural conditioning.”

Your eyes narrow. “By being annoying?”

“Exactly,” he says, already turning back to his computer.

You glare at the side of his head for a long moment, searching for a comeback—but your mind is completely blank. So with another irritated sigh, you turn back to your own screen, scoot your chair into the desk a little harder than necessary, and settle in for what’s shaping up to be a very boring Monday.

The next two hours pass by in a blur of interview transcripts, witness statements, and crime scene photos. The Fairfax County PD files detail the death of a woman in her late thirties who accidentally overdosed in her Reston home early last week. No prior history of substance abuse, financial instability, or high-risk behaviour—until forty-eight hours before her death.

In just two days, she withdrew a large amount of money, missed work without explanation, visited several bars she’d never been to before, and bought herself thousands of dollars’ worth of expensive jewellery and lingerie.

To anyone else, it might look like some sort of breakdown—an impulsive spiral that led to the kind of recklessness you can’t come back from. But to you, the behaviour feels too... artificial. As if someone is trying to construct the narrative of a troubled woman—checking all the right boxes to give investigators an easy explanation for a tragic overdose.

Only there isn’t enough concrete evidence to support your instinct. No stalker. No ex. No clear unsub who could have orchestrated this kind of ruse to cover what might actually be homicide.

You sigh. “Reid.”

“Hm?”

“Tell me if I’m overthinking this.”

Reid pushes back from his desk and scoots across the narrow stretch of carpet between your workstations. He doesn’t stop until his chair bumps the side of your desk, causing your pen cup to topple over and spill across the files you’ve got carefully laid out.

“Oops,” he says absently, pushing the pens aside.

You roll your eyes and start gathering them while he scans the files.

“The behavioural shift feels manufactured,” you say, dropping the pens back into their cup. “But there’s enough legitimate stressors here that I can’t tell if I’m forcing a pattern because it’s too clean.”

Reid examines the highlighted timeline for another few seconds.

“You’re focusing too much on the existence of the stressors,” he says. “Stress explains escalation. It doesn’t explain inconsistency.”

You frown slightly.

“She suddenly becomes impulsive socially, financially, and sexually, but her organisational habits never change.” He taps the timeline. “She still pays bills early. Still meal preps. Still attends a dentist appointment two days before her death. Real behavioural deterioration isn’t usually selective.”

Your brows lift. “So, I’m right?”

Reid nods, leaning back in his chair. “You’re right.”

“What’s she right about?”

You nearly jump at the sound of Hotch’s voice—low and even, a little rough around the edges in that way that always makes your stomach tighten.

“She thinks the behavioural shift is staged,” Reid says. “And I agree.”

He scoots back slightly as Hotch leans in, one hand braced on the back of your chair while the other pulls the file closer so he can read it properly. His tie falls forward, brushing lightly against your thigh—and suddenly, you can’t breathe.

He’s close. Way too close. You can feel the heat of his breath on your skin. Smell the bitterness of coffee beneath his cologne. Hear the quiet creak of leather from his belt as he leans in further.

“It’s too compartmentalised,” Reid says, his voice more distant than it was just a second ago. “Real behavioural spirals usually bleed into every aspect of a person’s routine. Sleep disruption, missed payments, changes in grooming habits, social withdrawal—something.”

Hotch lifts his hand off the desk and presses his thumb to the tip of his tongue—then flips the page.

Your pulse jumps so hard it almost hurts. Heat crawls up the back of your neck. Your whole body feels too hot, your clothes suddenly too tight, the bullpen too small—but you can’t move. Not with Hotch’s hand still on the back of your chair.

“But this is curated,” Reid goes on, tapping the timeline with the end of his pen. “The impulsive behaviour escalates while the foundational routines stay completely intact, which suggests intentional narrative construction.”

Hotch turns his head just slightly, dark eyes finding yours. “You caught that?”

You clear your throat. “I just... thought the escalation pattern felt off.”

“Her behavioural analysis is spot on, actually,” Reid says. “I can’t find a flaw in it.”

Hotch hums quietly as his eyes move back over the file.

“Good girl,” he says absently.

Your entire nervous system short-circuits.

“Keep it up,” he adds, smoothing his tie as he straightens.

You don’t say anything as he turns and walks away. You couldn’t even if you wanted to.

Reid just sits there, hands folded in his lap as he watches Hotch disappear into his office before slowly turning back toward you.

“You know,” he says thoughtfully, “the age-gap preference is actually more interesting than the authority fixation.”

You finally blink. “What?”

“Because the authority thing makes perfect sense. High-pressure careers tend to reinforce attraction to competence, decisiveness, emotional restraint—especially in workplace environments where leadership qualities become psychologically linked with safety and stability over long periods of exposure.”

You frown. “What are you—”

“But the older man preference is statistically more complicated because you don’t actually display the attachment markers usually associated with paternal absence or instability.”

Your eyes go wide. “Spencer—”

“You have a healthy relationship with your father, no documented authority issues, and relatively secure interpersonal attachment patterns, which suggests the preference is less psychologically compensatory and more rooted in behavioural reinforcement.”

“Reid.”

“For example,” he goes on, ignoring you completely, “you spent your formative professional years surrounded almost exclusively by older men in positions of intellectual and behavioural authority. Gideon, Rossi, Hotch—which likely created a reinforcement pattern where emotional competence became unconsciously associated with attraction, arousal, and sexual interest.”

You freeze. “Reid, I swear to—”

“You don’t react this strongly to older men generally,” he continues. “You react strongly to Hotch because he’s emotionally controlled, professionally authoritative, intellectually intimidating, and—”

He pauses, tilting his head.

“Very obviously your type.”

You glance frantically around the bullpen, scanning the desks for the rest of your team.

Morgan has his headphones on, completely focused on whatever report he’s typing. JJ’s desk is empty, as usual—she’s probably with Garcia. And Prentiss is only halfway back from the kitchen, still stirring her fresh cup of coffee.

Your gaze cuts back to Reid. “You are so lucky no one heard that, Spencer.”

He shrugs. “Wouldn’t matter if they did.”

Your brows pull together. “What’s that mean?”

“You’re good at redirecting attention,” he says, slowly pushing his chair back toward his desk. “You’re less good at hiding physiological responses.”

Your hand flies up to your cheek, palm pressing flat against the burning skin.

“Whatever,” you mutter. “It’s warm in here.”

Reid glances around the bullpen. “It’s sixty-eight degrees.”

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

You shoot him one last glare before turning back toward your computer, aggressively waking up the monitor with your mouse.

You stay chained to your desk for the next few hours, finishing up the victimology report for the Fairfax files before taking them to Rossi for final review. Then you head out with JJ to grab a late lunch from the deli down the street, and when you get back, there’s a brand-new stack of files on your desk—only this time, with a tall takeaway cup of coffee set on top.

“Hotch got dragged into some last-minute Section Chief meeting across town,” Morgan says, pushing his headphones down. “Said he needs those cross-referenced before tomorrow morning.”

“Great,” you mutter, dropping into your chair.

Morgan chuckles softly as he pulls his headphones back up, turning back to his own pile of reports.

You grab the coffee from the top of the files and find a sticky note stuck beneath it—written quickly but still in his unmistakable handwriting: I owe you one. – Hotch.

Your stomach flips.

God. That’s pathetic.

You peel the note off and drop it into the top drawer of your desk, not wanting another psychoanalytic lecture from Reid if he were to spot that note stuck to your monitor.

The rest of the day passes the way every other caseless Monday afternoon does. JJ’s the first to head out—not long after five—taking advantage of the slow week to spend a little extra time with Henry. Rossi leaves about an hour later, announcing to the bullpen that he’s got a date with a bottle of wine and reruns of his favourite medical drama. Morgan manages to clear the files on his desk before seven, finally putting his headphones away before bidding the rest of the team farewell.

Prentiss and Reid linger until nearly nine, and only when the motion sensor lights blink out does Prentiss finally glance up, realising how late it is. She gathers her things and nudges Reid, who’s been firmly stuck in hyperfocus mode despite the rest of the world quietly slowing down around him.

“You coming?” he asks, adjusting the strap of his satchel.

You look up slowly, your brain buffering as it untangles itself from the files spread across your desk.

“Not yet,” you reply, blinking tiredly. “Hotch needs these by morning.”

Reid tilts his head. “Want me to wait?”

You wave a hand. “Nah, go ahead. I’ll get security to walk me to my car.”

“Alright,” he says, already turning away. “Just remember that positive reinforcement loses effectiveness when the subject becomes emotionally dependent on it.”

You glare at his back. “I’m reporting you to HR.”

“You’d have to explain the context,” he calls over his shoulder.

You roll your eyes as you turn back to the last file on your desk, taking a deep breath and flipping it open.

With the bullpen almost completely silent and the promise of sleep so close you can taste it, you manage to get through it in record time. You even give it a quick second pass to make sure you didn’t miss anything glaringly obvious in your tired state—but you’re used to working through sleep deprivation, and by ten p.m., you finally start packing up.

You organise the files back into a neat pile, then open the top drawer of your desk for Hotch’s note. You stick it to the top file and grab a pen, scribbling just below the words he wrote: Dangerous thing to promise me.

And, just as he did, you sign off with your name.

Then you gather the whole stack in your arms and cross the bullpen toward his office. Unlocked, as usual. You nudge the door open with your foot, warm lamplight casting an orange glow over the quiet space. It smells faintly like coffee and his cologne—enough to make your heart start racing the second you step inside.

You set the files neatly on his desk, trying not to linger on the quiet traces of him scattered throughout the room.

There’s still half a mug of cold coffee abandoned beside some paperwork, and the cashmere sweater he’d been wearing beneath his jacket this morning is draped haphazardly over the back of his chair. Quiet evidence of just how suddenly he’d been called away.

It makes you feel a little better knowing you really have helped him out.

You adjust the files until they’re perfectly straight, then take the sweater from the back of his chair and fold it neatly before setting it on the chest of drawers beside his desk. You hesitate for just a second before grabbing the mug of cold coffee and heading out of his office, straight for the break room. You empty it, wash it, dry it, then return to his office, placing it back on his desk exactly where you found it. Then you switch the lamp off on your way out, pulling the door most of the way shut behind you—the way it’d been before you stepped inside.

It doesn’t take long for you to gather your things, head down to security, and badge out. One of the guards escorts you to the parking garage, waiting until you’re safely inside your car with the engine running before he takes the elevator back up.

Once home, you quickly feed the yowling Leia—your cat, who’s very unimpressed by your late arrival—take a quick shower, change into your comfiest, threadbare sleep shirt, then crawl into bed with your laptop balanced on your knees. You know you should just try to get some sleep, but you’ve been ignoring a few personal messages and emails for a couple days now, and you know that if you don’t get to them soon, you’ll start to feel guilty.

You open your emails, reply to a couple, then pull up a new browser tab and type in the login address for the dating site Garcia set you up for. Not that you couldn’t have set up your own profile if you’d really wanted to.

No—this profile is just the unintentional byproduct of your ongoing attempt to redirect attention.

One slow Thursday evening in the bullpen, while you’d been loudly complaining about how impossible it was to meet men with a job like yours, Morgan had the brilliant idea of making you a dating profile. Garcia immediately lit up at the idea, pulling the site up on her computer while Reid launched into a rambling statistical analysis about the probability of finding genuine compatibility online.

Hotch hadn’t contributed to the conversation, but you’d known he was listening.

That had been the whole point. You always perform a little harder when Hotch can hear.

The site finally loads and you type in your credentials, waiting a few seconds for your profile to pop up.

Twelve notifications.

You click on the ‘messages’ tab and start scrolling. There are a few old conversations that fizzled out and you’ve long since decided not to reply to. There are a couple of messages from people you never intend on starting a conversation with. Then there are two new messages—ones you’d seen pop up on your phone but couldn’t be bothered to engage with over the weekend.

After all, you’re not actually looking to date anyone.

But one of the messages catches your eye.

DCRunner00: You seem like the kind of person who’s either very funny or very mean. I’m willing to risk it.

You snort, then type out a reply.

You: Unfortunately for you, those traits aren’t mutually exclusive.

Just as you hit enter, Leia leaps up onto the bed.

“Hey, sassy girl,” you coo, moving your laptop to reach for her.

Your fingers graze her soft coat, and she gives you an incredibly disapproving look.

You roll your eyes. “Alright. Sorry for loving you.”

You settle back against the pillows as she makes her way to the other side of the bed, curling up as far as she can possibly get from you.

Ping! Ping! Two more messages pop up.

DCRunner00: That’s probably the best possible answer you could’ve given. DCRunner00: So what’s your worst personality trait? I feel like that’s more interesting than hobbies.

That answer comes a little too easily.

You: Workaholic. You? DCRunner00: I get bored easily. DCRunner00: Which usually means I either start running or annoying people for entertainment. You: Sounds like a public safety issue. DCRunner00: Depends who you ask. DCRunner00: You should probably get some sleep, Workaholic. It’s late.

You glance over at Leia as she rolls onto her side, stretching her front legs, and only then do you realise you were actually smiling at your screen.

You shake your head, typing quickly.

You: Yeah, I should. You: Night, Running Man.

Then you shut your laptop before he can send another message.

TUESDAY 9:50AM

“Morgan, you’re with me at district court this afternoon,” Hotch says, closing the file in front of him. “The defence attorney’s pushing back on the Richardson testimony, so we’ll need to review our timeline before the hearing.”

He’s wearing a grey suit today.

You can never think straight when he’s wearing a grey suit.

Morgan sighs dramatically. “Nothing says excitement like four hours in a courthouse basement.”

Hotch ignores him completely.

“JJ, I want the media requests filtered through Strauss’s office before lunch. Reid, finish the geographic overlays from the Fairfax case and send them to Rossi when you’re done.”

He glances once around the table.

“If anything urgent comes in, you’ll be notified. Otherwise, continue using this downtime to catch up on reports.”

Then he gathers the files into a neat stack and stands, turning toward the door.

The rest of the room starts moving slowly. Morgan mutters something to JJ about the court hearing, Prentiss turns to Reid, asking something about a case you don’t quite catch, and Garcia is already explaining something on her laptop to Rossi, who’s watching the screen with quiet concentration.

Which leaves you to shamelessly stare at your boss’ ass as he walks out of the room.

“You should probably blink.”

Your head snaps toward Reid, frown already forming. “I’ll blink when I want to blink.”

He presses his lips together to keep from laughing, and you know he’s fighting the urge to launch into some deeply unwanted psychoanalysis of your behaviour—but thankfully, the rest of the team is still too close for him to risk it.

Eventually, everyone starts filing out of the conference room and back into the bullpen. You end up being the last to leave, behind Reid and Garcia who are chatting animatedly about some new phone app they’re both obsessed with.

You’re just about to pass Hotch’s office door when—you hear your name.

You turn your head, and he gestures for you to come in.

Reid glances briefly over his shoulder, an irritatingly knowing look on his face as you turn and step into Hotch’s office.

You clear your throat, stopping a few feet from the desk. “Sir?”

“How late were you here last night?” he asks.

You lift a shoulder. “About ten.”

His jaw shifts as he leans back in his chair. “That’s late.”

“Morgan said you needed them done by the morning.”

“I didn’t mean first thing,” he says, smoothing the end of his tie. “You could’ve finished the rest before lunch.”

You blink. “Oh.”

His gaze holds yours for a second too long.

“You don’t need to stay late to impress me.”

Your eyes widen slightly before you force out a small, awkward laugh. “Oh—uh—good to know.”

He glances briefly at the navy-blue cashmere sweater still folded neatly on the chest of drawers.

“Still,” he says, lower this time. “I appreciated it. The files, and… everything else.”

Your breath catches softly in your throat.

“Anytime, sir,” you manage.

He nods once, then drops his gaze back to the paperwork on his desk.

You don’t need any more of a dismissal than that, so you turn quickly and step out, pulling the door shut behind you. He prefers it closed, even if he won’t admit it because he doesn’t want the team to think he’s shutting them out. He’s just more comfortable in private—it helps him focus.

By the time you get back to your desk, everyone else is already settled and working quietly. Not even Reid glances up or offers a teasing remark.

You drop into your chair and wriggle your mouse, grabbing your phone while you wait for the screen to wake up.

Two new messages from DCRunner00.

DCRunner00: Running Man? DCRunner00: Great book. Slightly concerning nickname, though.

You can’t help yourself, so you type out a quick reply.

You: Better than ‘Workaholic’. You: You read Stephen King?

“Hey, you busy?”

You glance over at Reid. “Aren’t we all?”

He tilts his head. “You’re on your phone.”

“I could be working.”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“Good,” he says, shuffling the files on his desk. “Hotch wants us to prep the full geographic and timeline package for the Fairfax files in case it turns into an active investigation.”

You sigh, already pushing back from your desk. “And by ‘us’ you mean...?”

“I could use your help.”

“Fine,” you mutter, setting your phone down.

He scoots over as you roll your chair toward his desk, settling in beside him. The files are all laid out, including your victimology report with Rossi’s few annotations. There are crime scene reports, autopsy summaries, witness statements, geographic overlays, and maps—everything needed to justify escalating the case into a full BAU investigation.

“Where do you want to start?”

“I’m trying to rebuild the geographic timeline digitally,” he says, “but half the field reports were logged out of sequence and now the movement patterns don’t align.”

You nod. “Okay, walk me through where it stops making sense.”

Three hours later, you feel like your eyeballs are bleeding. You’ve read the same witness statement at least twenty times now, but with every pass it only makes less sense. How could Annabelle Hutton possibly be placed in two different counties less than forty minutes apart?

“It’s physically impossible,” you mutter, rubbing your eyes.

Reid hums quietly beside you. “Not necessarily.”

You stare at him. “Care to elaborate?”

“Well, depending on traffic conditions, inaccurate timestamp reporting, and the reliability of eyewitness memory retention, there are at least four scenarios where the timeline could still technically work.”

You sigh, leaning back in your chair and staring up at the ceiling. “If you know so much, then why can’t you figure this out?”

He still doesn’t turn away from his screen. “I will. Eventually.”

You groan softly, dragging both hands down your face just as a familiar voice cuts through the quiet bullpen.

“No, listen to me carefully.”

Both you and Reid glance up automatically.

Hotch is walking slowly past the desks with his phone pressed to his ear, expression calm but impossibly stern in a way that immediately makes heat crawl beneath your skin.

“You don’t need to explain the problem again,” he says evenly. “You need to tell me how you’re fixing it.”

He pauses briefly beside Reid’s desk, listening.

“Then prioritise the transfer first,” he says. “If the paperwork isn’t filed before opposing counsel reviews discovery, the timeline becomes vulnerable and the entire testimony gets picked apart.”

He rests a hand on the partition between the desks, gaze fixed somewhere distant as he listens to the person on the other end.

“No,” he says after a moment, voice lower now. “I’m not asking you to stay late. I’m telling you this needs to be finished tonight.”

Your stomach flips.

This absolutely should not be as hot as it is.

“Good,” he says calmly into the phone, straightening again. “Call me when it’s done.”

Then he keeps walking, cutting through the bullpen before turning sharply toward his office.

You stare after him, the thought slipping out before you can stop it. “Do you think he talks you through it?”

“Probably,” Reid says, turning back to his screen. “High-control personalities usually prefer maintaining verbal direction in intimate situations because it reinforces predictability and compliance dynamics.”

You go still. You hadn’t actually expected an answer.

“Someone like Hotch would probably place a pretty high psychological value on responsiveness,” Reid continues. “The immediate compliance aspect reinforces authority, which means verbal direction would likely become part of the overall intimacy dynamic rather than just communication.”

Your face heats.

“Especially because he’s not impulsive enough to rely on unpredictability. He’d want constant awareness of how the other person is responding emotionally and physically, so talking them through things would help maintain control of the situation while also reinforcing trust.”

Oh my God.

“And honestly,” Reid goes on, “people with highly structured leadership personalities usually develop pretty strong positive associations with obedience because it confirms stability, attentiveness, emotional investment—” He pauses briefly. “Which means he’d probably find it disproportionately attractive when someone follows instructions immediately or responds well to praise because it validates both the authority dynamic and the emotional trust beneath it, so statistically speaking he’d—”

He stops.

Then slowly turns toward you.

“...I crossed a social boundary somewhere in there, didn’t I?”

You nod slowly, your voice coming out unnaturally high. “Just a couple.”

He sighs, dropping his chin slightly as he turns back to his screen.

You huff out a breathless laugh and lean back in your chair again. You need a minute to recover from that, because now you’re hot all over and the only thing you can think about is your boss hovering over you, praising you in that low, steady voice while his hand settles around your throat—

Fortunately, it doesn’t take Reid long to start rambling about geographic overlays again. You do your best to focus on what he’s saying, but after another hour of scrutinising the timeline inconsistencies, you decide you need an actual break.

You grab your phone and your jacket and head out of the office, sending a quick text to the team chat asking if anyone else would like a coffee from the cafe down the road. It’s a thousand times better than break room coffee.

When you step out of the elevator on the ground floor, you bring up your messages with DCRunner00. You’re not sure why, because normally you only check your profile when you feel like you need to keep up the act, but something about this guy keeps making you want to reply.

DCRunner00: I’ve read a few. DCRunner00: What does a workaholic do for fun?

You type your reply as you step out of the building.

You: Work, mostly. You: And sleep.

By the time you return to the office with a tray of four coffees, you have two new messages—but you can’t reply to them until you set the tray down at your desk.

“Thanks, pretty girl,” Morgan says as he takes one, flashing you a grin.

You smile back. “Anything for you, gorgeous.”

Then you pull your phone out of your pocket and bring up the message thread.

DCRunner00: What’s your schedule even like? DCRunner00: You strike me as an “answers emails at midnight” type of person. You: Nah. That’s my boss. You: My schedule is chaos, though.

“Thanks,” Reid says as he takes his coffee, leaving only two.

You set your phone down and take the last two coffees out of the tray, leaving one at your desk before taking the other to Hotch’s office. You can see through the window that he’s not on the phone—for once—so you knock twice on the slightly ajar door before stepping inside.

He glances up, his brows pulling together slightly. “I didn’t ask for coffee.”

“I know,” you say quickly. “But it’s almost three, and you always need another coffee around three, and I figured you probably didn’t answer the team message because you still feel bad about me staying so late last night, which you shouldn’t, by the way.”

He straightens, brows drawing tighter.

“And I know you’ve got court with Morgan this afternoon, and you’re going to try to leave early, but someone’s definitely going to call at the last second and derail that plan, so you’ll only have enough time to get to the courthouse—not enough time to stop for coffee.”

You set the cup down in front of him.

“So,” you tilt your head, “coffee.”

He leans back in his chair, studying you for a second.

“That’s some pretty solid profiling, Agent.”

Your face heats instantly.

“Well,” you say, backing slowly toward the door, “maybe now you owe me two.”

The corner of his mouth lifts, just slightly, but it’s enough for the butterflies in your stomach to explode. You can’t help but grin as you turn away, slipping quickly out the door before your lungs forget how to work entirely.

You spend the rest of the day at Reid’s desk, finishing the case package for the Fairfax files and complaining about unreliable witnesses. Hotch and Morgan head off to court just after three, announcing to the rest of the team that they won’t be back. JJ is the first to head home again around five, followed by Prentiss, then Rossi—then you and Reid finally decide to call it a day just after six.

Which is also when you finally check your messages again.

DCRunner00: Chaos how?

You type a quick reply while you wait for your car’s AC to warm up.

You: Long hours. You: Weird hours. You: And a deeply unhealthy relationship with caffeine.

Then you tuck your phone away and head out of the parking garage.

Leia is already yowling by the time you step through your apartment door. She’s always hungry, even though she has an automatic feeder for dry food—but apparently that isn’t good enough. She prefers the wet stuff.

You quickly peel open a packet of fishy-smelling chicken jelly sludge and drop it into her bowl before washing your hands and moving into your bedroom. You flip the ensuite light on and start the shower, pulling your phone out of your pocket while you wait for the water to warm.

DCRunner00: Ah. So you’re one of those people. You: Rude.

He replies almost immediately.

DCRunner00: Accurate, though? You: Unfortunately.

You drop your phone on the bed and start undressing.

Ping!

DCRunner00: What do you actually do?

You hesitate. It’s not like you can just say you’re in the FBI. Contrary to what some people might think, real FBI agents can’t just go around bragging about their highly classified work status. It’s dangerous.

You: Mostly admin. You: Governmental stuff.

You toss your phone back onto the bed and turn into the steamy ensuite. You shower quickly, dry off, run product through your damp hair, then pull on a shirt and a pair of sweatpants before heading back out into the kitchen.

You’re not in the mood to cook tonight, so you grab a protein bar out of the cupboard and start boiling the kettle while you check your phone for what feels like the hundredth time.

DCRunner00: Sounds boring. DCRunner00: Do you get days off, though?

You drop a teabag into your mug before typing out a reply.

You: Sort of. You: But if my boss calls, I answer.

He replies instantly again.

DCRunner00: I’m starting to think you secretly enjoy being overworked. You: I think I’d get bored otherwise.

You pour the boiling water into your mug and watch his next reply pop up.

DCRunner00: That sounds suspiciously unhealthy. You: Probably. What about you? What do you do?

You tuck your phone into your pocket, then grab your tea and protein bar and head to the couch. There’s nothing you’re really interested in watching—since you don’t usually have the time to keep up with any shows—so you turn on the nightly news before grabbing your laptop and pulling up a new browser.

He’s already replied by the time you log in.

DCRunner00: Run. DCRunner00: Read. DCRunner00: Annoy people professionally. You: That sounds made up.

You open your protein bar.

DCRunner00: It mostly is. DCRunner00: So your boss actually calls you outside work hours?

You hesitate at the sudden redirection. Most men on dating apps prefer talking about themselves. Their jobs, hobbies, gym routines, childhood dogs—whatever makes them seem interesting—but this guy seems far more interested in observing than being observed.

You type out a vague response.

You: Sometimes. You: Occupational hazard, I guess. DCRunner00: And you always answer? You: Pretty much. You: He’d only call if it mattered.

His next reply takes almost two minutes to come through.

DCRunner00: Hm. DCRunner00: I’m starting to think your boss gets more attention than I do.

You almost choke on your tea.

That’s... weird.

Maybe you have mentioned your boss a little more than strictly necessary, but he’s the one asking all the questions about your job. It’s a little hard not to mention your boss when your life practically revolves around him—in more ways than you care to admit.

You: Jealous already, Running Man? DCRunner00: Should I be?

You sit up straighter, suddenly a little nauseous.

You: I think you’re spending too much time talking to strangers online. DCRunner00: Maybe. DCRunner00: You still replied, though.

“Okay,” you say, startling Leia who was half-asleep on the other end of the couch. “That’s enough.”

You: I’m going to sleep. You: Try not to spiral while I’m gone.

His last message pops up just before you shut your laptop.

DCRunner00: No promises.

WEDNESDAY 8:10AM

“Come on,” you mutter, mashing the elevator button for the doors to close.

You’re a whole thirty minutes earlier than usual this morning. You didn’t even make a coffee in your travel mug before running out the door. You just woke up, brushed your teeth, checked your messages—and decided you needed to talk to Garcia immediately.

“Hey—woah.” Reid steps out of your way as you rush into the bullpen. “You’re early.”

You drop your bag on your desk and quickly shrug off your jacket.

“Is Garcia in yet?”

He frowns slightly. “I think so. Why?”

You pull your laptop out of your bag.

“I just—I need her.”

You’re already walking away before he can press any further, moving back through the bullpen with your laptop hugged against your chest. You’re just about to round the corner toward the elevators when—

“Hey—” Hotch stops short just as you nearly run into him. “Slow down. You alright?”

His hand is hovering near your waist—not quite touching, but close enough for you to feel its warmth.

You blink up at him. “Sorry. Yeah. Uh—totally fine. Just going to see Garcia about... a case.”

His brows pull together slightly.

“Alright, well, Garcia’s not going anywhere,” he says evenly. “Take a breath.”

You nod slowly, already stepping around him.

“Right,” you mutter. “Breathing. Got it. Sorry, sir.”

You can almost swear you see the corner of his mouth lift—but then the elevator dings behind you, and you have to hurry to slip through the doors before they slide shut.

It feels like an eternity before they finally open again, but once they do you practically sprint down the hall to Garcia’s lair and burst through the door without warning.

She startles so hard she nearly drops her coffee. “Sweet mother of encryption, knock first!”

“Sorry,” you say, breathless. “I need you.”

“Well, obviously,” she mutters, checking her shirt for any spills. “I’m the backbone of this entire operation.”

You drop down into the spare chair and open your laptop, setting it on her desk.

“You cannot judge me for what I’m about to show you.”

She glances up, brows lifting. “Oh. So this is serious?”

You grimace. “I don’t know.”

“Okay,” she says slowly. “Slightly less reassuring than I was hoping for. Tell me what’s happened.”

You take a deep breath, then let it out in a rush.

“You remember the dating profile you set up for me?”

She nods.

“Alright, so, I won’t lie, I haven’t really met anyone on there yet, but I check the messages occasionally. When I’ve got time, you know? And I don’t have a whole lot of ongoing conversations, but this one guy sent me something that was kind of funny, so I responded, and the conversation was pretty normal for the most part. I couldn’t reply all that quickly, but he didn’t seem to mind.”

You shift awkwardly, scooting your chair closer to her desk.

“Nothing really felt out of place until—well, he wouldn’t talk about himself much, which is strange because most people on dating apps are usually more interested in presenting themselves than gathering information. He kept asking questions about my job, actually. Not that my job is on my profile, but he was really curious about my schedule, or—I guess—lack of schedule.”

You wince.

“So now that I think about it, that was probably the second sign something might be off. Or maybe he just wanted to meet up, I don’t know.”

You hesitate.

“But then he sent me this message at like... two a.m.”

She squints at the screen.

DCRunner00: Bet you answer your boss faster than you answer anyone else.

“Mmm. Nope. Don’t love that,” she says, shaking her head. “That is not a normal amount of emotional investment for a stranger.”

You sink back in your chair. “That’s what I thought.”

She starts scrolling back through the messages.

“Have you told Hotch?”

“Nope.”

She glances at you from the corner of her eye. “You answered way too fast for that to be a normal response.”

“Because the answer is no,” you say firmly, leaning forward again.

“Mm-hm.” She keeps scrolling. “Okay, well... technically this could still be nothing. He could just be some lonely basement cryptid with Wi-Fi and poor social skills.”

You groan, dragging both hands over your face.

“You do mention Hotch kind of a lot.”

Your head snaps up. “He’s my boss.”

Garcia gives you a long look.

“Okay,” she says slowly. “Sure.”

“Garcia.”

“I’m just saying, if a man talked about a woman this much online, we’d all be making faces.”

You point at the screen. “Focus.”

“Right. Yes. Creepy internet man. Sorry.”

Her expression settles into something more focused as she turns back toward her array of monitors.

“Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. Don’t block him yet.”

You sigh. “I don’t love that idea.”

“Neither do I, babycakes, but if he’s routing through the website normally, I might be able to pull connection data if we keep him talking long enough.”

You frown. “In English?”

She gives you another look. “Timestamps, login patterns, regional pings, possible VPN usage, device signatures if he slips up—basic digital stalking fun.”

“Oh, of course,” you say sarcastically. “Normal stuff.”

“For me, it is normal.” She points toward the laptop. “Now reply to him. Something casual. I want to see if he responds immediately again.”

Your fingers hover over the keys for a second before you type out your reply.

You: I thought I told you not to spiral.

He replies so fast that even Garcia flinches.

DCRunner00: Relax. It was a joke. DCRunner00: Mostly.

She stares at the screen. “Okay, I officially don’t like him.”

You lean back in your chair again, nausea twisting low in your gut. “I feel sick.”

Garcia’s expression softens slightly. “Maybe you should tell—”

“No.”

She sighs quietly. “Okay. Fine. Can you keep replying from your phone?”

You nod.

“Good. Don’t overdo it, just enough to keep him engaged.” Her fingers start flying across the keyboard. “I’ll work my magic down here and call you if I find anything.”

You push yourself out of the chair, clutching your phone a little tighter.

“You’re the best, Pen.”

“I know.” She waves a hand without looking away from her screens. “Now go pretend to be emotionally stable upstairs.”

By the time you get back to your desk, almost everyone is already in the conference room ready for the morning briefing. You drop your phone beside your keyboard—too anxious to have it with you during the meeting—then quickly unpack your things and grab a notebook before making your way up.

Reid nods at you from his usual seat, gesturing to the empty one beside him.

“Hey,” you mutter as you drop down next to him.

His brows pull together. “Everything alright?”

You nod. “Yeah. Fine. I’ll explain later.”

Hotch keeps the morning briefing quick. He goes over yesterday’s court hearing, outlines the Fairfax briefing package in case it escalates into an active investigation, then gets JJ to run through the highest priority consultation requests.

You spend most of it toying with a loose thread on the cuff of your blouse. You’re pretty sure it’s the first briefing in years where you haven’t spent at least part of it staring at Hotch instead of your notes—and when the room finally relaxes and everyone starts to filter out, Reid turns to you.

“Okay, now I’m concerned,” he says.

You glance at him. “Why?”

“You didn’t look at Hotch once during that entire meeting.”

You roll your eyes. “Spence—”

“Something must be seriously wrong.”

You let out a long exhale, glancing briefly around the almost empty room. Only Morgan and Rossi are left, halfway to the door, deep in discussion about something that happened at the court hearing yesterday afternoon.

“Okay,” you say quietly, turning back to Reid. “I’m having some... trouble, I guess, with a guy.”

His brows shoot up. “A guy—”

“Online,” you add quickly.

He tilts his head. “I’m confused again.”

You sigh. “Remember that dating profile Garcia set up for me?”

“You mean the profile you allowed Garcia to create as part of your increasingly unsustainable performative dating strategy?”

You glare at him. “Yes. That one.”

“Then yes, I remember it very clearly.”

“Well,” you mutter, pinching the bridge of your nose, “I had this guy message me a couple days ago. It was normal at first but now it’s gotten... weird. So, I’m getting Garcia to look into it.”

His forehead creases. “Have you told—”

“No.”

“Maybe you should—”

“I said no.”

“Alright.” He raises both hands in surrender. “Okay. I’m dropping it. It’s just…”

You narrow your eyes at him.

“Well, statistically speaking, the majority of uncomfortable online interactions don’t escalate into actual stalking behaviour. Most people displaying premature emotional fixation online are socially isolated rather than violent.”

You lift a brow, waiting for the punchline.

“However,” he adds, “cyberstalking offenders also tend to develop parasocial attachments disproportionately quickly because the perceived emotional intimacy bypasses a lot of normal social barriers, which means escalation patterns can become highly personalised in a very short period of time.”

You stare at him.

“In cases where the fixation becomes grievance-oriented, the offender is usually highly organised rather than impulsive, so the behaviour tends to be significantly more deliberate and psychologically targeted.”

He pauses, frowning faintly.

“That was supposed to be reassuring.”

“…Thanks, Reid,” you mutter, turning away from him slowly. “Now I feel so much better.”

When you get back to your desk, you decide it’s time to reply again. You grab your phone and bring up the messages, taking a minute to think about what to type—knowing Garcia will be seeing the conversation too.

You type out the only mildly casual response you can think of.

You: You’re weird.

He replies just as fast as usual.

DCRunner00: You disappear a lot. You: Workaholic, remember. You: I told you my schedule was chaos.

You’re about to turn your phone over on your desk when a different notification pops up—from Garcia.

Garcia: If this is your version of flirting, baby girl, I think I just figured out why you’re still single.

You snort softly, typing out a quick reply.

You: Trust me, that’s not the reason. Garcia: So there IS a reason? You: Shh. I’m working. Garcia: Boo!

You huff another quiet laugh as you turn your phone over, nudging it toward the edge of your desk in the hopes that you might be able to focus on work rather than creepy internet man for at least a few hours.

It doesn’t work.

Barely half an hour later, you lift your phone to check for another notification—but there’s nothing there. You pull up the message thread again and scroll up, checking the timestamps to see if he’s ever gone quiet on you before—but he hasn’t. Not really. So you type another message.

You: You went quiet. Should I be concerned?

It’s a calculated move. If he’s paying attention to response patterns—and at this point you’re pretty sure he is—then following up first helps maintain the illusion that nothing has changed. No sudden distance. No obvious discomfort. No reason for him to think you’re pulling away.

If he is dangerous, the last thing you want is for him to feel rejected.

An hour later, Rossi drops a legal pad onto your desk, asking you to take another look at a witness timeline that doesn’t feel right—which keeps you occupied for a good forty-five minutes. Then Morgan leans over the partition between your desks, asking if you can translate Reid into English. That takes up another hour of your day, and by the time you grab your first afternoon coffee, you’ve got three notifications.

One is a missed call from Garcia. The other two are from creepy internet man.

DCRunner00: Depends. Are you worried about me? DCRunner00: Blue looks good on you, by the way.

Your stomach drops. “Oh my God.”

You immediately call Garcia back.

She answers on half a ring. “Are you wearing blue?”

“You saw me this morning.”

“I can’t remember,” she says. “Are you?”

You drag a hand through your hair. “Yes.”

“Holy shit,” she whispers. “You’ve got to tell—”

“No.”

“Are you insane?”

“Maybe, but—” You squeeze your eyes shut for a second. “Okay, just—hear me out. Blue is a statistically safe guess. It’s a neutral professional colour with high frequency in workplace attire, especially in government buildings.”

Garcia goes quiet for a second.

“And does this unsub know you work in a government building?”

“Don’t call him that,” you snap. “And—well, kind of. I didn’t tell him exactly, but I said... government adjacent.”

“I swear to God,” she mutters, “if I have to identify your body next week, I’m going to kill you.”

You press your free hand against your forehead.

“You won’t,” you say firmly. “Alright? We’re getting ahead of ourselves.”

Garcia scoffs loudly.

“Seriously,” you insist. “It could still be nothing. A weird coincidence, maybe an awkward guy with boundary issues and too much free time. We deal with actual predators every day. I can handle a few creepy messages.”

The line goes quiet again—then she sighs.

“Why are you so against telling Hotch?”

“Because I don’t want to bother him,” you say quickly. “We’ve got a quiet week, he finally seems slightly less stressed, and I don’t want to cause a whole fuss over something that might turn out to be nothing.”

She sighs again, louder this time. “Fine. I won’t go to Hotch.”

Your shoulders sag. “Thank you.”

“On one condition,” she adds. “I’m sleeping over tonight.”

You nearly choke. “What?”

“Non-negotiable.”

“Penelope, that’s insane.”

“No,” Garcia says firmly, “what’s insane is you trying to casually explain away potential stalking behaviour while actively refusing to inform your unit chief.”

“He is not stalking me,” you protest, keeping your voice low.

“Mm-hm.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“And yet,” Garcia says, “if you die, I become morally complicit because I knew about creepy internet man and failed to intervene.”

You frown. “…Morally complicit?”

“Accessory to murder-adjacent,” she corrects. “And my guilty conscience requires eight hours of sleep minimum, so congratulations. We’re having a slumber party.”

You let out a long sigh. “Okay. Fine.”

She hums, satisfied.

“I need to reply to him again.”

“Well, don’t ask me,” she mutters. “You’re the one who’s apparently fluent in creepy internet freak.”

You laugh despite yourself. “Thanks, Pen.”

“Mm-hm. And just so we’re clear, tonight we are watching wholesome romantic comedies and eating enough sugar to kill a Victorian child.”

“I was actually thinking psychological thriller marathon.”

“Absolutely not.”

You smile faintly, leaning back in your chair. “Fine. Romantic comedies it is.”

“Good,” Garcia says firmly. “Now hang up before I change my mind and march upstairs to Hotch’s office myself.”

You roll your eyes as you hang up, then open the message thread again. You don’t have to think too hard about what to type. You don’t want to escalate or accuse him, but you need him to stay engaged. You want him to explain himself to see how he reframes the behaviour.

You: Lucky guess.

The next few hours slip by in a strange blur of routine tasks and fragmented conversations.

At about three o’clock, Prentiss drops a file on your desk and asks if you can double-check a victim timeline while she’s stuck on the phone with Chicago. Then Rossi calls you into his office to sanity-check a profile theory he’s working through out loud—which means fifteen minutes of listening to him argue with himself while you sit there trying not to focus on Hotch’s voice through the wall.

When you finally get back to your desk, Reid spends twenty minutes walking you through a probability model nobody asked for but everyone somehow ends up listening to anyway. He only stops when Hotch appears, carrying a stack of files from the Richardson case he wants Morgan to look over before he signs them off—and for the first time in God knows how long, you don’t stare shamelessly at his ass as he walks out of the bullpen.

By six p.m., JJ and Rossi are gone, Prentiss is helping Morgan with the Richardson files, and Reid is building a tiny tower out of paperclips while he reads over a file Rossi dropped on his desk before he left.

At exactly six-fifteen, your desk phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Pack your things, baby girl. Your government-issued sleepover is about to begin.”

You snort softly. “Alright. I’ll see you soon.”

You hang up the phone and start clearing your desk, organising paperwork into piles and packing away stationery while you wait for your computer to shut down.

“See who soon?” Reid asks.

You glance at him. “Garcia.”

He tilts his head.

“She’s staying over tonight.”

His brows lift. “Because of your stalk—”

“Girl’s night,” you interrupt, eyes widening. “That’s all.”

His gaze narrows. “Should I be worried?”

You scoff. “About me? Never.”

You slide your arms into your jacket then finally pick up your phone, finding two new notifications from creepy internet man waiting for you.

“Really?” Reid asks, turning his chair to face you. “Because you’ve spent most of the day staring at your phone like it’s a bomb, you spent most of Rossi’s profile discussion peeling the label off your water bottle instead of contributing, and you reorganised the same stack of paperwork three separate times.”

You pause mid-motion.

“Also,” he continues, “you usually correct Morgan when he misquotes case statistics and today you let him do it twice, which honestly might be the most concerning—”

“Okay!” you cut in quickly, slinging your bag over your shoulder. “Good talk. Love the observational skills. Bye.”

He doesn’t say anything else as you walk away, murmuring goodbyes to Morgan and Prentiss as you pass, but you can still feel him watching you. You’re just about to press the button for the elevator when—

“Agent.”

You stop automatically, turning to find Hotch with a file tucked under one arm and that signature frown etched between his brows. Only this time it isn’t frustrated or disapproving—it’s curious.

You force a small smile. “Sir.”

His eyes move over your face briefly. “You alright?”

You nod once. “Of course.”

He takes a step forward, his voice dropping lower. “You sure?”

Your breath catches.

He’s close now. Too close. You have to tilt your head back to meet his eyes. You can smell his cologne, feel his warmth, count the beauty marks dotted across his cheek.

“You’ve seemed distracted today,” he says.

You swallow hard. “Uh—no. No. Sorry, I just—I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

His brows draw a little tighter, and he opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something else—press harder, maybe—but then seems to think better of it.

“Alright,” he murmurs. “Get some rest tonight.”

Then he nods once and steps back, his jaw tightening for just a second before he turns away.

You don’t move immediately. You can’t. Your mind is reeling, your pulse is still hammering, and your breath is caught somewhere between your ribs while your lungs try to remember how to work.

“Hello?” Garcia calls from behind you. “I cannot hold these doors forever, babycakes.”

You shake your head. “Shit. Sorry.”

You turn and hurry into the elevator, slipping in beside her just before the doors slide shut.

For a moment, neither of you says anything.

Then—

“So, that thing you said earlier about there being a reason you’re still single…”

You shut your eyes. “Penelope.”

