*°• at least i got a soul still, even if i’m in a bad place •°*
𝒮𝐸𝑅𝐼𝐸𝒮
*°• •°*
Criminal Minds
derek morgan x pastors daughter!reader — The Nature of Secrets
pt. 1 | pt. 2
—> A brutal case lands the team in Clearwater, Florida, but things get tricky for Derek Morgan when it’s centered in the place he resents most.
He needs and miracle, and maybe they aren’t as improbable as he seems to think.
*°• •°*
spencer reid x deadbeat daughter!OC — Something About Anna
—> A quiet, self conscious, anxiety riddled college graduate who feels like there’s nothing going for her, her life is stuck going in a direction of the doomed, until fate delivered a hand of cards she would never have expected.
—> Spencer and his wife are making a docuseries for their future child.
*°• •°*
Outer Banks — OBX
this is for us — rafe cameron | ✧ ♫
—> when the AC is broken, the temperature is not the only thing that’s heated between a couple when a one sided decision is made.
𝒪𝑅𝐼𝒢𝐼𝒩𝒜𝐿 𝒲𝒪𝑅𝒦𝒮
*°• •°*
child prodigy.
—> everyone is so exceptional, except for you.
*°• •°*
a poem.
—> the poem is about nothing.
*°• •°*
the angry daughter.
—> For all the angry daughters who spend the days in their rooms, who tear out their hair, who scream under water, who pinch themselves and wonder why they are the way they are.
*°• •°*
a directors muse. “You must know that I adore you, I want you to have it all”
—> every director has his muse, but what happens when the relationship borders on obsession? what happens when the feelings are one sided?
𝑀𝐸𝒮𝐿𝐼𝐵𝒮 𝒴𝒜𝒫𝒮
*°• •°*
being a writer.
wait.
spence traumamaxxing
root cause of my misery.
ai is literally so dumb. rant 1/???
neil I feel you
dead poets 1/??
dead poets 2/??
thank you for taking the time to read, your support means a lot, while you’re here, maybe reblog?
there’s always more to be written and more coming soon !
“You must know that I adore you, I want you to have it all”
A/N: I haven’t written something original in so long and I got some random inspiration one night. It’s pretty sad. But I’m a pretty sad person. Enjoy it~
WARNINGS ⚠️ : brief language, mentions of sex, age gap, angst
—————————————————————————————
I wasn’t just any actress—I was his actress. The one he went out of his way to praise in interviews, the one he lit every scene for like it was a love letter only he could read. I probably appeared in far too many movies that were directed by him and probably got far too many hours screen time.
I was still young, too young to drink, and still getting my footing in the industry, but from the moment I walked into the auditioning room, he’d been drawn in by me. The way I carried myself, the way I delivered lines like I wasn’t just acting, not just reading words on a paper, but living in the scene—he was obsessed.
And maybe it wasn’t normal for a director to be this invested in his lead. Maybe it wasn’t appropriate for me to slip away to his trailer between takes, but that never stopped either of us.
Late-night script reviews that ended with me tangled up in his bedsheets, smelling more like him than of myself. Private glances across set, hidden smiles when no one else was looking. His fingers brushing against mine when he handed me notes, lingering just a second too long. Too long for this to just be a director/actress dynamic. It was something more, something deeper, something visceral. but no one would understand. They would say he groomed me, that I was too young to understand the reality of the situation. That I was a victim.
So it was hotels and motels and dates in his trailer with a tea candle in middle of a small, foldable table. It was fleeting glances and tension, it was secrets, and whispers and vows, but we made it work. We had to, because what we had was beyond words and beyond the views and opinions of outsiders.
“You know,” he murmured against my lips, hands skating down my back as I straddled his lap, “if anyone found out about this, I’d be accused of rampant favoritism.”
His words brought a grin to my face as I leaned in to kiss him properly.
“You do have rampant favoritism, everyone can tell.”
He hummed, a grin of his own spreading lazily, hands tightening on my hips. “Can’t help it.” His voice was low. “You’re a once-in-a-lifetime talent.”
To everyone else, I was just his favorite actress—his muse, the one he trusted to bring his vision to life. But behind closed doors, I was something else entirely. His best-kept secret. His quiet obsession.
