Thank you for all the great prompts this month! I wanted to create an archive so I have an easy way to keep track and add any updates.
In case it's not obvious, these are all rated E for Explicit. 🔥
Kitchen Counter Chaos - Penelope tries to cook him dinner. Luke’s way more interested in bending her over the counter than eating tofu. (Established Relationship)
Spectacles - The first time Penelope sees Luke in glasses she nearly combusts and insists he keeps them on. (Season 13)
Survivor's Guilt - Luke spirals after a case, staring at his scars like tally marks of everyone he couldn’t save. Penelope worships each one until he believes he’s still here, still wanted—and then he breaks in her arms. (Post-S20, Established Relationship)
Red - He can’t focus in the bullpen because all he can think about is the color on her lips and how it would look smeared across his skin. (S12 or 13)
You Belong to Me - Someone flirts with her at a bar. Luke doesn’t say a word, he just takes her home and reminds her who she belongs to. (Established Relationship)
Have a Seat - Penelope riding Luke's face. Context is up to you. Bonus points for "I said sit, not hover." (S12)
Stocking Ripper - He swears he’ll be careful with her new thigh-highs. He absolutely is not. (Hit Me Where the Heart Is universe, Established Relationship)
Talk is Cheap, but Action... - Penelope’s mid-ramble about something and Luke’s trying to listen, really, but he hasn’t heard a damn word. Too busy watching her lips wrap around every syllable, the smudge of lipstick, that little flick of her tongue that’s been driving him crazy for weeks. He snaps and kisses her before his brain can catch up. (Post-Full Tilt Boogie)
Sex Pollen - Luke gets dosed during a lab raid and tries to fight it off—until Penelope decides she’s not letting him suffer alone.
Multi-Purpose Fashion - One of her glittery scarves ends up tying his wrists to her headboard. She calls it “multi-purpose fashion.” (Post-Season 15, Established Relationship)
Candlelight Confessions - A romantic setup with candles turns into wax dripping down his chest while she grins. (Established Relationship)
Under Arrest - Penelope appears in the bedroom doorway wearing nothing but his FBI jacket and a grin. She twirls a pair of handcuffs and says, “SSA Alvez, you’re under arrest.” (Post-Season 15, Established Relationship)
Tea, Blankets, and Bad Decisions - She’s spiraling after a case. Luke comes over to take care of her with tea, blanket, Roxy cuddles. Until comfort tips into desperate intimacy. (Anytime between "In the Dark" and S15)
Tech Support - Roleplay - she shows up at his door in a fitted pencil skirt, glasses, and a tech badge. (Post-Season 15, Established Relationship)
Sweet Tooth - It’s just a lollipop. Bright red. Harmless. But the way her tongue glides over it, slow and thoughtless, the way her lips shine when she pulls back— he swears it should come with a warning label... (S14 to 15 timeline)
Safe House - They’re trapped together overnight for protection detail. One bed. Too much tension. No self-control. AND She’s painting her nails, and he’s too distracted by the sight of her mouth blowing on her fingers. (S12, Secret Relationship)
Been a Bad, Bad Girl - Penelope in Luke's handcuffs. (Established Relationship, sequel to this)
Northern Exposure - Case, motel, middle of nowhere Alaska. Luke and Penelope can definitely hear Tara and Emily next door having the same idea. What starts as awkward silence turns into an unspoken competition neither of them will admit to later. (Secret Relationship)
Pinned - She’s been flirting for months, and he’s too damn polite to make a move. So she does—backing him into a wall mid-sentence.
Aftercare - The case is over, Luke’s hurt but alive, and Penelope’s the one changing his bandages. He sits there shirtless and stubborn, insisting he’s fine; she’s just trying not to cry—or stare. He’s alive, and that’s all that matters—until she realizes how close she’s standing, how his skin feels under her fingertips. Relief bleeds straight into want, and there’s no clean line between the two.
Turbulence - The jet bucks and she falls into his lap—his hands gripping her waist, her breath catching against his mouth. For one suspended second, they’re all heat and instinct and every unsaid thing between them. She knows he’d pull her closer if they were alone. He knows she’d let him. But the cabin isn’t empty. So she slowly—slowly—slides off his thighs, fingers trailing just long enough to promise later. He doesn’t breathe again for miles.
Five-Minute Rule - Quickies in increasingly questionable locations
The truth is, I’ve never cared for the National
Anthem. If you think about it, it’s not a good
song. Too high for most of us with “the rockets
red glare” and then there are the bombs.
(Always, always, there is war and bombs.)
Once, I sang it at homecoming and threw
even the tenacious high school band off key.