“I’m just saying,” she continues lightly, “unless I hallucinated whatever just happened in that hallway, I’m starting to develop theories.”

You ignore her, watching the numbers on the elevator slowly descend like counting down the days you have before the entire team figures out your secret. Because if this guy really is a creep, if you do have to tell Hotch, then it’s only a matter of time before the BAU are dissecting your dating life and realising what a ruse it really is.

And you know better than anyone that once these profilers start looking too closely at something, they rarely stop until they’ve pulled it apart completely.

The second you step through the door to your apartment, Garcia rushes past you to sweep the place. Leia startles almost immediately, running from the couch to your bedroom while Garcia complains about the fact that Leia is the only cat she’s ever met that doesn’t like her.

“Leia hates everyone,” you tell her, kicking your shoes off by the door. “Even me.”

Garcia just rolls her eyes, continuing from room to room to check the window locks and balcony doors.

Once she’s satisfied that everything is secure, she sets her laptop up on your kitchen counter and starts running a program that looks like hieroglyphics to you.

“Have you seen his latest messages?” she asks.

You shake your head, setting your phone on the counter. “No.”

She opens your laptop and logs into the dating site—because apparently she knows your password now.

DCRunner00: Maybe. DCRunner00: Or maybe you’re just easier to read than you think.

You type out the first response you can think of, not wanting to seem like you’re overanalysing this.

You: Or maybe I’m just not trying so hard to be mysterious.

Garcia then spends the next ten minutes trying to explain her process to you in terms that almost make sense. So far she’s managed to narrow him down to a general region through login patterns and routing behaviour, but she still can’t lock onto a direct IP address. Not because she can’t—apparently that part would actually be pretty easy—but because doing it properly would mean running requests through systems that leave a trail. And right now, this definitely isn’t an official investigation.

“The second I start pulling the fun federal strings,” Garcia says, typing furiously, “there’s paperwork, access logs, oversight, and approximately twelve thousand ways for this to become a whole thing.”

You lean against the counter. “We don’t want that.”

“Not yet.” Her expression sharpens slightly. “Also, if creepy internet man is more sophisticated than he seems, there’s always a chance he’s monitoring for targeted tracing attempts. If he realises someone’s looking too closely at him before we know who he is, he could disappear completely.”

Your stomach twists. “Or escalate.”

You spend the next couple of hours keeping creepy internet man engaged while Garcia rambles tech jargon that makes less sense the longer the night wears on. At some point, you order pizza, then you migrate to the couch, and eventually you both end up sitting through the credits of Two Weeks Notice while waiting for one last reply in the hopes that he might finally answer something about himself.

DCRunner00: Refreshing DCRunner00: Most people hide too much. You: Depends what they’re trying to hide. DCRunner00: What are you trying to hide? You: Besides the fact that I’m exhausted? Nothing. DCRunner00: You seem distracted tonight. You: Long day. DCRunner00: I noticed. You: How was yours?

You wait until almost midnight before finally deciding to call it a night.

Garcia checks all the windows and doors again while you brush your teeth and change into pyjamas. When you step back out of your bedroom to say goodnight, Garcia is trying her hardest to lure Leia onto the couch with her, but Leia is very stubbornly curled up beneath the TV unit.

“Night, Pen,” you murmur, rubbing your eyes. “Thanks again... for everything.”

“Night, gorgeous,” she calls, peering over the back of the couch. “Wake me up if you hear literally anything suspicious. Or if Leia finally decides it’s my time.”

You laugh softly, blinking slowly as you turn back into your room and fall face first into bed.

THURSDAY 6:45AM

You’re not sure whether to be relieved or concerned when you wake up to no new messages from creepy internet man. He hasn’t gone quiet for this long before—but if he is just a normal, slightly awkward guy with boundary issues and an internet connection, well... it’s not that hard to believe he might just be sleeping.

Garcia is already up making coffee by the time you step out of your room, trying to bribe Leia out from under the couch with a tube of tuna paste.

The second she sees you, she jumps up and launches into another long-winded explanation about login activity and movement patterns across different access points. Apparently, creepy internet man logged in from three different geographical locations over the course of a few hours last night—which is normal, right? That means he was out doing normal human things, not just lurking in his mother’s basement, stalking women online.

Garcia isn’t entirely convinced that him moving locations is enough to get him off the hook as the BAU’s next unsub, but it at least shuts her up until you’re both back at the office.

“Hey,” Reid says as soon as you walk into the bullpen. “You haven’t been murdered.”

You frown slightly. “Good morning to you too, Spence.”

Morgan glances up from the file on his desk. “Uh—why are we getting murdered?”

Reid gestures vaguely in your direction. “Because she’s potentially being cyberstalked by a—”

“Oh, wow, look at the time,” you interrupt, glaring at Reid. “Wouldn’t it be such a shame if we all started minding our own business right about now.”

Prentiss turns in her chair, brows raised. “Cyberstalked?”

“Nobody is cyberstalking anybody,” you say as you drop into your chair. “And nobody’s getting murdered—but great start to the morning, everyone. Love the energy. Now leave me alone.”

Morgan chuckles quietly. “Damn. Thought you said you got laid last weekend.”

Your hands slip off the desk as you try to pull yourself closer.

“Technically,” Reid says, “she only implied it by refusing to answer Garcia’s question during Monday morning’s briefing.”

“Ah.” Morgan leans back in his chair. “I knew this was a drought issue.”

You scowl at him. “A drought issue?”

“Statistically speaking,” Reid adds, “people experiencing prolonged romantic or sexual dissatisfaction often display lower frustration tolerance and increased agitation in familiar social environments.”

Morgan looks at him. “Man, just say she needs to get laid.”

“Oh my God,” you snap. “I do not need to get laid. I am having a completely normal amount of sex already, thank you very much—and frankly I think it’s deeply inappropriate that you’re all this invested in whether or not I’m orgasming regularly.”

Reid tilts his head. “You’re having sex?”

Morgan’s brows shoot up, Prentiss chokes on her coffee, and you open your mouth to fire back at him when—

Someone clears their throat behind you.

Heat crawls violently up your neck—but you don’t turn around. You can’t.

“Briefing room. Five minutes,” Hotch says, his voice dangerously even. “JJ’s got an update on the custodial interview with Wallace.”

Morgan presses a fist against his mouth, trying—and failing—to smother the strangled sound of laughter.

Very slowly, you turn in your chair.

Hotch is standing at the edge of the bullpen with a coffee in one hand and a file in the other. His expression is almost perfectly composed, but there’s something dangerous lurking beneath it—something suspiciously close to amusement in the tightness of his mouth.

“Be right there, sir,” you blurt, lifting two fingers to your forehead in the most ill-timed attempt at a salute the FBI has ever seen.

Hotch just looks at you, the muscle in his jaw jumping once before he turns away.

You want to die.

The second his office door clicks shut behind him, Morgan drops his fist and smacks his palm flat against the desk with a choked laugh.

“Oh, you are never recovering from that,” Prentiss mutters, smirking behind her coffee cup.

Morgan leans back in his chair, grinning. “Baby girl, that was painful to watch.”

You drop your head into your hands.

“You somehow escalated the situation at every possible opportunity,” Reid says thoughtfully.

“I hate you all,” you mumble into your palms.

You spend the next half hour with your nose buried in your notebook, avoiding eye contact with the entire team while JJ explains the month-long back-and-forth that it took to finally get approval for the Wallace interview.

Apparently, the prison is limiting the interview to a single hour and reserving the right to terminate it early if the inmate becomes uncooperative—which Rossi thinks is less about policy and more about Wallace trying to dictate the terms of the interaction.

It’s not ideal, especially considering you were the one who convinced Hotch to push for the interview before Wallace is transferred to death row. His case was one of the first you ever studied during the BAU training programme, and there isn’t much you wouldn’t give to pick the sociopath’s brains. One hour with him feels dangerously short—that is, assuming Hotch actually picks you to be in the interview with him.

“We don’t have enough time to waste managing personalities in the room,” Hotch says, gathering the files in front of him. “I’ll decide on a second agent and send out the interview schedule later today.”

Chairs start scraping back almost immediately, files and notebooks snapping shut as everyone gathers their things and starts filtering out of the room—but you don’t move. You stay firmly planted in your seat, chewing thoughtfully on the inside of your cheek while you debate whether to follow Hotch into his office and ask to be part of the interview. You don’t even have to be asking the questions, you just want to be there. You were the one pushing for it in the first place.

But then your brain very helpfully reminds you that Aaron Hotchner heard you say the word orgasming less than an hour ago and suddenly, being on death row yourself feels infinitely preferable to making eye contact with your unit chief.

“You alright?” Reid asks, lingering beside you.

You sigh heavily, finally closing your notebook. “Yep. Just thinking about how I’ll probably have to fake my own death and change my name after this morning.”

He shrugs. “Hotch probably isn’t even thinking about it anymore.”

You glance up at him hopefully.

“Morgan definitely is, though.”

You roll your eyes, letting out another resigned sigh as you stand up and follow him out of the briefing room.

The rest of the morning manages to pass without incident. You stay chained to your desk, reviewing reports and processing any files that come your way while very deliberately not glancing up any time Hotch steps out of his office. At around eleven, Morgan and JJ head out to the cafe down the street and come back with coffees for the whole team. Then there’s a printer jam that gives the rest of the office a rare glimpse at just how angry Emily Prentiss can get when frustrated.

It isn’t until just before midday that you finally get up to go to the bathroom, and when you return to your desk, there’s one new notification in your inbox.

From: Aaron Hotchner Subject: Wallace Interview You’re with me next Thursday. We leave at 0700.

Your stomach flips.

“Wow,” Reid says, suddenly standing right beside your desk. “He picked you pretty quickly.”

You shoot him a warning look. “Spence.”

“I’m just saying, he usually deliberates longer.”

You glance back at the screen, rereading the first five words that make your pulse skip a little faster.

“You and Hotch do work unusually well together in confined conversational environments,” Reid adds.

You turn back to him, frowning.

He tilts his head. “That sounded more suggestive than I intended.”

You open your mouth to tell him how deeply unhelpful he’s being when your phone buzzes twice against your desk—like it does several times a day, but something about it feels different this time. Wrong.

You reach for it slowly, your stomach twisting tighter as you turn it over.

Two new notifications from creepy internet man. The first since last night.

You open the message thread—and your stomach drops.

DCRunner00: [Image attachment] DCRunner00: Did you and your friend have fun last night?

The image is of your apartment building. It’s grainy, slightly crooked, clearly taken from somewhere across the street—but your living room windows are unmistakable. Warm light glowing through the glass. The blurred silhouette of someone inside.

Ice floods your bloodstream.

You stop breathing.

“Is that... your apartment?” Reid asks, leaning over your shoulder.

You don’t answer him. You can’t.

The bullpen dissolves into white noise around you.

Until—

“I’m done!” Garcia’s voice cuts through the static. “I can’t do this anymore!”

She’s marching right toward you, your laptop—that she’d still been monitoring—tucked under one arm.

Reid gasps. “Wait. Is that—”

Morgan straightens in his chair. “What’s happening?”

“Hotch’s office,” Garcia says, her expression dangerously stern as she stops beside your desk. “Now.”

You nod slowly, your shoes almost slipping against the carpet as you push your chair back. Reid steps aside just enough to let you stand, but before he can get too far, you reach out and wrap your fingers around his wrist, silently dragging him with you as you follow Garcia back through the bullpen.

Hotch glances up the second Garcia pushes open his office door.

“What’s going on?”

His tone is calm, automatic, already slipping into that low, calculated cadence he uses when he’s trying to talk someone down from the ledge. His gaze moves from her to you—and something in his expression shifts. Hardens. That muscle in his jaw ticking just once before he turns back to Garcia.

“What happened?” he asks, sharper now.

Garcia crosses the room quickly, opening your laptop and sitting it on his desk while you hover uselessly in the doorway with Reid still caught in your grip.

Hotch glances at the screen, his eyes flicking through the messages.

Then he looks back up—right at you—and something unreadable settles across his face. Something dangerous.

“Who sent this?”

Garcia spends the next five minutes explaining the entire situation at hyper speed while you just... stand there, leaning slightly against Reid like the whole world has tilted on its axis.

It’s funny how you can spend years building a career around finding bad people. Thinking like them. Predicting them. Profiling them. But the moment something happens to you—something real—that’s when all the theory suddenly stops feeling theoretical. And maybe it’s because you know exactly what people like this are capable of, or how quickly situations like this can escalate once someone decides they’re emotionally invested in you.

Or maybe it’s just the horrifying realisation that some part of you knew where this was heading all along. And you still didn’t do anything about it until now. Not until you put yourself—and your friend—in danger.

“Get everyone in the briefing room,” Hotch says the second Garcia finishes. “Now.”

Garcia nods once before slipping back out the door, and only then do you finally let go of Reid’s wrist—making a mental note to apologise later for the excessive physical contact.

Hotch’s eyes drop down briefly, following the movement almost automatically. Something tightens in his expression for half a second before his attention snaps back to the laptop still open in front of him.

“Reid,” he says. “Print the entire message history and document everything. Full timeline, screenshots, attachments—all of it. I want copies ready for the team in ten.”

You swallow hard. “The—the entire message history?”

“Yes,” Hotch says simply. “Every message.”

Could this day get any worse?

Fifteen minutes later, you’re back in the briefing room with the entire team flipping through printed copies of your dating profile and messages. It almost feels like an out-of-body experience. Like one of those mortifying dreams where you watch everything unfold from above without any real ability to stop it.

“Okay,” Prentiss says. “Where do we start?”

“Victimology,” Morgan answers immediately—then he glances at you. “Sorry, baby girl.”

You wave him off. “Reid’s been profiling me all week. Go for it.”

There’s a quiet ripple of laughter around the table, but Hotch barely blinks. He’s sitting on the opposite side, between Prentiss and JJ, with his arms folded tightly across his chest and gaze fixed on the copies spread out in front of him like he’s trying very hard not to look directly at you.

“We need to be careful building a victimology this early,” he says evenly. “Especially considering how well we know the victim. Personal familiarity creates bias.”

Reid tilts his head. “Normally, yes. But stalking crimes are often highly individualised.” He starts flipping through the printed messages as he talks. “Statistically speaking, stalking victims are usually targeted for a very specific reason. The motivation is generally rooted in either resentment, fixation, revenge, or romantic obsession.”

You grimace. “Fantastic.”

“Most victims also know their stalkers,” Reid continues. “Approximately seventy-five percent of stalking cases involve some form of prior relationship or perceived emotional connection.”

“Okay,” JJ says carefully, looking toward you. “Is there anyone you can think of who might hold a grudge against you? Someone you arrested, rejected, testified against—anything like that?”

You snort quietly. “Does every criminal I’ve ever interviewed count?”

The room goes still for half a second.

“Wait,” Prentiss says, sitting forward slightly. “Actually, that makes sense.”

Hotch’s eyes flick up as Prentiss pushes one of the printouts into the middle of the table, tapping the page.

“This escalation happened fast. Less than a week. That’s not somebody slowly building emotional trust from scratch—that’s somebody who already came into this interaction emotionally invested.”

“Or angry,” Morgan adds.

“Exactly,” Prentiss says. “He doesn’t lash out until she has Garcia over. That’s jealousy. Possessiveness.”

You sink lower in your chair.

“And he starts reacting every time she brings up her boss,” Rossi says, flipping through the printouts. “That’s territorial behaviour. He’s fixating on a prominent male figure in her life.”

“Not the only one fixating on him,” Reid murmurs beside you.

You elbow him immediately.

“Ow.”

Hotch glances up sharply. “Something to add, Reid?”

Reid straightens. “Uh—no. No, I think Rossi covered it.”

Hotch’s eyes narrow slightly, like he knows there’s something he’s missing, but he lets it go.

“Garcia,” he says instead, “tell me you found something useful.”

“Oh, I found things,” Garcia says immediately, the rapid clacking of her keyboard echoing loudly through the conference room speaker. “Deeply unsettling things. Our creepy little internet goblin has been very busy.”

Prentiss frowns slightly, mouthing ‘internet goblin’ across the table to JJ.

“Okay, so—profile was created nine days ago using a burner email and a VPN bouncing between three different states, which normally would make me want to set my computer on fire, but our boy got sloppy.”

Hotch leans forward slightly. “How sloppy?”

“Sloppy enough that one login pinged off a public Wi-Fi network less than six blocks from her apartment last night,” she says. “And before anybody asks, yes, I’m already pulling traffic cams.”

Hotch nods once, already shifting into command mode.

“Morgan, Prentiss—start canvassing within a ten-block radius of her apartment. Garcia will feed you anything useful from the traffic cams. JJ, coordinate with local PD and see if there’ve been any complaints of suspicious activity in the area. Peeping, prowlers, stalking complaints—anything that fits this escalation pattern. Rossi, start pulling names from old cases. Anybody with a history of fixation, stalking behaviour, or inappropriate attachment to investigators. Garcia, keep digging and keep me posted.”

Everyone starts moving immediately, papers shuffling and chairs scraping back as the room shifts into motion.

“I want to help,” you say suddenly. “This is my mess, let me fix it.”

“You can help,” he says evenly, “by going home, locking your doors, and staying there until we know exactly what we’re dealing with.”

You open your mouth to argue.

“I mean it,” he adds, voice low.

“I’ll take her,” Reid offers immediately.

“No,” Hotch says, gathering the printouts into one neat pile. “You go with Morgan and Prentiss.”

Then his eyes flick up, meeting yours.

“I’m taking her home.”

The next hour is one of the strangest of your life.

Hotch tells you to take your laptop back down to Garcia, who’s already in full FBI investigation mode—her screens covered in maps, metadata, CCTV stills, and enlarged screenshots of your own dating profile staring back at you in horrifying definition. When you finally make it back to your desk, Rossi spends twenty straight minutes walking you through every violent offender you’ve interviewed in the last three years, forcing you to revisit dozens of interactions you’d long since filed away as routine.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, Morgan drops a schematic of your apartment building onto your desk and starts questioning you about entrances, exits, blind spots, and security cameras while Reid quietly replaces the coffee you forgot existed an hour ago. It isn’t until Morgan leaves and JJ immediately takes his place beside you that you realise nobody has let you out of their sight for more than a few minutes at a time.

Then, finally, Hotch steps out of his office—files in one hand and his go-bag in the other, like he fully intends on staying the night if necessary.

“Ready?” he asks, stopping beside your desk.

You stare at the go-bag for one long, deeply horrified second.

“Yep,” you manage, voice tight as you slowly push out of your chair.

Hotch drives. You don’t even try to argue. You just sit in the passenger seat with your knees pressed together and your heart beating out of your chest. It’s not like you haven’t been in the car with him before. You have, plenty of times. This just feels... different.

Neither of you speak until he cuts the engine in the parking garage of your building, and you have to try very hard not to dwell on the fact that he hadn’t asked for directions the whole way here.

“Wait,” he mutters before climbing out of the car.

He grabs his bag from the back, then moves around the car and opens your door.

It takes an embarrassingly long time for you to unbuckle your seatbelt—your hands are shaking and your pulse is still pounding hard enough to make you dizzy—but once you finally do, you slip out of the car and lead him toward the fire stairs.

He never leaves more than a foot of distance between you. Never checks his phone. Never glances down. He stays glued to your side like a real protection detail. And thanks to your avid and wildly inappropriate imagination, you’ve already mentally written an entire bodyguard romance plot starring Aaron Hotchner and yours truly by the time you finally reach your apartment door.

“I—uh—wasn’t really expecting company,” you say as you push the door open. “Sorry.”

The second you step inside, Leia leaps off the couch with a loud, rumbling trill—probably wondering why you’re home before dark for the first time in years.

Hotch pauses, his brow furrowing slightly. “You have a cat.”

You glance back at him as you kick your shoes off and nudge them out of the way. “Is that really the most surprising thing you’ve learned about me today?”

He watches Leia for another second before glancing back at you. “It’s unexpected.”

You roll your eyes, trying to ignore the way your heart skips when he quietly toes off his shoes beside the door without even asking. Like he already expects to stay awhile.

Leia chirrups again as she pads through the living room toward you, no doubt about to demand an early dinner—until she catches sight of Hotch and abruptly stops short. Her ears flicker, her tail waving from side to side as she assesses the new man in her apartment.

Hotch crouches slightly, holding one hand out toward her.

“Oh, she doesn’t really like people,” you say quickly. “So don’t take it personally if she—”

Leia immediately walks straight up to him. She sniffs his hand once before pressing directly into his palm with a loud purr rumbling through her entire body.

Your eyes go wide.

Traitor.

Hotch’s mouth twitches faintly as Leia leans harder into his hand.

Oh my God. Are you jealous of your cat right now?

He gives Leia one final scratch behind the ears before straightening, the softness in his expression fading almost immediately as he slips back into work mode. He scans the apartment briefly before setting the files down on your tiny dining table and shrugging his jacket off, draping it over the back of a chair.

You stand there for a second longer than you probably should, watching him move through your apartment with the same calm focus he brings to crime scenes and briefing rooms and interrogation tables. He checks the windows, the balcony doors, glances briefly—thank God—into your bedroom, then double-checks the locks on the front door.

The whole thing feels weirdly surreal. You’ve imagined Aaron Hotchner inside your apartment a thousand times in a thousand different ways—just not like this. And nothing you imagined could have possibly prepared you for the reality of it. The way everything feels so much smaller. Warmer. More exposed.

Every object in every room suddenly feels mortifyingly personal.

If he lingers long enough in your kitchen, he’s going to notice the unusually empty trash can and realise you survive almost entirely on caffeine and convenience. If he looks too closely at your bookshelf, he’s going to find an unhealthy collection of romance novels with more trigger warnings than plot points. And if he looks into your bedroom again and turns his head just a little more to the right, he’s going to see your vibrator sitting on the nightstand—and then you’ll actually have to fake your own death.

Because you’ve spent years carefully curating a version of yourself that keeps people from looking too closely. Flirty. Casual. Detached enough to joke about bad dates and hookups and sex without anybody ever realising that none of it means anything. It’s easier that way. Easier to let everyone assume your attention is scattered in every direction instead of fixed very specifically on the one person you absolutely cannot have.

But this?

This feels dangerously close to being found out.

The next couple of hours pass in strange, uneven waves of normalcy and low-grade psychological torture.

Hotch sits at your tiny dining table without complaint, dwarfing it as he hunches over files and asks careful questions about your routines, your neighbours, and whether anyone in the building has seemed overly interested in you recently. His phone rings a lot, which isn’t unusual, and every time he answers it you spend almost the entire conversation staring unashamed at the way his shirt pulls tight across his back when he reaches for another printout.

Which is wildly inappropriate considering the circumstances, but you can’t really help it. You’re strung out, on edge, and, as Morgan so helpfully pointed out this morning, severely under-fucked.

And Leia, unfortunately—but not unsurprisingly—remains no help whatsoever.

By seven o’clock she’s fully abandoned you in favour of draping herself across Hotch’s lap while he reviews new data from Garcia, completely oblivious to the fact that you haven’t been able to breathe normally since he walked through the door.

“Are you hungry?” you ask eventually, moving back into the kitchen as if you have anything in there to offer.

Hotch glances up from his laptop, one hand resting absently against Leia’s back while she purrs in his lap.

“I’m fine.”

You lean a hip against the kitchen counter, folding your arms tightly across your chest. “Any updates?”

He glances back down at his screen. “Garcia narrowed the traffic footage down to three vehicles that stayed in the area longer than they should have—Morgan and Prentiss are running the plates now. And Rossi’s pulling relatives connected to your previous cases. Family members who attended trials, sentencing hearings, interviews. Anyone who might’ve had access to your name outside the official reports.”

You nod slowly, silence settling again for a moment before you exhale sharply.

“Are you sure sitting here doing absolutely nothing is really the best use of me right now?”

His eyes flick back up, that signature Hotchner scowl set between his brows.

“You think this is nothing?”

His voice stays calm, but there’s something firmer underneath it now.

“You’ve spent the last four days being threatened, surveilled, and followed by someone we still haven’t identified,” he says. “Morgan, Prentiss, and Reid are out chasing leads because somebody targeted you. Rossi’s pulling case files because somebody targeted you. Garcia’s been at her desk for six straight hours because somebody targeted you.”

His jaw tightens slightly.

“My job right now is making sure nothing happens to you,” he says quietly. “Let me do that.”

Your breath catches, something warm and uncomfortably familiar twisting in your chest as Aaron Hotchner just sits there watching you like he hasn’t said anything unusual at all.

Which, to him, maybe he hasn’t.

He’s just doing his job. Looking out for his team. He’s not here because he wants to be. He’s here because someone threatened one of his agents.

That’s all.

You clear your throat, pushing away from the counter before the silence stretches too long. “I’m—uh—I’m just going to shower quickly. If that’s alright.”

He nods once. “Want me to clear the—”

“No,” you say immediately. “God, no. No. It’s fine. Totally fine.”

His brows pull together slightly, confusion flickering briefly across his face before you turn and hurry into your bedroom, shutting the door a little harder than necessary behind you.

Then you take the longest shower known to mankind. You stand beneath the scalding spray for at least ten minutes before even touching anything. Then you scrub, exfoliate, shave, condition, rinse twice, and stand there for just a little longer before finally gathering the courage to step out. All the while trying desperately not to think about the fact that your unit chief is only two thin walls away while you’re dripping wet and completely naked.

You rummage through your dresser until you find an oversized sweater that isn’t totally threadbare and a clean pair of pyjama shorts. Technically, they’re just striped flannel pants you cut into shorts, but at least they’re not as short as the rest of your pyjama collection that definitely needs replacing.

If only you actually had time for things like shopping... and emotional stability.

“No, wait for Morgan before you approach,” Hotch says as you step quietly back into the living room, phone pressed against his ear while he paces slowly beside the dining table. “If the registration’s fake, I don’t want you making contact until we know exactly who’s inside.”

He pauses, expression sharpening slightly.

“Alright. Keep me updated.”

He lowers the phone slowly before looking over at you for the first time since you re-emerged—and for half a second, he visibly loses his train of thought. It’s only tiny. Barely there. Just a brief pause before his expression shutters back into place.

“Garcia tracked one of the vehicles from the traffic footage to a motel outside Arlington,” he says, glancing back down at the files scattered across the table. “The driver’s been masking his activity through multiple VPNs, so she couldn’t pull a clean trace from the motel Wi-Fi, but only one room in the motel was actively using the network.”

Your stomach tightens.

“The name on the reservation was fake,” he continues, “but the room was paid for using a credit card belonging to Daniel Mercer.”

The name hits you immediately.

“Ethan Mercer’s brother,” you say quietly.

Hotch nods. “Rossi confirmed it about twenty minutes ago. Morgan and Prentiss are waiting for local PD before they move in.”

You nod slowly, your pulse fluttering anxiously in your throat as you move toward the kitchen. Not because you actually need anything in there, but because standing still feels almost impossible right now.

“Ethan barely spoke during the trial,” you murmur, folding your arms as you lean back against the counter. “I don’t think I ever even met his brother.”

“You wouldn’t need to,” Hotch says, already gathering the files into a neat pile. “People build attachments to investigators without ever interacting directly. Especially when they’re looking for someone to blame.”

Your skin prickles. “You really think it’s him?”

“It fits,” Hotch replies evenly. “Established emotional investment, personal motive, no prior record. Which explains the inconsistency. The escalation without follow-through. The long gaps between contact attempts. He knows enough to be cautious, but not enough to stay controlled.”

He straightens, turning back toward you—and for the briefest second, his eyes drop to your bare legs before snapping back up to your face almost immediately.

He clears his throat. “This probably isn’t something he’s done before. But his brother has.”

The apartment falls quiet again after that. Hotch returns to collecting files while you stare absently toward the dark balcony doors, your pulse still refusing to settle beneath your skin.

“Well,” you mutter eventually, gripping the edge of the counter to hoist yourself up. “On the bright side, I still think I’ve dated worse.”

The joke leaves your lips lightly enough, the same way they always do—easy, detached, halfway between genuine and ironic so nobody ever pauses long enough to look too closely.

Except this time Hotch does pause.

“Why do you do that?”

You frown. “Do what?”

“Deflect.” He straightens again, one hand still holding a stack of printouts. “Every time something gets too serious, you make a joke. Or you flirt. Or you say something just inappropriate enough to throw people off balance.”

You lift a shoulder. “Maybe I’m just charming.”

“No.” His eyes narrow slightly, brows pulling together. “No, because it changes depending on the situation.”

Your pulse stutters.

“With Morgan it’s competitive,” he continues, setting the papers back on the table. “You tease him because he pushes back and it keeps conversations superficial. Garcia gets exaggerated stories because she responds emotionally instead of analytically. Half the things you say to Reid are specifically designed to make him flustered enough to stop examining what you actually mean.”

“Wow,” you murmur, shifting your weight against the countertop. “Starting to feel a little attacked here.”

But Hotch doesn’t seem to hear you.

“The dating profile doesn’t fit,” he says, almost to himself. “Neither does the apartment.”

Your stomach twists as his gaze moves briefly across the room. The bookshelves. The carefully organised clutter. Leia now curled up asleep on the couch.

“You project someone impulsive. Social. Sexually confident. But nothing in here supports that.” His eyes flick back toward you again. “You live like someone who protects their space carefully. Even the cat.”

“Leave Leia out of this.”

“She doesn’t like strangers.”

“She likes you.”

The words slip out too quickly, and something in his expression shifts.

“You keep people at a distance,” he continues slowly, close enough now that you can hear the quiet rasp beneath his voice. “Even the team. You let people think they know you because it keeps them from looking closer.” He hesitates, brow furrowing. “Except Reid.”

Your fingers tighten instinctively around the edge of the counter.

“You trust him,” Hotch says. “Not just socially. Behaviourally. You anchor yourself to him when you’re stressed. Physical proximity. Eye contact. Redirecting conversations through him.” He pauses, watching you carefully now. “And earlier you said he’d been profiling you all week.”

Oh God.

“Which means Reid already noticed the pattern.”

He goes quiet for a moment, his expression tightening almost imperceptibly as he looks back over the last few months—years—in real time. You can practically see it happening behind his eyes. Every interaction. Every joke. Every look you thought you’d hidden quickly enough.

“You track me.”

The words come quieter now. Less certain. Like he’s still realising them.

“You know my routines,” he continues slowly. “You anticipate questions before I ask them. You look up when you hear my office door open even when you can’t see me.” He steps closer again. “You know when I need coffee before I do. You watch my reactions before anyone else in the room.”

Your breath stutters.

And Hotch notices immediately.

His expression shifts slightly as his eyes flick across your face, your posture, your hands still locked around the edge of the counter hard enough that your knuckles have gone pale beneath the kitchen lights.

“Your breathing changes when I get too close to you,” he says quietly.

He takes another slow step forward, close enough now that you have to tilt your head back slightly to keep looking at him.

“You stop fidgeting,” he continues. “You go completely still.” His gaze drops briefly to your hands before lifting again. “Like you’re afraid movement alone is going to give you away.”

Your heart is beating so hard now you’re half-convinced he can hear it.

“You lose verbal fluency,” he says, voice lower now. “You trip over words you normally wouldn’t. Your pupils dilate. Your heart rate increases. And every single time I get close to noticing it—”

His eyes lock onto yours.

“You redirect.”

You can barely breathe now.

He’s standing right in front of you, close enough that the heat rolling off him sinks straight into your skin, close enough that one more step would put him between your knees where you’re perched on the counter.

And somehow the worst part is that he still sounds calm. Thoughtful. Like Aaron Hotchner is profiling you with the same careful focus he’d bring to an unsub—except this time the thing he’s slowly uncovering is the fact that you’ve been hopelessly in love with him this entire time.

You swallow hard, your gaze catching just briefly on his mouth before you drag it back up to his eyes, pulse hammering so hard you can barely think straight.

“Figured it out yet, Agent Hotchner?” you ask softly.

He goes still for half a second, something unreadable flickering across his face as his eyes drop to your mouth before lifting back to your eyes again.

The apartment suddenly feels oppressively quiet.

His throat shifts slightly.

And then—

His phone rings.

He steps back immediately, his expression shuttering back into something careful and unreadable.

“Hotchner,” he says, pressing his phone against his ear.

You don’t hear much after that. Not really. You recognise Morgan’s muffled voice, but you can’t quite hear what he’s saying. Not while Hotch slowly paces your living room. You catch fragments of the conversation. Questions. Short answers. The low, steady cadence of his voice slipping effortlessly back into work mode while your own nervous system continues actively collapsing in on itself.

Because holy fuck.

Holy fuck.

What the hell just happened?

“They got him.”

Your head snaps up. “They what?”

Hotch moves back to the dining table and starts gathering his things.

“It was him. Daniel Mercer,” he says. “Morgan and Prentiss found him in the motel room with multiple burner phones, printed screenshots from the dating profile, and enough surveillance material to establish intent.”

“Oh.”

“Local PD recovered notebooks too,” he continues. “Names, schedules, work addresses. Everyone connected to Ethan Mercer’s conviction. Judges, prosecutors, witnesses. You were first because you were the arresting agent.”

A cold shiver slips down your spine.

“Garcia also confirmed the motel Wi-Fi matched the same VPN chain used to access the dating profile,” Hotch adds. “Once Mercer realised the Bureau was involved, the direct contact stopped. After that he shifted to surveillance. Morgan said the room was covered in trial material. Photos. Notes. Newspaper clippings. He’d been building the grievance for months.”

He pauses, then looks at you.

“But they got him.”

“Good,” you say quietly.

Hotch nods once before turning back to the dining table, slipping his laptop into his bag with careful efficiency before gathering every file and printout into one neat pile.

“Local PD will hold Mercer overnight until federal transport clears,” he says, sliding the papers into his bag. “Garcia’s already started coordinating with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. You’ll need to give an additional statement tomorrow regarding the dating profile.”

You nod. “Okay.”

Hotch reaches for his jacket, draping it over one arm.

“There’ll still be additional officers patrolling the area tonight,” he says. “And if you don’t want to be alone, I can have Reid or Garcia stay here.”

“I’ll be fine,” you mutter, glancing down at the kitchen tiles. “You can stop babysitting me now.”

Hotch stills.

Then slowly, deliberately, sets his jacket on the table.

“Babysitting?” he repeats.

“You know what I mean.”

He steps toward you, brows drawn. “I don’t think I do.”

“You solved the case,” you mutter, heat crawling up the back of your neck. “You profiled me. Thoroughly. So congratulations, I guess. You figured out the whole sad little secret, the weird avoidance issues, the entire personality disorder cocktail—” You let out a short, humourless laugh. “You can go back to pretending none of this ever happened now.”

He closes the distance between you before you even fully realise he’s moving, stopping directly in front of the counter again. Exactly where he’d been when you asked him if he’d figured it out. Close enough that you can feel his warmth. Close enough that you can see the day-old shadow of stubble lining his jaw.

“You’re being deliberately provocative now because you’re embarrassed,” he says. “But embarrassment isn’t actually your primary response here.”

His gaze drops to your mouth again, and your pulse stumbles.

“If it was,” he adds quietly, “you wouldn’t still be looking at me like that.”

Your breath catches in your throat.

You want to say something. Anything. Another joke. Another deflection. Something sharp enough to cut through the tension in the air and stop him looking at you like this. Exposing you like this.

But you can’t.

All you can do is stare at him. At the steady intensity in his eyes. At the way his tie has loosened slightly over the course of the night. At the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath the white shirt you’ve spent an embarrassing number of years picturing on your bedroom floor.

You swallow hard, and he notices. Of course he does.

Something shifts in his expression then. Something softer. Less guarded.

His hand comes up beneath your jaw, his thumb pressing gently into your chin as he pulls you closer. You fall forward without hesitation, and he leans in, dark eyes still searching yours as if he isn’t entirely sure he has permission yet.

Then he kisses you.

It’s not rushed. Not messy. If anything, the first press of his mouth against yours feels almost unbearably controlled, like he’s still holding himself back even now.

But the restraint doesn’t last long.

Your hand catches his tie, tugging him closer, and something rough slips from the back of his throat as he steps in, his hips slotting between your thighs. His hand slides from your jaw into your hair, fingers tightening just enough to tilt your head back exactly as far as he wants it.

Your lips part against his with a broken sound, and he deepens it slowly, his tongue moving against yours like he has all the time in the world. Tasting you. Learning you. Mapping every small sound and ragged exhale with the same focused intensity he brings to everything—and somehow that’s what undoes you the most. Not urgency. Attention.

His breath mingles with yours, hot and uneven, and when his teeth catch your bottom lip it’s deliberate, measured—a sharp little spark shooting straight through your spine. Your hips roll toward him without permission, and his answering groan rumbles through his chest, vibrating beneath your palm and making you ache everywhere you’ve been starving for him.

Then he pulls back just enough to look at you properly again. His hand still tangled in your hair. Thumb dragging once across your jaw. His eyes move over your face with the same intensity he uses in every debrief, every case, every crisis, except right now you are the thing he’s making sure of.

Like he needs to be absolutely certain this is real.

“Aaron—”

“Bedroom,” he says immediately, voice low and rough enough to send heat crashing straight through you. “Now.”

FRIDAY 6:15AM

Your alarm blares somewhere beside the bed, startling you awake hard enough that your heart immediately starts pounding. You reach for it blindly, determined to silence it before it wakes—

Oh God.

The second your hand hits the snooze button, you freeze.

Your heart is beating faster now, your pulse thrumming in your throat as you turn slowly—so slowly—toward the other side of the bed, where Aaron fucking Hotchner stirs sleepily.

Your stomach swoops.

You slept with your boss last night.

With a shallow, shaky breath, you carefully start to move. His arm is heavy at your waist, but you manage to slip out from underneath it without fully waking him. You shove the covers off and shiver at the sudden exposure, leaning over the side of the bed to find your discarded sweater. You pull it over your head before quietly padding toward the ensuite, refusing to glance back at your very hot, very naked unit chief still tangled in your sheets.

You only just make it around the other side of the bed before something tugs at the back of your sweater. You stop, glancing back to find Hotch half-awake, eyes half-lidded with one hand caught at the hem of your sweater.

“Do you really get up this early?” he asks, voice rough with sleep.

“Yeah,” you murmur. “Most days.”

His brows pull together slightly. “Why?”

You let out a small, breathless laugh. “Because my boss is kind of a hard ass about punctuality.”

Something that almost resembles amusement flickers across his face.

“Sounds like a terrible boss,” he murmurs.

Then he tugs on your sweater again—hard enough this time that you let out a startled laugh as you stumble backward onto the mattress and into him. He catches you easily, one arm wrapping around your waist before you can even fully recover, pulling you back against the warmth of his chest.

“Yeah,” you murmur, laughing softly as his mouth brushes beneath your ear. “He’s awful. Very demanding.”

He hums, breath warm against your skin.

“He’s really hot, though,” you add, smiling despite yourself. “So I like having time to put in a little effort, you know? Hope he notices.”

“Oh, he notices.”

Your stomach flips. “Really?”

“Mhm.”

His arm tightens around your waist. “He notices the skirts.”

Heat floods your face. “Aaron—”

“He notices the tights.” His mouth brushes against the nape of your neck. “The ones with the seam up the back.”

“Oh my God.”

You try to turn your face into the pillow, but he just holds you tighter, pressing his lips firm against your neck.

“And the red bra,” he murmurs.

Your breath catches.

“Noticed that so much I had to wait until everyone left the conference room before I could get up.”

You let out a strangled sound, squirming in his arms, but it’s no use. His chest vibrates against your back, something suspiciously close to laughter.

“My washing machine broke that week,” you whine. “It wasn’t my fault.”

“Mm, sure.”

You twist around immediately. “I’m not lying.”

The corner of his mouth twitches, like he doesn’t quite believe you, but before you can protest again—he kisses you. Warm, slow, sleep-soft. His mouth moves against yours almost lazily, his hand tightening slightly at your waist when a pathetic little whimper slips out before you can stop it.

“Careful,” you murmur, breathless against his mouth. “Don’t want to be late.”

You feel his lips curve.

“Good thing I’m the boss.”

10:35AM

You made it to work well on time. Even after three orgasms, a shower, and an awkward attempt at a ‘What Now?’ conversation—that ended in the aforementioned third orgasm. Because fortunately for your rapidly fraying nervous system, Hotch hadn’t even hesitated when you’d finally asked what happens next. In fact, he’d answered a little too quickly.

The first thing he’d asked was whether you’d be comfortable keeping things quiet for a while. Not because he’s worried about the team finding out—he trusts them. Trusts you. The concern is Strauss, and the Bureau, and keeping you in the BAU while he figures out exactly how much trouble the two of you have just created for yourselves. At some point he’d even started muttering about reporting structures and supervisory chains, half-thinking out loud while pulling on his tie. Something about possibly moving your reporting line over to Rossi. Something else about needing to review the Bureau’s fraternisation policies before making any moves.

That was when you kissed him—effectively, and very quickly, kicking off round three.

Because he’d clearly been thinking about this for a while, which means Aaron Hotchner has been noticing a lot more than just short skirts and inappropriately coloured underwear. It means that the second he decided to kiss you in your apartment last night, he’d already known exactly what he was getting himself into.

“Alright, gorgeous,” Morgan says, startling you as he raps a knuckle against your desk. “They’ll be ready for you downstairs in ten.”

You glance up at him, brows drawn—and it takes an embarrassingly long second for you to figure out what he’s talking about.

“Oh.” You blink. “Right. Yeah, I’ll head down soon. Thanks.”

Prentiss looks over from her desk. “You gonna be okay?”

You lift a shoulder. “Sure. What’s another case report?”

Morgan frowns, dropping into his chair. “It’s not exactly every day you’re the victim, baby girl.”

“Yeah, but nothing really happened.”

Morgan and Prentiss both stare at you.

“Because of the team,” you add quickly. “You guys caught him before he actually did anything. So... you know, nothing bad happened.” You plaster on a smile that feels reasonably convincing. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

Prentiss narrows her eyes, but before she can say anything else, Reid appears.

“You’re in a remarkably good mood for someone who was being actively cyberstalked twelve hours ago,” he says, stirring his second coffee of the day.

You turn back to your screen, trying to ignore the heat creeping into your cheeks. “Maybe I just have a newfound appreciation for life.”

Reid studies you for a moment, clearly unconvinced—but he doesn’t push. He just moves slowly back toward his desk, setting his coffee down with unnecessary care while the rest of the team turn away, finally deciding to mind their own business.

You force your attention back to the report in front of you, determined to at least look productive for the next ten minutes—when a familiar voice cuts through your concentration.

“Rossi’s taking Wallace with you next week,” Hotch says, setting the file down on your desk.

You blink up at him. “I thought you were leading the interview.”

“I was.”

Something in his expression tightens briefly before he lowers his voice.

“Wallace has a long history of using sex, intimidation, and emotional targeting to destabilise people during interviews,” he says. “Especially women.”

You frown. “Hotch, I—”

“And if he says something to you in that room,” he continues evenly, “or looks at you the wrong way, I need to know the agent sitting beside you is still capable of thinking objectively.”

Your stomach flips as his eyes meet yours—steady, intense, devastatingly honest.

“Right now,” he says quietly, “I’m not sure that’s me.”

Then he’s gone. Moving through the bullpen back toward his office like he hasn’t just set your pulse racing and your head spinning. You watch after him for a moment before shaking your head, glancing back at your computer screen as if you’d been focused on it at all in the first place.

“…Huh.”