We weren’t together, not officially, a label yet to be stuck to this, but I doubted that there wasn’t a single person on set who didn’t notice the way he looked at me— like I was the most fascinating thing he’d ever directed.
His mousy hair was getting longer again, the way I liked it, barely brushing his the tops of his l shoulders and I tucked it behind his ears, a content smile on my face.
Well, as content as I could possibly be with what we had. I had my doubts about the whole thing, as much as I wish I didn’t. Doubts of being younger and less experienced than him, doubts of not being able to perform to his standards one day. I had doubts of not really owning him. And because I didn’t really own him, that meant he could always find a new star girl, a new fixation who had less needs and a prettier smile and one day I’d be left with a gaping, him-shaped hole in my chest and a lack of passion for the craft I lived for, but he made so much better.
He made everything so much better by just breathing in my direction.
“I wish you knew how much you mean to me,”
My voice is soft and far away, like I hadn’t truly meant for those words to be spoken aloud to him, like my lips moved before my brain could stop it as my fingers trace shapes on the side of his neck.
His smile shifts at my words, softening. He lifts a hand to tuck a lock of my hair behind my ear like I had done for him moments ago, then lets his fingertips linger at my skin, tracing a path down my jaw. He hears the vulnerability behind my voice, I know he does, he can taste the weight of the words I didn't mean to say but couldn't hold back.
"I have a feeling," he responds, his tone equally soft, but lacks any of the desperation that I had.
“that I have some idea. But feel free to enlighten me…"
His fingers continue to brush against my skin, almost absently as if he can't stop touching me, like his mind and his fingers are at a disconnect.
I memorize his fingers, burn the feeling of tips into my mind, the way they feel dragging over my delicate skin in a way that no one else would have the opportunity to do, because I knew I wouldn’t ever want anyone else the in same way I wanted him.
He was the beginning of me. Every romantic experience, every first for me— kisses and intimacy and whispers of sweet nothings that would be hard for anyone to listen outside of us, and he was the end of me. Even if it wasn’t the same for him, I had already made a vow to myself. As obsessive and one sided and childish as it sounded. I vowed I wouldn’t allow myself to give my heart up, my soul, my body, with any other.
“You make me feel important,” I begin to enlighten him as per his request, leaving a kiss on his cheek, my lips never quite leaving his skin as I speak, my warm breath fanning over it.
“The way you look at me makes me feel special, and your words make me feel pretty. Whenever I’m around you, I feel wanted,”
My lips have wandered south and have reached the underside of his jaw now, the classic, cliche director stubble there scratching at my lips and I smile, the feeling not unpleasant and oh so familiar.
“I adore you. I want to be enough for you. I want to make you laugh and cry and I want to be the only person who can,”
I wanted to get married and live on farm or something, have a dog, have a family, have dinner parties and cookouts, but I don’t say that part out loud. I settle for something more tame, something that would sound more realistic, attainable. I settle to pace my feelings in order not to spook him.
“I want for you to be mine,”
It’s a watered down version of what I actually desired. And yet… Those words are still probably too heavy. I know he probably didn’t want to hear them. We weren’t together officially, there was no title. Because we had rules, we had regulations, we had precautions to take that other couples never had to. And for a while, that satiated me. But a meal only keeps you full for so long, I was hungry, I was starved. And I had probably screwed everything up because his breath catches.
—————————————————————————————
His breath catches in his throat as he listens intently to me ramble, his heart racing underneath my palms pressed against his chest. There’s a cocktail of affection and guilt in his eyes.
He knows that he should probably stop me, put a halt to this conversation before it gets any more serious, but he can't bring himself to do it. My words—honest and raw—stir something deep within him, making him want to hold me even closer, to cherish every syllable I utter. And he should. That’s what I wanted.
"Darling…" he whispers, his hand coming up to cup my face, "You have to stop."
Stop. You have to stop.
The way he says it cracks a dam of hurt and shock and a million of other heady things inside of me and I shake my head in his hands, hands so large that they cover a good amount of my face. Hands that I long to slip mine into on set, where everyone could see, make everyone know that he was mine. That I was his. A delusion of course, because he belonged to no one.
“No, I don’t want to,” It makes me sound like a child, the contrast of how controlled his words were, how grown up they sounded, and I was a kid just fussing on his lap.