But the song didn’t mean anything, just a call
to the field, something to get through before
the pummeling of youth. And what of the stanzas
we never sing, the third that mentions “no refuge
could save the hireling and the slave”? Perhaps,
the truth is, every song of this country
has an unsung third stanza, something brutal
snaking underneath us as we blindly sing
the high notes with a beer sloshing in the stands
hoping our team wins. Don’t get me wrong, I do
like the flag, how it undulates in the wind
like water, elemental, and best when it’s humbled,
brought to its knees, clung to by someone who
has lost everything, when it’s not a weapon,
when it flickers, when it folds up so perfectly
you can keep it until it’s needed, until you can
love it again, until the song in your mouth feels
like sustenance, a song where the notes are sung
by even the ageless woods, the short-grass plains,
the Red River Gorge, the fistful of land left
unpoisoned, that song that’s our birthright,
that’s sung in silence when it’s too hard to go on,
that sounds like someone’s rough fingers weaving
into another’s, that sounds like a match being lit
in an endless cave, the song that says my bones
are your bones, and your bones are my bones,
and isn’t that enough?
Little preview of said thoughts: Penelope did nothing wrong.
Overall, I really enjoyed this episode. I felt like all the characters had a decent part to play. There was humor with the usual terror. I even really enjoyed Fucking Brian and sometimes he gets on my nerves in a non-entertaining way.
I'm sure I have more to say about the hour, but the ending!! That is where my brain is right now.
Unfortunately the ending was spoiled for me, but it still played out with a lot of tension.
If Luke is mad at Penelope, I will not survive. I hope, with him looking directly at her tear-stained face, he defends her and the crazy empathy that he doesn't understand but respects.
Rossi walking away and slamming the door was painful.
I can't believe they did not have every character look right at Penelope. They should have known it was her immediately, or at least Luke and maybe JJ or Emily.
This is completely in character with Penelope. She WATCHED Greg Baylor die. She knows what that looks like. If she has a chance to prevent that while still seeing that a criminal serves time for his crimes, she is going to do that.
Also, she forgave the man who drove drunk and killed her PARENTS. Of course she can testify for this man who has hurt her friend-family in various ways. She's not testifying that he should be free. She's not saying that everything he did is a-okay with her.
Not anyone who says, “I’m going to be
careful and smart in matters of love,”
who says, “I’m going to choose slowly,”
but only those lovers who didn’t choose at all
but were, as it were, chosen
by something invisible and powerful and uncontrollable
and beautiful and possibly even
unsuitable —
only those know what I’m talking about
in this talking about love.
This post will be 50% commentary on CME episode 19.5 and 50% essay on why I don't think JJ is a threat to Garvez happening.
My thoughts below the cut...
My brain is in a million different places right now, so I don't have the capacity to recall the entire episode well enough to remark on everything.
I do know that I absolutely loved the opening. An FBI training exercise? Yes, please. I love seeing that aspect of this world. I also enjoyed how realistic a possibility suicide was, because it genuinely kept me wondering if we actually had an UnSub here.
Liked Emily's callback to 'Saturday.'
The Garvez scene was brief but impactful. There are often stills posted on Paramount's press site that don't match the exact shot as it appears in the episode, and of course a moment captured in a still image can make something feel like it's going to be a long moment as opposed to a quicker embrace. But regardless of all of that, the closeness between them was undeniable.
Love that Fucking Brian has a crush on Tara because, yes, Tara is hot and smart.
I'm so sad for Luke. He lost Phil, Roxy, and now Tom. That is rough. But I'm so happy there's such a spotlight on the character and on Adam Rodriguez.
If the show was trying to foreshadow a JJ and Luke romance or even a hook-up, they aren't doing a very good job of it. I don't see any gazes that last a little too long. There are no long pauses on them touching each other, and they are not touching each other more than usual or more than an emotional moment calls for.
When JJ talks to Luke in this episode, she says "we." Last week she grouped him and Penelope together as a unit. She spoke of her husband in a very loving way. She's not thinking about Luke in that way.
Many of the scenes with Luke and Penelope use romantic language or references. He quoted Dickinson. He said he never had heartburn until her. Penelope said she gets him/sees him, and he agreed. Their body language speaks volumes, too.
The only obstacle I see to Garvez is the the show runner and decisions that are made by other powers that be. I acknowledge that we may never see them together, which sucks, but I'm not worried about Luke being paired with another member of the BAU.
We're already on the way to episode 6, somehow. What the hell. How did that happen.
Overall, I need more Penelope Garcia on my screen. She better be the focus of several episodes between now and the season finale.