You turn toward the sound and find Reid staring at you again. Not rudely. Just watching with the same focused curiosity he’d been wearing since your suspiciously cheerful comment about cyberstalking.

He tilts his head.

Then—

“Oh my God.”

You close your eyes. “Spencer… don’t.”

© 2026 geminiwritten

[hananothannah]

can’t talk here. email me.

[hotchnerss]

this scene specifically makes me so feral. keep me FAR AWAY from him for his own good. it's on SIGHT

[hananothannah]

real!

[hotchnerss]

[hananothannah]

im not arguing with a nerdy brown hair puppy eyes man. you win, princess!

[esote-rika]

𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐟𝐢𝐭 | 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐝

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader

Category: Smut 18+ MDNI

Summary: Teasing your virgin boyfriend was all fun and games, until he’s too worked up to function. When the layers of clothing fall off, you’re in for a delightfully large surprise.

Content: 3.2k words, virgin!Spencer, kinda sub undertones, he’s hung af and really fucking whiny, fingering, hand jobs, raw p in v but reader is on the pill, multiple orgasms, Spencer cries because he needs it so bad, reader wears lip gloss, dacryphilia (lemme know if I missed anything)

a/n: Truly just 3.2k words of filth. I wrote this instead of the next chapter for my thesis and I have no regrets. Also, a lot of my italicized words got lost because formatting on the app truly is the bane of my existence, but I reached a personal milestone and wanted to celebrate! So yay, here's a fic as a thank you for supporting my blog and writings ❤️

BUD Chronicles

Sometimes dating Spencer Reid meant throwing subtlety out the goddamn window; the man wouldn’t know subtext if it hit him square on his beautiful, perfectly sculpted face. All your subtle attempts to seduce him have all been entirely unsuccessful, and you're beginning to wonder if he even wants you that way. 

In your defense, you've been dating for over two months now and he still hasn't initiated anything beyond making out. It’s been making you antsy. Of course, his hesitation is nice. It comes from a place of respect after all, and there’s something endearing about his gentle touches, large hands ghosting over your body. You appreciate this easy, steady pace you've set for the relationship. 

But after a particularly busy week for both of you, you've been left aching and needy for something more. 

When you finally found a time that works for both of your schedules, you decided it would be time to make your move. Fuck waiting for him to initiate. You can do it yourself. You'd been subtle about it at first—a hand on his thigh, a few inches higher than where you'd normally place it, lips running over his jaw. 

The man had simply laughed nervously, and returned with a kiss to your forehead.

Briefly, you wondered if it truly is because he's not into you that way. However, that thought flits right out of your pretty head when you see the unmistakable tent slowly forming in his pants. 

So you’d upped your actions, nibbling at his earlobe in the middle of dessert, fingers trailing up his inner thigh, dangerously close to his crotch. Screw subtlety. (And hopefully, him too.) By the time you two sat in the back of the cab, he’s a squirming mess.

“S-stay the night?” he’d been so shy about it you debated teasing him a little more. Maybe if you weren’t so horny, you would have, but relief had simply flooded your veins. Finally. So you nod, teased him a little more in the back of the cab until he had to grab your wrists and hold them in place, because he swore he’d probably come in here just from one more brush of your palm. The lightest pressure and he’d be a goner, a pathetic mess, and you hadn’t even really done anything. 

There had been no build up once you got into his apartment. Simply an exchange of quick, sloppy kisses, Spencer pushing you deeper into his house until the couch hits the back of your knees and both of you came tumbling down. He’s already rutting his hips against your thigh, his erection hot even through his slacks. Clumsy fingers strip off fabric and shoes, leaving them strewn haphazardly on his living room floor.

You had pushed him away then, grinning enticingly as you went to straddle his lap. You ground your hips in circular motions against his still clothed crotch, gasping as the obvious bulge gives you even more traction to rub on. 

“No fair,” he whines, fingers leaving crescent shaped indents on your hips, “P-please stop teasing, you’ve been doing it all night.”

He’s so tightly wound it’s almost pathetic. He’s lucky you’ve some semblance of mercy left in your body, because you could probably come undone just from the friction that came by dry humping him. But you relent, sitting back on his thighs as you tug at his underpants. 

“All right baby, since you asked so nicely.”

Thus exposing what’s going to be the small issue of the night.

Rather, the large issue.

His cock springs free and for a moment you just stare at it. Red, veiny, pulsing and huge. Larger than anyone you’ve been with, larger than even the toys that hide in that one drawer in your bedroom closet.

“W-what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You paled a little.”

A shaky laugh escapes your lips, “You didn’t tell me you were hung.”

His eyebrows scrunch, so ridiculously adorable you have to bite your lip to stifle another giggle.

“Hung?”

“Yeah, like, your dick is huge.”

Red blooms across his cheeks, “It’s - it’s certainly above average—”

“You know what the average length is?”

“I-in North America, yes.”

“I didn’t know you swung that way, baby.”

He groans, moving to hide his face into the crook of your neck, “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know, I know, I’m kidding.” You manage to shift and catch his head before he has a chance to press it to your neck. Your lips land on his, and he’s pushing his tongue inside your mouth sloppily. When you pull away for air, you add, “You’re just bigger than what I’m used to.”

“Is that bad?”

Is it? One hand wraps around the base of his cock, stroking up delicately, testing out the girth and the weight of him. He shudders, muscles tensing. His fingers dig into your hips. With a grin, you reply, “On the contrary, I think it’s exciting.”

You position yourself over him then, letting the blunt tip run up and down your slick folds. The friction makes you both shiver. Every single ridge and vein of his cock catches on your sensitive flesh, and you can’t help but start moving your hips up and down, rubbing your folds over the length of him. 

“You’re - ah - so wet.” his tone is wretched with desire and awe.

“All for you baby.” You continue your ministrations, letting his length part your folds, the tip hitting your clit at certain angles. His cock is covered in your slick within moments and your poor boyfriend looks like he’s about to combust. You feel the twitch of his cock, the shift in the way he moves his hips—rocking up desperately against you—and you know he’s close. So you stop.

You’re rewarded by another whine.

“Please,” his grip is hurting you now, palms clutching handfuls of your ass. You don’t think he’s even aware of how tightly he’s doing it. “Please, I’m so—”

“Spence, do you really want to cum without even being inside me?” That shuts up his whining. “Mhm, didn’t think so.”

“Can I— please, just—”

“What?”

“Wanna touch you.”

Your lips tug into a smile. At your nod of assent, one of his hands let go of your ass to move to your pussy, the pads of his fingers quickly locating your clit.

“Fuck, Spence,” your head falls forward, forehead meeting his, “Faster, baby.”

He obeys, tilting his head forward to capture your lips. Your mouth opens to him, muffling your moans as you begin to move, shamelessly riding his hand. His finger finds your entrance, dipping shallowly, hesitantly, but you’re so wet that, with a quick thrust of your hips, the digit slips all the way in. 

Spencer pulls away from the kiss to watch, the pupils of his eyes nearly eclipsing the ochre irises as your pussy swallows his finger greedily. Transfixed, he adds another finger and it’s your turn to squeeze and mark up his alabaster skin with crescent marks. 

“Yes,” you groan, gasp, writhe in his lap as his fingers curl and find the sweet spot inside you, “Oh god, Spencer, yes!”

He’s entranced as he pumps his fingers in and you, mouth hanging open as your pussy parts and accepts his fingers so prettily. To reciprocate, your hands—plural, yes both hands—wrap around his cock, starting a slow, lazy pace. That throws his rhythm off, fingers stilling inside you.

“Keep going,” you urge him, hands slowing to a stop as well, “Spencer.”

He whines, hips bucking up into your palms, but something in your voice seems to set him straight. Fingers thrust in and out of you again, long and elegant and stretching you for what’s about to come. Satisfied, you pump your hands over his cock again, twisting them every time you motion up, and squeezing as you go down. It doesn’t take long for him to fall apart, his cock twitching before cum shoots from the tip. Because you’re straddling his lap, it makes a mess and lands on both of you—his stomach, your chest, some even on your hair. 

“Oh god,” he’s whining again, embarrassed, “I’m sorry, I’m so—”

You silence him with a kiss, still stroking him, as your hips move over his hand. His brain manages to work, curling inside your fluttering walls. The movements are messy, uncoordinated as you chase your orgasm and he struggles to catch up. A whine leaves your lips, soft and needy. Something about it must trigger the neurons in his beautiful brain, make him remember you have the perfect bundle of nerves being neglected and he has more free fingers. 

With a slight shift, he presses his thumb to your clit. 

“Fuck, baby, yes!” you cry out breathlessly, head falling forward on his shoulder. 

“Good?” he asks, increasing pressure on that sensitive nub. Small, quick circles. You wonder when he became so dexterous.

You nod, thighs clenched and quivering as your climax nears, the pleasure in your stomach building and coiling into something white-hot and— “Oh, Spencer!”

His other arm wraps around your waist, crushing you to him as he helps you through your orgasm. In the steady comfort of his arms, the rocking of your hips slow to a stop. You feel his lips at your temple, not really kissing the spot, just resting there. Heavy breaths rifle strands of your hair. 

“Oh god,” he sighs, fingers slipping out of you with a pop, “Angel, that was amazing.”

You straighten up, grinning, “We're not done yet.”

“No?”

Eyes dart down suggestively, and his gaze follows to his own lap. Still completely erect, his cock lays flat against you, heavy and pulsating. “No, I think I need to take care of you a little more.”

“Y-you don't have—”

But you've already lifted yourself to your knees, fighting through the quake in your thighs, in order to position the tip of him at your slick entrance. His hands return to your thighs, nails clamping down on your skin.

“But I'm not— condom—”

How cute, he can barely speak. You grin, press a chaste kiss to the dimple on his cheek. “I'm clean. And on the pill.”

“You sure it’s okay?”

It's more than okay, actually. You're too shades shy of being desperate for his cock to split you open, but you're not sure if he'd survive hearing that sentence so you say, “Of course it is baby. Unless… you want me to stop?” If he catches the hint of insecurity in your voice, he doesn't show it. 

Instead, his head is shaking no, vigorously, lower lip jutting out in a pout. 

You smile, and kiss it away, “Okay then. I'll go slow, okay?”

You'd meant it as an empty warning. Really, there's nothing more you want than to impale yourself down on him and ride him like there's no tomorrow. However, as you slowly lower yourself onto his cock, as the blunt tip breaches your entrance and spreads your walls, you realize that going slow is probably more of a necessity. 

He's big. Almost uncomfortably so. 

One sharp exhale from your lips and he's suddenly looking at you in concern, “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” you gasp, although the furrow in your brows suggest otherwise. 

“You don't have to—"

“Hush, baby, I just need a moment.” You say, forcing yourself to relax and take more. The broadest part of his head pushes through, stretching you wider than you've ever been. Soft, keening sounds fill the air. It's hard to know which came from you, or from him.

You look up, and laugh when you realize Spencer's skin is dappled with large red splotches. He's staring at where the two of you are connected, his cock barely fitting inside you. With a deep breath, you roll your hips around, trying to get used to the feeling. He whines again, his torso falling back onto the cushion, “Oh my god,” he gasps, lower lips trembling, “Oh my god, please.”

“Need you to be patient for me, Spence.” you mutter, dropping down a little more. You place one hand on his thigh for balance, while the other wraps around the base of his cock, stroking him to give him some relief. The greedy bastard bucks up, involuntarily, and you hiss as another inch pushes into you before you're ready.

“Spence!”

“Sorry, I'm sorry! Just - oh god, oh god, please, oh did I hurt you?”

And then it happens. Something glimmers on his cheek as it catches the light. And then another. And again, this time on the other cheek. Your hand leaves his thigh to grasp his chin, tilt his head up.

Your boyfriend is crying. Splayed out on the couch, cushions embedded by the sharp joints of his elbows from where he's propped himself up. He's looking up at you with glimmering liquid gathered on the rims of his lashline. Dripping down his cheeks, only to be replaced by another bout. 

“Baby,” You sigh, pouting as you lean down. Soft lips catch his tears, leaving sticky residue on his cheekbones from the remains of your lip gloss, “It's okay.”

Another sob. Large teardrops crawl down his chiseled face.

Knowing that it’s your fault makes a feeling of power surge through you. “You’re so pretty like this, Spence.” 

“Angel, please—”

The sight of his tear streaked face does something to you, your walls relaxing and fluttering as you manage to accept another inch down. His reaction is instantaneous, nails sinking into your hips, head falling back. “No, no,” you say, hand coming to the back of his head, tilting his head forward again, “Look at me.”

Tear streaked and hazy eyed, he manages to keep his head steady in order to maintain eye contact. It’s a little sick, the way this turns you on, but it allows you to sheath his cock further in. 

You lift yourself up, until only the tip remains notched inside you, and his cock gleams with the evidence of your arousal. With a smile, you sink down again, walls fluttering as you take him deeper, until you have about three fourths of his length buried inside you and he’s little more than a puddle. 

A hiss escapes your lips, brows knitting from the stretch. It isn’t just that his length is impressive, it’s that he’s thick too, splitting your pussy open. But now he's buried more than halfway through, giving you enough room to lift yourself up, and sink down again.

You count that as a victory.

He groans, muscles tensing, and you know he's desperately trying not to buck up and meet your movements. With a small smile, you lean close, forehead resting on his. Large, honeyed eyes stare back up at you, still glassy with tears. You repeat the same motion of your hips, moaning as you feel every single ridge and vein of his cock straining inside your walls. 

“Feel good?” you murmur, swiping a stray teardrop with your thumb. 

“Mhmm,” he nods, breath hitching as your movements grow steady. The sting remains, but it's grown dull now that you’ve gotten more used to the size of him.

“Oh god, baby, why haven't we done this sooner?” you whine as you rock on top of him, enjoying the fullness of having him inside of you. The question is rhetorical, but he's in absolutely no state of mind to answer. His hands grip your hips tightly as he sniffles, unable to do anything else except enjoy the ride you're giving him.

Praises leave your lips, murmured in tones cloyingly sweet and half mocking. 

“Crying over sex, you're so lucky I'm so into you.”

“You look so pretty with tears in your eyes baby."

“Never had pussy this tight, haven't you?” 

That last one rips another sob from him, because you know this is his first, that you're making a mockery out of something significant for him. So you soothe with a kiss, and whispers of “I'm sorry, it's okay, you're doing so good, you feel so good.”

You punctuate it by moving faster, your pussy thoroughly comfortable and so wet that there's barely any struggle to bounce on his dick. However, you're still careful, still unable to take him all the way in. You figure it's something you both can work up to, something for the future. The thought makes you smile. 

Besides he doesn't seem to mind, moaning beneath you as you ride him. He seems to have lost all ability to articulate himself, instead just staring at you with red, tear filled eyes and a slack jaw. It makes you giggle, the way he looks so utterly fucked out. 

You clench around him, walls tightening sharply, sending sensations that make the two of you gasp. 

“I-I'm so close.” He manages to say, his hands now helping you, guiding your body as you impale yourself over his cock again and again, “Please, I'm so—”

“I know, baby, I know, you can come.”

His eyes squeeze shut, and his voice is especially strained when he asks, “Inside?”

You tug his hair teasingly, and his kids flutter open again. With a grin, you confirm, “Inside.”

A few more thrusts and he's gone, crying out, squirming desperately beneath you as spurts of his cum paint your walls. You don't stop, riding him continuously as you chase your own release. Thick, creamy liquid drips from your pussy and down the base of his cock with every movement. 

He sobs even more. 

“Touch me,” You whisper, pleading, “Spence, please baby, I'm so close.”

His fingers are at your clit in an instant, rubbing hasty circles as your pace grows erratic and sloppy. 

“Please,” He gasps, looking up at you with glassy, imploring eyes, “Please I wanna feel you come.”

Your body seems attuned to his desperate pleas, because as soon as those words leave his lips, your pussy clenches around him so tightly you both yelp in surprise. He doesn't stop his ministrations on your clit, helping you through your orgasm until you're panting. For the second time tonight, you collapse against him, face buried at the crook of his neck. 

“My god.”

He laughs, breathless, “My god indeed.” 

He shifts, moving slowly so he doesn't jostle your boneless frame too much. There's a hiss from you as he slowly pulls out. You find yourself clenching around nothing, feeling oddly empty after such an intense fullness. 

Silence wraps around both of you, heady and languid. His fingers in your hair, scratching your scalp. Soft intimacy after a whirlwind of lust.

And then he breaks it, so achingly sweet it almost makes you cry, “I'm sorry that I hurt you.”

“Mhm?”

“Earlier,” He clarifies, lips finding your shoulder and staying there. His voice becomes muffled and sheepish, “When I thrust up.”

“I didn't think you'd remember that.” You tease, fingers tangling into his hair and tugging at his curls.

“I've an eidetic memory, remember? I remember everything.” He laughs too. Relief makes his voice sound lighter. “I never want to hurt you.”

“You didn't,” You reassure him, “Well - okay, a little bit, but it's fine. I don't think you meant to.”

“Of course not,” He hums, lips traveling up your neck, “But I'll be more careful next time.”

“Next time huh?”

“Mhm,” Teeth on your jaw. Playful, teasing. “Next time.” 

It sounds like a promise. You know he intends to keep it. 

This was a request by @mggslover lol I forgot to add up top oh well

[hananothannah]

[girlwhorunswithwolves]

LOVE YOUR WORK.

My prompt idea, feel free to only use it if you like it… Neighbour Ryland who has thin walls… until one day one of you breaks and knocks on the others door late at night…😜

anon, i like this a lot, good girl (gn) - enjoy

Noise Complaint

Ryland Grace/Reader | Explicit, MDNI | ~11k words

Tags: neighbours to lovers, thin walls, slow burn, overheard masturbation, voice kink, face sitting, humour, praise adjacent

The walls in your building are thin enough to double as radio. You're cold to him in the lift and warm to him in the dark, and you've been getting away with it for weeks. Then he says your name through the wall like he means it, and you stop getting away with anything.

[ Cross posted on Ao3 ] [fic master list]

The walls in this building are not walls. They are suggestions. Polite architectural opinions about where your apartment ends and someone else's begins, offered with all the structural integrity of a paper napkin.

You learn this on your first night.

Not from traffic noise, not from plumbing. From the man next door, who is, at 11:47pm on a Tuesday, having a one-sided argument with what appears to be a stack of homework.

"No. No. Absolutely not. You cannot. You cannot just draw a picture of the sun and write 'it is hot' and act like that's a complete answer. I said explain why we have seasons, Marcus. Seasons. You've experienced them. You own a coat."

A pause. The sound of a pen tapping.

"You know what, fine. Fine. I'll give you credit for the drawing because the sun does look like that. That's a good sun. But Marcus, buddy, 'it is hot' is not science. 'It is hot' is a complaint."

More pen tapping.

"Oh, and now on the back you've drawn a snowman and written 'it is cold.' Marcus. That is the opposite of the same wrong answer."

You lie there in the dark, staring at your ceiling, and think: I'm going to have to move.

—

You don't move.

You do, however, meet him. Not on purpose. In the lift, on a Wednesday morning, because apparently his schedule overlaps with yours in the one way you'd rather it didn't.

He's taller than he sounds through the wall. That's the first stupid thing you notice. The second is the shirt, which is faded grey and reads I MAKE BAD CHEMISTRY JOKES BECAUSE ALL THE GOOD ONES ARGON.

"Hey! You're in 4B, right?" He sticks his hand out. Smiles like this is something he's been looking forward to. "Ryland. Grace. Ryland Grace. That's. One name, not two options."

You give him yours, because you were raised with manners, and then you give him about four seconds of eye contact before looking at the lift buttons.

"So listen, if you ever need anything. Sugar, eggs, someone to explain the hot water schedule because it's honestly deranged, I made a spreadsheet."

"Thanks," you say. The doors open. You leave.

You're not unfriendly. You're just not looking for a friend in this building. Especially not one who grades homework out loud at midnight.

The rants don't stop. They become furniture.

Tuesdays are grading nights. You learn this the way you learn anything about him, which is involuntarily. Tuesdays he argues with Marcus (who never spells anything right), with a girl named Priya (who is "genuinely too smart for this class, which is a me problem"), and occasionally with the textbook itself, which he seems to consider a personal enemy.

Thursdays are cooking. Or what he calls cooking. You hear a pan clang, then a long silence, then: "Okay. Okay okay okay. That's not. That's fine. Smoke doesn't always mean fire. Smoke sometimes means. A learning opportunity."

On a Friday night in your second week, you hear him explain the Drake Equation to absolutely nobody.

Not on a phone call. Not to a guest. To his empty apartment, at conversational volume, with the cadence of someone who is simply thinking out loud and does not know or does not care that the walls are made of wet tissue paper.

"So the thing about the Drake Equation is that it's not really an equation. It's supposed to tell you how many alien civilizations are out there in the galaxy. Like, actually out there, right now, sending signals. And the way it works is you take all these factors. How many stars are born every year, how many of those have planets, how many of those planets can support life, how many actually develop life, and then you multiply them all together and you get a number. Except every single term is a guess! Every single one! It's guesses multiplied by guesses and we treat the output like it means something, which, honestly? Respect. It's basically a prayer with variables. You're saying, 'God, I know you're probably not listening, but here's my estimate for how many of you there aren't.'"

You are lying in bed. It is 10:30pm. You are smiling, and you are annoyed about it.

—

The lift again, two days later.

You're carrying groceries. He's carrying what appears to be a crate of second-hand lab equipment, because of course he is.

"Hey, 4B!" He shifts the crate to one hip. Something glass clinks inside. "Quick question. Totally unrelated to anything. Do you happen to know if there's a rule about. Small controlled experiments. In residential units."

"What kind of experiments."

"Small ones. Very small. Mostly safe."

"Mostly."

"Like ninety percent safe. Ninety-two. I could get it to ninety-five if I had a fume hood, which I don't, hence the question."

"Please don't blow up the building."

He grins. It's the wrong response and he knows it, and the grin says he knows it, and the grin also says he is definitely going to do whatever he was already going to do before he asked. "Noted. Noted! That's. That's not a no, technically, but I hear you."

The lift doors close. You stand in your kitchen putting away groceries and realize you didn't tell him off. You meant to. He just talked past the place where you would have.

—

You hear him sneeze eleven times in a row on a Saturday morning. You count. Not on purpose. But the walls don't give you a choice, and after the sixth one you're committed.

Eleven sneezes. Then silence. Then, very quietly: "Ow."

A pause.

"Okay. No more. We're done. That's. The body is not designed for that. That was structural damage. I think I detached something."

You press your face into your pillow so he doesn't hear you laugh, and something in that gesture. The hiding. The fact that you don't want him to know you're listening.

That's the first time you think: oh no.

Not because of anything he's done. Just because you've started listening on purpose, and you're not sure when that happened.

—

He leaves something at your door on a Sunday afternoon.

A printout. A neatly formatted spreadsheet, actually, with the building's hot water schedule annotated in handwriting that is surprisingly legible for someone this chaotic. There's a post-it note stuck to the top: Made you a copy! The 7-7:30am window is the sweet spot. Also Tuesdays the pressure drops around 6pm, I think there's a valve thing, I'm investigating. — R

He signed it with his initial. Like you might not know which neighbour was conducting an investigation into the building's plumbing.

You run into him at the mailboxes the next morning and he looks up, hopeful. "Did you get the. The hot water thing? I slid it under your door, I wasn't sure if you."

"I got it. Thanks."

The thanks is a full stop. You hear yourself do it. The bright, closed, conversation-over thanks that leaves no room for a follow-up. You grab your mail and turn toward the stairs.

Behind you, a small pause. "Oh. Okay. Cool. Well, if you ever want to know about the valve thing, it's actually pretty interesting, there's this."

"I'm good. Thanks."

You don't look back. You take the stairs instead of the lift because the lift is a box and you can't be in a box with him right now, and you can feel him standing at the mailboxes behind you, still holding his own mail, still mid-sentence about a valve.

The spreadsheet is on your kitchen counter. It is helpful. It is accurate. The 7am window is, in fact, the sweet spot.

You use it every day and you never mention it.

—

The next time you see him in the hallway, there's a scorch mark on his door frame.

"It's cosmetic," he says, before you've said anything.

"I wasn't going to ask."

"You were looking at it."

"Because it's a scorch mark. On your door."

"Cosmetic scorch mark. Important distinction. The experiment went great, actually. The experiment itself was flawless. The experiment's proximity to a kitchen towel was the issue."

You should be angry. You should say something about lease agreements and fire safety and the fact that you live right there, eight inches of drywall away from whatever he just did to a kitchen towel.

Instead you say, "You're a disaster," and it comes out wrong. It comes out warm. Like you've said it before. Like you say it to people you like.

His face does something complicated. Surprise, maybe. Like he expected the version of you from the lift and got someone else for a second.

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, that's. That's been noted. Extensively."

You go inside and close the door and stand there for a second with your keys still in your hand.

The thing about the wall is that it lets you know him without any of the risk of knowing him. You get the unperformed version. The late-night, talking-to-himself, arguing-with-homework, burning-things, sneezing-eleven-times version. And that version is.

A problem.

Because in person, you can handle him. In person, he's your annoying neighbour who does small controlled experiments and doesn't respect noise ordinances, and you can be cold to that guy. You have been. That version of you works fine.

It's the other version that's the problem. The one lying in the dark, pressing your face into a pillow so he won't hear you laugh. That version likes him. That version has been listening on purpose for days and hasn't told the daytime you, and if those two versions of you ever have to exist in the same room as him at the same time, you are in serious trouble.

—

The first time, you don't know what you're hearing.

It's late. Past midnight. You're half asleep, that loose dissolving place where sounds don't fully register as real, and through the wall there's. Something. A rhythm that doesn't belong to anything you can file. Not talking, not the TV, not him pacing the way he does sometimes when he's working through a problem.

Breathing. Uneven. A little ragged.

Then a sound. Low, caught, bitten off. Like he started to say something and stopped himself. And then a rhythm beneath it, steady, unmistakable. The soft, slick sound of a hand moving.

Your eyes open.

You lie very still. The way you'd lie still if a noise woke you up and you weren't sure if it was inside your apartment or out, except you know exactly where it's coming from. You know which room. You know which wall. You know that the headboard of his bed is probably eighteen inches from yours because you've thought about the floor plan and you wish you hadn't.

He's quiet. Controlled. Nothing like the daytime version, the one who narrates at full volume, who can't keep a thought inside his head for longer than it takes to form. This version is trying not to be heard, and that effort. The restraint of it. The idea of him biting down on every sound while his hand works himself over, steady and deliberate, because he knows the walls are thin, because he's always known the walls are thin.

Your heart is pounding and you are not moving.

It doesn't last long. A shift. The rhythm speeds up, just slightly, and then a breath that's sharper than the ones before it. A groan he almost catches in time. Then quiet. Real quiet. The kind that settles.

You stare at the ceiling. Your body is warm in a way that has nothing to do with the blankets and everything to do with the fact that you just lay there and listened and you didn't stop listening and you could have put headphones in, you could have gone to the kitchen, you could have done anything, and you didn't.

You don't sleep well.

—

In the morning he's in the hallway. Jacket, backpack, bike helmet dangling from one hand, travel mug in the other. Normal. Completely normal. He gives you the same slightly-too-friendly smile he always gives you, the one you usually return with as little warmth as possible.

"Morning, 4B."

"Morning."

He holds the stairwell door for you. You walk through it without looking at him because if you look at him you will think about the sound he made, the caught one, the one he bit off, and you are not going to do that in the stairwell at 7:45am.

You do it on the bus instead.

—

Three days later, his bike is blocking your door.

Not entirely. Not maliciously. It's leaning against the wall between your doors at an angle that means you have to step around it, and it's not the first time, and you've been pretending it doesn't bother you because picking a fight with him about a bike felt petty before and now it feels impossible, because how are you supposed to stand in front of him and be annoyed about a bicycle wheel when you know what he sounds like when he comes.

But the bike is there. And you've had a long day. And you step around it and your bag catches the handlebar and the whole thing clatters sideways into your door with a sound that probably reaches the third floor.

His door opens. Of course it does.

"Oh. Hey. Sorry, was that. Did that fall? I was going to bring it inside, I just. I got distracted by this thing about axial tilt, which. Not relevant. Sorry. I'll move it."

He's in socks. No shoes, just socks, sliding across the hallway floor to grab the bike, and his hair is doing something unsupervised and he's wearing a shirt that says GEOLOGY ROCKS and you want to be irritated. You are irritated. You are also looking at his hands on the handlebars and thinking about his hands in the dark and you need to stop that immediately.

"It's the third time this week," you say, and it comes out sharper than you planned.

His face changes. The easy smile dims by a fraction. "Right. Yeah. No, you're right, I'll. I'll keep it inside. Sorry."

He wheels it into his apartment. You go into yours. The door closes and you stand there and feel like a terrible person, because he looked sorry, genuinely sorry, the way a golden retriever looks sorry, and you were cold to him because you can't figure out how to be anything else to his face.

Through the wall, you hear him lean the bike against something. A pause. Then, quietly: "Okay. Inside bike. Inside bike from now on. We can do that. That's fine."

He's talking to himself. He doesn't know you can hear.

You press your forehead against your door and close your eyes.

—

The third time. The fourth.

You stop keeping count because counting means admitting there's something to count, and you're not ready for that arithmetic.

But it's in your head now. Daytime, nighttime, all the time. He rants about a documentary he watched ("they got the scale of the solar system completely wrong, it's like they've never even seen the solar system, and I know nobody's seen the solar system but you could at least try") and your brain serves up the memory of his breathing, unbidden, laid right over his voice like a transparency. He talks, and you hear the other thing he sounds like. You can't unhear it. The information is in you now, permanent, and every time he opens his mouth in the hallway you feel it flicker behind your sternum like a pilot light.

He holds the door for you again on a Thursday. You say thanks and he says "yeah, of course" and his voice is just his voice, normal, unremarkable, and your whole body responds to it like a tuning fork and you hate this. You specifically hate this.

—

It's a Wednesday night when you hear your name.

He's been quiet today. No rants. No cooking disasters. You almost wondered if he was out, and then you heard the door close around ten, heard him move through his apartment in the dark, heard the bed.

You're lying on your side, facing the wall. You should roll over. You should put on a podcast. You should do literally anything other than lie here in the dark and wait for it, because that's what you're doing now, you're waiting for it, and if you had any self-respect at all you would.

He starts. And tonight he's not quiet about it.

Not loud, not the way he is during the day. But less careful. Like something in him has loosened or he's stopped trying to hold it, and you can hear more than breathing, you can hear him, the sounds he makes when he's not monitoring them, rough and open and. God.

Your hand is on your stomach. Then lower. Just resting. Not yet.

He says something. Muffled. Into the pillow, maybe, or against his arm. You can't make it out and your whole body goes tight trying to, which is insane, you are straining to hear your neighbour masturbate and this is not the person you thought you were but apparently it's the person you are now.

Then he says it again. Clearer this time. Like he moved his head, like he turned toward the wall.

Your name.

Not moaned. Not gasped. Said. Like a sentence he's been thinking and finally let out. Like he's been turning it over in his mouth and decided, just this once, to stop swallowing it.

And that's it. That's the thing you were holding out against and it's gone.

Your hand moves. No more resting, no more hovering. You touch yourself with his voice still in the wall, still in your bloodstream, and it's not careful, it's not slow. It's weeks of pretending you weren't listening and you are done pretending. You're wet, you've been wet since before he said your name, probably since you heard him start, and your fingers find a rhythm and it's his rhythm, the one you can hear through the wall, the one your body has apparently memorized without your permission.

On your back like this, staring up at the dark ceiling, you can hear everything. Every breath. Every shift of his weight. And you can hear yourself too, and that's the problem. Your breathing is too loud. The small sounds you're making are too loud. Everything in this apartment is a betrayal and the ceiling is right there not absorbing any of it.

You flip over.

Face down, pillow pulled tight under your head, your hand trapped beneath you now. This is a containment strategy. This is you being sensible about the acoustics of the situation.

Except.

The angle changes everything. Your weight settles onto your hand, onto your fingers, and gravity does something that your wrist alone wasn't doing. You grind down and the pressure is different here, fuller, your whole body behind it, and the first slow roll of your hips pulls a breath out of you that you bury in the pillow. You do it again. Again. Each time the weight of you pushes your fingers harder where you need them, and the pillow is in your teeth and the wall is right there, right beside you, and every sound he makes travels through it and into the mattress and into your chest.

He's still going. You can hear his breathing shift, rougher now, less measured, and you think about what that breath would feel like. Against your hair. Against the back of your neck. What that low, caught sound would do to you if it wasn't filtered through drywall and distance but pressed directly into your skin, his mouth on your throat, the vibration of it in your pulse point. If you were the one pulling those sounds out of him. Your fingers instead of his. Your name in his mouth not said to an empty room but said into the curve of your shoulder, said against your ear, said so close you could feel the shape of it.

Your hips roll down against your hand and you bite the pillowcase and think about his hands, the ones that held the handlebars, the ones that gesture when he talks, and what they would feel like replacing yours. How he'd touch you. Whether he'd be careful at first, the way he's careful about everything else when he thinks someone's watching, or whether he'd be like this. The nighttime version. Unmonitored. Honest.

You think about the sounds he doesn't let himself make during the day. The groan he almost caught in time that first night. What that sound would be if he stopped catching it. If he let it go into your mouth. If you swallowed it.

That's when the sound comes out.

Not when you expect it. Not at the finish. You grind down and your whole body is behind it now, the full weight of you bearing down onto your hand, and the angle is too good, too much, and the moan that comes out of you is the kind that starts in your chest and doesn't care about the pillow. It goes right through the cotton and the stuffing and into the room like the pillow isn't even there. Real. Unmistakable. The kind of sound that only means one thing.

You freeze. Face down, hand still pinned beneath you, every muscle locked.

On the other side of the wall, he has gone very still.

The silence is excruciating. Five seconds. Ten. You don't breathe. He doesn't breathe. Your hand is still between your legs and your heart is in your teeth and the whole building is holding its breath with you and you are going to die, you are going to actually die right here in this bed because he said your name and you moaned and he heard you and there is no version of this that is survivable.

Then. Slowly. He starts again.

And something about the way he starts. The pace of it. Deliberate. Like he heard you and the hearing made him harder. Like the sound you made was not a problem.

You press your forehead into the pillow. Your hand moves again. And this time you don't try to be quiet.

You grind down into your own fingers and match his rhythm and his breathing is rough and yours is rough and you are face down in your pillow thinking about his mouth on your neck and his weight on your back and the wall is nothing, the wall is air, the wall is the only reason you are not in his bed right now with his hand where yours is and his voice in your ear instead of in the plaster.

He's close. You can hear it the way you always can, the catch, the tightening, the way the sounds get shorter and less controlled. You're close too. Closer than you should be this fast, but you've been thinking about this for longer than tonight and your body knows it even if you've been lying to yourself about the timeline.

You come with your teeth in the pillow and your hips stuttering against your hand and a sound in your throat that you don't fully stop. It escapes. And it happens at almost the same moment he finishes on his side, and the symmetry of that is either coincidence or something worse than coincidence, and you don't want to think about which one.

The silence afterward is different from the other silences.

It has a shape. A weight. Like something has been set down in the room that wasn't there before and neither of you are going to acknowledge it but neither of you can pretend it isn't there.

You lie in the dark with your heart hammering and your hand still between your legs and you think: he heard that. He definitely heard that.

And the thing that should terrify you, the thing that keeps you awake for another hour staring at the wall that is not a wall, is that some part of you. The part you're not speaking to right now. Is glad.

—

In the morning, you decide it didn't happen.

Not the touching. That happened. You're not delusional. But the sound. The sound was not as loud as you think it was. You were face down in a pillow. Pillows are specifically designed to absorb sound, that's basically their whole job, and the wall is thin but it's still a wall, and he was. Busy. Distracted. Focused on other things. There is absolutely no reason to believe he heard anything.

You shower. You make coffee. You eat breakfast like a person who did not, twelve hours ago, grind herself into her own hand while listening to her neighbour say her name through a shared wall. That person does not exist. You are a different person. You are the person who eats cereal and checks email and has never thought about anyone's mouth on the back of her neck.

In the hallway, his door is closed. No bike. No scorch marks. No signs of life.

You go to work. You come home. The wall is silent. He's out, maybe, or grading quietly for once, and the silence should be a relief but instead it sits in your apartment like a held breath, and you keep catching yourself listening for him, and that makes you angry at yourself, which is at least a familiar feeling.

You go to bed. Nothing happens. You sleep.

See? Fine. You're fine.

—

The next evening, he starts ranting.

Something about a planet. Not a real planet, a hypothetical one, something to do with tidal locking and how one side would be permanently frozen and the other side would be permanently on fire and how that's "not even the interesting part, the interesting part is the terminator line, which. Okay, not the movie. Although also a great movie. But the line between the hot side and the cold side, this narrow strip where the temperature is juuust right, and that's where everything lives. Everything. All of life, all of civilisation, just this thin little ribbon of habitable space between too much and not enough."

He pauses. You hear him open the fridge.

"I mean, can you imagine? Your whole world is a margin. A border. You exist in the in-between and if you go too far in either direction you just. Burn up or freeze. You stay in the narrow part or you don't stay at all."

He's talking to no one. He's talking to his fridge. He's talking to his empty apartment at 9pm on a weeknight about the habitable zone of a hypothetical tidally locked planet and he doesn't know you're listening and his voice is the same voice that said your name two nights ago and you cannot do this anymore.

You just. Can't.

You're standing up before you've decided to stand up. You're at your front door before you've decided to leave. You're in the hallway in bare feet and a t-shirt and shorts and your hair is not ready for this and you are not ready for this but your body has apparently filed a motion to override your brain and the motion carried.

You knock.

The ranting stops. Footsteps. The click of a lock, and then his door opens and he's right there, closer than the wall has ever let him be, and he's wearing a faded t-shirt that says TRUST ME, I'M A SCIENTIST and his glasses are slightly crooked and he looks exactly like himself, which is the worst possible thing he could look like right now.

"Oh. Hey." Surprise. Not unwelcome surprise, just the regular kind. "Is everything. Did the bike. No, the bike's inside now, I moved the bike. Is it the noise? I know I was talking, I do that, I just. It's this thing about tidal locking that I. Sorry. I'll keep it down."

"You're always talking," you say, and it comes out wrong. Too flat. Too honest.

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I know. I'm sorry." The apologetic face. The one you've seen in the lift, in the hallway, every time he's done something that requires a sorry. Easy. Practised. "I do that. I know I do that. I'll keep it down."

"Thank you."

That should be the end of it. That's a complete interaction. You have lodged your complaint and he has accepted it and now you can go home and never think about the habitable zone of a tidally locked planet or the sound of your own name in his mouth ever again.

But he doesn't close the door. He leans against the frame, arms folded, and looks at you with an expression you can't quite read.

"Out of curiosity," he says. "What can you hear, specifically. Like is it just. Volume? Or is it. Content."

"What?"

"I'm just trying to calibrate. For future reference. So I know what I need to keep down." Reasonable. Helpful. The considerate neighbour, adjusting his behaviour based on feedback. Nothing wrong with the question at all.

"I mean. Everything," you say. "The grading. The cooking. The. Monologues."

"The monologues." He smiles. Not the hallway smile. Something a shade closer to private. "Right. And that bothers you."

"It's. Loud."

"It's loud," he repeats. Nodding. Still leaning. Still watching. "So it's a volume issue."

"Yes."

"Just volume."

Something about the way he says just makes your stomach tighten. Like he's leaving a space in the sentence for you to fill and you are not going to fill it.

"Because the thing about thin walls," he says, "is that they go both ways."

The hallway gets very quiet.

"I can hear you too," he says. Simply. Like he's giving you a weather report. Like this is information he has been sitting on for a while and has made his peace with. "I can hear you come home. I can hear you laugh at things on your phone. I can hear you sing in the kitchen when you think no one's listening, and you always sing the same song wrong and it's." He pauses. "That's not the point."

You are going to die in this hallway. You are going to die in bare feet in front of a man in a novelty science shirt and they will find your body and the cause of death will be this exact moment.

"The point is that if you can hear everything," he says, and the word is careful now, weighted, placed, "then I think we both know this isn't really about the volume."

The floor drops.

He's not embarrassed. He's not fumbling. He's standing in his doorway with his arms folded and he is looking at you the way he looks at a problem he has already solved and is waiting for you to catch up to.

"The other night," he says. And his voice doesn't go soft or nervous. It stays steady. He is looking directly at you and he is not flinching. "I said your name. And you heard me."

You can't speak. You are physically present in this hallway but your voice has left the building.

"And I heard you."

"You." Your voice comes out airless. "You heard."

"I heard you start. After I said your name." He unfolds his arms. Lets them drop. And the steadiness in his voice flickers, just once, just enough for you to see what's underneath it. "And I heard the sound you made when you. Yeah."

"On purpose," you manage. "You said it on purpose."

"Yes."

The single syllable lands like a detonation. No fumbling. No apology. Just yes. He said your name while he touched himself and he meant to and he's not pretending otherwise and you have never in your life been less prepared for a conversation.

"I was testing something," he says, and a ghost of a smile surfaces. "Which sounds clinical and I promise it wasn't. It was. I wanted to know if you were listening. I thought you might be. I hoped you might be."

You are standing in a hallway in bare feet and this man has known, this whole time, every single thing you thought you were hiding, and he has been on the other side of the wall listening to you the way you were listening to him and neither of you said anything and he's just been. Waiting.

"Do you want to come in," he says, and it's not a question. The grammar is a question but his voice has dropped the question mark somewhere on the floor and what's left is just the sentence. An opening. A door that is already open, has been open, that you've been standing on either side of for weeks.

You step through it.

He closes the door behind you, and the click of the lock is the loudest thing in the world, and then his apartment is around you and it smells like him and looks like him and there's a bike leaning against the bookshelf and papers on the kitchen table and a coffee mug with a dinosaur on it and this is the other side of the wall. This is where the sounds come from.

"So," he says, behind you.

You turn.

He's closer than he was. Not touching. Just closer. Close enough that you can see the way his breathing has changed, the way his eyes are darker than they were in the hallway, the way his hands are at his sides and very deliberately not reaching for you, not yet, like he's giving you one more second to leave, one more exit, and he will let you take it if you want it.

You don't want it.

"So," you say back.

"You're not exactly friendly to me," he says, and the way he says it is not an accusation. It's an observation. The way a scientist notes a data point. "In person. You're friendly through the wall when you don't think I know you're there. But to my face you're."

"I know."

"Is that. Was that because of the bike, or because of."

"The bike. At first."

"And then?"

"And then I didn't know how to stop."

"Being unfriendly."

"Being unfriendly when I knew what you sounded like at night. Yeah."

The sound he makes. Low, involuntary, like you've said something that landed somewhere physical. The steady composure he's been holding cracks, just for a second, and what's underneath it is not calm. His hand comes up, and this time it doesn't go to his glasses. It goes to the side of your face, and his fingers are warm, and he's shaking slightly, and there it is. Under the patience, under the confidence, under the man who opened the door already knowing why you were there. He's shaking.

"Can I," he says.

"Yes."

He kisses you.

And it's nothing like the wall. The wall was distance and imagination and the shape of a sound you couldn't see. This is his mouth, warm and real and slightly off-center because he came in too fast, and his hand on your jaw tilting you into it, and the small desperate sound he makes against your lips is the one you've been hearing through plaster for weeks except now it's yours, it's happening because of you, and it sounds completely different when there's nothing between you and the source.