But I didn’t want to stop, how could I? How could I when he treated me like art? A muse. Something more important than the other girls he’s hired before, something more than just a warm body on a lonely night. I was irreplaceable, I was impossibly important, I was special. Wasn’t I?
His grip on my face is tighter by just a fraction, his gaze locked onto mine. My defiance swirls a mixture of annoyance and affection in his chest, and his eyes flash with a subtle sense of irritation. Irritation that might’ve been deterring, yet there's also a hint of something else—a vulnerability that rarely sees the light of day. And that’s the thing I’m choosing to cling to.
"Sweetheart, listen to me," he says, his tone firmer. “I know what you're feeling. But you have to understand…"
He sighs, running his thumb gently over my bottom lip.
"We can't keep doing this."
I lean into his touch, lip trembling underneath the pad of his thumb, closing my eyes, not wanting to accept his words, because the truth is sharp and cold.
Honest. And not at all what I wanted to hear. I tried to pull him closer, and it was a mistake. He felt trapped the instant I did.
“Yes, we can,”
I regretted asking for more almost immediately when I knew the situation was already so volatile. When I knew that at any given moment he could grow tired of me, and I promised myself I’d never give him a reason to.
But I guess promises were broken all of the time, weren’t they?
But I wanted more and I couldn’t help that. I wanted dinner dates and PDA and pet names outside of his trailer and my dressing room.
I wanted walks on the beach, and parent introductions, and sticky notes attached to lunch boxes, and a yellow house in the suburbs with a small porch and even smaller kitchen that made us have to crowd together.
I wanted a relationship, domestic and normal and real. Not this. But all I had was this, all I would get was this, and even this was being ripped away from me.
“I don’t wanna stop,” I plead, opening my eyes, now glassy with tears that I resent for forming so quickly. It made my argument less valid somehow. I knew that.
“It’s not fair,” And if the tears weren’t a weakening agent, these words were the straw that broke the camels back. But stopping doesn’t seem like an option for me right now.
“You call me your muse, you call me baby, and honey, and darling, and angel, and sweetness, and you tell me that you’ve never felt like this with anyone! You tell me I’m different,”
He swallows hard at the sight of the tears welling up in my eyes, Adam’s apple bobbing in that way I find so attractive. His fingers twitch against my face as if he’s fighting himself, grappling the urge to pull me closer, to give in to my pleas. But instead, his expression remains painfully stoic, his jaw set.
"Darling, you know how I feel about you," did I?
"I care for you deeply, truly. But..."
Why was there always a but?
I love you but, you’re so pretty but, you’re so young but, I care for you but, this is great but, you’re the stars and moon and everything I’ve always wanted but…
“But nothing!” My control was slipping fast.
“This is all I want! All I’ve ever wanted, and you want it too,” And I sound cliche, like I’m in a movie, and I sound like I’m begging, because, well, I am.
I’m fighting for affection that I’ve spoiled by wanting more.
He wouldn’t look at me now and he gently pushed me from his lap onto the couch seat so he could pace around the trailer, brows furrowed. He looked so handsome, even stressed; the sharp curve of his jaw, the slope of his nose, his soft eyes that were offset by masculine brows.
“Please—“ I plead, sitting up on my knees on the couch, watching him, willing him to look at me and accept that this? This was the thing that would make me happy.
He stops his pacing, his back still turned to me. His shoulders are tense, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. I can imagine the way his nails must be pressing painfully into his palms. He can hear the desperation in my voice, the edge that's digging under his skin. He knows that he needs to put a stop to this, to set boundaries, but the words feel like sandpaper in his throat.
"This isn't just about what you want," he finally says, his voice tight. "There are... complications, sweetheart. Things you don't understand."
He’s saying I’m too young to understand, this isn’t just about me and my wants, my needs. He’s saying this is a lot more than just me and him even, and I’m in over my head. I’m stupid, I’m naive, I’m asking for too much. I’m asking for things he can’t possibly give me.
Tears, hot and fat, roll unwillingly down my face and I swipe at them furiously with the sleeve of a sweater I’ve borrowed from him, one that swallows my frame and smelled like him. A smell that instead of comforting me, like usual, burned in my nostrils.
“No, I do understand. I understand that it’s going to be harder for us because of what it looks like, but I don’t care.