He pulls back just far enough to breathe. His forehead is against yours. His thumb is tracing your cheekbone and his eyes are closed and he says, very quietly, "I've been going out of my mind."

"Yeah," you say. "Me too."

"I talk to myself," he says. "I know I talk to myself. I've always done it, it's a whole thing, and I knew the walls were thin and I just. I never thought about it until you moved in and then I couldn't stop thinking about it. About what you could hear. About whether you were listening. And then I started talking louder on purpose. Which I realize makes me sound. But I wanted. I liked knowing you were there."

"I was always listening."

His breath catches. His hand slides from your jaw to the back of your neck and the touch lands exactly where you imagined it, exactly where you pictured it when you were face down in your pillow with your hand between your legs, and the reality is so close to the fantasy that your knees actually soften.

He feels it. Of course he does.

"That," he says. "When did that start. When did you start."

"Listening?"

"Wanting."

You close your eyes. "The Drake Equation."

He makes a sound that is almost a laugh and almost a groan. "That was. That was like the second week."

"I know."

"I was talking about aliens."

"I know."

"And you were on the other side of the wall."

"Getting into bed."

"Getting into." He doesn't finish. His hand tightens on the back of your neck and he pulls you in again, and this kiss is not off-center. This kiss knows exactly where it's going. His other hand finds your hip and pulls you against him and you can feel him, all of him, hard against your stomach, and the sound you make into his mouth is the same one from the other night, the one that went through the pillow and through the wall, except now he swallows it the way you imagined him swallowing it and the reality is better, it's so much better, because his hands are real and his mouth is real and the sound he makes back is one you've never heard through the wall before. This one is new. This one is what he sounds like when he's touching someone instead of himself.

He walks you backward. Not far. His apartment is the mirror of yours, you know the layout, you've imagined the layout, and when the back of your legs hit the edge of his bed the shock of it runs up your spine because this is the bed. This is where the sounds came from. This is where he lay in the dark and said your name and meant it.

"I should have just knocked on your door," he says. His hands are on your hips and his breathing is wrecked and his glasses are fully crooked now and he's looking at you like you're a problem he wants to solve slowly. "Like a normal person. But the wall was easier. The wall was safe. I could talk and pretend I wasn't talking to you and you could listen and pretend you weren't listening and neither of us had to be brave about it."

His thumb is drawing circles on your hip bone through the fabric of your shorts and you are losing the ability to process full sentences.

"I'm trying to be brave about it now," he says.

—

You sit back onto the bed and pull him with you.

He comes down over you and the weight of him is the first thing. The first real thing. You imagined this through the wall, his body pressing yours into the mattress, and your imagination was wrong. Your imagination didn't know about the heat of him, the solid fact of him, the way his hips settle between yours like they were always supposed to be there and the sound you make when they do is not quiet and you don't care.

"Hi," he says, looking down at you. Slightly breathless. Glasses crooked. Smiling like he can't believe he's here.

"Hi."

"This is. This is better than the wall."

You laugh. You actually laugh, and he grins at the sound, and then he dips his head and puts his mouth on your neck and the laugh dies in your throat because. Oh. Oh.

You imagined this. You imagined it face down in your pillow with your hand between your legs and you thought you knew what it would feel like. You didn't know anything. His lips are warm and his breath is hot against your skin and when he opens his mouth and drags his teeth lightly across the tendon in your neck, the sound you make is not the sound from the other night. That sound was muffled and buried and ashamed. This sound is in his ear, against his hair, and you feel him shudder when he hears it.

"God," he says into your throat. "You sound. You have no idea what you sound like."

"You've heard me before."

"Through a wall. This is." He presses his mouth to your pulse point. Stays there. You can feel him breathing you in like you're data he needs to collect. "This is different. This is. I can feel it when you."

You arch into him and he loses the sentence.

His hands find the hem of your shirt and he looks at you, a question, and you pull it off yourself because you don't have the patience for chivalry right now. His eyes drop and his expression does something that makes your stomach flip, because it's not smooth, it's not practised. It's wonder. The same wonder he has when he's explaining the Drake Equation to his empty apartment, except it's pointed at you.

"You are," he starts, and doesn't finish, and puts his mouth on your collarbone instead.

He works his way down. Slow. Tasting. His mouth on your sternum, between your breasts, along the curve of one, and when his lips close around your nipple and his tongue does something clever and unhurried, your hips jerk up against his and you feel how hard he is and the noise that comes out of both of you is graceless and perfect.

"Okay," he breathes against your skin. "Okay, that's. I need. Can I."

He's pulling at your shorts. You lift your hips and he drags them down and his fingers trail along the inside of your thigh on the way and the touch is so light it makes you shake. But he stops. Your underwear is still on and he is looking at you and his hand has gone still on your thigh and something about his expression has. Changed. Gone quiet. Focused in a way that isn't about your face anymore.

You don't understand for a second. And then you look down.

The cotton is soaked. Dark with it. The damp patch spreading through the fabric, obvious, undeniable, the evidence of what his voice and his hands and his mouth on your neck have done to you, and it's right there and he's right there and your knees start to close on instinct, some useless reflex to cover it, to take it back.

His hand catches your thigh. Gentle. But firm. He doesn't push your legs apart, he just. Holds them where they are. Doesn't let you hide it.

"Don't," he says. Low. Almost not a word.

The sound of it goes through you like a current. One syllable and your whole body decides it will do whatever he says for the rest of time. Which is a problem for future you. Present you just stops moving.

Your knees stay where they are. He looks at you, at the soaked cotton, at the shape of you through it, and his thumb traces the edge of the fabric along your inner thigh and his breathing has changed completely.

"You're. This is all." He exhales. Presses his thumb gently against the wet patch and watches the fabric darken further under the pressure. "This is all from tonight? From. From talking?"

You can't answer that honestly without dying, so you just nod.

"From talking," he repeats, and the wonder in his voice is the Drake Equation wonder, the tidal locking wonder, the same helpless fascination he has for things that exceed his models, except it's aimed at you. At what his voice does to you. At the evidence soaking through cotton.

"Ryland."

His eyes snap to yours. And the sound of his name in your mouth does something visible to him. You've never said it. Not once. Not in the hallway, not in the lift, not through the wall. It's always been hey or you or nothing. And his name in your voice in his bed is a thing he was clearly not prepared for.

"Yeah," he says. Rough. "Yeah, I'm. I'm here. Sorry. You're just. I've thought about this. I've thought about this a lot, and you're right here and I keep expecting the wall to be in the way."

"There's no wall."

"There's no wall," he repeats, and his hand moves up your thigh and between your legs and he doesn't pull the underwear aside. He presses his fingers against you through the cotton and the friction of the wet fabric on your clit makes your whole body jolt.

He feels it. Does it again. Deliberate this time, two fingers pressing flat, dragging slowly up through the soaked cotton, and the texture of it, the slight rough catch of the fabric between his skin and yours, is filthy and perfect and nothing like bare fingers would be. It's indirect. It makes you push your hips up into his hand chasing the pressure because you need more and the barrier is maddening and he knows it's maddening and he's doing it anyway.

He presses his forehead against your hip. His fingers keep moving, slow circles through the fabric, and you can feel the cotton sliding against you, slick and warm, clinging to every contour. "How long," he says. "How long have you been like this."

"Since the hallway. Since you opened the door."

"Since I." He makes a sound against your skin. Disbelief and want and something almost pained. His fingers find your clit again, bare this time, and the difference between cotton and skin makes you cry out. No fabric to blunt it. Just his fingertips, slick and precise, and he already knows where, he already learned that through the underwear, so now he just. Goes there. Directly. Confidently. Like he took notes through the fabric and is now applying them to the final draft.

He watches your face while his fingers work, and this is the teacher in him, the part that pays attention, that meets you where you are and adjusts, and when he finds the exact pressure that makes your thighs shake he doesn't speed up, he just stays there, steady, relentless, reading every sound you make like a language he's already halfway fluent in.

"Talk to me," you say, and you don't know where it comes from but it's the truest thing you've said all night, because his voice is where this started, his voice through the wall, and you need it now. You need it without the plaster in the way.

He understands. Of course he does.

"I could hear you," he says, low, against the skin of your stomach. His fingers don't stop. "Through the wall. I could hear you come home every night and I'd just. Lie there. Knowing you were right there. Knowing you were on the other side and I couldn't."

His thumb stays on your clit and two fingers press inside you and the stretch and the pressure and his voice all at once make your vision go white at the edges.

"I started talking louder," he says. "I know I did. I told myself I wasn't but I was. I wanted you to hear me. I wanted to be in your head the way you were in mine and I didn't know how to just say that so I just. Talked. About planets. About homework. About whatever I could think of because as long as I was talking I was. With you. Sort of."

His fingers curl inside you and your hand flies to his hair and grips.

"And then at night." His voice drops. "At night I'd think about you on the other side of the wall and I'd."

"I know what you'd do."

"You'd listen."

"I'd listen."

"And then you started." His breath catches. "That night. When I said your name. I heard you start and I almost. I almost knocked on the wall. I almost just put my hand on it and."

He's still talking. His fingers are still inside you and his voice is still doing what it always does to you and he is right here, not behind a wall, and you think about the last time you felt this. Face down in your bed, grinding into your own hand, wishing the wall wasn't there. Wishing his mouth was where your pillow was. Wishing you could take instead of just listen.

You can take now. There's no wall.

And the thing is. He made that possible. Not just by opening the door. By the way he looked at the wet cotton and said don't like it was something precious. By the way he said from talking? like your body's response to him was a wonder and not a mess. By the way he has not once made you feel like any part of this is something to be ashamed of.

So you're not going to be.

"Lie back," you say.

He blinks. His fingers still inside you, his brain visibly trying to catch up with the instruction. "What?"

"Lie back."

He does. He pulls his hand from between your legs and lies back on the mattress and looks up at you and you can see the moment he understands what you're doing because his lips part and his breathing changes and his hands come to your thighs as you swing one leg over him and move up his body.

"Oh," he says. "Oh, you're. Yeah. Yes. Please."

You're above him. Knees on either side of his head, your hands braced on the wall. The wall. The one that separates his apartment from yours. Your palms are flat against it and the surface is cool and thin and you can feel the hollow of it under your fingers, this stupid flimsy partition that has been the only thing between you for weeks, and now you're on the other side of it with your thighs framing his face and he's looking up at you like you're the night sky.

You hesitate. Hovering. Because this is a lot and he's looking up at you and you need to know.

"Is this okay?"

His hands tighten on your thighs. He turns his head and presses his mouth to the inside of one, open and warm and deliberate, and says against your skin, "I have wanted this since the second week. Sit down."

You lower yourself onto him and his hands are pulling your hips down and then his mouth is on you and you stop thinking entirely.

The sound you make should be illegal in a building with thin walls. It comes from somewhere deep and it fills the room and you hear it echo off the ceiling and some part of your brain registers that whoever is on the other side of his apartment can hear you right now and you do not care. You do not care even a little bit.

His tongue is slow and precise and devastating. He licks into you like he has all the time in the world, like this is the experiment he's been designing in his head for weeks, and his hands are gripping your thighs, holding you open, holding you exactly where he wants you. He moans against you and the vibration rolls through your clit and up your spine and you gasp and press harder against him and he does it again. On purpose this time. A low, deliberate groan directly into you, and your thighs clamp around his head and he doesn't stop.

This is the thing. He can't talk now. The man who never stops talking has his mouth full of you and all that's left is sound. Every reaction he has comes through vibration instead of words. When you grind down harder he groans and you feel it in your bones. When you ease off he whimpers, actually whimpers, and the frequency of it hums through your clit and makes your hips jerk. He is communicating entirely in resonance and you can feel every single thing he's feeling because it's pressed directly into the most sensitive part of you.

You roll your hips against his mouth and he pulls you tighter and you are grinding onto his face the way you ground into your own hand except his mouth is softer and wetter and smarter than your hand ever was, and every time you press down he meets you, tongue flat and firm, and the sounds he's making vibrate through you, wet and hungry and desperate, and you can feel them building, getting rougher, getting louder, and when you look down his eyes are closed and his hands are gripping your thighs hard enough to bruise and he looks like there is nowhere on earth he would rather be.

You shift your angle slightly, chasing it, and his tongue drags across your clit and he moans at the taste of you and the vibration hits at exactly the right moment and your back arches and your nails scrape against the wall and you hear yourself say his name.

"Ryland." It comes out wrecked.

His eyes open. He looks up at you from between your thighs and pulls back just enough to speak, his lips wet, his chin wet, and he says, "I'm right here. No wall. Right here."

And then he pulls your hips back down onto his mouth and starts again, and you've lost ground, you can feel it, the orgasm that was right there has retreated and he knows it and he doesn't rush. He builds you back. His tongue finds you, slow at first, relearning, and then firmer, more deliberate, settling into a rhythm that is patient and relentless and exactly, exactly right. You can feel it gathering again, tighter this time, closer to the surface, and his hands grip your thighs and pull you harder against his mouth and then he grazes his teeth against your clit, barely there, just the edge of them, and the sharp bright shock of it is the thing that tips it. You grind down hard and your hands press flat against the wall and you come so hard your vision whites out.

It's not like the other night. That was your hand and his sounds and a pillow in your teeth. This is his mouth and your weight and the noise you make is loud, open, a thing you give to him on purpose, and he takes it, takes all of it, works you through it with his tongue until you're shaking and grinding and saying his name like it's the only word you know.

You come down slowly. Your thighs are trembling. Your hands are still on the wall. You lift your weight off him and slide back, settling on his stomach, and he sucks in a breath like a man surfacing from water. His face is flushed and wet and he's grinning up at you, breathing hard, and you can feel him against the back of your thighs, so hard it must hurt.

He reaches up and pushes your hair out of your face. His thumb traces your cheekbone.

"That," he says. "That's the sound. That's what I heard through the wall and I."

"Get your clothes off."

He laughs. Breathless, startled, delighted. You climb off him, kneel back on the mattress, and he sits up and strips his shirt over his head and you watch from beside him and it's not a performance, it's him fumbling with the hem and getting his glasses caught and tossing them somewhere toward the nightstand and missing entirely, and you love it. You love the gracelessness of it. You love that he's not smooth because smooth would be someone else and you don't want someone else. You want the man who argues with homework and burns kitchen towels and talks about aliens at 10pm and said your name through a wall because he couldn't not.

He stands just long enough to shove his jeans down and his boxers with them and he's hard, flushed, and the sight of him makes your mouth go dry because you heard this, you heard this, the sounds he made while he touched himself, and now you can see what your imagination was building around and the reality is right here, in his bed, within reach.

You reach for him. Your hand wraps around him and his whole body jerks and the sound he makes is the one from that first night, the low caught groan, except with nothing to muffle it. It fills the room. Fills you.

"That sound," you say. "That's the one."

"What?"

"The first night. Through the wall. That's the sound that started this."

He drops his forehead against yours, his breath ragged, his hips pushing into your hand. "You heard that? The. The first time?"

"Every time."

"God." His voice cracks. "Every. You were just lying there and."

"Listening. Every time."

He kisses you like the sentence broke something in him. Deep, messy, his hand in your hair, and you're stroking him and he's leaking against your palm and his breathing is shot and he pulls back and says, "I need. Can I. I want to be inside you, can I."

"Yes."

"Yeah?"

"Yes."

He reaches for the nightstand. The drawer. You hear the click of it and something about that sound, the same sound you've heard through the wall from your own bed, rearranges the room. He rolls the condom on and his hands are shaking slightly and then he's over you and between your legs and the head of him presses against you and you're so wet from his mouth that there's almost no resistance.

He pushes in slow. Watching your face. His jaw is tight and his arms are braced on either side of you and the stretch of him is perfect, thick and full, and when he bottoms out you both go still.

"Oh," he says. Very quiet. Like a realisation landing.

You wrap your legs around him and pull him deeper and he makes a sound you have never heard through the wall. Not once. This one is new. This one only exists here, inside you, and it is low and broken and so good that your walls clench around him and his hips stutter.

"If you do that," he manages, "this is going to be. I've been thinking about this for. A very long time, and I'm not going to."

"Then move."

He moves.

Slow, first. Long, deep strokes that pull almost all the way out and push back in and every one of them drags against exactly the right spot and the sounds you're making are continuous now, not words, not anything, just his name and yes and the wet sound of him inside you and his breathing in your ear.

He drops his head to your neck. His mouth finds the place behind your ear and he talks against your skin, half words, half breathing, and this is it, this is the thing you imagined, his voice in your neck, his sounds pressed directly into your pulse, and the reality makes the fantasy look like a pencil sketch.

"You feel." He rolls his hips and you gasp. "I can't. You feel so."

"More."

He gives you more. His pace picks up and the angle changes and he hooks one hand under your knee and lifts and the depth of the next thrust makes both of you cry out and he does it again, again, finding the spot that makes you clench and then driving into it over and over because this is what he does, this is the problem-solver, the experimenter, the man who tests and adjusts and learns, and he is learning you and he is a very fast learner.

"Right there," you say, and it comes out begging and you don't care.

"Here?" He does it again. Precise. His hips snapping into yours.

"There. There. Don't stop."

"I'm not stopping." Low. Wrecked. Almost a growl. "I'm not. I couldn't stop if I. You're so. The sounds you make, I can feel them, I spent weeks listening through that wall and this is. God, this is so much better. You're so much better than anything I."

His hand slides between your bodies. His thumb finds your clit and presses and the noise that leaves you is feral, unhinged, because you're still sensitive from before and the combination of him inside you and his thumb on you and his voice in your ear is too many inputs, too much data, and your body can't process all of it at once so it just. Gives in.

"That's it," he says, and his voice is barely holding. "That's. I can feel you, I can feel you getting close, you're tightening around me and I."

You're not getting close. You're already there. It hits you like a wave you didn't see coming, sudden and total, and this orgasm is different from the first one. The first one was his mouth and his patience and his precision. This one is his cock buried deep and his thumb circling and his voice cracking apart against your ear and the fact that you are underneath him in the bed where he said your name and there is no wall and no pillow and nothing to bite down on so the sound just comes out of you, raw and open, his name tangled up in it, and you feel yourself clench around him in long, rhythmic pulses that make his whole body go taut.

"Oh. Oh, God. I can feel you. I can." His hips stutter. His rhythm breaks. "I'm. If you keep. I'm going to."

You pull him down and say his name against his mouth and tighten around him again and he breaks. He comes hard, driving into you, his whole body shaking, and the sound he makes is long and open and your name is in it, not said the way he said it through the wall, not careful, not half-swallowed. Your name like he can't hold it back. Your name said into your mouth while he's inside you and the wall is gone and there's nothing between you and that sound and nothing will ever be between you and that sound again.

You hold him through it. Your legs locked around his hips, your hand in his hair, his face in your neck, his breath ragged and hot against your skin. He's still shaking when he comes down. Still inside you. His hand finds yours on the mattress and his fingers thread through yours and he squeezes once, hard, like he's checking you're real.

"Hi," he says into your neck. Same thing he said at the start.

"Hi."

"So that happened."

"That happened."

He pulls back enough to look at you. His hair is destroyed. His eyes are soft and blown and slightly disbelieving, and the smile that arrives is not the hallway smile or the lift smile. This is the one the wall has been hiding.

"I have a question," he says.

"Of course you do."

"On a scale of one to ten, how do you feel about the thin walls now."

You laugh. He catches it with his mouth. And on the other side of the wall, your apartment sits empty, and quiet, and you don't go home for a very long time.

[ Cross posted on Ao3 ] [fic master list]

[hananothannah]

jaw dropped because this is insaneeeeee

[nothxbb]

On the topic of Ryland being called his name in bed and drinking every last bit he can

Him getting turned on when you call him doctor/dr grace. In that tone.

Like the first time it happens you’re teasing him about some random shit.

Then later, while he’s kissing your neck and pounding into you, it’s “yes doctor” or something.

YEP I literally spent the afternoon writing this, thank you for your contribution to keeping me sane

Dr. Grace ~ ryland grace x reader

2.5k works, smut, dirty talk, fingering, oral m and f receiving

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

You weren’t snooping, honestly. Ryland invited you over to his apartment for the first time under the guise of watching a movie together while he finished grading papers, something you jumped at if only to spend a little time with him. You’d been dating for a few weeks, figuring each other out slowly, not wanting to rush anything. All of your nights together had been spent at your place, Ryland claimed your was nicer than his, that you would hate how he decorated. 

This week, though, had kicked his ass. He sent you a text before he left the school, asking if you’d want to come over to keep him company while he finishes the pile of work he’s bringing home. You said yes, of course, and headed his way when your shift ended. You offered to bring food but he turned you down, having already picked up takeout from a place down the street. 

So now, food eaten, movie playing, Ryland plugging away at his laptop, your eyes wandered. The tour he gave you was as short as the one you gave him of your place: here’s the living room, the kitchen is five feet away, there’s the bedroom and a small bathroom. It was simple, but that made sense for him.

He had art on the walls, paintings of scenery, photos of landscapes, very nature-inspired for someone who spent most of their time inside. Your eyes flickered across the room, pausing briefly on the diploma hanging in a far corner. Several diplomas, actually. Stacked from bottom to top: undergrad, masters and PHD, the last of which had the fanciest frame. 

You nudge him with your toe, your spot on the couch putting you slightly behind his hunched form on the floor. He looks at you, paper hanging from his mouth as his fingers fly over the keyboard. “Dr. Grace?” You raise your brows in question, pointing to the diplomas. He chokes on a breath, face turning red. 

“You didn’t tell me you have a doctorate,” you push, wondering why he would hide something so big. His eyes dart between the frames on the wall and your face, like he’s embarrassed by his own success. “I didn’t - uh.. It didn’t really come up, no one calls me that,” he stammers, folding his hands in his lap. “You don’t talk about it?” You ask noncommittally, leaving room for him to be vague if he chose to. 

He shakes his head, knowing that you won’t push. “Still, it’s impressive,” you smile at him, poking him with your toe again. He grabs your foot, placing a soft kiss to your ankle, and leans back against the couch with a sigh. “You think so?” He’s quiet, like your response is important to him. You hum, “of course. What’s it in?”

“Molecular biology,” he’s still whispering. You make him say it again louder, wanting to make sure you heard him right. “Ryland, that’s insanely impressive, you don’t think that’s impressive?” You’re incredulous, he leans his arm on the couch and rests his head against his hand with a smile on his face. “Well, I’m using it to teach twelve year olds about tectonic plates and sound waves, so…” he trails off, trying to deflect a little. 

You shrug, biting your lip in thought. “I don’t know, still feels impressive to me,” your smile has him ducking his head, trying to dodge the praise. 

By the time the movie ended, Ryland had finished his work, having flopped down on the couch next to you and pulled your legs over his. Gentle fingers massaged your calves, his head thrown back against the cushion and his eyes closed. “You tired?” You ask quietly, flexing your feet when he presses a thumb down a little too hard. 

“M’ always tired,” he mumbles, rolling his head to look at you. He looks so soft like this, weight fully relaxed into the sofa, glasses long discarded so he can rub his eyes with no barrier. And that was it for a few more weeks. You didn’t push, didn’t bring it up, didn’t say anything at all. Until he cornered you in your kitchen one evening.

Big hands settled on your waist, his chest pressing into your back and his breath in your ear. He’d been teasing you all afternoon, sending texts about how much he missed you, how much he wanted you, how hard you made him all the time. It was new from him but you loved that he was coming out of his shell, it made your patience so worth it. 

“I’m just saying, I think the honey carrots you made last time were better, sweeter or something,” his grin is obvious in his words, “thought you valued honesty in relationships.” He nips at your ear, laughing when you spin around in his hold and point a finger in his face. “You listen here, Dr. Grace,” you jab, not missing how his breath hitches, “the carrots were fine, you’re just addicted to sugar!” 

He looks at you with heavy lids, tongue darting out to wet his lips. “Maybe I am,” he murmurs, pulling you in for a lingering kiss. His hands slide down to your ass, pressing you against him while he licks into your mouth. When you finally have a moment to breathe, you take in his flushed appearance. You were used to him blushing when you flirted, but this was something different. You knew it was the title, knew it was doing something for him that he’d never admit out loud. 

He’s not trying to hide how turned on he is, all but grinding his half hard length against your body. It clicks for you then, and you run a hand along his throat, feeling the way he swallows harshly. “You like when I call you that, doctor?” You’re teasing, but he did it the whole day so you don’t feel bad. 

He drops his head forward with a choked groan, nodding against your shoulder and pressing kisses to your neck. You tilt your head to give him more access, smiling when you feel his dick twitch between you. With a quick turn, you pin him against the counter, waiting until he makes eye contact before you sink to your knees. 

His eyes go wide, hand flying to your hair before you even reach for his pants. “Fuck, sweetheart,” he whimpers, mouth falling open when you free his length and give him a few slow strokes. “This okay?” You’re so close, your breath fans across his skin and he swears he could come right there. He nods quickly, “yes, yeah, of course,” and his free hand flies to the counter, looking for something to keep himself upright. 

You lick the vein running along the underside of his cock, letting your tongue swipe over the tip before you open your jaw and take him in. The moan that falls from his lips is broken, his eyes locked on yours as you bob up and down. Your nails scratch his thighs, digging in when you suck him lower and swallow around him. 

He throws his head back, breath coming out in heavy pants. “B-baby, oh my god,” he whines, fingers pulling your hair until you release him, twitching when he sees the string of saliva connecting his tip to your lips. You smile up at him, “too much?” You make to stand but his hand on your shoulder stops you.

“I’m good,” he pants, “keep going.” And he feeds his cock back into your mouth, both hands tangling in your hair as he gives a little testing thrust. You moan around him, relaxing your throat as much as you can and letting him take control. He’d never been this forward with what he wanted, you wonder if you accidentally woke up a side of him that even he didn’t know about. 

He’s a little reckless above you, using your mouth however feels best, until you gag around him. “Sorry, sorry!” He pulls out and wipes your tears, checking that he didn’t hurt you. “Sorry, I got a little excited," he mumbles, helping you stand. “I can keep going,” you start, “I’m not so delicate, you know.” 

His hands smooth down your hair, his teeth sinking into his lip as he looks at you. “Mm, I was about to come,” he laughs softly, “wanna come in you.” It doesn’t take any more convincing for you to lean up and kiss him. He moans at his taste on your tongue, sucking in a breath when you give him a few more pumps for good measure. “Where do you want me?” 

He moves fast, grabbing your hand and rounding the kitchen counter. But he moves too fast, because of course he does, and slips, landing on the rug in the living room. He’s bright red but he pulls you down on top of him, trying to pretend it was on purpose. “How about right here?” And he kisses you deeply, hands roaming your thighs and ass. You can’t help the laugh that tumbles out, sinking into his kiss and resting on his lap. “Yeah, here works,” you grind down on him, eating the moan he lets out at the friction.

“Need to feel you, baby, please,” he tugs your shirt up, letting you yank at his until you’re both free of the fabric. Everything feels frantic, suddenly. Like he couldn’t possibly wait to be inside you, to fuck you how he knows you like. You think he wants you to ride him, so you roll to the side and start working your pants down, trying to allow him access. 

He pulls you against his chest and flips you to the floor, his hand cushioning your head as your back lands on the rug. Hurried hands pull your pants off, not wasting any time before he’s slotting himself between your legs. You watch him pause, see the conflict on his face, and then he’s shifting back a little, letting his fingers slip through your folds with a low moan. 

“I can take you, Ry,” you try to convince him, but he just shakes his head. “Want you wetter, sweetheart, you’re gonna need it.” He winks up at you, biting his lip when he adds, “you can’t call me that and not pay for it a little.”

He doesn’t give you a chance to ask what he means before he pushes two fingers in, scissoring them to stretch you open. You scratch down his arm, gasping at the intrusion. He leans down and sucks your clit into his mouth, grinning when you roll your hips into him. “So what do you like to be called?” He asks, looking up from between your legs with raised brows. 

“What?” You can’t quite keep up with a conversation when he’s rubbing that spot inside you, making your legs twitch. “You’ve gotta have something,” he flattens his tongue and licks a broad stripe, “I’m gonna find it.” 

He brings you right to the edge, feeling how you clench on his fingers and pulling out just before you reach your peak. He drinks down your grumbles, promising that he’ll make the wait worth it with a laugh against your lips. A shudder rolls through you when he lines himself up again, moans pulling from both of you when he presses in. He drops his head to your shoulder, letting you hear all of the quiet noises he can’t keep back. 

You hook your legs over his back to encourage him, feeling how your walls make room as he pulls almost all the way out and pushes back in. He whispers praise against your ear, gauging your reaction to each new nickname he throws out. “Baby,” he gets a small moan from you, “sweetheart,” he gets a smaller moan. 

“So fuckin’ sexy,” he groans, brows furrowing when you clench around him a little. He lifts your leg to his shoulder, cock hitting a spot so deep inside you it makes your eyes roll. “What about pretty girl?” He asks, smirking when your nails scratch down his back. “Mm, that’s the winner so far,” he murmurs into your cheek. 

You feel him suck in a breath, feel him hesitate before his next words. “Good girl,” he whispers it almost as a question, pulling back to see your face. Your nose scrunches and you shake your head, earning a laugh from him and a kiss as an apology. “Noted,” he grins, picking up his pace. The sound of skin slapping skin fills the room, you can tell that he’s thinking of more names to try. You wonder if he multitasks like this to keep from coming too soon, but you won’t ask him that yet. 

“I jumped right over the basics,” he pants, hand sliding down to palm your breast. “Honey, darling, beautiful,” he lists each with enough time in between to see if there’s any reaction. He huffs and whispers, “mama,” in your ear, laughing when your hand flies to his mouth to shut him up. 

“Ryland, please, I’m close,” you choke out, fighting your own grin at his antics. His face goes serious, eyes boring into yours. “Yeah? You gonna come?” His stare is intense enough to make you flush, heat rising to your cheeks. “You can, baby,” he starts, “just say it one more time for me.” His voice is strained, like he’s holding back his own orgasm too. 

It takes a second for you to realize what he’s asking for, fighting against the building pleasure to form a coherent thought. The coil in your core tightens, your moans flowing freely while he pounds you into the floor. “Please, Dr. Grace,” you whisper, groaning when he abandons your breast to rub tight circles on your clit. He lets out a broken whimper, nodding his head and breathing against your cheek. 

Your orgasm rips through you, starting from your center and working out in waves. You clench down and his movements stutter, he slams home one final time and tenses above you. The moan he lets out is wrecked, his face pressed to yours while you catch your breath. When the fog clears, he shifts so he’s hovering above you. “You sure mama didn’t do it for you?” 

You scrunch up your face again, biting back a laugh, “no, god.” You push his face away, giggling when he kisses your palm and moves your hand to his hair. You ruffle the strands, admiring how he melts into your touch. “What about, like… sunshine?” He flashes you a bright smile, “or bunny?”

“Ry, they’re getting worse,” you gag, pulling a laugh from deep in his chest. He leans back, taking you in, naked and satisfied on the floor of your living room. “Pretty girl got the biggest reaction,” he runs his hands up and down your legs, “but that strikes me as something you wouldn’t like outside of sex…” Oh, he’s trying to find a nickname for you now? Something for everyday use? 

“I don’t mind ‘baby,’” you say as he helps you up and follows you to the bathroom. “Or my name,” you smile at him sweetly. He kisses you, landing a small slap to your ass, “no, I’m gonna find the right one, just give me time.” He nods resolutely, like he’s devoting himself to the experiment.

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

guys I swear i'm gonna write for someone else soon lolol

[hananothannah]

yummy

[sketchupnfries]

Since Rocky and Grace have access to a ton of video games on the Hail Mary, I figured eventually they'd play Just Dance during their trip to Erid

[hananothannah]

this is fucking amazing!

[ildico-the-golden]

a brotherly competition

Now, I had a thought. In the Three Heads of the Dragon AU, both Baelor and Maekar are completely sure in what they share with you. They trust each other completely and love you to the point of madness. But... dragons are dragons, and sometimes, their possessiveness can be directed even at their next of kin. Again, I chose to write Maekar's piece first because every time I get freaky with these two, Maekar beats Baelor to the podium. (yeh the header gif is a pun don't blame me i cope with trauma getting freaky and making puns). This work has an extended psychological explanation that comes for free, feel free to leave your thoughts!

Pairing: Baelor x sister-wife!reader / Maekar x sister-wife!reader

Warning(s): +18 MDNI, explicit sexual content, AFAB reader. Maekar: emotional hurt/comfort, jealousy, relationship insecurity, possessive feelings, emotional vulnerability, intense intimacy. Baelor: jealousy, relationship insecurity, possessiveness, hickeys/marking, emotional vulnerability, hurt/comfort, consensual dominance dynamics, romantic rivalry (please lemme know if i missed any)

It had been nothing. That was the thing he could not explain, even to himself — it had been nothing, a moment of no particular significance, something that would not have registered to anyone observing it from outside.

You and Baelor in the solar. Evening light. You had fallen asleep over a book with your feet tucked beneath you and your head listing sideways, and Baelor had come in and found you like that and had done nothing more remarkable than sit beside you and draw the book from your hands without waking you and set it aside, and then stayed. Simply stayed. His shoulder against yours, his attention moving to his own correspondence, the two of you sharing the quiet of the room with the ease of people who had been doing exactly this for decades and needed nothing more from the evening.

Maekar had been in the doorway.

He had not announced himself. He had looked at the scene — the low gold light, the particular quality of your sleeping face, Baelor's hand resting near yours on the cushion without quite touching, the whole atmosphere of uncomplicated domesticity — and had felt something move through him that he did not examine and turned and walked away.

He came to your chambers two hours later.

You had been awake when he arrived — the book finished, the solar long vacated, the evening settled into its quieter hours. He came in without particular announcement, the way he always did, and you looked up from the window and read him the way you always did and found something slightly off in the quality of his stillness.

Not anger. Not the charged pre-argument tension that had its own recognisable signature. Something quieter than that, and less legible.

"Maekar," you said in a somewhat pleading tone, sensing that something was clearly amiss.

"Come to bed," he requested. You obliged.

He undressed you with his usual efficiency — not rough, not ceremony, the systematic approach of a man who has done this many times and knows the geography. His hands were certain. His mouth found your throat and your collarbone and the curve of your shoulder with the focused attention of someone who had mapped the places that worked and went directly to them, no preamble, no patience wasted on territory that didn't require it.

It worked. It always worked — that was the thing about Maekar, the directness of him, the complete absence of uncertainty in how he touched you. You arched into his hands and felt the familiar heat of him and the slightly unfamiliar texture underneath and filed the texture away for later.

He settled between your thighs and pushed into you without particular prelude and the sound you made was immediate and unguarded — the specific completeness of him, the stretch and heat of it, and his answering groan low against your neck.

He began to move.

Hard. Purposeful. The driving rhythm that you knew and wanted, each thrust full and deep and carrying the weight of him, his cock ramming into you with the relentless focused certainty that was his particular register. His hands on your hips. His mouth at your throat. The mechanics of it were exactly right — exactly the way you liked it, exactly the way he knew you liked it, calibrated with the accuracy of years.

And something was still off.

You felt it in him — not in the physical, which was precisely what it always was, but in the quality of his attention. Something slightly removed. Something doing the motions with the competence of a man whose body knew its work and whose mind was somewhere adjacent to it, not absent but not entirely present either. A texture you had felt in the yard when he was working through something difficult. The texture of a man fulfilling a function he has assigned himself.

His hips drove forward. Your breath left you. Your hands found his shoulders.

"Maekar," you caressed them through a moan.

"Mm." Not stopping.

"Stop."

He stopped. Lifted his head. Those violet eyes finding yours from close range — dark, pupils blown, his cock buried in your cunt and his breathing uneven and his expression doing the complicated thing it did when he was caught between the body and the mind and couldn't locate a clean resolution.

"Am I hurting you?" he asked somewhat worried.

You shook your head slightly, a frown appearing on your brow. "Tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing is—"

"My love."

His jaw tightened. He held himself very still, and you felt the specific effort of that — all of him suspended, the wanting and the discipline both present simultaneously. "I'm in the middle of—"

"I know where you are." You held his gaze. "Tell me."

A long pause. His weight over you, his cock still buried deep, the intimacy of the position making the conversation simultaneously more difficult and more necessary. You watched him locate and discard several responses.

"It's nothing," he said. "It's—"

"It's not nothing. You've been somewhere else since you walked in."

His eyes moved away from yours. The tell — Maekar, who held eye contact through everything, looking at the middle distance with the specific quality of a man who has been asked to account for something he has not prepared an accounting for.

"I saw you," he said finally. "Earlier. With Baelor."

You waited.

"In the solar." His voice carefully even. "It was — nothing. You were asleep. He was just—" The sentence didn't finish. His jaw worked. "It was nothing."

"It wasn't nothing to you."

Silence.

"Maekar." Your hand finding his face. He let you turn it back toward yours, which was itself information — Maekar permitting redirection. "Tell me."

The silence stretched long enough that you thought he wouldn't. Long enough that he began to move again, slightly, as though the motion might serve as substitution — his hips beginning their rhythm and his eyes finding the middle distance and the whole managed machinery of him reassembling.

"I want—" He stopped. His hips stilled again. The words seeming to cost him in some specific way that the physical had not. "I don't know how to—"

"Try."

Another long pause. His forehead dropped to yours. His cock still buried in you, motionless, and the specific quality of Maekar suspended between the body and something more frightening than the body.

"I want to make you feel—" Rough. Halting. Nothing like his usual speech. "The way he makes you feel. When he—" He stopped again. "I know what I am. To you. I know what this is. What I'm — useful for." The word arriving with a flatness that had something painful underneath it. "I know it isn't—"

"Stop." Your hands cradling his face. Both of them. Holding him where he was, close range, no looking away permitted. "Stop right there."

His eyes — violet and dark and stripped of their usual armour, the severity entirely absent, something younger and more uncertain looking out of them.

"You think," you said carefully, "that you are something practical. That Baelor gives me something and you give me something else and the something else is this." Your thumb across his jaw. "That you are useful in bed and he is useful everywhere else?"

He said nothing. Which was confirmation.

"Oh, my heart." The fondness in your voice was not something you tried to manage. "You absolute idiot."

Something shifted in his expression.

"You already make me feel cared for." Holding his gaze. "Every time you end the sparring session when my shoulder is hurting before I ask you to. Every time you put yourself between me and a door when we walk into a room with people you don't trust. Every time you wake up before I do and stay anyway because you know I sleep better with your weight there." Your thumbs against his cheekbones. "That is care. That is you, caring for me, in the language you have."

His throat worked.

"And this—" a slight movement of your hips, deliberate, feeling him twitch in response and a sigh coming from his mouth— "does not have to be only one thing. You do not have to ram into me like you're making a point every time." A pause in which you smiled teasingly. "Unless I want that. In which case, please continue."

The breath that left him was almost a laugh. Almost.

"You can be careful," you said. "You can be slow. It will not make you less — it will not make you anything less. Do you understand me?"

He looked at you for a long time. The violet eyes doing their reading, the assessing quality of them turned entirely inward, arriving somewhere that cost him to arrive at.

"Show me," he said quietly. Not a command. Something considerably less certain than a command. "How to — show me, please."

Your hands still cradling his face.

"Move," you said softly. "Slowly."

He moved.

The difference was immediate — not the driving rhythm but something else, his hips drawing back and returning in a long rolling motion, deep and full, his cock pressing into you in a way that was less about friction and more about presence, about the specific completeness of him seated in you and the slow deliberate drag of each stroke. A sound left you that was different from the sounds before — lower, less urgent, the sound of someone being thoroughly and unhurriedly filled.

He made a sound against your forehead that had nothing controlled in it.

"Again," you moaned, eyes already closing in pleasure.

He did it again. And again. The rolling depth of it building something that had no urgency to it, only accumulation — his cock moving in you with the slow certain weight of a man discovering a different kind of intention, his hands shifting from your hips to your waist, pulling you closer rather than holding you in place. His mouth finding your temple. Your cheek. The corner of your jaw. Small careful things, landed without announcement, the vocabulary of tenderness accessed clumsily and therefore more honestly than if he'd known what he was doing.

His thumb found your clit. Not with the urgent efficiency of earlier — slowly, tracing, learning it in this register the way he had learned everything else about you, with the thoroughness that was always his even when everything else changed.

"Maekar." His name in your mouth on an exhale.

The sound he made at the sound of his own name said was undone and immediate. His face pressed to your hair. His hips rolling deeper, finding the angle that made your breath catch and staying there, working it with patient repetition, the focused attention of Maekar directed entirely at this — not at the end of it but at the thing itself, the sustained specific fact of your bodies together, the warmth of it.

"I've got you," he said. Into your hair. Rough and quiet and sounding faintly surprised by the words, as though they had arrived without being summoned.

Something in your chest cracked open cleanly.

"I know," you said. "You always have."

His arms tightened around you.

The thing building in you had none of the sharp competitive urgency of other nights — it was slower than that, deeper, a tide rather than a wave, and when it finally broke it moved through you in long sustained pulses that had you gripping his shoulders and saying his name with your face against his neck and he held you through every second of it with both arms and his cock still moving in those slow rolling strokes, drawing it out, thorough even in this.

He followed you with his face buried in your hair — quieter than usual, his whole body shuddering once and then settling, the sound he made low and sustained and nothing like triumph. Nothing like a point won.

Something else entirely.

For a long time he didn't move. His weight against you, his arms still around you, his breathing slowing against your neck. The silence had a different quality than the silences that usually followed — not the satisfied stillness of a man who has won something but something more open than that. Something that had been set down.

His arms tightened once, briefly, before relaxing back to their usual looseness. The closest thing to thank you in his vocabulary. You received it as it was meant.

At your throat, the mark from earlier had darkened to something unmistakable — the specific evidence of Maekar, who had come to you tonight trying to be useful and had ended up, without entirely meaning to, being known.

You held him in the quiet and let him have it.

It had started, as these things sometimes did, with Maekar's mouth.

Not directly. Not in the room. But the evidence of it was there when Baelor found you — the mark at the join of your neck and shoulder, dark and unmistakable, the specific calling card of a man who did not think twice about leaving them because it had never once occurred to Maekar that thinking twice about this specific fact was ever required.

Baelor thought twice about everything. In fact, he had been thinking about that mark for days.

You came to find him in his study at the evening hour, when the castle had quieted and the correspondence had thinned to its final pages, and he looked up from his desk and took you in — the looseness of you, the specific quality of ease that you carried, the way you moved through the doorway with the unhurried certainty you possessed — and his eyes found the mark and stayed there for a moment before returning to his correspondence.

The quill continued its work.

You settled into the chair across from him and reached for the wine and watched him not react with the particular attention of someone who knew exactly what not-reacting cost him.

"You are quiet," you said.

"I am working."

"You are always working." You tilted your head. "You are also quiet in a specific way."

The quill paused. Resumed. "I do not know what you mean."

You looked at him. At the careful composed line of him behind the desk — the dark hair with its threads of white, the mismatched eyes tracking the correspondence with the focused attention of the Crown Prince who always had something requiring his focus, the set of his jaw which was slightly more deliberate than usual, the controlled quality of a man who has decided something is not worth his attention and is finding that the decision requires more maintenance than anticipated.

"Baelor."

He set the quill down. Aligned it with the inkwell. Looked up.

The mismatched eyes — one brown, one pale blue — found yours and then, with the slight deliberateness of a choice being made, moved to the mark on your neck.

He looked at it for a moment.

"That has been there for days," he said. Mild. Observational. The tone of a man noting weather.

"You know he does that."

"Yes." A pause in which something moved beneath the composure, briefly, before being managed back into order. "I am aware."

"Baelor—"

"I am fine." The words precise and immediate and carrying the specific quality of a statement that is technically accurate and entirely beside the point.

You looked at him across the desk. At the careful patient man who had been told since childhood that his gift was his composure, his diplomacy, his capacity for reason — the man who had built an entire identity around the architecture of thinking before acting, of attending carefully, of being the one in any room who kept his head. The man who was currently keeping his head with visible effort while looking at his brother's mark on your neck.

"Say it," you said.

"There is nothing—"

"Baelor." You held his gaze. "Say it."

The composure held for another moment. His hands flat on the desk. The mismatched eyes doing their reading — of your face, of the mark, of the specific distance between you that suddenly seemed to require addressing.

"I heard you," he said quietly. "With him."

The room went still.

"Through walls," he continued, with the even tone of a man delivering a report he has not enjoyed compiling. "On more than one occasion. The sounds you make." A pause. "The sounds I do not — that I have not—" He stopped. His jaw tightened. "I know what I am. I know what he is. I know that we give you different things and I have never — I am not a man who begrudges—"

"Baelor."

"The mark," the word arriving with more weight than the mild tone had prepared for. "He marks you and you come to me wearing it and I am supposed to — I am looking at it and I cannot—" Another stop. The composure making a final effort and failing quietly. "I want to know," he finally said, "what it sounds like. When he does that. I want you to tell me what he does that I don't."

The silence that followed had considerable texture.

You stood.

He tracked you with his eyes as you came around the desk — those mismatched eyes doing something that was not their usual quality of attention, something with more heat and less management in it — and you stopped in front of him and looked down at him where he sat and the expression on his face was the one he kept for private rooms and private hours, the one that had no diplomatic function whatsoever.

"Lock the door," you said.

He rose and walked to it. Locked it. Turned back.

You were already undoing the lacing of your gown. He watched you with those eyes and the composure was present but costing him now, visibly, the effort of it written in the slight tension of his shoulders and the deliberate quality of his stillness — a man holding himself in place through the application of will.

When the gown fell his breath left him audibly.

He crossed to you. His hands found your face — both of them, the grip of them more urgent than his usual careful touch — and he kissed you with none of his customary patience, none of the reverent architecture he usually brought to this. The kiss was searching and immediate and had the weight of carefully managed feeling behind it, the composure finally stepping aside, and you kissed him back and felt the shape of what had been sitting behind his eyes all evening.

When he drew back his breathing had changed.

"Tell me," he said. Close range. His hands still framing your face. "What does he do."

"Baelor—"

"Tell me." Not a plea. Not yet. The quiet command of a man who has decided he wants something and is done negotiating around the wanting. "I want to know. Everything he does that makes you—" his eyes moving to the mark, back to your face— "that makes that sound."

You held his gaze. "He doesn't ask."

Something moved through his expression. "He doesn't—"

"He does not ask what I want or how I want it. He reads me and takes what he finds and—" You watched Baelor's jaw tighten— "he doesn't stop to check."

"I check because—"

"I know why you check." Your hand at his chest. "I am not criticising it. I am answering your question."

His hands dropped from your face to your hips. The grip of them different from usual — more certain, less asking. "What else."

"He's rough."

A breath, his voice almost a growl. "How rough."

"Rougher than you've ever let yourself be."

The flush that moved through him was slow and complete, throat to jaw to the tips of his ears, and the mismatched eyes darkened in a way that had nothing diplomatic left in them. His hands tightened on your hips. "And that's what makes that sound."

"Part of it."

"What's the other part."

You looked at him. "That he doesn't think about whether he should."

The silence.

"Turn around," he said.

Your breath caught.

His voice had changed register entirely — not raised, Baelor never raised his voice, but stripped of every careful softness, carrying the quiet certainty of a man who has located something he has been looking for and intends to stop being tentative about it.

"Turn. Around," he insisted.

You did. His hands found your hips from behind and the grip of them was nothing like his usual touch — both hands, certain and possessive, pulling you back against him, and the evidence of how the conversation had been going for him was immediate and considerable against your back.

His mouth found the unmarked side of your neck.

Not gently. His teeth, deliberate, the scrape of them followed by his mouth working at the skin with a focused intent that was going to leave something — was already leaving something, you could feel it, the specific heat of it — and you made a sound that surprised you slightly and felt him exhale hard against your throat at the sound.

"He marks you," Baelor said. His voice against your neck, low and stripped of its usual considered quality. "So will I."

His hands moved — one spread flat across your stomach holding you against him, one sliding lower, finding you without preamble, and the sound he made when his fingers met slick heat was almost reverent before it became something else entirely.

"You're already—" He stopped. His fingers moving with a purpose that had abandoned his usual thoroughness for something more direct. "How long have you been—"

"Since you started talking," you said.

The groan that left him resonated through his chest and into yours.

"Tell me more." His fingers working, two of them now, curling in a way that found something immediately useful and stayed there. "Tell me what else he does."

"He—" The words unsteady. "He doesn't build up to it. He finds what works and he—"

Two of his long digits entered you without warning, the metal of his rings cool against your core. "Like this?"

"Harder."

The sharp intake of his breath. His fingers adjusting — harder, deeper, the heel of his hand grinding against your clit in a way that made your knees want to do something unhelpful — and the specific quality of Baelor asking and then executing the answer with perfect attention was its own devastating thing, different from Maekar's wordless reading but no less effective.

"And then," he said, his free hand working at his own laces with the focused efficiency of a man who has decided — "he doesn't wait."

"No," it came almost as a breath rather than a word.

"He just—"

He pushed into you in one deep, smooth thrust.

The sound you made echoed off the walls of the study and Baelor groaned against your shoulder — low and long and entirely stripped of composure — and for a moment neither of you moved, the fullness of it, the specific thickness of him seated in you completely, his hands gripping your hips and his mouth at your neck and the whole careful architecture of Baelor Targaryen temporarily and thoroughly dismantled.

Then he began to move and every remaining fragment of careful was gone.

He fucked you against his desk with a single-mindedness that had nothing diplomatic in it — deep driving thrusts that walked you forward against the wood, that made the inkwell migrate across the surface, that forced sounds from you with the mechanical certainty of someone who has identified the objective and intends to pursue it without deviation. His cock ramming into you hard and certain and relentless, each stroke full, nothing tentative about any of it, and you braced against the desk and gave him everything he was taking and felt the specific revelation of Baelor without his composure, Baelor wanting something badly enough to stop being careful about the wanting.

You moved a hand to your back to steady yourself by gripping him while the other one was set firmly against the opposite edge of the desk. Baelor, instead, caught your wrist and pressed it to your lower back, immobilizing it. The rough action drew a high-pitched moan from you.

His free hand found your clit.

Not tentatively. Directly, with the accuracy of a man who knew exactly where to go and had decided that patience was no longer a virtue he was interested in, his thumb working in a rough insistent rhythm while his cock drove into you from behind and the combination of it built something immediate and non-negotiable.

"Tell me—" His voice against your ear, wrecked, the careful diction entirely gone— "that he does this better."

The laugh that left you was genuine — and then his hips rammed against yours with sudden force, as if he almost wanted to reprimand you, and the laugh became a sound entirely unlike laughter.

"Tell me." Harder now, his hips snapping forward with an urgency that was new on him, that had none of the patience he usually rationed himself to. His cock buried in your cunt to the hilt and his thumb on your clit and his mouth at the mark he'd been leaving on your neck. "Tell me I am as good as him. I need to hear you say it."

"That is—" the sentence losing its shape entirely— "that sounds like competition—"

"I know how it sounds like." A thrust that punched the breath from your lungs. "Fuck what it sounds like." Another. "Tell me."

"You—" the words coming apart, reassembling, coming apart again— "Gods, Baelor, you are— you're—"

"Say it properly." His voice demolished and demanding and still, underneath it all, precisely him, the exactness of Baelor present even in this, even here, wanting the specific words and nothing approximate.

"You are as good as him!" You cried out. Each word punctuated by his cock driving into you, by your hand scrabbling at the desk's edge, by the thing building in you that had passed the point of no return some time ago and was now simply a matter of when. "T-too much— Baelor— please."

The sound he made when you said it resonated through his chest and into yours — not Maekar's triumphant certainty but something rawer than that, something that had needed the words badly enough to ask for them directly, the composed careful Crown Prince entirely absent and something more fundamental in his place, something that had been sitting beneath a decade of patience and management waiting for permission to exist.

His thumb moved faster. His cock drove into you harder. His mouth at your neck worked at the mark with an intent that had abandoned subtlety entirely, and the thing building in you crested and broke open completely — your nails against the wood, his name leaving your mouth in the specific register he had been working toward, and it was different from the sound he'd heard through walls, it was not that sound, it was its own thing entirely, Baelor's sound, the one he had earned specifically and no one else had — and you felt him understand that in real time, felt it move through him.

He followed you over with his face pressed to your neck and his hips losing their rhythm entirely, burying himself as deep as he would go and holding there while he spent himself in long shuddering pulses, a sound against your skin that was nothing like anything you had ever heard from him — cracked open, and human, and entirely specific to this room and you and this evening.

For a long moment neither of you moved.

His breathing slowed against your neck. His hands released you by degrees — the grip easing, the gentleness returning in increments, the composure beginning its quiet reconstruction.

He pressed his lips to the mark he'd left. Held them there for a moment. Then, with great deliberateness, he turned his head and pressed them to Maekar's mark as well.

Both. Acknowledged. Claimed.

You turned in his arms. Looked at his face — flushed and thoroughly undone, the mismatched eyes still dark but softening now, the whole of him coming back to himself by careful degrees.

"Well," you said, a faint smile creeping up your face.

A pause in which Baelor conducted a quiet internal search for his dignity and located it somewhat mislaid. "Well."

You looked at him. At the inkwell, which had reached the far edge of the desk. Back at him.

"You've been thinking about that," you said, "for considerably longer than this evening."

He redid the lace of his breeches in silence. Smoothed his doublet and ran a hand through his hair backwards. The gestures of a man restoring order to a room that had seen some weather. "I have absolutely no idea," he said, with the measured composure of the Hand of the King, "what you are referring to."

"Baelor."

A pause.

"Some time," he admitted.

You laughed — the unguarded kind, the easy kind — and watched something move through his expression at the sound of it, something warm and private and specifically responsive to that laugh in a way that had nothing to do with the last half hour and everything to do with the more than twenty years before it.

His hand found your face. His thumb at your jaw. Those mismatched eyes finding yours with the quality they kept for private hours — undivided and specific and entirely his.

"Both of them," he said quietly, looking at the marks on your neck. "Mine and his."

"Both of you," you said.

The expression that settled over his face was not triumph. It was something quieter and more lasting than triumph — the particular peace of a man who has, for once, stopped being careful about something, and found that the thing he was being careful around was never going anywhere.

He pressed his lips to your forehead. Slow. Deliberate. Entirely, specifically Baelor.

"Don't tell him," he said against your skin, "that I asked you for that."

You laughed again, knowing exactly what he was referring to.

"You know he will eventually find out," you teased.

"I know." A pause, and the warmth of him fully restored. "I will deny it comprehensively."

A.N.: I am obviously not well in the head and have a complete ted talk about the psychology of how and why these men are jealous while entirely sure about themselves (within this AU, of course). I will probably upload that too next to this work, because I need to get it out of my brain and put it into words.

Taglist: @qardasngan @nerdyinfluencertastemaker @princessphilly @shyravenns @loveslide @dulcebloodhnd @caitlynluna @mongrelcryptid @sacha1slytherin @faithfullyvigilantsliver @alternarabuda @jjubilee-fluff @a-sunflower-in-bloom @heieufh @karakatitsa-sonya @eleventhboi

Want to join the taglist? Leave a comment here!

[hananothannah]

[cestpasfaux24601]

Bertie Carvel as Baelor Targaryen A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms S01 (2026)

[hananothannah]

bro’s pinkies are even longer than my middle fingers. other than the freaky thoughts, i am genuinely envy because he can play a guitar so easily with those fingers bruh…

[ildico-the-golden]

front row for my BFF's dad

this was actually inspired by the beautifully hot thoughts of @katiecat446 (bless your brain cells) and by this fanart specifically, which got me all hot and bothered lol

Pairing: modern!BFF's dad!Maekar x f!reader

Warning(s): modernAU, +18 MDNI, boxing, minor injury, blood mention, sweat kink, semi-public sex (baelor deserves hazard pay), explicit sexual content, adrenaline high

It was Baelor who told you, which was almost certainly not intentional.

You'd dropped by his flat to discuss Daeron's birthday party and he had invited you to stay for a quick drink. You had to admit that there was a particular ease in his presence, the particular comfortable ease of an evening that had become regular enough to stop requiring an occasion — and Baelor had mentioned, in passing, in the tone of a man referencing something he assumed you already knew, that he hoped Maekar's match this weekend went well because he'd been training hard for it.

You had kept your face very still.

"Match?" you asked with a quirked brow.

Baelor had looked at you over his wine glass with the specific expression of a man who had just understood something three seconds too late. "He hasn't told you."

"I'm afraid not."

A pause in which Baelor appeared to conduct a rapid assessment of his options and concluded, correctly, that there were none. "He's been boxing again," he said, carefully. "He did it for years when the children were young, stopped for a while after the divorce, recently went back. I believe his reasoning was—"

"Fitness," you tried, already knowing you were right.

"Something like that," Baelor said, in the tone of a man who knew exactly what his brother's reasoning was and found the whole situation faintly, privately amusing. "He has a bout Saturday. A small club event, veteran category."

"Veteran," you tried the word on your lips.

"Over forty," Baelor added. "Seems to be a recognized division."

You had looked at your wine. Then at Baelor. Then you had smiled in a way that apparently concerned him, because he'd added, gently, "Perhaps give him a chance to tell you himself."

"Of course," you said, and had said nothing more about it, and had not told Maekar you knew, and had found the venue online that same evening and noted the time.

You had also, the following morning, texted Baelor: coming to the match. come with me and don't tell him.

Baelor had taken eleven minutes to respond, which meant he'd thought about it. Then: This seems like something that could go several ways.

Yes, you'd sent back.

Another pause. Then: I'll drive.

The gym was not what you'd expected — not a purpose-built arena, just a working boxing club with a ring in the center and folding chairs arranged around it, the smell of sweat and leather and old canvas, strip lighting overhead. You found seats four rows back, close enough to see clearly, far enough that Maekar's corner — the far one, you'd confirmed from the bracket board — faced away from you when he came out.

Baelor sat beside you with the composed neutrality of a man who had agreed to something and was seeing it through, his coat folded over his lap, his eyes on the ring with the mild attention he gave most things that weren't Byzantine history.

"You're not going to tell me this was a bad idea, right?" you asked.

"It may be a bad idea," he answered pleasantly. "I've decided to observe rather than prejudge."

"Very academic of you."

"I thought so," he smiled, the corner of his eyes crinkling.

The first two bouts passed without incident. Then the third was announced and Maekar came out of the far corner and your mouth went dry.

You had seen him without a shirt before, obviously, many times, in many contexts — the garden, the bathroom, the kitchen, the bedroom... You knew the dragon across his back, the scales at his ribs, the breadth of his shoulders. You knew what he looked like.

You had not seen him like this.

He was wrapped and gloved, moving with the loose economical ease of a man completely at home in his own body, the overhead lights doing something genuinely unfair to the muscle and ink of him. The full back piece was visible when he turned to his corner — the dragon in deep red and black, extraordinary under direct light — and the scales curling around his ribs caught the overhead strip lighting in a way that made your hand grip the seat beneath you of its own accord.

"Be careful," Baelor observed quietly, beside you, "if you grip that plastic any harder you may break it."

"I'm fine," you just said.

"Of course," he looked back at the ring, and you could hear the composure of a man trying not to smile too hard at the situation.

Maekar's opponent was slightly younger, heavier, with the confident set of someone who had done the age calculation and liked his odds. You watched Maekar look at him across the ring with flat assessment — structural problem, tactical solution — and felt something warm and low move through you that had no business occupying a folding chair.

The first round was controlled, economical. Maekar moved with precision, reading the other man's patterns and adjusting, not overcommitting. The second round, his opponent landed a clean hit to the brow — the cut was immediate, small but visible, and the sight of the blood, the way Maekar wiped it without breaking focus or expression and simply moved back in, did something to you that you intended to examine at a later time when you were capable of rational thought.

"That looks like it hurts," Baelor winced and said, very quietly, not looking at you. Clearly unknowing the effect it had on you.

"Kiss it better later," your brain decided to blurt out.

Baelor turned slightly to look at you, brows furrowed but an extremely amused expression dancing in his eyes. "I think I'm beginning to understand why you have my brother in such state."

You added nothing because he had said everything that there was to say.

The corner men worked on the cut between rounds, closure strip applied, and Maekar turned briefly to survey the crowd while they worked — automatic, habitual, the four-minute instinct — and his eyes found you.

You watched it happen in real time. The stillness. The rapid internal recalibration behind his eyes. His face closed back into flat focus almost immediately, but the corner of his mouth had moved first.

The almost-smile. Brief. Gone.

"I think he saw you," Baelor pointed out.

"I know."

"This is about to end rather quickly," Baelor ventured, with the tone of a man who had grown up watching his younger brother and understood certain patterns.

He was right. The third round lasted four minutes.

Maekar came out from the bell with controlled aggression that hadn't been there before — more direct, less patient, the tactical problem fully solved and the solution being forward. His opponent tried to use his reach and Maekar walked through it, inside his guard before the other man had committed, and the combination that followed was short and precise and utterly final. The referee stepped in. The gym made its noise.

Maekar stepped back, gloves lowered, and looked directly at you across the crowd and the three rows of folding chairs between you. You held his gaze and let your face do everything you'd been preventing it from doing for the last twenty minutes.

His expression did the complicated thing. Then he turned back to his corner.

Baelor leaned slightly toward you. "I want it on record," he said, quietly, "that I regret telling you."

"You absolutely don't," you laughed.

A pause. "No," he admitted. "But I'm going to pretend I do for a while." He stood, straightening his coat. "I'll come with you to the back. Someone should probably — manage the situation that is clearly going to happen."

"Manage the situation?" you feigned innocence.

"Ensure the facilities remain available," he said diplomatically, and followed you toward the locker room corridor. "And try not to get you caught."

Maekar came out of the ring room ten minutes later, still in his kit — shorts, no shirt, the wrap still on one hand where the other had already been removed. He was looking for you, and he found you in exactly two minutes, which you had expected.

He didn't say anything when he did. He looked at you — at your face, at the expression on it — and something moved behind his eyes that was complicated and warm and wanting all at once.

"Baelor?" he asked, though you supposed he already knew.

"Baelor," you confirmed.

"Having words with him."

"Mm," you said, because you'd stopped caring about Baelor approximately thirty seconds ago and were currently occupied with the reality of Maekar standing in front of you sweaty and post-fight and looking at you like that, the cut at his brow newly dressed, the dragon visible over his shoulder.

"Locker room's empty," he said. "Everyone else is done."

"Lead the way," you bit your lip.

Baelor, who had been standing at a polite remove, said mildly: "I'll wait here."

Maekar looked at his older brother. Something passed between them that was entirely non-verbal and entirely sufficient. The non-verbal communication between two people who had spent the majority of their lives engaging like that.

"Thank you," Maekar said, which from him was significant.

"Don't thank me. I'm doing this under protest."

"No you're not," Maekar scoffed, and turned and walked toward the locker room, and you followed, and the door closed behind you both.

The room was empty and warm and smelled overwhelmingly of the evening's work — sweat and leather and old canvas and something more immediate, closer, radiating off the man in front of you. He dropped the remaining wrap onto the bench and turned to look at you with his arms loose at his sides and the full weight of his attention.

The overhead lights in here were brighter than the ring, and in them the tattoo was extraordinary — deep red and black spreading across the full breadth of his back, the scales curling around his ribs to the front, the detail of fifteen years of work visible in every line. The cut at his brow. The slight flush of exertion still across his chest and shoulders. The sheer physical reality of him, post-fight, was something that required a moment to simply receive.

You crossed the room and put your hands on him — flat on his chest, feeling his heartbeat still elevated underneath your palms and the sticky warmth of his skin — and looked up at him.

"You thought I wouldn't want to see it," you said.

"Yeah," he admitted. "I thought you would find it barbaric."

"You were so wrong."

Something moved in his face. Then his hands found your waist and he kissed you, hard and immediate, no preamble, and you kissed him back with everything that had been building since the moment he'd walked out under the lights.

You pulled back after a moment and turned your face to his throat. He went still.

You pressed your mouth to the line of his neck and licked, slow and deliberate, tasting the salt of him — sweat and exertion and the specific animal heat of a man who had been in a ring for three rounds and still had adrenaline running in him — and the sound that came out of him was low and guttural and nothing like his usual register.

"What," not a question. More like a word his body had made without consulting him.

"You taste like—" you pressed your mouth to his throat again, open this time, your tongue tracing the line of his pulse— "I can't explain it reasonably."

"Don't fucking explain it," he said, rough. "Do it again."

You did. Dragged your mouth slow up the column of his throat, breathing him in on every exhale, tasting sweat and warmth and something underneath that was purely him, and felt him shudder under your hands with the full-body involuntary quality of a man encountering something he hadn't known he needed.

"That tongue is going to be the death of me," he said, barely voiced.

"I'm sure it'd be a fucking good way to go," you teased and nipped his neck.

He made a decision. You could feel it in the shift of his hands — from your waist to your hips, lifting you with the same casual ease he'd lifted combinations in the ring, carrying you the three steps to the bench and setting you on it without apparent effort, and then stepping back to look at you.

His hands went to the waistband of his boxing shorts. He stripped them off with the same economical efficiency he brought to everything, no performance in it, just a man removing kit — and then he was standing in front of you entirely, post-fight, in the bright locker room light, and your mouth went dry for the second time that evening.

He was extraordinary and he knew it, but not in the preening way — more in the way of a man who had maintained a working relationship with his own body for forty years and trusted it the way he trusted good tools. The dragon across his back caught the light when he turned to drop the shorts on the bench. The scales at his ribs. The size of his hands, bare without the wraps now, the breadth of his shoulders, the particular physical reality of him that the ring kit had been suggesting and the locker room had now confirmed entirely.

His cock stood hard and proud, tip reddened and crowned by the bead of arousal that, Maekar had once joked, seemed to be there permanently every time you were with him. His face sported that devastating almost-smile, and then he closed the distance between you.

He had you against the lockers within the minute, your back against the cold metal, his hands lifting you with effortless certainty — still warm from the fight, adrenaline still running hot, the elevated state making him sharper rather than sloppier. Your legs wrapped around him on instinct and he held you against the lockers with one forearm braced and looked at you like something he'd won.

Outside, faintly: Baelor's voice. Polite and immovable I'm afraid this facility is temporarily unavailable. There's another corridor to your left. A pause. No, I don't have a time estimate. I'd suggest the other corridor.

Neither of you acknowledged this.

"Third round," breathless, his mouth at your throat. "You ended it faster."

"Wanted to be done," he said, against your skin. "Saw your face."

"What was wrong with my face."

"Nothing wrong with it," he said, pulling back to look at you with dark eyes. "That's the problem." His hands moved, efficient and certain, getting your jeans open one-handed while keeping you pinned with the rest of him, which was its own ongoing exhibition of functional strength. "You sat there for forty-five minutes watching me fight."

"Every second," you nodded.

"Thought I was keeping you from something that would bother you," he said, pulling your jeans down and off with the same economical competence he applied to everything. "Instead you were—"

"Losing my fucking mind," you breathed when your jeans finally came off with your panties.

"Good," he said, flatly, and his hand found your pussy and confirmed it immediately judging by the complete wetness there, two fingers pressing inside you with devastating precision, his thumb finding your clit with the same focused efficiency he'd used in the ring, and you gripped his bare shoulders — skin warm and slightly salt-damp under your hands — and held on.

He worked you against the lockers with his hand, unhurried despite the adrenaline clearly still running in him, his mouth at your throat, your jaw, the cut at his brow — and you turned your face to his neck and licked again, longer this time, tasting him slow while he groaned at the combination of it.

"You're going to explain this to me later," he said, rough, his fingers working ever so deeper.

"The tasting," you mumbled against his skin, tongue lapping at his neck.

"The whole thing," he said. "All of it. Why the blood—"

"Maekar—"

"Yeah," he nodded once. "Later," and his fingers curled and you stopped being able to form words at all.

Outside, a different voice, closer. Baelor, serene and unyielding: Maintenance issue, I'm afraid. Ongoing. I'd give it at minimum thirty minutes. A beat. Perhaps forty.

Maekar, who had heard every word, made a low sound that was almost a laugh.

You came against his hand with your mouth pressed to his shoulder, breathing him in, salt and sweat and fight-heat and him, and felt his chest rumble with satisfaction against you.

He moved again — adjusting you in his arms with casual ease and carried you to the wider wall at the far end, pressed you against it with your legs around his waist and positioned himself and pushed inside in one deep certain stroke that drew a groan from both of you simultaneously.

"Maekar—"

"I've got you," his mouth came to your neck, teeth grazing your skin. "You're so — fuck — warm and tight."

He fucked you against the wall with the full strength of a man who had just won a bout and discovered his girlfriend's reaction to it and had a great deal of adrenaline still requiring somewhere productive to go — hard and deep and utterly certain, his hands gripping your thighs, adjusting the angle twice until he found the one that made you cry out against his shoulder, and then staying there, relentless.

"You're going to come to every match," he said, against your ear. Not a question.

"Every one," you breathed.

"Front row," he said, his rhythm driving deeper. "I want to see you when I come out."

"I'll fucking be in the front row for you," you cried out with a moan.

"Yeah," he nodded, with enormous satisfaction, and his hand found your clit and pressed, and the combination had you shaking within minutes, his name the only word you had left.

You came the second time with your face in his neck and your mouth open against his throat, breathing him in on every inhale — the salt and heat of him, the specific animal warmth of post-fight exertion — and felt him follow you with a low broken groan, his hips pressing flush, shuddering through it with your name pressed into your shoulder, coming deep within you.

He held you there a long moment after, your weight entirely supported without apparent effort, both of you breathing hard in the warm close air of the locker room.

Then, gradually, the world reassembled itself.

He set you down carefully, steadied you when your legs proved temporarily uncooperative, and reached for the bag he'd left on the bench — his actual clothes, brought for after, because Maekar thought about logistics even when planning things he hadn't told you about. He handed you a fresh towel, cleaning you as his release came running down your thighs. He dressed with the same economical efficiency he did everything: jeans, plain dark t-shirt, the dragon disappearing beneath fabric, the cuts and wraps and evidence of the ring replaced by the ordinary appearance of a man who looked exactly like himself and had just comprehensively rearranged your guts and altered your evening.

You reassembled yourself alongside him, found your underwear and jeans, ran a hand through your hair, assessed yourself in the small mirror above the sinks and concluded you looked like exactly what you were.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Ready," you nodded and smiled.

He opened the door. Baelor was leaning against the wall opposite, arms folded, coat still immaculate, with the expression of a man who had spent the better part of forty minutes being a bouncer outside a locker room and had used the time to arrive at a state of complete philosophical acceptance.

He looked at Maekar — fully dressed, composed, the closure strip at his brow the only evidence of the evening. He looked at you — flushed, hair not entirely cooperative, a mark visible at your throat above your collar.

He looked back at Maekar. "All clear?" he asked, mildly.

"All clear," Maekar confirmed.

"Good," Baelor said. "I've redirected approximately six people. One of them was quite insistent."

"I appreciate it," Maekar said.

"I'm sure you do," Baelor said, and then, with the serene composure of a man deploying something he'd been saving, "She was rather loud, incidentally, I hope."

"Baelor," you said, heat rising to your face

"I'm simply noting the acoustics," he said, arms raised in defense. He straightened from the wall, adjusting his coat. "I said the same thing recently about a bathroom at a conference, funnily enough."

You looked at the older man's face and noticed a special kind of warmth on his cheeks.

Maekar's eyes moved to his brother with the flat assessment of a man adding things up. Then, "How is she, by the way."

Baelor's composure didn't break. It simply — paused. Fractionally. "I don't know who you mean."

"The new girlfriend," Maekar said. Flat. Certain. "You'll have to introduce her, eventually."

"I don't see how that's relevant—"

"We've both been redirected lately, it seems," Maekar said. "That conference you came back from looking like you'd had a very specific kind of good time?" He tilted his head very slightly. "Yeah, we both know you're not as academically composed as you want people to think."

Baelor went faintly pink.

It was so unusual, so entirely uncharacteristic of the man, that you actually stared. Baelor — composed, measured, the older brother who had been running gentle commentary on Maekar's situation for months — standing in a boxing gym corridor going faintly pink at the back of his neck because his younger brother had said the quiet part out loud.

Maekar looked at the pink. Looked at you. Looked back at Baelor. The almost-smile appeared. Slow. Devastating.

"Good choice," he said simply, and started walking toward the exit.

Baelor recovered himself in approximately three seconds — remarkable time, honestly — and fell into step beside you both, his composure reassembled, his chin slightly elevated.

"That was ungracious," he pointed out.

"I'm aware," Maekar said, with the smug tone of a younger brother.

"I spent forty minutes in a corridor."

"I know," Maekar said. "And now we're even."

A pause in which Baelor appeared to conduct the relevant calculation and conclude, reluctantly, that this was arithmetically correct.

"Drive home?" you offered to break some tension.

"Please," Baelor said, with great dignity, and walked slightly ahead of both of you into the cool night air, and you fell into step beside Maekar, and his hand found yours and stayed there, warm and certain, the boxing club noise fading behind you.

"He's happy for you," you pointed out, quietly. "Underneath all of that."

"I know," Maekar said.

"And proud. The way he watches you fight—"

"I know," again, softer this time. His hand tightened slightly around yours. "Same way I watch him when he's got something good."

Ahead of you, Baelor had reached the car and was standing beside it with the patience of a man who had decided to be gracious about the entire evening and was succeeding through sheer force of character.

"Next match—" you started.

"Front row," Maekar said. "Already decided."

"You're going to win faster again?"

"Every time," he said, with complete flat certainty, and you believed him entirely.

A.N.: I still have some works from the grateful promt list that I have to finish, i know, i've got that pretty much tied up just to be proofread. this piece was actually written while waiting for my flights (if you're the lady at the pret a manger seated next to me that read pretty much everything while it was being written, no you didn't)

Taglist: @qardasngan @nerdyinfluencertastemaker @princessphilly @shyravenns @loveslide @dulcebloodhnd @caitlynluna @sacha1slytherin @faithfullyvigilantsliver @alternarabuda @jjubilee-fluff @a-sunflower-in-bloom @heieufh @karakatitsa-sonya @eleventhboi @celestialsonglines @xglittergoddess @warpedlilium @themoonseroticoracle @hrh007 @fraaiefreule91 @hannisreading

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[hananothannah]

[smuttylittlelife]

the way boyfriend!ryland grace lives in my brain all the time!!

mentions of smut, mdni 18+

waking up · · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

tangled in bed with him and he’s so infatuated with you as he watches you sleep peacefully next to him. he kisses your face to wake you up, and mubles some like if you slept okay, if you dreamed anything.

sometimes, a lot of the times, you two will have sleepy morning sex. if it’s before work, it’s usually him as the his spoon, dealing your leg over his and rutting into you, kissing your whatever parts of your skin are exposed. if it’s a day you have more time, he’s teasing you a little first. slipping his hands in your panties to finger you, maybe waking up by eating you out. then you’ll ride him, slowly, really taking your time and enjoying the intimate moment with him.

getting ready for work together · · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

if you’re both teachers, yall you’re putting on make up or doing your hair, in the bathroom with the door open, quietly playing whatever music you like. while ryland is picking out his outfit. (i strongly believe this man will iron his button downs for school. he cares about how he presents himself to his students)

he’ll stand by the door to ask you what your opinion on his tie is, and he’ll be distracted by watching you get ready.

he makes breakfast, while you make coffee and you’ll pack lunch for the both of you. you guys take public transit together (yay BART!) he’ll walk you all the way to your classroom door to make sure you’re safe.

if you have another 9-5 job, you’ll wake up with him, but let him take priority in the bathroom first since he leaves first. you tell him to make breakfast for him, he’ll always prep you coffee for you, so all you have to do is press the button. he’ll also sneak in a little note into your lunch for the day. when he kisses you goodbye at the door, he’s very pouty and doesn’t want to leave you. and you have to practically kick him out, so he makes it to work on time.

cleaning up around the house · · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

chores are hard for ryland because he can get really distracted. so you guys usually tackle things together. you’ll do laundry together, ryland will hang things up while you fold them. (also why he irons his clothes because if it were up to him, he’d leave them in the basket and they’d get all wrinkled)

you guys load the dishwasher together every night. he has a system, so you’ll rinse them off, while he arranges them to his liking in the dishwasher. on days you’re deep cleaning the house, you give him a checklist of the half of the chores he’s responsible for, and it helps him to see all the tasks he needs to accomplish.

sometimes they can take a little longer if you start singing to him, trying to get him to dance and sing with you. or he’ll find something sentimental on his belongings and he’ll start telling you about his childhood. it’s hard for ryland to freely talk about growing up, so you usually let him ramble on until he realizes he’s got 4 more tasks to do.

downtime together · · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

you guys have a list of tv shows you watch together, and switch off with those throughout the week. sometimes ryland will come home buzzing about a new documentary he heard about and asks to watch it. he’s always really happy when you agree, cause how can you so no to that pretty face of his, and he’ll pause it to explain certain theories or concepts to you. and you’ll ask him a million questions, which usually leads to him recommending you watch more documentaries. you have a running list!

or you’ll suggest a romcom, which ryland is always happy to watch with you. and he’ll genuinely enjoy them. you watch as he gets super into it, making predictions about plot lines and characters, or suggesting things the guy can do differently to romance the woman. your favorite is when he gets a little teary eyed at the grand love confession. it’s just so beautiful, they deserve to be together, he’ll say, blubbering a little.

he’ll grade papers with you, or while you read. and he’ll really try not to interrupt updating you on all his students progress and the things about their lives the e told him, but he really can’t help himself. you don’t mind at all, listening to him excitedly talk about his students. you love how much he cares about them, and it makes you fall in love with him more. and seriously think about having his kids one day.

going to bed · · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

sometimes on the weekends, you’ll fall asleep on the couch watching tv with him, and he’ll carry you into the room, cuddle up next to you and fall asleep. other nights you could be up talking for hours in bed, and not realize until one of you checks the time.

you try to keep a schedule on weeknights to ensure you’re both going to bed a reasonable time, and getting enough sleep. but ryland will sometimes have a hard time falling asleep, so he’ll read with the bedside light on, but if he gets too into his book, his little gasps and comments will stir you out of sleep, and you’ll ask about updates on what’s happening.

other times he gets a little hands at bedtime, especially if he didn’t get a chance to touch you that morning. and he’ll say it’s because he missed you all day and it’s not his fault that you’re so hot and he’s ready for you all the time. sometimes he’ll start with the intention of cockwarming you, but he gets too whiney and squirms around too much because you feel too good around him. and once you squeeze around him once, he’s begging you to let him fuck you.

and some nights, he’ll have a really long day at work. maybe a staff meeting or parent teacher conferences. and you’ll give him head. ryland is always really vocal but he absolutely cannot control himself when you’re sucking his dick. he’s whimpering, moaning, praising you, gripping onto the sheets and your hair at the same time. those are the nights he immediately falls asleep, your head on his chest as he holds you closely.

ugh. he’s the star of all my daydreams

[hananothannah]

isn’t he just so dreamy?!

[neuvilletteswife]

007 First Light is out for 5 days and I need sub!James Bond x reader already

[hananothannah]

so…what witchcraft we need to summon the authors/editors?

[alierecss]

What, like it's hard? | Dean Di Laurentis

summary: Dean Dilaurentis has been the only person in your class who comes close to your grade. You've been pretending not to notice him for three months. Then a professor pairs you together for a semester project, and suddenly you have no choice but to sit very close to him in a library for five weeks and figure out what to do about that.

notes: hii i'm back!! i really hope you guys enjoy this one as much as i enjoyed writing it. this came to mind because i'm obsessed with legally blonde the musical thanks to the show, and then obviously i had to rewatch the movie immediately. i read the dean book years ago so i genuinely didn't remember the plot, so for all intents and purposes let's just agree that he went to law school and moved on. also first time writing smut, so i think it's kind of mid, but i did my best 😭 also the legal cases i mention might not be entirely accurate since i am not a lawyer, but i do feel very comfortable using legal jargon in everyday life. thank you so much for reading and please let me know what you think 🤍

warnings: swearing, kind of academic rivals to lovers, library shenanigans, one very unhappy night librarian, legally blonde references (many), dean is a menace, reader is a menace back, sexual tension with footnotes, and SMUT (making out, oral f!receiving, unprotected piv, light dirty talk, "good girl", dean calls you baby and honey a lot) 18+ only please, mdni.

word count: 11.8k

For the past four years, you had spent countless moments thinking about these final months of college.

Truthfully, college had always felt like a dream, a dream that for a long time had seemed impossible and far away, so when the acceptance letter arrived all those years ago, you had been ecstatic in the disbelieving way of someone who had wanted something so long they had stopped being sure they deserved it. What nobody told you was that dreams came with deadlines, sleepless nights, and enough stress to make your eye twitch on a random afternoon for no particular reason.

The dream of becoming a lawyer had started when you were young. It hadn't started glamorously, no single defining moment, no courtroom drama that changed everything. Although you really did have a knack for binge-watching shows like How to Get Away with Murder and Suits. But the real want had started with the slow, accumulating understanding that the world was not fair, and that fairness was something you had to build rather than wait for, and that the people who built it tended to know the rules better than everyone else. You had decided, young and furious, that you were going to know the rules.

Now, years later, it finally felt within reach.

Last summer you had taken the LSAT. When the score came back — 176 — you had screamed so loudly your roommate came running from the other room convinced something had happened. Something had happened. Everything had happened. Applying to Harvard had been a no-brainer after that, the natural conclusion of four years of work that had never once felt like anything other than work. To say it had all been a dream would be a lie. You had earned every grade, every internship, every recommendation letter. Every achievement had come attached to long nights and sacrificed weekends and more cups of coffee than you were prepared to account for.

Still, every now and then, you allowed yourself a moment to appreciate how far you had come.

Then you remembered the Harvard interview scheduled in just a few weeks, and the knot in your stomach returned immediately. It lived there, that knot had been living there for months, through the application and the waiting and the acceptance, through every good thing that should have dissolved it and didn't. You had stopped expecting it to go away. You had just learned to work around it.

What if you stumbled over your words? What if they asked something you couldn't answer? What if four years of work came down to one bad afternoon?

Which was exactly why Professor Whitaker's announcement nearly made you lose your mind.

The second she wrote Semester Project across the whiteboard, a collective groan spread through the lecture hall. Over the next month, students would work in pairs to complete a research project on the evolution of constitutional rights in the United States , a project worth a significant portion of the final grade.

At any other point in your college career, that would have been merely annoying.

Right now it felt catastrophic.

You could not afford for your GPA to slip. Not when Harvard was finally within reach. Not when everything you had worked for was balanced on the edge of these last few months. And that meant you absolutely could not get stuck with a partner who didn't care like a jock who only cared about a sport, someone who would contribute three bullet points to a shared document at the eleventh hour and disappear for six weeks while your entire future quietly collapsed.

The thought alone made you grimace.

So as Professor Whitaker reached for her roster and began assigning partners, you found yourself doing something you almost never did.

Praying.

"The class will be sorted according to performance on the most recent exam," Professor Whitaker announced, scanning the room over her glasses. "That way the workload stays balanced and the pairing is fair for everyone."

A few students groaned.

You sat a little straighter.

Actually, that wasn't terrible. At least now there was a reasonable chance your partner wouldn't be dead weight. You had carried enough dead weight in your academic career to last a lifetime and you were done with it.

Professor Whitaker called your name first. You looked up from your notebook on instinct, even though she already knew exactly where you were. You hated change. You liked knowing where everything was. You liked routines, systems, the quiet reliability of things being where you left them.

More importantly, you liked being good at things.

Which was why hearing that your partner would be someone on your level was oddly comforting. Most of your life had been spent balancing on a very thin line between confidence and crippling self-doubt. On good days, you knew you were intelligent. On bad days, you were convinced everyone else was smarter and better than you. The trick was not letting either version get too loud.

Professor Whitaker glanced down at her roster.

The next five seconds would remain engraved in your frontal lobe for at least thirty years.

"Dean DiLaurentis."

Silence.

Jesus H. Christ.

Your head snapped up. Not because you needed to find him. You already knew exactly where he was sitting. You always knew where he was sitting, a fact you had never examined too closely and were not going to start examining now.

Middle of the sixth row. Today he was wearing a green cardigan over a white t-shirt, looking far too comfortable for someone who had just become the source of your newest academic crisis. He was mid-conversation with Beau Maxwell when his name was called, laughing at something, completely unaware that your entire carefully managed semester had just been handed to him without his consent or yours.

Dean turned around.

Then he smiled.

That smile. The one that belonged on toothpaste advertisements and nowhere else, the smile of someone who had never once in his life worried about whether he was welcome somewhere. It was the kind of smile that assumed the answer before the question had been asked, and it had always, privately, made you want to argue with it.

His eyes found yours immediately.

The realization landed half a second later, oh, you're my partner, and his grin widened, and then, because apparently the universe had a sense of humor that you had never personally found funny:

He winked.

He actually winked.

You stared back at him with the expression of someone who had just been personally wronged by the laws of probability.

You knew Dean. Not personally, god forbid. But you knew of him, the way everyone knew of him. Hockey player. Trust fund. Chronic flirt. The kind of person who walked into a room and somehow became the room. Loud and charming and surrounded by people at all times, the social gravity of someone who had never once had to earn a seat at the table.

Meanwhile, you considered making eye contact with strangers a form of cardio.

This could not be right. There had to be a mistake. How could Dean DiLaurentis possibly have a grade comparable to yours?

You spent your Friday nights in the library. You color-coded your notes by subject, by date, by relevance. You had cried over constitutional law, like actual tears, in the bathroom of the third floor study room, alone at eleven pm because that was what it cost and you had paid it without complaint.

Dean spent his weekends at hockey games and parties.

The math simply wasn't mathing.

Unless.

Oh.

Oh, god.

He was sleeping with the TA.

That had to be it. Everything suddenly made horrifying, perfect sense. The TA was a graduate student from somewhere in the Midwest who had spoken to you exactly three times all semester, and every single interaction had felt like she was being held at gunpoint. If Dean was somehow managing to maintain a functional relationship with her —

Honestly? He deserved the extra credit for that alone.

Three months earlier, it had started.

Professor Whitaker had a specific way of running discussion that you had privately categorized as controlled chaos. She threw a question into the room and stepped back and let whoever was going to talk, talk, with the quiet authority of someone who already knew what she thought and was waiting to see if anyone else did. The lecture hall always felt different during these sessions. Bigger somehow, the overhead lights slightly too bright, the charged quality of a room full of people deciding whether to say the thing they were thinking.

You almost always said the thing you were thinking.

Today the question was about Shelley v. Kraemer.

You had opinions about Shelley v. Kraemer.

"The court got it right," you said, when Whitaker's gaze landed on you. "State enforcement of a racially restrictive covenant is state action. The fourteenth amendment doesn't care that the covenant itself was private — the moment a court steps in to enforce it, the state is complicit. You can't separate the two."

Whitaker nodded — the small, noncommittal nod that meant continue or let someone else.

"I'd push back on that a little."

You turned.

Dean had his pen between two fingers, not quite raised, the posture of someone making a point rather than asking permission. He was looking at Whitaker, not at you, which was somehow more irritating than if he had been looking at you directly. Like the argument was with the room rather than with you specifically. Like you were incidental.

"The ruling is right," he said, "but the reasoning has a ceiling. If state enforcement equals state action, you've created a framework that depends entirely on whether someone decides to litigate. The protection isn't structural, it's reactive. It only exists if someone can afford to fight for it."

The room was quiet for a moment.

You became aware, distantly, that your jaw had tightened.

"That's not a flaw in the ruling," you said. "That's a flaw in the system the ruling exists inside of."

"Sure." Dean looked at you then, for the first time. His eyes were steady, interested in a way that wasn't performative. "But you're writing a decision, not a philosophy paper. The decision has to function in the system it's handed to."

"So your position is that the court should have ruled differently because the system might not implement it correctly."

"My position is that a protection that requires money and access to activate isn't really a protection." He said it evenly, without heat. "I thought that would be something you'd agree with."

The last sentence landed differently than the rest.

Not unkind. Not pointed exactly. Just specific, in a way that implied he had thought about what you would and wouldn't agree with, which was a thing he should not have been thinking about. Which meant he had been paying attention quietly and consistently.

Whitaker moved on.

You looked back at your notes and wrote nothing for the remainder of class. Outside the lecture hall windows the sky was the flat white of a November afternoon, and you sat with the particular discomfort of someone who had just been surprised by a person they had already decided to understand.

That was when it had started. Which meant that three months later, sitting in the lecture hall watching him smile at you like you were a problem he was looking forward to solving, you did not have the excuse of not knowing better.

The lecture hall emptied in a slow, shuffling wave that you had no patience for.

You were already packing your bag when you heard him.

"So." Dean dropped into the empty seat beside yours with the casual confidence of someone who had never once been unwelcome anywhere. He turned to face you, one arm resting on the back of the chair, bringing with him the faint smell of something clean, something woody, or the cold outside air. "Partners."

"Observant," you said, without looking up from your notebook.

He made a small sound, not quite a laugh, not quite not one. You could feel him watching you with that specific brand of unhurried attention that probably worked on most people and was currently working on you in ways you were categorically refusing to acknowledge.

"We should exchange numbers," he said. "Figure out when we can meet."

"I have time Thursday afternoon." You zipped your bag closed. "After three."

"Thursday I've got practice until five." He pulled out his phone, apparently unbothered. "What about evenings?"

"Tuesdays and Thursdays I tutor until nine." You finally looked at him. "Weekends I pick up extra sessions when I can."

Something shifted in his expression, brief, almost imperceptible. Not pity. Something more like recalibration, the specific adjustment of someone updating a model they had been working from.

You watched him process it and kept your face completely neutral, the way you always did when people did the math on your schedule and realized there was no give in it, no free afternoon that existed just for the sake of existing. You didn't need him to feel bad about it. You just needed him to understand that his time was not the only time being managed here.

"Okay," Dean said, and to his credit, he didn't make it weird. "Wednesday? I'm free after two."

"I have a session at two."

"After three, then."

You considered this. "Three. Library. Third floor."

"Done." He held out his hand for your phone with the easy expectation of someone who had never once been told no and somehow, inexplicably, made that feel more like charm than arrogance.

You looked at his hand for exactly one beat longer than necessary.

Then you unlocked your phone and placed it in his palm, your fingers brushing his warm hand briefly.

"Don't put anything weird in my contacts," you said.

Dean smiled and typed with the focused, two-thumbed efficiency of someone taking the instruction very seriously.

He handed it back.

You looked down.

Dean DiLaurentis 🏒 (ur partner deal with it)

You stared at it for a long moment.

"Truly," you said, "a legal mind."

He laughed then , a real one, surprised out of him, and stood to leave, shouldering his bag. He paused at the end of the row and looked back at you with the expression of someone who was about to say something and had decided against it.

"Wednesday, then."

"Wednesday," you confirmed, already looking back at your notes.

You did not watch him go.

You listened to his footsteps until you couldn't anymore and then looked back at your notebook and found the page completely blank.

By the time Wednesday rolled around, you had done the mental gymnastics of calculating exactly how much this project was going to cost you. Not much, you had decided. You were already at maximum stress capacity between the Harvard interview and the end of semester closing in, so there was simply no room left for anything Dean DiLaurentis-related to take up residence.

This was the conclusion you had reached.

You woke up early anyway, restless, and got ready with the focused efficiency of someone who was absolutely not anxious about a study session. In the kitchen, Elisa was at the stove, hair still in a braid from the night before, doing something that smelled like butter and brown sugar.

"Morning, sugar plum." She turned and pointed her spatula in your direction. "Do you want to have breakfast with me?"

Elisa was the easiest person you had ever lived with, which was not something you said lightly. You had moved into her house sophomore year knowing no one and she had made you feel like you had been there the whole time. Wednesdays were her day off no classes, no obligations, and she spent them cooking elaborate things and playing at domesticity in a way that you found deeply comforting. She called them the Tradwife Wednesdays, in a joking manner.

"I can't, I have a class I can't miss." You grabbed your bag from the hook by the door. "Sorry."

"That's okay." She stirred something. "Are you coming back for lunch? I'm trying a new caesar salad recipe I found on TikTok. Caesar 2.0."

"I can't do lunch either. I have a study session at noon."

"Bring your partner. We can all have caesar salad 2.0."

"My partner is —" you paused, already regretting what you were about to say — "Dean DiLaurentis."

Elisa put down the spatula.

"Shut up."

"I'm not going to —"

"No way. You hate him."

"I don't hate him."

"Despise, then."

"Not even that." You pulled on your jacket. "I don't care about him at all. He just exists in the same world as me."

"Sure," Elisa said, in the tone she used when she was humoring you. She picked up the spatula again. "Ask him if he remembers our little trip in the Mystery Machine."

"Goodbye, Elisa."

"Caesar salad is on the table if you change your —"

You closed the door.

session one

He was already there when you arrived.

That was the first thing that threw you off, small and inconvenient, the kind of detail that shouldn't matter and did anyway. Dean DiLaurentis, sitting at the table you had specifically chosen because it was tucked into the back corner of the third floor, away from foot traffic and group study noise and every possible social distraction. You had chosen it because it was your table, the one you came to when you needed to actually work, claimed over three years of afternoons and late nights. The carpet near the window had a worn patch from your chair. You knew which overhead light buzzed slightly and had learned to tune it out.

He was sitting in your chair.

He had a coffee on each side of the table.

Two coffees.

You stopped.

"I didn't know your order," he said, not looking up. "So I got you black. You seem like a black coffee person."

You were a black coffee person.

You sat down without commenting on it and pulled out your laptop.

"I started an outline," Dean said. "Sent it to your email."

You opened it without responding. It was actually structured. Clean headers, logical progression. You stared at it for a moment longer than you intended, turning it over, looking for the flaw. There wasn't one.

"You cited Marbury v. Madison in the intro," you said.

"It's foundational."

"It's also the first thing every professor expects to see. It makes us look like we opened the textbook once and called it a day."

He looked up then. "So where would you put it?"

"Section three. After we've established the framework."

Dean looked at the outline. Then back at you. "...Yeah, okay."

You pulled it up on your own screen and started restructuring. He watched for a second, then turned back to his own laptop without making it a thing, and something about that: the absence of wounded ego, the lack of argument, the simple yeah, okay, was quietly unexpected.

You worked in silence for a while. A real silence, the functional kind, punctuated only by typing and the occasional ambient noise of the floor around you, someone whispering two tables over, the elevator arriving and departing, the hush of a library in the afternoon when the day outside has gone grey.

At some point he shifted in his seat and his foot knocked against yours under the table. He pulled it back immediately, said a distracted sorry without looking up, and kept typing.

You looked back at your screen.

Ten minutes later it happened again his foot finding yours under the table, settling against it with the absent, unthinking quality of someone who wasn't paying attention to their own body. This time he didn't notice. Or didn't move. You couldn't tell which.

You didn't move either.

You looked at your screen and read the same sentence four times and told yourself it was nothing, the table was small, it meant nothing at all.

His ankle was warm against yours for the rest of the session.

An hour passed, and then another. The coffee went cold. The light through the window shifted from afternoon grey to early evening grey, and you were deep enough in the due process section that you had stopped noticing either.

"Take a break," Dean said, without looking up.

"I don't need a break."

"You've reread that page four times."

You looked up. He was still looking at his notes, which meant he had been paying attention to you without appearing to pay attention to you, which was somehow worse than if he had just been watching you openly.

You closed the case study.

"Fine," you said. "Break."

Dean leaned back in his chair all the way back, with the easy, unhurried comfort of someone who had never had to fight for a seat at any table he wanted to sit at. You had noticed that about him early, the specific posture of someone for whom things had always been available, every room an environment that had been pre-adjusted to suit him. It was the kind of thing that was difficult not to notice when you had spent your entire life doing the opposite.

"You know," you said, mostly because the silence was starting to feel companionable in a way you weren't ready for, "you hooked up with a friend of mine once."

Dean looked up. Something shifted in his expression mild interest, maybe the faintest trace of wariness. "Oh really."

"Daphne."

A pause. He turned the name over, and you watched the moment he didn't find it.

"I don't remember," he said.

"She was dressed as Daphne for Halloween. You were, surprisingly, dressed as Fred."

Something cleared in his expression. "Halloween two years ago?"

"That would be the one."

He considered this with the equanimity of someone who had made peace with a certain kind of personal history. "Can I ask why you're bringing this up?"

"No particular reason." You picked up your cold coffee. "Can you even remember her name?"

"I just said I couldn't."

"Right." You set the coffee back down. "Well. For the record."

Dean looked at you for a moment with the expression you were already starting to recognize the one that meant he was deciding whether to say the thing he was thinking. He usually said it.

"You know," he said, "you hooked up with a friend of mine too."

You kept your expression very neutral. "Did I."

"Garrett."

"We made out at a party freshman year," you said, with the patience of someone correcting a factual error. "Did he tell you we hooked up?"

"He didn't say anything." Dean's mouth curved slightly. "I saw you two leaving and made an assumption."

"A wrong one."

"Clearly." He tilted his head. "So. Has Daphne said anything? About her experience."

You considered the question with the gravity it deserved.

"She tried to tell me," you said. "I didn't want to hear it."

"So she didn't give a great review."

"Ravishing," you said pleasantly. "It almost made me want to sleep with you too." You paused. "But then I remembered I have something called self-respect."

Dean laughed a real one, sudden and unguarded. It was, you noted with some irritation, a genuinely good laugh. Warm and surprised, the laugh of someone who had not seen it coming and was delighted by that fact. The kind of laugh that made you want to have caused it again.

"That's funny," he said.

"I know."

He was still smiling when he looked back down at his notes. You looked back at your case study. The library settled back into its particular silence the low buzz of the overhead light, the distant elevator, thirty people pretending they weren't exhausted but something had shifted in the quality of it. Imperceptibly, the way temperature changes in a room before anyone acknowledges it's warmer.

You didn't say anything about it.

Neither did he.

Twenty minutes later he slid his notes across the table, pointing out something you had missed without making it feel like a correction. You leaned in to look without thinking about leaning in and then you were close, closer than you had been all session, his shoulder warm against yours, and you could see the slight curl of his handwriting on the page and the way his finger traced the line he was pointing to, and you became aware very suddenly of his hands. How big they were. How deliberate.

You had not thought about his hands before. Or you had thought about them in passing and moved on. But up close, right now, pointing at a citation on a page they were careful and unhurried, the kind that did things with attention.

You looked at the citation.

"You're right," you said. "Good catch."

He glanced at you sideways, briefly, with that expression.

You both looked back at the page.

Neither of you moved away.

It was near the end of the session when it happened. You were flagging sources, half your attention on the screen, the room around you reduced to the low hum of concentration, when Dean said, mostly to himself, still reading:

"You always sit in the same seat."

You glanced up. "What?"

He seemed to catch himself, just barely, a slight tensing around his jaw. "In Whitaker's class. Third row, right side, second from the aisle. Every lecture."

The air shifted in a way that was difficult to name. Outside the library window the sky had gone fully dark, the glass reflecting the room back at you, two people at a table, closer than they had been three hours ago, the space between them negotiated down to nothing without either of them signing off on it.

"I like consistency," you said, after a beat.

"Yeah." He looked back at his screen. Something in his jaw had gone slightly careful. "I know."

I know.

Two words. Completely neutral on the surface and yet carrying the specific weight of something that had not been meant to be said out loud. Not an admission exactly. More like a door opened a half-inch before he caught it and eased it shut , slowly enough that you both knew it had moved.

You looked at him for a moment.

He did not look back up.

"We should finish the first amendment section," you said.

"Yeah," Dean said. "Probably."

You both looked at your screens.

Neither of you said anything else about it.

You packed up at eight-fifteen, twenty minutes later than planned. The third floor was empty by then, the overhead lights on their late setting. You walked to the elevator in a silence that had become, somewhere in the last six hours, a different kind of silence entirely, not neutral, not loaded, just inhabited.

In the elevator he stood beside you with his shoulder against yours, the same way it had been at the table, and neither of you shifted. The floor numbers climbed down. You looked straight ahead.

His ankle had been warm against yours for three hours and you had not moved away once.

You filed that under the place where you kept everything you weren't ready to examine yet.

session two

The second study session had started with considerably less hostility than the first, which you were choosing not to read into.

It was late afternoon again, the library emptying out around you as people made the reasonable decision to leave, and you and Dean had been working for three hours straight with the focused efficiency of two people who were both too competitive to be the first to suggest stopping. The case briefs were spread across the table in a system that was half yours and half his and somehow, irritatingly, better than either would have been alone. Your color-coded tabs and his margin notes. Your precision and his instinct for where an argument wanted to go.

You had noticed that yesterday too. Filed it away.

What you had not filed away or had tried to and failed was the moment an hour into the session when he had reached across you to grab a case brief from your side of the table without asking, and his arm had crossed in front of you close enough that you felt the warmth of it before it was gone. He hadn't noticed. He had grabbed the brief and gone back to his side of the table and kept reading, completely unaware.

You had read the same paragraph for twelve minutes after that.

"Okay," Dean said, dropping his pen and leaning back. "Break."

"We just had a break."

"That was an hour ago."

You looked at the time. It had been an hour and twenty minutes, which meant you had lost track of time, which meant you had been absorbed enough in the work — in the conversation around the work, the back and forth of it, the way he argued a point and actually listened when you argued back — that the time had disappeared without asking permission.

You put your pen down.

"Fine," you said. "Break."

Dean stretched his arms above his head with the unselfconscious ease of someone completely comfortable in his own body, the cardigan riding up slightly, a sliver of skin at his waist, the line of his shoulders, the way his head fell back for a moment, which you observed in a purely detached and analytical capacity and then looked at the ceiling.

"So," he said. "Harvard Law."

"What about it."

"That's the goal?"

"That's the goal," you confirmed.

He nodded slowly, with an expression that was hard to read. Then, in a voice of complete casual confidence: "What, like it's hard?"

You turned to look at him.

He was already smiling.

"That's the second time today," you said, "that you have made a Legally Blonde reference."

"Is it?"

"You quoted it earlier when I said the admissions rate was three percent."

"I don't remember that."

"Dean."

"It's a great film."

You looked at him for a moment. "Is it your favorite movie?"

"Top two," he said, without hesitation. "Just after Top Gun."

You stared at him. Dean DiLaurentis. Hockey player, pre-law, top of the class, sitting in the library surrounded by case briefs, whose top two films were Legally Blonde and Top Gun.

"God," you said.

He laughed. "What?"

"Nothing." You picked up your pen. "It explains a lot actually."

"Does it."

"The confidence," you said, gesturing vaguely at him. "The hair. The complete inability to walk into a room without knowing exactly how you're going to be received." You paused. "You've watched both of those films a concerning number of times, haven't you."

Dean pointed at you. "Elle Woods and Pete Mitchell are two of the most —"

"Please don't finish that sentence."

"— compelling character studies in the history of American cinema."

You laughed and put your head down on the table.

His laugh was warm and close and you could feel it more than hear it, and when you looked up he was leaning on his elbow facing you — close, comfortable in the way he had gotten over the past two sessions, close enough that you could see the specific color of his eyes in the library light, and the way they crinkled at the corners when he was actually amused rather than performing it. The late afternoon light was doing something completely unreasonable to his face — the angles of it, the warmth of it, and you looked back at your notes with the focused energy of someone making a deliberate choice.

"Back to work," you said.

"Back to work," he agreed.

But he was still smiling when he turned back to his notes, and you were very carefully not smiling, and the library was quiet around you in that way it had been yesterday, warmer than it should have been, the silence between you easier than it had any right to be.

Top two, you thought, against your will. Just after Top Gun.

God help you.

You made it another forty minutes before it went sideways.

It started, as these things often did, over something small.

Dean wanted to include a law review article you thought was analytically weak. You had said so. He had disagreed. It had escalated with the particular efficiency of two people who were very good at arguing and had been carefully not arguing for weeks, the pressure of it finding the first available exit.

"It's not a weak source," Dean said, for the second time. "You just don't like the conclusion."

"I don't like the conclusion because the methodology doesn't support it. There's a difference."

"You've said that. You haven't explained it."

"I sent you three paragraphs —"

"You sent me three paragraphs about why you were right," he said. "That's not the same thing."

You looked up from your laptop. He was looking back at you with the expression that meant he was done being patient, and something about that, the specific quality of it, the fact that he was allowed to be done being patient when you had been managing your frustration for weeks —

"You know what, it doesn't matter," you said. "Include it. It's fine."

"Don't do that."

"Do what."

"Shut down and say it's fine when it's not fine." He closed his laptop halfway. "If you have a problem with the source, say it."

"I have a problem with a lot of things," you said, and it came out with an edge you hadn't entirely intended. "I have a problem with the fact that I have no idea how much of this grade I'm actually carrying."

The air in the room changed entirely. The low buzz of the overhead light was suddenly very audible.

Dean went very still. "What does that mean."

It means I've been doing this alone my whole life and I don't know how to stop assuming I'm about to have to do it again. That was what it meant. That was not what came out.

"It means," you said, and your voice was measured in the way it got when you were saying something you couldn't take back, "that I don't actually know how you scored high enough on that exam to get paired with me."

Silence.

Dean looked at you. Something moved behind his eyes, not hurt exactly. The thing that came just before.

"Say what you mean," he said quietly.

And because you were frustrated and tired and the Harvard interview was in two weeks and you had been holding this assumption for long enough that it had started to feel like fact —

"I thought maybe you were sleeping with the TA."

The silence that followed was a different kind entirely. Heavy and still, the kind that has a shape.

Dean sat back. He looked at you for a long moment with an expression you had never seen on him before — not the easy charm, not the careful attention, not the almost-smile. Something stripped of all of that, all the way down.

"I got a ninety-four on that exam," he said. "I got a ninety-four because I studied for it. I study for all of them." A pause. Each word placed with precision. "I know you think I'm here because of my last name or my hockey stats or whoever you've decided I'm sleeping with. I know that's easier than just —" he stopped. Exhaled slowly. "I've been doing the work. I've been here every session. I don't know what else you want from me."

You opened your mouth.

"And the TA," he said, " she has a girlfriend. So."

He opened his laptop again. The sound of it was very loud in the quiet room.

You looked at your screen. The cursor blinked in the document you had been sharing for two weeks, both your names in the top corner. You were acutely, uncomfortably aware of the specific kind of wrong you had just been.

Not about the source.

About him.

"Dean —"

"First amendment section," he said. Not cold. Not cruel. Just done. "Let's just finish."

You looked at him for a moment.

"Yeah," you said quietly. "Okay."

The Legally Blonde conversation felt like it had happened in a different library entirely.

Top two, he had said, and laughed, and looked at you like you were something worth looking at.

You stared at the cursor and said nothing else.

Neither did he.

session three

The third session was on a Tuesday.

You knew because Tuesdays you tutored until nine, which meant you had come straight from the library's second floor where you had spent an hour and a half walking a freshman through the commerce clause, and you were tired in the specific way of someone who had been performing competence for other people all day and had very little left over for themselves.

You had also been thinking about what you said for five days straight.

Not continuously. Like something that sits in the back of your mind and surfaces at inconvenient moments — in the shower, between tutoring sessions, at two in the morning when you should have been sleeping and instead were staring at the ceiling cataloguing every assumption you had ever made about Dean DiLaurentis and finding most of them wanting. I thought maybe you were sleeping with the TA. The words had a particular quality in retrospect, the quality of something that could not be unsaid, that existed now in the permanent record of things he knew about you.

You pushed open the door to the third floor reading room and told yourself you were fine.

Dean was already there.

Of course he was. He was always already there, with his laptop open and his notes spread out in the handwriting you had become, against your will, familiar with, slightly left-leaning, inconsistent spacing, somehow completely legible. He looked up when you came in. The room smelled like old paper and the particular warmth of a space that had been occupied for a while, and the overhead light buzzed its familiar note.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," you said back.

You sat down. Not beside him, you took the chair across the table, the one you had started in, back when the table felt like a neutral territory that required a border. You pulled out your laptop and opened the shared document and did not look at him.

He did not comment on the seating arrangement.

That was somehow worse than if he had.

You worked. The session had the functional efficiency of two people who were both too professional to let personal things affect the work, which meant the work was fine and everything around it was not. He passed you sources without commentary. You flagged edits without explanation. The back and forth that had become almost conversational — the small arguments, the digressions, the way he said okay when you made a point he couldn't refute — was gone.

The overhead light buzzed. Someone turned a page three tables over.

Around the forty-minute mark he said, "the due process section needs another source."

"I know," you said. "I'm looking."

"I found one this morning. Sent it to your email."

"I haven't checked yet."

"It's good."

"Okay."

Silence.

You checked your email. The source was good. You added it to the document without saying so and heard, very faintly, the sound of him exhaling.

An hour passed like that.

You had just pulled up a new case brief when Dean leaned back in his chair and said, to no one in particular, "I don't actually care about the TA."

You looked up.

He was looking at the ceiling, not at you, with the expression of someone who had decided to say a thing and was committed to the delivery. "I just want you to know that. In case it was still sitting there."

Outside the library window, the campus was dark and wet with recent rain, the paths lit amber under the streetlights.

"It was sitting there," you admitted.

"Yeah." He brought his gaze down to his notes. "I figured."

"Dean —"

"You don't have to." He said it simply, without edge. "I'm fine. I just didn't want it to be weird for the rest of the semester."

"It's already a little weird," you said.

"I know."

Another silence — but this one had more air in it, the quality of a silence that had been cleared rather than accumulated.

"I'm going to apologize properly," you said. "I just haven't figured out how yet."

Dean was quiet for a moment. Then, very carefully, not quite a smile: "Does it involve food."

You said nothing.

"It does," he said. "Okay."

"Back to work," you said.

"Back to work."

You heard her before you saw her.

The click of heels on library floor that had nothing to do with studying, moving with the purposeful energy of someone who had a destination and knew exactly what they wanted when they got there. You didn't look up. You were in the middle of a paragraph and you had a system and you were not going to lose your place.

The heels stopped at your table.

"Hey." Not directed at you. You turned a page. "I've been looking for you."

"Hey." Dean's voice, easy and careful. "Didn't know you were on campus today."

"I wasn't. Now I am." A pause with a specific texture. "Come outside for like five minutes."

"I can't right now, we're working."

We. You noted the word and kept reading.

"Five minutes," she said again. "It's not a big deal."

"I know it's not. I just can't right now."

You turned another page. The paragraph was about tort law and you had read the same sentence three times and retained nothing.

"Dean —"

"Seriously." His voice was still easy but there was something underneath it now, something with weight. "I'll text you later, okay?"

A silence. The kind that meant she was deciding something.

"Who even is she?" The question was directed at you. You looked up for the first time, because that was directed at you, and you had opinions about being spoken about in the third person by someone standing four feet away.

The girl was pretty in the specific, polished way of someone who had never had to try very hard at it. She was looking at you with an expression that was more curious than hostile, which somehow made it worse.

"His project partner," you said pleasantly. "We have a deadline."

"It's literally five minutes —"

"We're aware of how long five minutes is," you said, in the tone you had been practicing for courtrooms. "He said he'll text you. The reading room is a shared space and we're trying to work, so." You smiled. "Thank you."

The girl looked at you. Looked at Dean. Looked back at you with an expression that had shifted into something more speculative, something that said she understood more than you had intended to reveal.

Then she left.

The heels clicked back across the library floor and faded, and the room settled back into its particular silence, and you looked back at your notes with the focused energy of someone who had not just done what they had just done.

From across the table, nothing.

You turned a page.

More nothing.

You looked up.

Dean was looking at his notes with the carefully neutral expression of someone using every available resource not to smile.

"What," you said.

"Nothing."

"Say whatever you're going to say."

"I'm not going to say anything."

"Dean."

"I'm just —" He pressed his mouth closed. The not-smile was winning. "Thank you for your help."

"I didn't do it for you," you said immediately. "She was interrupting. It was annoying."

"Completely understandable."

"I would have done the same for anyone."

"Of course."

"It had nothing to do with —" You stopped. "We have three more pages to get through."

"We do," Dean agreed, in the voice of someone being very, very agreeable.

You looked back at your notes.

I would have done the same for anyone.

You were a pre-law student. You were supposed to be good at arguments.

That one had convinced neither of you.

You packed up at nine-fifteen, later than planned, and Dean walked out with you the way he had started doing without either of you deciding he would.

"She's no one," Dean said, when the elevator arrived. Not defensive. Just offered.

You stepped inside. "You don't have to explain yourself to me."

"I know." The doors closed. "I wanted to anyway."

You looked at the floor number climbing. He looked straight ahead. The elevator was small and you were standing close , his arm against yours, the cedar smell of him in the enclosed space, and something about the cleared air of the session, the I'm going to apologize properly, the we he had said without thinking, settled between you like something that had decided to stay.

The doors opened.

"Wednesday," you said.

"Wednesday," he confirmed.

You walked out into the night and did not look back.

You were going to need a very good cake.

session four

It was week four of the project, and Dean had gone back to sitting beside you, in the most inconspicuous way possible.

It had been gradual and deniable at every individual step. First the chair had been angled slightly toward yours. Then it had migrated. Now your thighs brushed every time either of you shifted, and you were acutely, unhelpfully aware of the warmth of his forearm against yours, the cedar-and-cold-air smell of him that you had catalogued in the first session and had been trying unsuccessfully to un-catalogue since.

Things had been a little strange since the fight.

The fight you had caused. With assumptions you had made. About a TA who, it turned out, had a girlfriend.

You had settled, eventually, on cake — specifically the lemon cake Elisa had made that morning, wrapped in foil and sitting on the table between your laptops like a small citrus-scented olive branch, which Dean had looked at when you arrived and had not yet commented on.

You had not told him it was Elisa's. You were not going to examine why.

"So," you started.

Dean looked up from his laptop.

"I would like to apologize."

He held your gaze for a moment. Something in his expression shifted — careful, like he was deciding how much to give you. "It's okay."

"It really isn't, Dean." You turned to face him, which was a tactical error because it meant you were now very close to him, close enough that you could see the dark blue of his eyes in the library light, and the soft fabric of the cardigan where your knee was almost touching his. "I made assumptions. I think the worst of people sometimes and I let it get ahead of me. You've been doing the work. I knew that and I said it anyway. That wasn't fair."

Dean looked at you for a long moment.

"It's truly okay," he said quiet and uncomplicated, completely without performance. "I get it. I know what it looks like from the outside."

"That doesn't make it okay."

"No," he said. "But it makes it understandable."

You looked at him. He looked back at you. The study room was very quiet, the overhead light doing its particular low buzz, the air carrying old paper and coffee and the warm-wool smell of his cardigan.

"The cake is Elisa's," you said, because you needed to say something. "My roommate. She made it this morning and I brought it."

Dean's mouth curved. "You brought me a peace offering."

"I brought us a snack."

"A lemon cake wrapped in foil."

"We've been here three hours."

"That," he said, "is the most you thing I've ever heard." He reached over and broke off a piece without ceremony, and you watched his hands doing it those careful, deliberate and huge hands of his, and felt something tighten somewhere that you immediately filed under irrelevant.

"Good?" you asked.

"Really good." He looked at you with the quiet expression, the one that sat closer to the surface. "Tell Elisa thank you."

"Tell her yourself," you said, and then realized what that implied, and looked back at your laptop.

Dean didn't say anything.

But he didn't look away.

You worked. The tension in the room had changed quality, no longer the awkward residue of an unresolved argument, something else now, something that had been building for four weeks and was running out of places to go. You were aware of him the way you had been aware of him since that first session, the warmth of his arm against yours, the sound of his breathing in the quiet room, the way he tucked the pen behind his ear when he was reading something carefully.

You were looking at your screen. You were not reading anything on it.

He shifted beside you. His knee pressed against yours under the table, not accidentally, not with the absent quality of the foot under the table in session one, but deliberately, with the specific patience of someone making a point without words.

You looked at your screen.

His knee stayed where it was.

Fine, you thought. Fine.

You did not move away.

Another twenty minutes passed like that, both of you working, neither of you acknowledging the point of contact, the room very warm and very quiet. And then Dean reached over, not for a case brief this time, his hand finding yours on the table, covering it, not grabbing, just resting there. Still. Like a question asked very quietly.

You looked down at his hand on yours.

You looked up at him.

He was already looking at you and he didn't say anything, didn't push, just held your gaze with the patience of someone who had been waiting for a while and had decided to stop waiting quietly.

You turned your hand over under his.

Something shifted in his face. Not the smile, something more careful than that, something that meant more.

Then his hand came up slowly, fingers brushing your jaw, turning your face toward his unhurried, giving you every opportunity to move.

You didn't move.

His eyes met yours — a question, patient and certain — and you answered it by closing your eyes and leaning in, and then his mouth was on yours.

You had kissed people before.

This was categorically different.

It started soft and then didn't stay that way. His hand slid into your hair and yours found the front of his cardigan — soft wool under your fingers, the solid warmth of him underneath — and when his tongue met yours you made a sound you were going to spend considerable time not thinking about.

The kiss was unhurried. Calculated in the best possible way. Dean kissed you like he had all the time in the world, and when air became a necessary concern he pulled back smiling, pressed a soft peck to your lips, and began a slow trail of kisses along your jaw and down your neck.

His mouth was warm on your neck, lips dragging slow enough to make your breath catch, and his hand slid down your thigh with a deliberate patience that made it very clear he was in no hurry whatsoever.

You pulled his hair and got a low, rough sound against your skin in return, and then his hand found your waist and pulled, dragging you onto his lap until you were straddling him and there was no distance left to negotiate.

You could feel exactly what four weeks of thighs brushing and careful silences had done to him.

Dean — you heard yourself saying. Dean, Dean —

Your hands had found their way under his shirt, palms flat against his stomach, and when you dragged your nails lightly down his skin he smiled against your mouth and rolled his hips up into yours with a slow, pointed pressure that dissolved whatever thought you'd been forming completely.

A loud, deliberate cough came from the doorway.

Mrs. Miller, the night librarian, stood in the entrance with the expression of a woman who had seen too much and was being paid nowhere near enough.

You scrambled back. Dean straightened. A beat of absolute silence.

"We're leaving," you said, with as much dignity as the situation permitted. "We're so sorry, Mrs. Miller."

Mrs. Miller said nothing. She held the door open with the energy of someone who had made peace with humanity's worst impulses but did not have to enjoy them.

You gathered your things in record time. Dean had the audacity to look almost completely composed, which was deeply unfair given the state of his hair, which was your fault. You looked away.

Outside in the hallway you made it three steps before he said:

"So."

"Don't."

"I was just going to —"

"I know what you were going to say."

A pause. Then, with great personal restraint: "Okay."

You made it to the elevator before you looked at him. He was already looking at you.

"The cake was really good," he said.

"Shut up, Dean."

He laughed. The elevator doors closed. You stood in the small lit space of it with your shoulders touching and said nothing else the whole way down.

You were both smiling though.

session five

The fifth session was on a Wednesday.

You had been avoiding him since the awkward encounter with Mrs. Miller.

Not obviously, you were too disciplined for obvious. You had shown up to every class, done every piece of work, responded to every text within a reasonable time. You had simply pulled back the parts of yourself that had started, over four weeks of thighs brushing and functional silences and one extremely ill-advised study room incident, to lean toward him without permission.

You were good at pulling back. You had been doing it your whole life.

The third floor smelled like old paper and the warmth of a space occupied all day, the radiator ticking in the corner, the last of the evening light grey through the windows. Dean was already at the table. He looked up when you came in. You sat across from him, the original position, the border re-established, and he looked at it and then looked at his laptop and said nothing.

You worked.

The project was almost finished. This was the last session, a conclusion, a bibliography built jointly over five weeks, your color-coded tabs and his margin notes. It was good work. You were going to get an A on this project.

You were also going to have no reason to sit in this library with Dean DiLaurentis after next week.

You were not examining that.

"We need to talk about the conclusion," Dean said, around the hour mark.

"I know. I drafted something last night, it's in the doc."

He found it. Read it. Was quiet for long enough that you looked up.

"It's good," he said.

"I know."

Another silence. He wasn't reading anymore.

"Are you going to keep doing this," he said, "or."

"Doing what."

"You know what."

"Dean —"

"Because I can." Simply, without heat. "If that's what you want, I can pretend that kiss didn't happen and we finish the project and that's it. I'm not going to make it weird." A pause. "Weirder."

You said nothing. Outside the window the campus was dark and wet, the paths amber-lit below.

"But I'd like to know," he said, "so I can stop waiting for you to tell me."

The library was very quiet. The radiator ticked. The overhead light buzzed.

"It's not that simple," you said finally.

"Okay." He waited.

"I have the Harvard interview in four days. I have a GPA I cannot let slip. I cannot afford to be distracted by —" you stopped.

"By me," he said.

"By anything."

He was quiet. "That's fair."

"And you don't —" you stopped. Started over. "You don't do this. Whatever this would be. I've heard enough to know that's not something you do. Rollercoaster ride or something like that."

Dean looked at you then. Fully, the way he didn't always let himself — all the way, no management.

"What have you heard," he said.

"Dean."

"No. Specifically."

You met his gaze. "That you don't do relationships. That it's always casual. That you're consistent about that."

He held your gaze.

"That was true," he said. "For a long time that was true."

"And now?"

He looked at you like the answer was obvious and he was simply waiting for you to arrive at it, with the patience of someone who had been waiting for a while.

You looked back at your laptop. Your chest felt tight. You had spent five weeks building a careful wall and he had just put his hand flat against it and pushed, gently, without drama, without raising his voice.

The same way he had put his hand over yours on the table.

Just resting there. Like a question asked very quietly.

"Four more pages," you said.

Dean was quiet for a beat.

"Yeah," he said. "Okay."

You both looked at your screens.

You finished the project.

Professor Whitaker announced the grades on a Thursday morning.

You were in your seat when she read them out.

A plus.

You looked up. Dean was already looking at you from the sixth row, and the smile on his face was the quiet one, the one you had catalogued in week two and had been trying not to think about since. It crossed the room and landed somewhere specific.

You gathered your things after class with the focused efficiency of someone with somewhere to be, and you almost made it to the door.

"Hey." He fell into step beside you in the hallway, easy and unhurried, bringing with him the cedar smell. "A plus."

"A plus," you confirmed.

"Told you the Marbury placement was better in section three."

"That was my idea."

"I agreed with it enthusiastically."

"You said yeah, okay and went back to your laptop."

"Enthusiastically," he repeated.

You stopped walking. The hallway moved around you, students flowing past, and Dean stopped too, and you were standing in the middle of it looking at him.

You had done it. You had actually done it. Four years of work and one extremely stressful semester and a project partner you had spent the first two weeks convinced was going to ruin everything, and you had gotten an A plus and the Harvard interview was tomorrow.

The knot in your stomach, which had lived there so long you had stopped noticing it, was gone.

Dean was looking at you with an expression that had gone soft in a way you weren't ready for.

You hugged him.

You weren't sure you had decided to. Your arms were around him and his were around you a half second later, one hand flat between your shoulder blades, and he was warm and solid and smelled so good, and you stayed there for a moment longer than was strictly necessary.

The hallway moved around you. Neither of you moved.

When you pulled back he was still looking at you.

"Good luck tomorrow," he said quietly. "You don't need it. But good luck."

You nodded. Looked at him for one more second.

Then you walked away.

You made it to the end of the hallway before you thought —

oh.

oh no.

And kept walking anyway.

the wednesday after

The Wednesday after the interview, you were in the kitchen with Elisa when the doorbell rang.

Elisa looked at you. You looked at Elisa.

"Are you expecting someone?" she asked.

"No."

"Should I get it?"

"I'll get it," you said, in the tone of someone who had a feeling.

You opened the door.

Dean DiLaurentis was standing on your porch in a green cardigan — of course he was, he owned approximately nine of them — holding grocery store flowers and a DVD copy of Legally Blonde.

You stared at him.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi."

"I heard the interview went well."

"How did you hear that."

"Beau knows your roommate apparently."

You were going to have words with Elisa. "It went well," you confirmed.

"Good." He held out the flowers. The stems were slightly damp from the cold outside. "These are for you."

You took them. "And the DVD."

"Also for you."

"Dean." You looked at him. "I don't own a DVD player."

Something flickered in his expression, that almost-smile. "I know."

"So this is."

"A reason to invite me in," he said simply. "So we can watch it on your laptop. If you want."

"My laptop also doesn't have a DVD player."

He made a gesture as if to throw the DVD across the lawn, which made you laugh despite yourself.

You looked at him standing on your porch and thought about five weeks of sessions, the foot under the table, the arm reaching across you, the knee pressed deliberately against yours, the hand resting over yours on the table, quiet as a question.

"You drove here," you said, "with a DVD."

"I did."

"That's extremely old fashioned. You might as well stand under my window with a boombox playing George Michael."

"If that's what you want."

"Most people would have just texted."

"I'm not most people," he said, simply, without needing anyone to confirm it.

You stepped back from the door.

"Elisa made caesar salad," you said. "She's been waiting for an excuse to feed someone new."

Dean stepped inside. The warmth of the house closed around him.

"I love caesar salad," he said.

"I know you do," you said, closing the door. "It's very you. That and like, Steak Tartare."

"What's wrong with Steak Tartare?"

Elisa lasted forty-five minutes before she announced she was going to her boyfriend's and picked up her keys with the energy of someone who had orchestrated something and was not going to pretend otherwise. You did not look at Dean when she left. You heard the door close and the house settle into quiet and then it was just the two of you on the couch with the TV on and Elle Woods on the screen, his arm warm along the back of the cushion behind you, close enough that you could feel the heat of it without it quite touching.

You had made it approximately eleven minutes into the film.

"I got in," you said, to the screen.

Dean went still.

"The interview —" you stopped. The room was very quiet. The lamp on the side table cast everything amber, warmer than the library had ever been. "They called this morning. I got in."

A beat of silence.

"Harvard," he said.

"Harvard," you confirmed.

Another beat, long enough that you turned to look at him. He was already looking at you.

"I knew you would," he said.

And then he kissed you.

It felt like something he had been waiting to do since the door opened, like Elisa leaving had simply removed the last obstacle between the moment and itself. His lips were on yours immediately, and Dean tasted like mint, and you found yourself wondering distantly if he had come here prepared for this, if this was always how tonight was supposed to end.

He didn't kiss like a careful person. His tongue was thorough and consuming and somewhere in the back of your mind you remembered that cliché about tongues fighting for dominance, that was what Dean was doing, except you found you had absolutely no desire to fight him for it. You would give him whatever he wanted.

Your hands found his shoulders. His found your waist, your thighs, and then settled, decisively, with intent, on your ass. An ass man, you noted, which tracked completely. He pulled you closer and you went willingly, swinging one leg over his knees until you were straddling him. He groaned in satisfaction, his hands pulling you flush against him, his hips rising to meet yours.

Air became a problem. You pulled back, opening your eyes, and found Dean with his eyes still closed, already searching for your mouth again. You gave him a small peck, then made a slow path of kisses from his mouth to his ear to his neck.

On his neck you bit him, lightly, experimentally, and the response was immediate. His hand came down on your ass in a sharp reflexive slap that startled a breathless laugh out of you. Through your skirt and his jeans you could feel exactly how much he was enjoying this, and you rolled your hips deliberately. The sound that came out of him made you stop entirely.

God. You wanted to hear that sound on repeat for the foreseeable future.

He seemed to resurface from wherever he had gone, and then he was standing, actually standing, with you in his arms, your legs wrapping automatically around his back.

"So," he started, eyes dropping to your mouth in a way that was frankly unfair. "Where's your bedroom?"

"Up the stairs, first door on the left," you answered against his neck, punctuating it with another bite.

"Stop teasing me or I'll drop you."

As a direct response you attempted to suck a mark into his neck. He fake-stumbled dramatically on the first step, which made you shriek and then immediately muffle it, and he laughed, low and warm and entirely too pleased with himself.

"I told you," he said.

You made it to your bedroom, and you silently praised the rare burst of energy that had led you to tidy it the night before. He dropped you onto the bed and you propped yourself up on your elbows and watched him pull off his cardigan and then the white shirt underneath.

You let out a slow whistle.

Hockey had been very, very good to him.

"Has anyone ever told you you're kind of annoying?" he said, dropping to his knees at the foot of the bed and pushing your legs open. His eyes went to your underwear. Something in his expression softened. "Cute underwear."

"Only this blond guy I'm sort of into," you said, focusing very hard on something other than what was about to happen. "And I wasn't planning on sleeping with anyone today, hence the polka dot Snoopy panties."

"No, I genuinely think they're cute," he said, and pressed a kiss to your clothed center that made your breath catch. "But they do have to go."

He hooked his fingers in the waistband and pulled them down, and then — you watched, incredulous — tucked them into the back pocket of his jeans.

"Absolutely not —"

"Focus," he said.

"You're so wet," Dean murmured, his gaze on you in a way that made you feel simultaneously embarrassed and triumphant. He kissed the inside of your knee, your inner thigh, everywhere except where you needed him. "All from just kissing?"

"Stop teasing," you whined.

"Not so funny anymore, is it."

"Please, Dean —"

"Please?" He looked up at you, and the expression on his face was criminal. "So you're telling me I spent weeks and months putting up with you being rude to me, when I could have had you this polite just by bending you over a table?"

The image that produced made you moan before you could stop yourself.

"You have no idea how long I've wanted to do this," he said, voice low. "To taste you."

His tongue pressed flat against your center and you moaned so loudly you were immediately grateful Elisa had left. He explored you with single-minded thoroughness, his tongue parting you, learning you, the sounds filling the room obscenely, the wet heat of his mouth and your increasingly frantic responses.

When his mouth found your clit your hands flew to his hair, pulling, trying to bring him impossibly closer.

"You taste so fucking sweet," Dean said against you.

"Fuck — Dean —"

The feeling built and crested and his hand came down across your stomach to hold your hips in place as they jerked. Your thighs trembled. He felt the way you clenched around nothing and knew.

"Be a good girl and come for me."

The orgasm hit like a wave breaking — sudden and total.

"Dean — oh my god —"

He worked you through it, his tongue slowing gradually until he finally pulled back. When he stood you were completely wrecked, sprawled across the bed, unable to form a sentence, staring up at him. His chin was wet. He looked insufferably composed.

He removed his jeans and helped you out of your dress, then came down over you on the bed, his weight settling between your thighs. He kissed you slowly, his hands cradling your jaw with a tenderness that was almost absurd given what had just happened, sweet and careful and at complete odds with the rest of the evening.

You felt him against your thigh.

Oh. He was — yes.

"Breathe, honey."

It was annoying how well he could tell when you'd stopped.

Your hips rolled up against him instinctively, looking for him.

"I need you inside me, Dean —"

"So demanding," he said, cutting you off with a kiss. His hand slid down between you, pressing the length of him against your folds, and the sound you made was not dignified in the slightest. He tapped the head of his cock against you and you dug your nails into his back.

"Please — Dean — please, please —"

He finally gave you what you were asking for, positioning himself at your entrance. The thick head breached you slowly, stretching you out, and you tried to pull him deeper faster.

"Oh fuck —" you moaned as he bottomed out.

"God damn," he breathed. "You're so tight."

His hips pulled back and snapped forward and then he was properly fucking you, hard, deep, everything you had imagined during different library sessions. His mouth found your collarbone, your chest, and then he took one nipple between his lips and you arched off the bed.

"You really do have the most absurd —" he said against your skin.

"Do not finish that sentence —"

"— tits. I could spend all day here."

Your walls tightened around him as the second orgasm built.

"I'm gonna come —" you breathed.

"I know."

He moved back up to your mouth, kissing you as you fell apart, and at the last moment he pulled out, the warmth of him spilling across your stomach. He stood and disappeared into the bathroom, returning with a cloth to clean you up. He discarded it somewhere, then lay down beside you and pulled you against his chest without ceremony, your legs tangling together.

The room was quiet. The lamp was still on. Outside the window the November street was dark and still.

"So," you said finally, staring at the ceiling. "You really are an overachiever."

"Shut up, (Y/N)," Dean said, and kissed you.

You stayed like that for a while, his heartbeat under your cheek, the lamp casting everything amber, the particular quiet of a house when everyone who needed to leave has left.

You had spent four years not allowing yourself anything that wasn't useful. Not a detour, not a distraction, not a single afternoon that didn't have a purpose.

Dean DiLaurentis, you thought, had been the worst possible use of your time.

You pulled his arm tighter around you.

Worth it.

[hananothannah]

a good example of neurodivergent character? sold!

[inksgoosiefolder]

[ ꜱᴀᴠᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀᴛᴇ ]

“You look nice,” Ryland says, smiling a little shy, as if the compliment had just slipped out and he was supposed to be embarrassed about that. “I uh,” You pause, swallowing thickly. Holy fuck he looks good in a suit.

in which: You need a date to the wedding you foolishly agreed to attend, luckily your co-worker is a willing sacrifice. Extremely willing.

[warnings: eventual nsfw 18+, a bit of fluff, excessively drawn out flirting]

wc: 14.2k (Whoops) [ Masterlist ] [ ao3 Link ]

Woe finds you on a Tuesday at the staffroom lunch table. 

Picking apart the leftovers of a miserable thrown together attempt of fried rice that came to be after realising there were no better dinner options with the ingredients you had in the fridge two days ago and the determination to not get take out more than once a week that would surely fade come February. Alas, it is still January and all those new year resolutions are still sticking like cheap adhesive hooks that will eventually be weighed down enough to slip as time ticks on. 

Eat take out once a week, maximum. Read one book a month, minimum. Sleep more. Stop turning down social invites

The last one is what leaves you particularly perturbed, as your lunch goes lukewarm and your thumb flicks about on the social media profile.

“I just… I can’t say no.” You lament. “It would be weird.”

“Weirder than going?” Margot asks, pulling her own container of lunch from the oven. It’s also leftovers, but slices of impeccably cooked roast with what looks to be red wine sauce and vegetables- no doubt made by her smokeshow of a house husband (he just works from home, she insists. You’re pretty sure the pair are sitting on a lofty investment profile because no man ‘works from home’ cooks roasts bi-weekly and buys his wife diamond earrings for her birthday).

“I don’t know. Maybe.” You manage, the next bite of fired rice tasting like loneliness packed into an over-salted flavour profile. 

“What’s weird?” Ryland asks, sitting down in the chair across from you.

The staff room of E-Block is near abandoned. Of the ten-odd teachers with rooms in the little block of aging brick, most tended to eat in their classrooms. Save for you, Margot and Ryland. Occasionally there will be another visitor, but most days, it is just the three of you. 

“Wedding.” Margot supplies, sitting down and shuffling her chair in with a sense of poise so rarely found in Middle-Schools. She’s older, somewhere in her early fifties, and still manages to approach the job with the same level of discipline as before ipads made their invasion into the classroom. 

Ryland frowns. “You’re already married.”

He’s… well, Ryland's… actually you’re not sure how to put him into words, which is saying a lot considering the literature degree collecting mildew in the filing cabinet of your apartment. 

He’s in the same boat as you in terms of finding yourselves with a teaching career. Studied something else first, got your passion and love for it soured by morons and went back to college for a second round, dishing out more cash for a masters in teaching that has you trying to tame fourteen year olds all day. Delightful, truly. Although, Ryland had certainly lasted a lot longer with that first degree than you had. A doctorate. He hates the kids knowing that though. A handful of them had called him ‘Doctor Grace’ last year, after digging about online and getting their grubby fingers on his linkedin profile. 

‘Mr Grace’ as he is now known, is awkward. A little socially inept at times, but not enough to come across as anything other than endearing. Now is one such time, as he looks over the frames of his glasses at Margo, the stack of pop quizzes he’d brought to mark and keep himself occupied momentarily forgotten. His eyes darted from her face to the ring on her finger. 

“Mm mm.” She hums, shaking her head as she chews, then levels her fork to point in your direction.

“You’re not getting married.” Ryland states when he turns to look at you, like it’s a scientific fact, one he’s so assured of. 

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mr Grace.” You reply, still sort of wallowing at the photos on your phone. 

His gaze flickers, a little less sure as the corner of his lips fall and, like he had with Margot, settles his eyes on your hands. Your lack of a ring. “You aren’t, are you?”

“No. My ex is, though.” You sigh, despondent. The reminder glares back at you from the overly-bright phone screen. 

“Oh. That sucks.” He manages, clicking open a red pen to start circling and ticking the first sheet on his pile. “Happens to the best of us.”

The kettle rumbles away on the tiny kitchenette. You look at him for a long moment. The best of us. Like it’s happened to him. Ryland’s not one to discuss relationships beyond the occasional quip about quitting to be a house husband like Margot’s. He’s never mentioned past romances, you don’t think he’s been in a relationship in the three years since he started at Grover Cleveland Middle. It’s such a bizarre glimpse at his life, that he doesn't even seem to register what he's revealed, marking as he waits for the boiling water to cook another lunch of instant ramen. 

You sit up a little straighter in your chair, weary of knocking your shoes against where his long legs sprawl under the small table. The staff room is meant for ten but is cramped even with the three of you, nothing more than a little kitchenette and big whiteboard in the corner. There’s a shelf against one wall, just far enough away from the doorframe that the door doesn't crash into it when pushed open. There’s a long window the length of the wall on the door’s other side, a good view of the eighth-grade outdoor lunch area. The other staff call it the fishbowl, it’s why they opt to eat in their classrooms, not keen on the kids' eyes on them when it is supposed to be one of the fleeting breaks during their day.

Thank god the door is closed- if the kids heard you whining about this, a wedding, they’d never let up. “I’m considering the pros and cons of skipping it.”

“You were invited?” He baulks, dropping his pen.

You try not to smile, focusing on your self pity instead of the three shoddy attempts Ryland takes to catch his pen from dropping out of his hand, rolling off the stack of paper then off the table. “I already said I’d go too.”

“Why?” Ryland sounds appalled, like that one time you’d caught him trying to explain that the five second rule is not an effective barrier against bacteria to a student. 

“It’s complicated.” You say, biting at your cheek. 

“Bullshit.” Margot aptly calls. Looking over with the same expression she used to call students on their bullshit. You're not a big fan of having it directed at you. 

“We went out for maybe two months in college.” You sigh, setting your phone on the table face-down to stare at your lunch, contemplative. “He’s engaged to one of the girls from my sorority. We’re… friends.”

Margot watches. “With your ex or the sorority girl?”

“Sorority girl. Daisy.” That's the better option of the two at least. You think it is, not that there is much left to save you from the impending train wreck of discussing the relationship woes of your late teens and early twenties with the only two coworkers who care to eat lunch in a communal space. The company is nice, Ryalnd had said once, when you’d asked, gets me out of the classroom. 

Margot screws her face up for a second, muttering it again under her breath as if the name offends her. 

“You were in a sorority?" Ryland asks, face a little blank as he looks at you from across the table. 

It makes you falter, the way his thoughts seem to be buffering like the school's slow wifi. “I… Yeah? That’s the interesting part?”

He shakes his head, looking down at his marking sheets and pushes his glasses up from where they’re slowly slipping down the bridge of his nose. “No, I just can’t picture it.”

You purse your lips, consider pulling up some photos from your sorority days, then remember the kind of outfits the lot of you wore and think better of it. “Well Daisy and I were roommates for a year and a half. She’s nice. Works in PR now.”

“But she’s marrying your ex?” Ryland asks, still kind of baffled. 

You dismiss it with a lazy hand wave. “I mean, she asked before they went out and everything. I just think it’s a little weird. I don’t even know why I said I’d go. It’s going to be embarrassing.”

Margot tuts twice, done with her lovingly made lunch that symbolises how successful she has been in the department of marriage when you have all but failed so far. “Why is it embarrassing? Two months is nothing.”

“I was a little head over heels for this guy.” You admit, sheepish. 

Ryland stands up, clears his throat as he turns away. “Yeah? How so?”

His back is to you, as he peels the lid off his cup ramen and wrestles with the flavour packet. You come to the conclusion it’s easier to confess this sort of stuff with only one set of eyes on you. “I was sort of convinced he was my soulmate. He was doing pre-law, witty too.”

“Hot?” Margot asks, always straightforward.

You feel a blush rise on your cheeks as you remember the early days of your sorority experience, flopped back on the bed as you made little love sick sighs at your ceiling. “God, his jawline. And his hair- it was so… ugh!” 

The thud is dull when your forehead lands on the table, to the right of your now abandoned lunch. “I don’t even know why I said I’d go. It’s dumb.”

You hate how you sound- petulant like the kids you prod for not searching for better words in their assignments, moping like your world is ending over something so trivial. It’s not even the new years resolution that has you mulling this over so intently.  You’d agreed to go months ago- six months ago- and said yes to the offered plus one, adamant to yourself that you’d have someone by then, a partner or something. Someone of importance. 

Attending alone is going to be even worse than if you had just RSVP’d for yourself in the first place. It’s one thing to watch your college friend and ex-sort-of-boyfriend exchange vows alone, and a whole other monster to do it with a pointed empty seat beside you. 

All of it tumbles out your lips in a hurried hurl of word vomit, followed by a few moments of silence that has you cautiously raising your head to peek over the wall of your forearms. Ryland is staring at you, cup noodles steaming in his hands where it hovers over the sink, like he’d been about to pour out the excess water. Margot is looking at you with a frown, the same one she wears when teaching senior mathematics and the children have drawn up an equation for her to solve with the foolish belief they could stump her for more than ten seconds. 

And just as in class, Margot is not phased for more than a handful of moments. “Then find someone with a better jawline and better hair to go with you. You can borrow mine.”

You blink at her, mulling the words over before asking, “Are you trying to pimp your husband out to me?”

“Only for aesthetic reasons, of course. It’d be nice to have the house to myself for once. Not like you have better options.”

It would sting more if it wasn’t so true. There were very few options and with the wedding only two weeks away, that was certainly not enough time to squeeze in enough dates with someone to justify taking them to a damn wedding. 

“I mean, how good is his jawline?” Ryland finally says, walking over with his little cutlery box, plastic chopsticks he washes and reuses almost everyday, to set his lunch down on the table and settle back in across from you. “Are we aiming high?”

There is no way to un-dig this hole, not now that they’ve both decided to put their two cents in. You concede with another sigh and reach for your phone, arms and chin still on the table as you fish about Instagram for a photo. It’s the one that had reminded you of this awful upcoming event, posted by Daisy. You all but toss your phone on the table between your coworkers, sinking a little lower into your folded arms, awaiting judgement. 

The photos must be from a walk though of the venue, the pair of them posed together between some old marble arch where they were having the ceremony at. She was laughing, hand on his chest, showing off the ring on her finger while he looked at her, besotted. The caption made it worse. Only two weeks left till I get to marry my man on these very steps.

You like them both, you really do, but the thought of showing up by yourself, as the lonely friend who’d never found ‘it’, your own version of the love they were celebrating, well it was just nauseating.

Margot looks the photo over critically before humming in a sort of so-so tone. “You can do better.”

Ryland looks kind of at a loss. “This is your type?”

As if to emphasise the point, he lifts the phone up and turns it around to show you the image you were already being haunted by. “This is the hair that had you all…”

He doesn't find the words, just waves the hand with his chopsticks around in a messy motion, looks at you critically over the rims of his glasses.

“He slicks it back now. It used to be… I donno. Messy? Fluffy? Good to run my fingers though.” He scoffs a little to himself, dissatisfied maybe with your excuse.

The only forgiving factor is that the photo does highlight the sharp cut of his jaw, which even Ryland concedes to. “He does have a good jawline...”

Yours is better, you want to say. Immediate and impulsive, because it kind of is. Especially when the shadow of his stubble stretches a few extra days between shaves. Your ex is clean shaven- you used to think that was sexy, at least sexier than the patchy beards boys in college had back then. Now you’re kind of obsessed with the so-called ‘5-o’clock shadow’ Ryland sports on Fridays. 

It’s not something you’re likely to tell him though, especially not when you glance at the clock and realise you have a duty across campus in three minutes. Saved by the bell maybe, either way you’re able to liberate your phone from the pair of them and their conspiratory whispers, bin the scraps of your lunch and haul ass out of there. 

By the end of the school day, you have reached the conclusion that you will blame it on work. That some mandatory day of ‘professional development’ as it is called nowadays, has come up and you will just have to miss the wedding, truly you’re devastated about it all. 

Then Ryland corners you in your classroom. The bell’s long gone, as are the students. He’s dressed like he’s on his way out, his green backpack tossed over one shoulder and bike helmet hanging by the strap in one hand. You’re halfway through explaining your plan and the wording you’re going to use in the tragic text message to Daisy when he cuts you off. 

“I’ll go with you.”

He’s a little breathless with it, like he’d been saving up all his oxygen to get the words out, leaving him in one big rush as they topple though the doorway of your classroom and splatter onto the linoleum floor between you both. 

“I know that I’m not Margot’s husband with a ‘better jawline and better hair’ but we can go and eat nice wedding food- If he’s a lawyer it’s gotta be fancy, right? And we can make fun of his stupid slicked back hair together and you don’t have to be alone or make an excuse and feel guilty about it.” Ryland’s big speech is as flawed as it is heartwarming

Because he does have a better jawline and better hair. And Margot looks between you both during lunch hours and staff meetings like you’re her personal romance drama, there to occupy her during the day. 

But the wedding food will be good, your ex will shill out for the best and Daisy has always had a taste for the finer things in life. Ryland is the best company you can think of to have by your side and he knows you well enough to understand how guilty lying about something makes you feel, how it churns your gut. 

“Yeah. Okay.” You smile, something warm and fuzzy in your chest. 

His eyes don’t move, maybe widen a little before he speaks again, still a little breathless. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

It isn’t a hard thought to come around to, taking Ryland to a wedding. As a date is something that goes unsaid between the pair of you, not sure whether it could be classed as such for real, or if this is simply a favour between friends-slash-coworkers. It is certainly a date for show, to the many college friends you’re about to reunite with after a few years, for your Ex, Jack who’s obsessed with his wife, for Daisy who you’d told years ago to ‘go for it, he’s a nice guy’ working under the assumption that she’d only last a few months by his side too. 

You’re not sure which answer you’d prefer, honestly; a date or a favour. 

He texts you a lot- after school, on the weekend- asking about what he should wear, what you’re going to wear, how he should prepare for this sort of thing. It’s sweet, cute in a way that has little butterflies flapping around in your stomach. 

“Okay, I’ll show you. Wait, hold on.” You placate, setting your phone down on the bed, screen up. 

“It’s a lovely ceiling fan, but I doubt it fits the dress code.” Ryland drawls, and you can hear the smile there. 

“Ha ha.” You reply, a little echo-y as you lean into your closet to pull the dress out. 

He’s up in arms about what to wear, says he needs to know what you’re wearing too so he can match. The invite’s dress code called for formal attire in ‘dark colours’. On the facebook page she’d made for the event, Daisy had a full post going into more detail, about how she’d love any and all dark tones- forestry green, navy, even burgundy was fine. You had taken a firm stance against burgundy considering there’s some old wedding traditions that state wearing red indicated you’d slept with the groom. Which you had, but you were not about to advertise that. 

So navy it was. 

You’d sent Ryland a picture of the invite, where it was stuck to your fridge with letter magnets spelling out ‘woe’- it had felt fitting when you’d stuck it up there- and several screenshots of the lengthy dress-code post Daisy had made that went into excruciating detail. He wasn’t satisfied though. 

Even your attempts to describe the dress you’d bought didn’t work well enough.

“I mean it! you expect me to know what any of those words apart from ‘floor length' means?” he bemoans from your phone speakers, face time call crackling. “I need all the data.”

“Oh listen to you, Mr. Science,” You drawl with a smile, pulling the dress out. It’s too long to hang from a door knob so you have to stretch up on your tip toes to hang the coat hook over the curtain rod of your bedroom window. 

“I was thinking of changing my name. Very to the point, don’t you think?” He replies, still smiling as you collect your phone. His eyes are sparkling with something cheeky when you appear back in frame. 

Ryland’s dressed down, in one of those dumb science t-shirts he wears on ‘Casual Fridays’ as it is called in staff meetings. This one’s dark blue and has the periodic table on it in worn down white transfer ink. You’ve seen it enough to know the punch line sprawled over his lower stomach even though it’s not in frame. I wear this shirt periodically. He finds an extra layer in humor that the shirt is factually correct as well, that he does in fact, wear the shirt in regular intervals as he’d explained to you during a free-period on one of those casual Fridays. 

He’s at his kitchen bench, phone propped up against something, while he taps away at his laptop. You’ve not actually been to Ryland’s apartment before, but it sorta feels like you have, the cramped studio always on display in the back of video calls like this one. 

It’s just one long rectangle. Kitchen by the front door, a bench, a gap that is probably intended for a kitchen table but he’s stuck a desk there instead, his bed that’s almost always unmade with a tv wall mounted across from it, and a balcony. Like this, you can see the expanse of it behind him. The stacks of paper piled up on his desk, the extra monitors and little trinkets gifted from students, the sage green sheets of his bed, peeled back on one side, sun shining in through his big glass balcony doors. Honesty, you kind of want to see the view from his apartment in person, he’s a little higher up than you are, in a better part of the city too. 

Ryland’s not brushed his hair, it’s all spiked up in different directions and you wonder if the mug he’s been sipping from, periodically, is his morning cup even though it’s just past ten. He’s blinking slow behind his glasses, sitting a little too still for his brain to be fully functional yet. 

“I’m sure the kids will love it. Harder to spell on their assessment sheets, though.” You can imagine it, the staff badge, the name on his board in fun bubble writing where it would stay untouched for a whole school term. 

You flip the camera, showing him the dress he’s been complaining about not understanding for the last half hour over text before he gave up and called you. 

It’s cute, how his head tilts and he leans towards his phone for a second before just picking it up and holding it close enough so his eyes and forehead are just about all that is in frame. “Is that velvet?”

“It’s fake satin. I think.”

“Fake satin?” He repeats, confused.

The dress was one you already owned, bought a year or so ago for another friend’s wedding that you had attended alone but not felt crappy about, even if it did seem like everyone your age was getting married nowadays. It’s got a fitted bodice, but there fabric is a little drapey, looks like it pools over the chest and down towards the fluid skirt. "Wasn't expensive enough to be real satin.”

“Okay, I know what you mean by delicate straps now.” That had been his main hang up, whining about, What do you mean delicate straps? Like they’re about to break?, swearing that the shit he was googling was just not helping the mental image considering there were about six different results for everything.  

“Yeah, and here, the lace up back.” You say, stepping up to twist the dress away from where it sat flush against the curtains to show the corset style back, with thin cord lace just a little thinner than the straps. 

“Isn’t that going to be a nightmare to put on?” He asks, squinting still.

“There’s a zip.” You say, dragging the little hidden zipper down, showing him how the dress fabric parts and slips open. “So it’s fairly easy to get on. The cords are about as tight as they should be anyway, it isn't hard to pull to fit.”

You fumble a little trying to get the zip back up but eventually just conceded to leave out like that until you put the dress away. When you glance down at your phone, Ryland has moved, no longer sitting down and if you had to guess, is now walking the length of his apartment instead. He looks a little distressed. 

“Come on, you’ve got the easy part.” You try, a little concerned he’s about to say he shouldn’t go. “You just have to put on a suit.”

“I can’t just ‘put on a suit’.” He whines, flopping down onto his bed like the world is ending. “I’m supposed to be like, your big ‘fuck you’ to the girl who got with your ex. I’m supposed to look good with you. I don’t know if I have a suit nice enough for that dress.”

“Ryland. It’s not about saying ‘fuck you’ to Daisy, or pulling some revenge stunt. I just didn’t want to go alone like a loser when I said I was bringing someone.” You can’t really help the little breathy laugh that weaves its way though his name, because he sounds like you did four days ago acting like the world was about to end, face down on the lunch table. “You don’t have to come.”

“No, I’m coming. I just need to go through my wardrobe.” He’s cute, you decide, in a round-about sort of way. The determination to play this self elected role well, to perfect it and give it his all, like he does with everything else in his life. The whole situation was elevating your ‘aesthetic appreciation’ of Ryland that you’d been attempting to suppress, to a new sort of level. 

You flop down on your own bed, roll over on your side and let him derail the conversation towards lesson planning, listen to him talk about the plans he has for the next weeks worth of classes, a couple of activities he’s got in the works. All while you consider the pros and cons of having him beside you instead. 

Ryland was probably the teacher you got on best with at work, despite being from two very different teaching areas. When he’d first arrived, you’d assumed he would be a little pretentious, with his Phd and professional experience beyond the classroom. You weren't expecting him to be so awkward. The children took to him so quickly, and Ryland had told you time and time again that he doesn't understand why they think he’s cool. 

Over the years you’ve found that he can be cocky, in certain bouts of confidence seemingly appearing via divine-intervention. A local bar had run trivia nights for some six odd months, and it had unleashed a beast within him.

On Monday afternoon he sent you a photo. A little black bag with a logo you’d googled, realising it was a menswear store before the second photo had come though. A tie, sleek navy like your dress, rolled up neatly with a matching pocket square beside it, both nestled in a box that screamed expensive. You’d sent back a random string of praise, imagining him lulling it over in the store. It was nearly five in the afternoon, he’d left work pretty much on the final bell. You wonder how long he spent comparing the seemingly endless ties the shop’s online store offered, considering what would match best to your dress.

It makes you a little giddy, to be honest, has you dreaming of a situation where you’d asked him to come to the wedding, or where you’d already been together long enough that it was simply a given when the invitation turned up in your mail box. 

Neither of you mention it during school hours, not keen on the kids hearing whispers of you and Ryland doing anything outside work hours- students will take anything and run with it.

But he messages you about it constantly. Makes a plan; he’d come to your apartment and you would uber from there to the venue, it was a sunset ceremony and evening reception. He lived close enough that it was a brisk walk or quick bus trip. He pointedly mentions that he would not be cycling- ‘In a suit? God, never’- and makes sure you know that the uber would also drop you both back to your flat and he’d walk home or take another separate uber. 

There’s talk about your ‘backstory’, which he takes as seriously as he does exam periods. You tell him it’s not super necessary, that saying you met at work is more than enough exposition for the gaggle of college friends you’d not seen in years. But he was never one to do things in halves. 

“We obviously would have met at school.” He says, like it’s a given. Ryland is laid out on the reading rug at the back of your classroom, staring at the ceiling. And the fake clouds that are actually just a hobby-fill glue gunned to paper and taped to the ceiling, he’d turned the fairy lights that are threaded though them on before he’d decided the floor was his resting place. “Maybe trivia is where it happened. We liked trivia.”

“We did like trivia.” You agree, pointedly. 

It’s almost impossible to not just sit there and watch him, the student folders that you’re sorting worksheets into acting as a very inefficient distraction. 

He’s got a button down on, some pale blue that looks nice under his grey wool blazer. The pale wash jeans and white converse are a bit more casual, but he wears the combination well. Too well. Laid out like this, with one knee up, he looks far too attractive for you to swallow. Glasses pulled down to hang off his jaw, sitting there catching the afternoon light as it came through the windows, casting rainbow refractions onto the back wall. 

“Maybe trivia was a date. What would you have done?”

“If you’d asked me to trivia as a date?” You glance up. He’s already looking at you, head tipped to the side, something soft, tentative there in his eyes.

“Yeah.” You can see the way his throat bobs when he swallows, how his chest rises with each breath. 

Ryland sounds… nervous, in a way that does remind you of the first trivia night you’d gone to. He’d been dressed similarly there, you remember thinking he looked nice, polished up a little more than he did in the school day with dress shoes and what smelt like cologne. Handsome where he waited by the entrance, backlit by the bar’s warm lighting. He’d been a little twitchy for the first hour or so, but settled into himself by round two. 

With the way he’s looking at you, now as he plans out the false scenario that’s beginning to sound a lot more like a confession, you’re starting to get the idea that trivia could have been a date. If either of you had put it into words. 

“Enjoyed it, probably.”

“Really?” He looks shy, a bit of a flush working its way up his cheeks. 

You smile at him, thinking about how nice it would have been to kiss him in that bar with a sweet cocktail on your lips, dizzy from his flattery about your trivia skills. You hum, nodding a little as you look at the folders and sheets spread out over your desk, feeling a flush rise to your own cheeks.

He knocks when you’re halfway through lacing up the back of your dress, holding the cords with one hand as you open the door. Ryland’s not been to your apartment before, something you’d failed to realise until he called you and asked during his walk over, if you’d have to buzz him in. 

He was appalled to find out the front door to your building was sporting a broken lock and had been tied back with a length of rope for the last two months while the landlords procrastinated fixing it. 

“See,” You say, opening the door for him, keeping it propped open with your foot as he shuffles in. “My door locks.”

“Still one less lock that you’re supposed to have.” he grumbles, stepping out of his very nice dress shoes. They look expensive- black leather shined up propper. 

Actually, Ryland looks expensive. 

“You look nice,” he says, smiling a little shy, as if the compliment had just slipped out and he was supposed to be embarrassed about that. 

“I uh,” You pause, swallowing thickly. 

Holy fuck he looks good in a suit. It’s the only thought spinning around your head. It’s a proper one, tailor made no doubt. Blazer, slacks and undershirt, all three of them a deep inky black. The navy tie he’d sent you a photo of is done up around his neck in a knot neater than you’ve ever seen him wear to work. The pocket square is folded too, fluffed up with a little volume that suggests he did so intentionally. 

Suddenly you’re reminded of all those times he’d complained about all the formal conferences and charity gala’s he’d attended during his days in academia. You realise you have made a grave error. 

There have always been little parts about Ryland that oozed wealth, the glasses he wore for one, that he told you were antique when you’d asked. The watch on his wrist that you thought looked like some practical sporty thing but found out was actually worth three months rent when you’d googled it out of curiosity. These little things fall out of the spotlight and become footnotes that are often ignored when he’s in his classroom, or tiny apartment. 

Dressed in such a nice suit, here in you apartment definitely wearing cologne- the same from that very first trivia night, something a little warm, woodsy like oaky bourbon, sharp and contrary to the fresh nothingness he smelt like at work- Ryland seemed so far beyond you. 

“You look good.” You manage, letting the door slip shut and dropping the lace of your dress, it loses its tension a little but stays in the same spot for the most part, to run a hand over the lapel of his blazer. “How long have you had this?”

“Ages. Dug it out of the back of my closet. A little tighter than when I last wore it, but it will do the trick. Right?” He tacks that last bit on, like he’s waiting with baited breath for your approval. 

“I’ll say.” You slide your hand down the lapel a little bit, down over the press of his chest. The tightness just shows the subtlety of his build, lean muscle that comes from idle exercise and good diet, maybe even a splash of genetics. He’s tidied his facial hair up a little, slid the electric razor over all of it to make sure it’s the same length, no doubt. Ryalnd’s still got his glasses on, you were a little worried he might have opted for contacts and are very relieved you get to see this outfit complete with the lenses that frame his face so well. 

With a realisation you might be getting a little lost in your head, you drop your hand, turning to walk further into your apartment, towards the couch where your shoes for the night sat on the floor. “Right, we'll, I'm nearly ready. The uber will be here soon.”

“Do you need a hand?” Ryland asks, and you’re about to turn, ask him, ‘with what’ when you feel his fingertips against the small of your back. It sends a jolt though your skin, he’s cold. From the outside air, where as you’ve been nice and cosy with the heat on while you’d done your hair and make up. 

Goosebumps rise under his hands as they gather the ties for the back of your dress. Something low swoops in your gut, like the dip of a roller coaster, free falling as he chuckles a little behind you. “Sorry, cold fingers.”

You swallow. “It’s.. it’s okay.”

“How tight?” He asks, giving the strings a gentle tug. You almost sway with the moment, feeling a little swept off your feet already. 

“Bit tighter.” You manage, as he presses a flat palm against the small of your back, over the criss-crossing cord, and gathers both ties in one hand to pull slow and firm. It tugs you back into his hand, a steadier hold than you’d expected. 

“There?” He questions when the dress is pulled in to sit flush with your skin but not dig in. You get the feeling he might have done some research, when he plucks at each string to even them out and make sure none of them are too tight, on how these dresses are supposed to sit. 

“Yeah, perfect.” It leaves you like a sigh, as his palm dips, brushes where the zipper sits before pulling back to tie a neat bow, tugging the cords out carefully so both loops are even. 

All of it has you lightheaded, directing more effort than necessary to get yourself to the couch and pull your heels on, black mary janes that are comfortable enough to walk in. As you fiddle with the buckles, you eye him. 

Ryland’s hair is tousled, intentionally a little messy, not combed or slicked back. Looks like it would be nice to run your fingers though, and you find yourself wondering if that’s why he’d opted for the style, if he’s here, dressed up as the guy with ‘better hair and a better jawline’ that Margot had pitched, unaware that he already was exactly who he’s trying to be. 

He holds an arm out for you to loop yours though, walking down the stairs in steady but slowed steps. You smile. “Wow, full gentleman experience.”

“I told you, I can't just ‘put on a suit’. It’s more than that.” He chides jokingly, and you pity the version of you that didn’t realise this was an option. 

He opens the door for you- the car door, the door into the building door tied back by a rope (he glares at it when you pass it)- then rounds the back of the little toyota that’s polished up to try and seem fancier than it was. You don’t talk much on your way to the venue, comfortable silence that the driver thankfully settles into. 

It’s nearing sundown when you pull into the driveway, a big circular road that’s already crammed with other cars and guests climbing out.

“You can just let us out here.” Ryland says to the uber driver, unbuckling his seatbelt to hop out, then rounding the car again to open your door, hand held out like it’s necessary, when the car is nowhere near low or high enough to warrant such assistance. 

You place your palm in his anyway, letting him pull you from the car, no more temperature disparity in your hands since you’ve both been in the car for fifteen minutes, but it still makes your skin tingle. He’s got cufflinks, the same pale gold as his glasses, in the shape of atoms. You flick one lightly. “I like these.”

He smiles, something a little smothered like he’s trying to stamp it down from a grin as he threads his arm though yours again, beginning the small walk to the venue's front steps. “Well I like your dress, so I think we’re even.”

It’s a ballroom, with these big stained glass windows in the room they hold ceremonies in, you’d seen some lovely shots on the venue’s website of sunset light streaming through them. Imagining Ryland in the warm sunlight has you in a good mood, he’s always suited it, even if the city’s never had much to offer. 

“Not too much for our first date?” You tease.

Something like a laugh tumbles out of his lips, leaning down to whisper in your ear. “First date was trivia- and you were underdressed. Keep up.”

You flush, crowding a little closer to his side to make it through the entryway without shoulder checking anyone. Had you been? It was so long ago you could hardly remember anything other than jeans, tight ones that dug into your waist when you sat down- tight jeans hardly felt like being underdressed, they probably meant you wanted him to stare at your ass. Either way you let him have the win, as minute as it is. 

Doesn't really matter what you wore back then when you’ve got him like this now. 

Together you sit about halfway down on the bride’s side, the pew’s nearly empty, only someone on the other end you don’t know but looks vaguely enough like Daisy, that's you’d guess extended family. 

“So why’d you like this guy so much?” Ryland asks, quiet enough for it to just stay between the two of you. He’s glancing around, but his eyes keep bouncing back to Jack at the front of the venue, where he’s talking to gaggle of similarly dressed guys, his groomsmen. 

“What?”

“Him,” Ryland says, tipping his head a little to gesture at Jack. “What had you talking about soulmates? Couldn't just be the hair, tons of guys have good hair.”

“They do.” You answer, raising a hand to tangle one of the longer stands where it’s dangling over his forehead around your pointer finger and give it a light tug. Ryland’s eyes settle on you, like there’s nothing else to look at. “He made me feel like the only girl in the world.”

“That’s a cliche.” He refutes. “And a song lyric.”

You smile. “I’m serious. He’s like that with every girl he went out with. He’s like it with Daisy. He just loses sight of every other woman, so attentive.”

Ryland stays silent for a moment, eyes searching for something in yours. Maybe permission, or a want, for him to keep digging, it’s almost as if he’s scared what he might find. “What'd he do? To make you feel like that?”

It’s cute, how nervous he is, despite the fact it feels as though all week, the pair of you have been laying this ground work, a path to follow that will lead you somewhere inevitable, like a trivia date, or the messy sprawled sage green sheets or Ryland’s bed. You smile at him, wondering if he’s thought about you in them. You wonder if he knows how easily you could be, that you might just follow him to the edge of the universe. 

Still, you answer his question, offering a peek into your brain, the way you used to operate when teenage giddiness was closer than adult yearning. "Took me dancing. Kissed me slowly, cared about how I wanted things to go. It was like he just couldn’t stop looking at me, for me. It was intoxicating.”

“I can’t.” Ryland blurts out, all reckless abandon, and he’s looking at you like you’ve already kissed him breathless just by being here. You let your leg shift to press the length of your thigh against his, warm even through the layers of fabric. 

You breathe in deep through your nose, the scent of his cologne sticking dizzyingly to the air, a scent you think is enough to get drunk on even without the assistance of wedding champagne. "Can't what?”

“Stop looking at you.” He clarifies, eyes darting down to your lips. “I can do the other things though.”

A flutter knocks about your chest, unsteady and uncoordinated. “Yeah, you like dancing Doctor Grace?”

“If it’s with you.” He amends. 

“And slow kissing? You like that too?”

“Yeah I do.” He’s not even trying to hide it now, gaze settled on the dusty pink line of your lips, his own a little slick with spit when he darts his tongue out to trace one quick line along them. 

You almost asked him to prove it, but in your peripherals, down the aisle and pausing at the sight of you, was Macey, another one of your college friends, smiling. So you place a hand on Ryland's thigh, just above his knee. “Good. Really good.”

Ryland looks dizzy with the praise, like it’s all rushed straight to his head. 

“Hey Macey, good to see you.” You greet, using your hand on Ryland's knee to tip his legs towards you, making room for Macey to shuffle into the pew. 

“Oh my god, good to see you too! It's been awhile, hasn’t it?” She leans down a little awkwardly to wrap you in a hug as you half stand, and it’s good to see someone after so long, to look at them and remember times when things were simpler and you were allowed to be a little stupid, a little dangerous. It’s nice to see her here, for her to sit next to you- Macey’s always encouraged you to be a little wild, and with the way Ryland’s been looking at you all night, you might need her ego-bosting tonight. 

“I’m Macey, nice to meet you.” She extends a hand to Ryland over your lap and he shakes it curtly, offering his own introduction. 

There’s a big rock on her finger, and you remember seeing it on an instagram post, some dreamy forest scenery with a ‘coming soon to a theatre near you’ caption under it. 

“I suppose it will be your wedding next then,” You tease, “Where’s Jamie?”

“Oh she had a work trip, couldn't avoid it. She wanted to come though.” Macey waves off. Her and her fiance met on some film set, both camera operators, at the time, although you faintly recall reading something about Jamie’s name working its way up to director for some upcoming project, amongst the throws of social media posts from people who once knew everything about you and now you only see once every few years. 

“So Ryland,” Macey starts with a glimmer in her eyes, something evil and mischievous that throws you back to seeing her in the living room with a bottle of tequila and monopoly board. “How’d you two meet?”

“We teach at the same school,” He grins, a hand sliding to your knee, just along the inside of it, where your dress fabric hangs low with slack, enough for his palm to press there, thumb drawing slow lines back and forth. “A little cliche but I don’t mind.”

Macey smiles, fans her face a little like that’s just soooo romantic. “What do you teach?”

“Science, opposites attract I guess.”

“Please tell me you used that line.” She practically swoons. 

Ryland huffs a little laugh. “No, the kids threw that one at me actually.”

“Really?” You question, a raised eyebrow because that was not part of the backstory he’d been cooking up all week.

“Oh yeah. You should hear them. “Mr. Grace, you and Miss are ,like perfect for each other. You should ask her to the spring dance. They’re relentless, I swear.”

He pitches his voice a little, lazy tones and improper grammar leaking out in the way it did when he did impressions of your students and you can’t help but giggle a little. 

“Their heads might explode when they find out.” Macey laughs too, then like a stroke of inspiration, slaps her hand against your arm a few times in pure, unrestrained excitement. “God- remember when we found out Professor Morisaki and Professor Collins were married? Holy shit it was like our heads exploded.” 

You bark a laugh, muffling it under your hand considering the rather low level of idle chatter in the venue. “Oh my god, I forgot about that.”

“Professors of yours?” Ryland asks, this soft smile spread across his lips still.

“Yeah, we were doing a car-wash fundraiser! They were kissing in the background of one of our photos!” Macey still whispers gossip like she did in college, like your students do now. 

Ryland looks a little red in the face when he asks. “A car wash fundraiser?” 

Macey smirks, always too good at picking things up from others' words and you kind of want to stomp your heel over her toes to tell her off before you remember how this evening had been going so far. “Oh? Don’t you know? We were a little wild in college.”

You scoff. “A little?”

“Okay, a lot.” She corrects. “The car wash was an annual thing. White tshirts, bikinis. There’s definitely pictures. I have pictures.”

“Macey.” You scold, mostly joking. 

She shrugs, straightens up and sits to face the fronts, pointedly not looking at you with a smirk on her face. “Hey- I’m just reminiscing on good times. Don’t you remember the kissing booth we ran? Of course you do you were the most requested-”

Now you stomp your foot onto hers, although she doesn’t do anything but laugh to herself. 

Ryland is back to that dazed look, like he’s on some far off planet in his mind, when he murmurs, "Kissing booth?”

You glare at Macey, for a sharp moment. Before patting one hand on Ryland’s chest, leaning in close when you say, loud enough for Macey to hear. “Tell you about it later, handsome.”

He ducks his head a little close to you, a tiny little movement that stops as soon as it starts. His cheeks are the reddest you’d ever seen, looking a lot like he’s about to kiss you now, when there’s a music cue somewhere further up the aisle and a hush falls over everyone. He doesn't look away at first, eyes glued to yours for a long second before he bites his lower lip, to stop himself saying something and reaches a hand up to lace his fingers together with yours over his chest. He pulls it gently to his lap, smothering it in between his warm palms, fiddling with your fingers as the ceremony starts. 

It’s beautiful, truly. The light lowered through the stained glass windows, reflecting and casting colour across the whole room, gentle music and teary vows. Picturesque really, and it reminded you of that time you’d all made ‘vision boards’ as a bonding activity, and Daisy had a little corner on hers that outlined the life she’d like to live, from a small sunset ceremony to the little white picket fence outside a cottage. You’re happy she’s finally arrived there, that she has a man who’s willing to give her everything she’d dreamed of. 

You tell her as much, when you catch the pair of them in the reception hall. A warm hug for each of them and a firm hand shake between Jack and Ryland. It’s a lot less daunting than you had thought it would be, seeing them with the knot tied, no bad blood lingering or awkwardness about what once was. Just contentedness, with where your lives had led you each. 

The food is good and the atmosphere is better, seeing people from a previous life chapter all reunited, laughing and catching up. The reception is held in a ball room, with gorgeous polished hard wood floors and lovely low lighting that hangs from the ceiling in delicate chandeliers. There’s a classical band, a memento board for people to take polaroids and write well wishes on them, a corner with photos from Both Daisy and Jack’s lives, in albums and tacked up on walls, showing where they meet and things bleed together into their future. All of it’s beautiful. 

It’s heading into the later part of the night, when some people have excused themselves and cake has been cut, a hefty supply of the champagne depleted, that a nice slow song comes on.

You aren’t really paying that much attention to it, until you see Ryland shift beside you, rising and holding out one hand, palm up, towards you. “Care to dance?”

Something warm spreads over your face, a flush probably, as you lay a hand in his and he ever so gently pulls you to your feet, right in close to him. He leans down again, lips pressing feather-light to your temple before he leads you towards the dance floor. 

It’s littered with other couples, celebrating the love they have for each other as well as the bride and groom. 

All of it has you a little dizzy, settling a hand on Ryland’s shoulder as his palm slides around your waist, fingers slowing around the lace up back of your dress, pressing into your skin with gentle intent. He’s warm, firm against you, breath fanning across your cheek as you look up at him. “I know this isn’t the kind of dancing you meant, but it’s the best I can do for now.”

You humm, feet shifting in time with his, a slow waltz you weren’t even aware he knew. “I think I prefer this kind of dancing nowadays.”

Ryland’s lips tick up into a smile. “Yeah?”

He looks as good in the warm lamp light as he does in sunlight, kissing across his tanned skin and stubble, showing off the highlights of his hair. You want to run your hands through it, press a kiss to the scruff of his jaw. You settle on talking instead, worried he’s not one for such public displays of affection. “Left my wild nights behind in college.”

He sighs, like this is a devastating blow, hanging his head slightly, glasses slipping a smidge down his nose. “A shame. I was looking forwards to an appearance.”

You purse your lips, lifting the hand from his shoulder to cup his jaw, tilting his head back up a little, the pad of your thumb pressing his glasses back up to where they're supposed to sit. “Might do a private showing. Just for you.”

“You going to wash my car?” He asks, teasing. Eyes following the movement of your hand as it slips back down into place on his shoulder. 

Your forehead falls, pressing against his collar bone as a furious blush blooms over your face, the worst it has been all night, murmuring, “You don’t have a car.”

He must have known what you were going to say, or some semblance of it because you certainly weren’t speaking loud enough for him to catch all of it, but he still sighs, a little dramatic. “Guess we’ll have to go with the kissing booth then.”

You lift your head a little, to look up at him where he’s smiling down, mirth dancing about in his eyes. “Oh, what a shame.”

The drawl has him crack a grin, cheeks flushed as he looks away. Fingers dancing slowly along the skin of your back, between the cords he’d tied up so perfectly for you. 

For you, all of it. His nice suit he’d dug out from the back of his closet, the smart shoes nudging against yours with every step of the waltz. Ryland would do a lot for you, the realisation comes a little late, considering everything. You lean forwards a little, resting your cheek on his chest, as the song slows right down, indulgent. 

“You got plans after this?” You ask, and it sounds so cheesy, so bland once it’s left your lips. 

Still, when he answers, the smile is audible in Ryland’s voice. “Thought I was getting a private show. Is that offer off the table?”

“Think I can manage it,” You murmur, listening to the final few chords echo about the ball room, basking in the way his voice had rippled and rumbled through his chest, low against your cheek.

He lingers for a few seconds in the quiet, holding you close against his chest. You wonder if he, too, is basking in it. The closeness, the idea of having something that you’ve both been pretending couldn’t happen, wasn’t there in the air of exhaled breaths and weighted stares. 

When he pulls back, there is nothing but adoration in his eyes, hand that holds yours falling low, but not releasing it, palm soft against your waist, almost as if he doesn't want to let you go just yet. “Wanna get out of here?”

“Bit forward, Ryland,” You tease, “we’ve not even taken photos yet.”

His eyes follow yours to the polaroid board in the corner, considers it for a moment before he’s pulling you gently by the grasp of his hand around yours, towards it. 

The polaroid camera is a little hand held thing, there’s a stand for it, and poster board instructions on how to set a timer delay. 

Ryland insists on taking one of just you, and while you’re grinning, trying to convince him to join you against the black fabric backdrop, the shutter goes off. 

He rolls his eyes, but lets you drag him in beside you for the next photo. The timer is set, and just as you’re preparing to smile, something a little sweet and knowing, he gets one hand around the small of your back, knocks one of those very smart shoes against your heel and tilts you into a dip. It leaves you a little breathless, as he smiles, nose almost touching yours, shutter flashing off to the side. 

He lets you choose which photo goes on the memo board. “Whichever one you don’t put up there, I’m keeping.”

You look a little silly in both, at least you think as much, caught off guard, and laughing a little out of breath. Ryland insists you look amazing in both. Something a bit selfish pulls at your gut, as you apprise both photos, and eventually, hand the one of you and Ryland to him- liking the idea of getting to see it again, of having a physical reminder of the night you two have spent together. 

He grins like he’s won something, pulling his wallet out from his jacket pocket- a crisp brown leather that looks worn but well cared for- and to your mortification, tucks the photo into the clear slot. The one most people put their licences, or photos of loved ones, like heart-shaped lockets back in the old days. Ryland says nothing on the matter and he folds his wallet back up and slides it back into his pocket, waiting for you to write your message on the other polaroid’s back. 

You scrawl some comment about happy endings and humble crazy beginnings, Signing your name on the bottom under the image of your laughter, and tack it up on the board next to the one Macey’s left. 

Ryland’s got his arm out, hooked there for you to loop yours through again. 

You manage to catch Daisy by the bar on your way out, and give her a tight hug, telling her again how beautiful the wedding has been, how happy you were for her. 

The night air is crisp and the second you’re outside, waiting for the uber that’s just a few minutes away, Ryland strips off his suit jacket, draping it over your shoulders with a lack of hesitation that makes it seems as if he’s been waiting to do it all night. 

You look at him and raise a brow, but don’t say anything when you catch sight of his pleased smile. It’s almost devastating to realise he looks even better in just the black button down and tie than he did in the full suit. 

Again, the drive is mostly silent, but you notice pointedly, that you’re not going back to your apartment. And when you tilt Ryalnd’s phone and tap the screen awake, you recognise his street name in the trip’s destination. 

“Presumptious.” You smile.

He grins back, lets a warm palm wander to the curve of your knee, fingers curling around it then venturing to settle a little higher around your thigh. “How are you going to wash my car if we don’t go to my place?”

“You don’t have a car.” You repeat, curious where all this teasing confidence has come from, if perhaps your very clear signals have finally given Ryland the means to throw out all of that unnecessary nervousness and doubt. 

“Right,” He hisses, patting his other hand on his leg, as if to say ‘drat, there goes that plan’. Then he leans in close, whispers to you, “What was the back up plan again?”

“You are much bolder after a few glasses of champagne.”

He hums, a considering sort of sound that rumbles in the minimal air between you. “More so when I know I'm right.”

“And what, pray tell, are you right about?”

“That you like-like me.” He teases, like a child on the playground and if you were a little less level-headed, you might have kissed him right there, leant across the middle seat to lock lips with him in an uber. 

But you don’t want the first time you kiss him to be viewed through a rear view mirror by a driver who looks very unimpressed by the conversation happening in the back seat. “You gonna prove that hypothesis in your apartment?”

“That’s very forwards of you.” He teases, head tipping down like he is going to kiss you.

Expect you turn your head, and his lips brush against your cheek, as you tut. “All scientists say experiments are supposed to be conducted in controlled environments.”

He leans back, still close enough for his warm breath to fan across your face. “You’ve been seeing other scientists? I’m heartbroken.”

“Give yourself some credit, your classes are very interesting.”

“Earsdropping, huh? Didn’t think you were the type.” He looks far too pleased by the idea that you’ve listened to him teach, like he doesn't know that when you come for something during class hours that you linger by the door and wait for him to finish whatever he’s saying, as if you could look at anything else when he was so captivating.

“I’ll Tell you exactly what type I am in,” You glance down to tap his phone awake, checking the ride estimate. “four minutes.”

He nods and you wonder if he’d get that head-rush distant expression on his face if you praised him for the patience. It’s something you want to save for later, you decide, for private. Just for you.

Ryland manages to wait, even keep his hands to himself, once you’re both out of the car, leading you though his building with a sort of reverent silence, that you get the impression wouldn’t return once broken. You stand across from each other in the elevator. With both his hands braced on the bar at hip height, Ryland fixes you with a look that echoes in the space, though the mirrors surrounding you and over the idle hum of machinery. You’re still wearing his jacket, over your shoulders, a slight barrier between the handrail and the curve of your back, as you stand with your arms crossed smiling at him. 

The giddiness that bubbles up and about inside you, as you huddle in close behind him through the hallway, as he unlocks his door and lets you squeeze in past him, is something you’ve not felt in a long time. There’s not much room for childish excitement in the modern dating landscape, it feels as though everyone is in a rush, trying to get where they want to be with a relationship before it’s too late. 

Ryland though, he’s here. You watch him latch the door, before he turns, standing there to let his eyes run up you again. 

“Soooo,” He says, pursing his lips and tangling his hands together in front of him, like he’s suddenly nervous. 

“So?” You ask, taking a few steps forwards to run your hand down the plane of his chest again, feeling it under your palm just like you did when he’d turned up at your apartment that afternoon. 

“It’s been four minutes.” He swallows, and this close you can see how his adams apple bobs. Your other hand reaches up to scratch feather light against the stubble of his jaw, hand on his chest catching on the silky soft fabric of his tie, the one he’d picked out just for you. 

Rylands hands are slow, one moves to the dip of your waist, landing where it had during your waltz, if not a little more firm as it presses you close against him. He catches his jacket by the collar, lets it slide back off your shoulders and hang from his grip as it slides to settle on the curve of your hip.

“It has.” You lick your lips. 

Tuggin on his tie was not supposed to be a demanding thing, more so a gentle tease like you have been doing all night, stepping around that first move like it was a pitfall trap you’d never make it out of. Expect he pitches forwards much easier than you expected and Ryland's lips are pressed against yours. 

Soft and still a little honeyed by the champagne, he moves slowly against you. He takes one step back, then another, pulling you with him and not letting his lips leave yours as he backs himself up against his apartment door. 

Your teeth catch on his bottom lip, and a sharp inhale escapes him, almost a gasp, before he melts into the wood at his back, parting his lips and slipping his tongue up against yours. 

It’s slow kissing, it’s dizzying and it’s want. Everything he’d promised you hours ago, in the afternoon sun of that venue, looking like a dream come true. 

For what could be hours, you stay there, pressed up against him, kissing at his skin, until he shifts his legs, just slightly, enough to press one somewhere between yours, a soft presence halted by the fabric of your dress. 

Breathless, you break the kiss and he lays a sweet peck against your temple, an echo of earlier, before he begins to nose at the line of your jaw, your neck. Kissing then sucking at the divot along your collar while you pant. “Ryland,”

He says your name, just as breathless against your skin, his hand dropping the jacket to pull at the chord of your dress. 

“Is your doorway where you take all the girls?”

“There are no other girls.” He murmurs like a confession, far more earnest than you’d been prepared for. 

“Just me?”

He pulls back, pupils blow wide and face flushed blotchy and red. “Yeah.”

Ryland leans forwards, crowds impossibly close until your feet begin to shuffle, back, back, back into his studio apartment. It passes in a blur as he presses in to kiss your lips again, glued to them until he deems it’s been enough backwards paces and presses another kiss to your jaw. Using his grip on your sides, Ryland turns you around, folds in around behind you. 

His bed’s unmade, messy sheets splayed out in front of you, a pile of sage green cotton that feels like a promise, a sight you’ve dreamed about far too many times.

There’s pressure there, against your ass, a hard length that’s tight against his slacks and it makes your stomach swoop to know he’s so turned on by the slow kissing you’d been thinking about all night. His shuddering breath rushes like wind by your ear, as his fingers pull at the bow he’d tied himself. “Been thinking about this for too long.”

“Yeah?” You shudder when his lips find their place against your neck, sucking and biting at the skin there in a way that will probably result in a lasting reminder. “Since you laced it up?”

“Since you showed me this zipper." He pulls at it and the fabric gives, parting to sit low on your hips. Ryland kisses at the juncture of your throat, biting, and nipping. 

The dress doesn’t fall, not with the straps still hanging loosely from your shoulders, but it’s a damn near thing. One of Ryland’s hands winds around your waist, dragging you back against him as he presses up with one slow grind that has him choking on a groan. His cock, still trapped in his slacks, drags between the zip and against your underwear in a tease that’s maddening with far too much still left to your imagination. 

You try to turn but he’s got you wrapped up so firmly in his arms that it’s not plausible, so instead you reach a hand back, over your shoulder to tug at the knot of his tie, fingers slipping against the silky marital, catching in the bulk to it to tug. A particularly hard tug has him whining. 

“Okay,” You huff out as he sucks a little harder just under your jaw that will definitely result in a hickey if you let him continue for much longer. “Come on, don’t you wanna fuck me?”

You punctuate this by groping around between you both until you get a hand over his cock, giving it a gentle squeeze. 

“Need to remember this bit.” He mumbles, hand around your waist retreating to slip inside your dress from behind, curving back around so his fingers can skate over the soft skin of your stomach, tips slipping just under the waistband of your panties. 

It has you clenching down on nothing and you become actually aware of how uncomfortably wet you’re beginning to get. You squeeze your thighs together, squirming in his grasp. 

“Next time, Ry-” He splays his hand over your stomach, using it to press you back into him. “Ryland, come on. Need you.”

It tumbles out in a breathy whine, and it’s like you’ve said the magic words. He’s turning you around in his grasp, hands reaching up to slip the straps off your shoulders and marvel at the sight. 

He swallows as you reach for his tie again, loosening it gently now you can get your fingers into the knot properly. Ryland’s hands hover nervously before settling against your rib cage, fingers brushing anxiously against the underside of your breasts. 

Your dress was not one that lent itself to a bra, so you’d gone without. You had assumed that he’d figured that one out, given how he’d both laced and un-laced the back of it, but now that it’s out of the way, he’s looking at your chest like he hadn’t expected to see it so quickly. 

“You mean it?” He manages, sounding all tongue tied as you pry the tie off, letting it fall onto the floor, blending into the puddle of your dress- a perfect shade match. “I.. I get a next time?”

“Yeah.” You breathe, working on his shirt buttons, one after the other, coming apart as easily as Ryland did under your gaze. “As many as you want.”

When you get to the bottom of his shirt and reach for the belt buckle, Ryland’s hands move from where they’ve been gently nudging your breasts, to your wrists, snagging them gently as he pulls them back. His shoes nudged against yours, another one of those silent signals to step back that you didn’t know you understood so well until tonight. 

“Let me.” He says, one hand coming to your hip to push you gently back and down onto his bed. 

You land softly, mattress springing underneath you as you shuffle back, leaning on your elbows to gaze up at him as he toes off his shoes and pulls off his socks, a little off balance like the whole path from the door has altered his centre of gravity. 

Ryland is a sight, heaven-sent. 

His hair’s spiked out in six different directions, and you want to scratch at his scalp and pull at the strands all over again. He slides his glasses down his nose and sets them on the nightstand. The skin of his chest is just as tanned as his arms, a wide expanse that’s begging to be marked up with your teeth and nails. 

The belt buckle clinks softly in the empty air as he slips it open, unbuttoning his slacks before he shrugs the black dress shirt off. God, you want to bite his shoulders. 

Your teeth clamp down on your tongue at the thought, kind of wishing the tie was in the picture so you could pull him down on top of you. Just when you’re about to reach up, aiming for his shoulder or maybe even his cheek, Ryland surprises you by taking a knee. 

His fingers are a little clumsy as they wrap around the heel of your left shoe, pulling it up onto his bent knee as he fumbles with the buckle. He’s gentle with it, more careful than he was with his own shoes that are certainly worth more than your cheap pair, right shoe, then the left.

Still, it has your stomach tied up in knots to witness with just how much reverence he’s treating you. And the sight of Ryland between your legs is certainly one you could get used to. 

He presses a kiss to the inside of your knee before blinking up at you. “Are you… Can I-”

Ryland cuts himself off and that same unwarranted nervousness from before takes over his face, fingers curling tightly around your ankle, as if to ground himself. You smile at him, something that feels a little too giddy and a little too much like your 20 year-old self from college, fumbling and laughing your way to bed. “What is it Ry? You’ve already got me on your bed, no need to be shy.”

He bites his bottom lip, rolling it between his teeth as he considers the words. “If you say so.”

Then he gently leads your leg, by the ankle that’s still gripped tightly in his palm, off his propped leg as he drops it to kneel, and hooks it over his shoulder. Ryland kisses a path up your calf and along the inside of your leg and with an overwhelming flood of realisation, you fall back against the bed, bracing for the moment where he presses a soft kiss on your clit, through the fabric of your underwear. 

Despite his earlier hesitance, Ryland does not dilly-dally. Once he hears your shuddering breath that sounds more like a moan than anything else, he hooks a thumb though the crotch of your panties, pulls them to the side and presses another slow kiss against you. 

It’s maddening, has you gasping out his name as he licks a stripe up your cunt, sighing into it like it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted. He’s been teasing you long enough that when he presses two fingers along your folds, teasing the resistance of it, they sink in easily. He hooks them up, pressing up against the spongy wall and pulls another moan from your lips. 

You're not sure how long Ryland spends between your legs with your hands in his hair and name on your lips, but it’s got you dizzy, clenching around his fingers as he strokes them inside you, languid and slow as he lays gentle kisses over your clit. His stubble scratches against your thighs in a way you’d expected to hate, but are getting rather fond of. 

It’s a slow build that crests with you moaning his name and clenching around his fingers as his tongue slows, your hips twitching a little with overstimulation post-orgasm. He moves his kisses to the inside of your thigh, the one not hooked over his shoulder as you catch your breath and it’s highly plausible that he’s leaving another hickey there.

When he does pull back, Ryland is just as breathless as you. Cheeks flushed and chest stuttering as he licked his lips clean. His pupils are blown wide, so much so you can hardly see the blue as he gazes up at you. “You said I could fuck you, right?”

“Yeah,” you swallow, throat scratchy and dry. “You can.”

With your head still spinning from the attention and care he’s taking with you, it’s a moment before you realise his hands are back at your hips as he shuffles you around the bed, up until he can fit his palm behind your head and lift it onto a pillow that smells like him. 

Ryland’s above you, propped up on one elbow and a knee to keep his weight off your body. You can feel each heavy exhale on your cheek. “Like this?”

“Just like this.” You say, nodding hand reaching up for his cheek to pull him down into another slow, languid kiss. 

He leans in close, whining against your mouth as you part your legs for him to set his between and get a hand on the small of his back, pressing until he gets the hint and grinds downs. It has you both moaning and panting against each other. 

You’re getting impatient, and while he must have ditched the pants somewhere between eating you out and repositioning you right side up on the mattress, he’s still got his briefs on and you’re still wearing your underwear. 

“Off,” You grunt, hand pulling at the waistband of his briefs. 

Ryland’s head drops to the space beside yours, just above your shoulder as he reaches a hand down to pull his underwear down over his cock and down his legs, kicking them off somewhere at the end of the bed. 

He gasps, a shaky exhale hitting your skin as you wrap your hand around the length of him. 

Warm and heavy in your palm, he’s bigger than you’d expected. When you slide your hand up, swiping a thumb over the head of his dick, there’s so much precum that it pools on your thumb pad. You give him a slow pump, slide eased by the wetness. 

Ryland mouths at the skin of your shoulder, and the hand he’s not using to keep himself above you finds its way to your hip, slipping under your panties, pulling at them. 

“Condoms. I need-” He cuts himself off with another groan, biting into your skin then kissing it softly like an apology. “I need a condom.” 

His hand slips out from your underwear and he gets his knees up either side of your hips to reach over, straining for the nightstand. You take the moment to kiss along his collarbone, using the hand that’s not wrapped around him to tug your panties down, wriggling them off and down your legs. 

It doesn’t go unnoticed, and he drops the condom wrapper somewhere beside your head as his gaze whips back to your face. “I was going to do that.”

He sounds a little bit thrown, like he’d really been looking forwards to pulling your panties off. 

“You were also going to fuck me.” You prod, giving his cock another languid stroke, watching his face contort with pleasure as he groans. He eases himself back over you, legs between yours and his weight pressing down in a way that has you sighing in contentment. 

“Not fair.” He pants, forehead dropping against yours. A hand, so gentle and far too tender comes up to brush the hair by your temple, away from your eyes. “Next time, you let me take my time, okay?”

You press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “We’ll take turns.” 

The condom wrapper crinkles in your fingers and you pinch the edge of it between your teeth and rip the corner off, splitting it open with your thumb. Ryland whines, louder and needier than you’d heard him all night, when you roll it over his dick, hips bucking into your hand and cock bumping against your stomach. 

He gets his hand down between your bodies, runs three of his fingers through your folds, making your breath hitch. Then he nudges your hand out of the way and runs his cock though them next. You whine, high pitched and stuttered. 

It’s a slow steady push when he slips inside you, one that draws out a long moan from your lips. Ryland moans your name, panting and kissing at your throat.

“God,” he pants. “You feel so good, baby.”

A broken whine sneaks past your lips, one hand reaching up to slide around the back of his neck, to lead his face back to yours so you can kiss him all over again. 

This type of slow kissing might have been your new favorite, Ryland’s tongue teasing the seam of your lips before you slip them apart, tracing the line of his teeth with your own tongue. He rolls his hips, grinding down in a slow motion. The curve of his cock drags along your walls, along that spongy spot before bumping so deep inside that it must hit your cervix. 

You hook a leg up around his waist and it has his stomach pressing up against your clit when he moves again. Moaning into his mouth, you see stars. “Fuck, that’s perfect- so good.”

Your fingers tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling in a way that earns you a whine and a jerky thrust of his hips. “Y-yeah?”

“Yeah Ry- perfect. Feel so full.” The praise kicks him into gear and his slow occasional grinds turn into a building pace, hips pushing against yours and he buries himself to the hilt with every thrust. 

You kiss at the line of his jaw, mouthing and biting at the stubble there. He moans, sharp exhale hitting your cheek. “‘M not gonna last much longer, sw-swetheart.”

“S’okay. Let go, baby.” You murmur by his ear, free hand slipping down to press against your clit. 

The pressure alone is almost enough to tip you over the edge, pussy spasming around him. Ryland groans, loud and unrestrained, his rhythm falling apart as you do. 

When he does come, he manages a couple more thrusts, shallow as they nudge up against that perfect spot inside you. Ryland whines, shaking a little with over stimulation. 

“Couple more.” You moan, fingers winding tight little circles over your clit. “Almost there.”

Your spine goes stiff and a drawn-out whine slips out as you cum, clenching around the weight of him. Ryland stills inside, buried deep as he pants. 

Slowly, he eases himself down over you, the gentle pressure of his weight relaxing. Ryland only takes a few moments there though, before sliding an arm under you and around your waist, slowly rolling you both, so he’s sprawled out with his back on those sage green sheets with you draped over him. 

He kisses your temple, mumbling your name like a prayer. “‘S a good kissing booth. Might be a repeat customer.”

You push up a little to look at him, hands either side of his chest, and a hitched breath sputters out of his lips as you shift, his cock still inside you. “Might? What happened to ‘next time’?”

He smiles at you, hands reaching for your hips as he draws slow lines up and down your skin with his thumbs. “Well, I don’t wanna push my luck.”

“You’re not pushing anything.” You murmur, leaning back down to kiss him proper. 

Once the aftershocks of your orgasm have faded and the idea of being empty no longer pulls painfully at your chest, you raise your hips up and let Ryland’s now soft cock slip out. He exhales heavily, and you lay beside him, eyes on the slow spinning ceiling fan.  

He sits himself up not long after, slips the condom off and wanders off to the tiny door that you now know is his bathroom. He comes back with a damp cloth, smiling at you shyly as he cleans you up, gentle swipes over your core and along the inside of your thighs. 

Ryland walks over and pulls some boxers on, then returns to the bed to slide a pair over your hips too. “You want a shirt?”

You bite your bottom lip in a poor attempt to smother a grin. “Only if it’s one of your nerdy ones.”

He kisses the smile off your lips and wanders back over to his wardrobe, throws a shirt in your general direction then goes about fixing the sheets. 

You admire the sight. It had never occurred to you how nice his arms were, you want them around you again. He pulls the sheets straight, then up over you before he crawls in beside you. 

“This okay?” He asks, pulling you over to lay up against him. 

“More than okay.” You snuggle closer, cheek pressed against the warm plane of his chest. “Been thinking about this.” 

The confession slips out in a rush of endorphins, like you’re so happy to be wrapped up in his arms and sheets, smelling like him, that you just can’t help but let him know. 

You can hear the confusion in his voice when he speaks. “Having sex with me?”

No. You almost say, even though you had. It wasn’t where you were trying to go with this though. “Sleeping in your bed. With you.”

The rise and fall of his chest, of a heavy exhale, moves beneath you. “Oh.”

“I think our next date should be trivia.” You declare, a quiet sort of smile on your lips as his fingers trace slow little circles on your back between the waistband of your borrowed boxers and the ridden up hem of the shirt. “So we can get it right this time.”

“Deal.”

[ Masterlist ]

baby's first Goose fic? more proabaly on the way, although next fic published will proabaly be an oc one, with either Ryland Grace or Holland March from the nice guys.

[hananothannah]

life is worth the living

[doctor-ryland-grace]

Decompression. ( Ryland Grace x Fem!Reader. )

Nothing like mid-day smut.

Title: Decompression. Pairing: ( Established Relationship ) Ryland Grace x Fem!Reader. Rating: M. ( VERY NSFW, 18+ MINORS DNI, FEM REC, FACESITTING, MENTIONS OF PUBIC HAIR, LET THIS MAN FREAKING EAT. P*RN W/O A PLOT, OKAY MAYBE A LIL' PLOT. ) Words: 4.4 K. Summary: Ryland hears about a certain... Position and he was a little nervous asking you to try it out. ☆Ryland Grace Masterlist☆

Ryland let out a long, weary sigh that seemed to carry the weight of stress alongside it as he tugged his tired, heavy body into the bed beside you. His body sank deeper into the mattress, tucking himself in comfortably right beside you. The jostling caught your attention as you watched the blonde get comfortable with another sigh escaping his pretty mouth, the sheets cool against your skin becoming a deliciously stark contrast to the warmth radiating from his body. 

“Long day?” You murmured, voice nothing more than a low hum in the quiet room. Ryland’s eyes fluttered shut as you rolled from your back to your side, the movement intimate and sensationalized in his mind as you were moving closer to him. Propping your head up on your hand, the fingers of your other began tracing an idle circle on his chest, following the defined lines of his pectoral muscles under the thin fabric of his shirt, taking refuge in the steady, reassuring beat of his heart under your touch. You eyes were watching the mesmerizing movement of his sternum rising and falling with cascading breaths.

“Every day is long when you’re trying to wrangle in a bunch of 6th graders.” Came Ryland’s simple reply, his voice drawn and raspy with exhaustion. You frowned a bit at that as he managed a tired smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he reached out to brush a stray strand of hair from your forehead. Ryland let his fingers linger, tracing the curve of your brow in a sort of reverent dance before tucking the hair behind your ear. “But, it’s better now. Infinitely better with you here…”

That stirred you to snuggle in closer to your boyfriend, pressing a soft and fluttering kiss to the rough stubble of his jaw. The texture was prickly against you, your mouth curling into a small smile as he turned his head to look down at you, capturing your lips in a barely-there sort of kiss. “Hmmm… I’m glad I’m able to help you decompress a bit.” You whispered against his lips, breath warm against Ryland’s face as he shifted a bit beneath you. 

Languidly, Ryland lifted his head up enough to capture your lips more ardently, relishing in the way that your head dipped to meet him half way. His fingers began playing against the skin of your arm, and there was something there under the surface of the moment. The shift in energy from one input to another as his mouth became increasingly more hungry against yours. 

And between the heated kisses, dancing of tongues and prying fingers, you had managed to tug his shirt over his head, tossing it aside to be collected later, your hands splaying immediately to explore the warm skin of his chest. Ryland responded in kind, it was only fair, and who was he if not that? His fingers, not as graceful as yours, fumbled with the hem of your shirt ( his shirt, you were borrowing ) and tugged it off in one choppy motion caught between a few laughs. 

You arched into his hands as Ryland trailed them up your body, letting his palms slide along your bare breasts for lack of a bra was your way to go to bed. His thumbs brushed against your nipples until they hardened under his touch. The sound of rustling hit the air as you were both eager to shed the remaining clothes until you were skin to skin.

“Hm…” The tension sparkled in the space between the two of you at the sound of Ryland’s deeper set voice. “Speaking of decompressing….”

“Mhm…?” You encouraged him, your fingers resuming their exploration of his chest, down his body to taper along the ‘V’ of his waist.

“W-well, I read about this… Thing.” He whimpered when you lightly played your teeth against the smooth skin of his neck, “A position.” The words came out in a rush. He was already sounding flustered, Ryland’s cheeks beginning to flush a very delicate and yummy shade of pink.

“A… position?” There was a shuffling noise beneath the two of you as Ryland nodded his head nervously, drawing his bottom lip in between his sharp teeth in the very way that sent something primal through your brain. Something that tugged you to grab hold of it with your own teeth and drag him back in for another kiss. Your expression told him ‘go on’, your body eager against his in a wall of intense heat. 

Ryland swallowed. Hard, so much so that you could audibly hear it in the quiet bedroom. “Uh.. It’s uh… O-one where… One person,” He trailed his hand up your arm, tickling along to your shouldercap. You shuddered, mouth hovering just above his as you threatened another kiss. “One person sits on the other’s face. For pleasure.”

And there it was. 

You lifted your head up to look at him properly. He was adamantly avoiding eye contact, his pretty, pupil blown eyes focused on something just over your shoulder as he pressed his fingertips into the cushion of your skin, seeking refuge from it in lew of the sort-of-confession he just laid out into the air. A slow, mischievous grin spread across your face as the pieces fit together, as you unscrambled Ryland’s shaky voice. 

“Oh really, now?” You teased, voice laced with the utmost sensual amusement that made the man under you squirm. “And where exactly did you read about his particular position, Dr. Grace? In that peer-reviewed journal you keep under your bed?”

Ryland sputtered, moving under you just enough to almost knock you over onto your back. You were almost positive his entire body was flushed a crimson red, visible even in the dim light coming from the nighttable lamp. He was going into acute panic, his eyes darting from their fixed position on the wall behind you, to your eyes for only a split second before trailing around the room, looking for something, anything that could lead to an actual explanation. He spotted his stack of books in the corner, affectionately named ‘the leaning tower of book-zias’ and decided on that. 

“Research!” Ryland squeaked. “Research,” His voice came out more collected this time but still held a semblance of worry around the out-most edges. “For uh… Human… Anatomy studies?” He sighed hard, letting his head plop back against the pillow with a soft thump. 

The laugh that spilled from your lips wasn’t one of judgement or cruelty, more of a melodic tinkling that Ryland felt fuzzy around as you quipped softly, “Human anatomy studies? Is that what we’re calling it now?” Your fingers began their descent against the skin of his chest once again, relishing in the sensation of the staccato beat of his rapid heart. 

“No…” He admitted, folding faster than Ryland wanted to but… There was barely any fight in this one. You probably thought he was disgusting. “I just saw it somewhere and I was curious and I thought… Maybe if you… Wanted to try…” 

His voice trailed off into nothingness, the embarrassment palpable and coming off every fiber of his being in droves. Oh yeah, he just totally ruined his chance at getting laid tonight. He reached a hand up and ran it through his semi-mused hair, still wet at the ends from the shower he took before bed. It was a nervous habit of his that you’d come to recognize while dating and it made your heart clench every time you saw it. With a small huff of a laugh, you propped yourself up on an elbow, looking down at him with a softened expression of admiration as the hand that had been so vicious in its movements against his chest moved up the curve of his thick neck to captivate around the stubbly hair of his jawline. 

“You want to try it, don’t you?” You were pressing but you weren’t being mean about it. You knew Ryland too well, you knew the way his mind worked, the way that his curiosities often got the better of him. It just depended from time to time whether or not he vocalized those to you. 

Ryland forced himself to meet your gaze, his entire nervous system telling him that uhhh hey, that might not be a good idea! But, he did it anyway. And despite the unspoken shame he was feeling, there it was. Right in the swirl of his dark blue eyes, still dilated to the point of losing color. The raw, unfiltered desire to experience something that piqued his interest, specifically with you. Only with you. 

“Yeah…” He confessed like a cardinal sin, voice barely above a hush. “I--- I do… If you’d be okay with that. Consent is important, I don’t want you to---” You replied not with words, but with actions as your head dipped down and captured his mouth in a kiss. Slow and intentional, Ryland’s eyes fluttered shut at it as your lips conformed to his perfectly, letting him know the silent affirmation of your trust in him and the desire to try something new. “We gotta make a deal though,” You murmured against him and shuffled a bit. “You’re going to have to tell me where you really heard about it.”

“Maybe.” Ryland uttered heatedly against your lips, his hands coming up to cup your face, his thumbs stroking your cheekbones as you smiled and allowed him to trace the expression for a few seconds. As if he were saying a reverent goodbye to you before you disappeared above him. “I’ll tell you later.”

“That a promise?” “Maybe.” 

He crinkled his nose at you as you began the task of shifting positions. You knew the basic concept of what the position foretold. Where you were supposed to be, Ryland already in his spot and waiting with anxiously baited breath as you chomped down on your bottom lip. Getting there, to where you needed to go, was a whole ‘nother story. The movement was less than graceful, it was an awkward tangle of limbs as you straddled Ryland’s chest, your knees on either side of his ribs, your hands resting on his broad shoulders for balance. 

Ryland watched you with wide, wandering eyes doing what his instincts told him to do. His large hands came to rest on your hips, his slender flingers pressing gently into your skin to leave a trail of fire in their wake. Despite the heat, you felt a deeply rooted shiver in your spine as you looked down at him, the sensation of Ryland’s ragged breathing against your inner thighs causing you to stir and feel momentarily displaced.

He wasn’t looking between your legs yet, though he could smell you, the draw was so powerful that he found himself counting in his head to keep himself collected. Ryland was focused on the way you moved above him, the way you tried to keep hold of his eyes. 

Ryland’s scientific mind, usually so precise and analytical, was overwhelmed. The sensory input alone was primal and dug into the deeper recesses of his brain to tickle along the edge of instinctual conquest. The scent of you came back to the forefront, a clean and intimate musk that was unique to you filled his lungs like the most delicious air, his restraint right at the cusp of collapse. He knew - God, Ryland knew it was a biological imperative, the body’s way to call to his brain in a way that made him feel powerless to ignore.

“A-a little closer?” Ryland shuddered a breath out of his mouth.  He was holding on for you, the way you looked down at him with a deepened trickle of want. Ryland had been trying to hold on, maintain some sort of control, to be the composed man of science he always was---! 

You nodded shyly, letting your hands leave his shoulders in favor of the headboard as you skidded your knees upwards. It was awkward. Even Ryland had to admit that as you hovered above him, trying to get your knees to settle comfortable on the uneven nature of the pillows and bed below before you managed to get them cupped around his head, Ryland’s strong hands aiding you as he dropped his touch from your hips to your thighs. The gaze that had been impertinent to your trust in him was broken, but as Ryland held your weight above him, you were trenched in the deeper aspect of it as a result. 

It was a slow, almost scientific descent. Ryland’s eyes traveled down the enitre line of your body, over the bonier ridge of your collarbones where he loved to placed his mouth, over the fleshy bits of your breasts where he loved to squeeze and play, over the soft curve and fuzz of your stomach that was often trailed with hot, saliva slicken kisses until they reached their hungry destination. The air hitched in his throat, a choked and pitiful excuse for a sound that was a half gasp, half surrender. 

All the nervous energy, the flustered embarrassment from the moments before evaporated, replaced by a deep respondent hum of pure, unadulterated awe. Because Ryland could see everything. The soft curls of your pubic hair framed your folds, and nothing about it was the sterile, smooth perfection from clinical diagrams. This was real, natural and profoundly beautiful. Ryland could see the delicate hue of your pussy, deepened with your arousal, the slight glistening of your wetness catching the lamplight and the almost fiery appearance of the fine hair. This was you, presenting yourself to Ryland like an offering, a secret shared now only between the two of you. 

“A-are you ready?” You muttered from above, leaning your upper half against the headboard to give yourself more of a vantage point of what your boyfriend was doing. He nodded wordlessly, almost positive that no rational words would even form. As you lowered yourself onto his face, Ryland’s entire world narrowed to this single, overpowering sensation. The first thing that immediately struck him was the heat. A humid, intimate warmth that bloomed against his mouth and chin, sticking to his skin and beard and it was far more intense than he’d ever imagined, way more potent it seemed than when he had you on your back with his head between your legs. Ryland’s brain was tickled once again by that primal surge, something ridiculously set into his DNA from antiquity, something possessive roaring to life inside of him as his nostrils were filled with your sweet aroma again. 

And Ryland’s initial tentativeness wasn’t just from inexperience, though it was incredibly plentiful as his mouth opened in anticipation. It was from an attempt to process the crazed reality of it. He was a man who dealt in vast ideas, microscopic and cosmic distances, a man who taught about the different forms of rocks! And now, the most profound intimacy he could calculate or conceive of in any retrospect was happening at zero range. The soft weight of you on his face was grounding, a pressure that anchored him to the moment and silenced the everlasting calculations and worries that usually plagued Ryland’s mind. There was no way to overthink this. He was only allowed to feel. 

When his tongue first came out to play, you jolted. “Ryland!” 

He hummed against you, not wanting to lose any form of momentum as he began data-collecting in the best way he could think of. The texture of your pussy was silky, the flesh yielding for Ryland so easily as he slid the muscle from your clit, down to your entrance, repeating the process as the taste of you exploded against his tastebuds. 

You involuntarily clenched your thighs around his head with a gasp of excitement at the feeling of Ryland’s prominent nose against your clit, fingers grasping at the headboard so tightly that your knuckles were turning that unholy off-white color. Ryland wasn’t ashamed to admit to feeling a bit of… Pride at your reaction. He was causing this. He was the source of your pleasure, now, and all of the times before, and all of the times in the future he could foresee. 

The stubble on his jaw became a tool for him to use. Ryland could feel the way it created a delicious and abrasive friction against your pubic arch as he snaked his arms around your thighs to hold you more surely by your pelvic bone. He wasn’t even sure why that seemed like a good idea, but it was almost immediately rewarded when you, through the haze of the pleasure, felt confident and stable to move, found a rhythm against his face that wasn’t entirely suffocating, but it was just enough to get Ryland to moan against you causing another rocket of ecstasy to shoot up your spine. 

There was a shift of weight above him as you tucked your feet in to rest against his clavicle, another leverage point as you pressed your hips a bit harder to grind against Ryland’s expectant mouth, almost losing yourself completely in the tangling sensations of his beard getting caught in your pubic hair with your motion, the heady pressure of his nose smashing against your pussy and his tongue, fast at work to bring you to your climax. This was quite frankly, the most erotic thing that Ryland had ever experienced. His own hard-on, laying against the expanse of his stomach, a smear of pre-cum tracing his belly-button, was slowly becoming a throbbing, insistent presence and a tell-tale sign of how much you were affecting him.

Every gasp you were giving, every moan that sounded a lot like his name vibrated through your entire body and directly into his bones as he pressed his tongue into your entrance, holding down on your thighs to keep you in place as you essentially rode the muscle, Ryland peeking it in and out at a heightened pace. That’s when it happened. Ryland could feel the sting of your fingers grasping at a handful of his blonde hair, the sensation an exciting counterpoint to the softness of your pussy against his mouth. He was no longer just a scientist observing, he was an active participant, completely consumed by the act of giving you this pleasure. Ryland felt rightfully powerful, needed and completely and utterly yours. And he wanted it no other way. 

“Ryland, Ryland, Ryland…” You chanted like a prayer, eyes falling shut as you rolled your head back. He relished in the motion, able to see it from his perch as his own eyelids fell shut slowly.

The rhythm of your grinding evolved sharply, growing more frantic and desperate, now a race that was both chaotic and perfectly synchronised. Ryland could feel the subtle tremors beginning in your thigh muscles, the way your breathing hitched and caught wilting in your throat as you tried to tell him to keep going and not to stop. Each tiny gasp and groan became shorter, more desperate as you chased your release. 

The blonde beneath you adjusted his grip, his fingers pressing more firmly into your pelvic bone as if guiding you against him as sparks of adverse pleasure began tightening in your lower stomach. The confidence of which Ryland moved below you was staggering and left him surprised as he felt like he was learning your body’s language all over again with each shudder than shattered against him, each swallow of your pussy he was able to get down his throat and each coaxed friction as you began tediously grinding your clit against his nose. He couldn’t breathe, but that was no longer the point as he pushed your hips down onto him. Harder than before, needier than before. 

“R-right there!” You managed to gasp out, Ryland’s tongue dripping deeper inside of you than it had before and curling right against the cusped bundle of nerves inside. Not directly on it, unfortunately Ryland’s tongue wasn’t long enough for that, but it was more of a kissing sensation against it, just enough to drive you insane as you bucked a bit more wildly against his handsome face, seeking refuge in the way that he held you above him, the way that he let you press your weight against him in a desperate plea to be closer. 

“Please, please…. Don’t stop…” Your voice was hoarse, the muscles in your neck strangled. “Please don’t stop, Ryyyy….”

And here’s the thing. Ryland had no intention of stopping. The sound of your vocal cords, so strained, the taste of you blooming across his mouth, lingering now in his beard, the feeling of your incoming orgasm against his face was all too intoxicating in the best way possible. His movements become more intentional, Ryland raising your hips before bringing them back down as his mouth trailed from your sleek entrance back to your clit to swirl for a moment before diving back in. His own needs were secondary now, almost forgotten in the intensity of you. 

“I-I’m going t-to cum…” You whispered, almost shamefully as the realization washed over you. It was going to happen. Ryland wasn’t going to pull away and whatever mess you were about to make was going to be messier than usual.

You glanced down at him. Finally, he thought as his eyes met yours in the flurry of the moment. Just in time to get an eyeful of the show.

He swept his tongue in one long, languid motion from bottom to top. You could feel the pressure of his nose against your entrance momentarily before it dragged upwards, leaving your body only to be replaced by the sensation of Ryland’s hot mouth swallowing your clit. 

The electricity passed between you, so raw that it felt like it was going to take you both down. Ryland held your gaze as his tongue worked to curl deeper inside of you, finding that perfect angle that his fingers had a knack for, the very one that made your entire body convulse. He could feel your moan against his tongue, sending a bending shiver through his entire body to rest in the head of his overly-sensitive cock. 

When your orgasm finally hit, it was like a wave breaking over you both. Your body did its thing. It tensed above Ryland, his heavy hands still locking you in place, your thighs clamping around his head tightly as a watery cry left your lips. “G-God, Ryland!” 

He held you through it, his tongue working lovingly, his nose caressing your pussy so gently as you rode through the pleasure, back arching ever so slightly as your essence spilled down his beard, trailing along the coarse hairs on the underside of his jaw. Ryland’s heart was pounding in his chest, he could feel the spasms of your thighs and the coiling and tightening of your pussy. Ryland felt a sense of awe that he could do this for you. That you let him do this for you. 

He moaned against you, moving quicker than before to lap up what he was able as your body began relaxing involuntarily against him, almost boneless and completely spent. The fingers in his hair left as he shuffled a bit, placing a few lingering kisses to your sensitive thighs before helping you as best he could. You shifted off his face, Ryland’s hands careful as if you were made of glass as you collapsed beside him on the bed. 

Through a half-lidded stare, you glanced at him and felt an inadequate amount of embarrassment at the sight of his flushed cheeks and his beard, glistening with the evidence of what just transpired. You licked your dry lips as a wall of affection tore through you at the sight of Ryland… Disheveled, aroused and so, so proud of himself. “Uh… wow.” You laughed breathlessly with a goofy smile, Ryland propping himself up on his elbow to look at you.

His blue eyes were dark with need, but there was something else there too. Maybe… Tenderness… And a vulnerability that made you lean over and capture his mouth in a kiss, tasting yourself on his tongue as you urged him to follow you back, Ryland almost crushing his chest against yours. The kiss was a collision of desperation and relief. Your lips were soft, minorly demanding against your lovers, his tongue sweeping in to claim your mouth with an urgency that stole what little breath you had left, at the same time, offering you more of yourself to taste. 

Ryland’s hand which had been resting on your hip, slid up to grasp at the back of your neck to pull you impossibly closer until there was no space left between your bodies, your legs wrapping around the narrowing of his waist as Ryland snuggled himself between them. 

“I’ve… wanted to do that for a while…” Ryland confessed, lips tickling against yours. Each word was swallowed up by you as you drew him in for a slow kiss, feeling the length of his cock against your wet pussy, causing yet another shock of pleasure to run through both of you simultaneously. You admired the way that Ryland’s eyebrows creased at the contact, his eyes fluttering in concentration that was wearing very thin. “Why did you wait so long?” You responded and let your fingers tuck into his blonde, sweaty hair. He drew a slow breath in, collapsing his arms around your head so he could rest on one forearm, the other now happily tucked between your two bodies so he could position himself just right against your swollen entrance. 

“I-I knew you’d ask me where I heard a-about it.” He murmured cutely, the blush on his face more from his words than the mere fact that his cock was straining for some sort of release. 

“W-will you ever tell me? I need to thank the s-source personally.” You teased, head tossing back against the pillows a moment later as the head of Ryland’s cock was swallowed by your tight pussy.

“L-Later. Let me finish d-decompressing first.”

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[hananothannah]

both lips smile btw