I am an adult, and I want this. It’s not coercion if I’m consenting. And it’s not fair for you to dangle this in my face and then take it from me!”
His frustration is mounting, I can feel it, and I can see the conflict raging inside behind his eyes. I’m determined, stubborn even, and he's fighting a losing battle at this point. He finally forces himself to turn, to look at me, and even as his heart aches at the sight of my tears, his brows remain knitted.
"You're being naive," he says bluntly.
"You have no idea what would happen if we're caught. The tabloids will rip us apart. My career, your career—it would be—“
“Your career?” I speak over him as he tries to finish his sentence, and I would never hear the end to it.
I feel an animal inside of me, angry and violent and rabid, clawing at my chest from inside because he had brought work into this when that was the least important thing right now.
God, of course. His precious fucking career and I want to scream. I want to cry (more). I want to throw something, preferably glass or something else breakable to watch it shatter into hundreds of smaller pieces so that I can see the visual representation of what my heart feels like right now.
“I’ve never cared about that! Making movies is fun, yes, I like it, it’s great, but I like you more! I like how I don’t have to perform with you when it’s just us,”
I don’t remember when I started shouting or when I stood up.
“I love you,”
I hated that this was the first time I’d said it out loud, and that I had been forced to say it because I knew I was losing him.
His eyes darken at my shouting, the softness disappearing entirely, his temper rising above mine in a very different way. The fact that I was so blasé about the repercussions of our relationship only makes him feel more frustrated.
"Don't you understand?" he shouts back, something he’s never done before, his jaw set in an annoyingly attractive, tense line.
“This isn't just about us anymore! This is about everything I've worked for! My reputation, my career—I can't just throw it all away on a whim because you refuse to grow up and see the bigger picture!"
How selfish, I thought, and I couldn’t help but feel a cold wash of resentment for him right now.
How could he tell me to grow up? How could he glaze past my confession and called me a child to my face? How could he treat me like a nuisance, an obsessed fan girl, an impulsive creature?
“Grow up? Well, I think I was being pretty grown up when you had me face down 30 minutes ago,”
My voice isn’t as sharp as I want it to be, though, and my words are trembling and petty, even. It is not clear, it is not tense and adult-like, it is not strong. Not like his. It’s the voice of a girl who’s clinging onto something that’s already being torn away from her.
He was acting so selfish, so stupid, what about his career? What about his future? What about his hard work? But, he was the one who started this. He took my hand one day and told me I was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. He treated me like woman when he saw fit, and now he decided he couldn’t do it anymore because I had the demands of a younger mind, because I had mentioned the need of something more than a hidden life with him.
He was trying to discard me, he didn’t want to play with me anymore and I feel sick at the thought.
His jaw tightened at my words, a muscle ticking in his cheek, his teeth grinding together inside the walls of his mouth. He exhales sharply through his nose, looking away again for a moment as he struggles to compose himself.
"You think that changes anything? That just because we've crossed certain lines means I'm obligated to give you what you want? That this is some kind of transaction—you give me pleasure, so I owe you devotion?"
He drags a hand down his face before turning back to glare at me, a look that I’ve never once received from him. A lot of new firsts tonight.
“Christ. This isn't about who started it or who wants more—it's about reality. We have sex, we didn’t pledge our souls to one another,”
We have sex. Just sex. Meaningless sex. Just meaningless sex. We just have meaningless sex.
I feel stuck. In time. In this moment. In this moment of his anger that’s directed toward me, of his exhaustion with having to be a participant in this conversation, like he’s patronizing a student and not his— his what?
His girlfriend? His fuck buddy? His lover? His muse? His star? His actress? What was I? Obviously not as important to him as I originally thought.
No. It was just sex, two adults having adult sex. Not linking souls or whatever.
“So- so what are you saying? You don’t want me to be a part of your reality? That— that it was just for fun? That this meant nothing? I can’t believe that,”
He knows he's being cruel, he has to. He knows these words will hurt, but he’s doing this to me anyway. There’s no compassion, no softness, no empathy.
"This is nothing, darling," he snaps, his tone harsh. The term of endearment that I once clung to so desperately now sounds like more of a curse, deprived of anything sweet and intimate.
"It was fun, it was easy, but it's not sustainable. I can't have a relationship with a little girl who's still finding herself, who doesn't understand the consequences of her actions. I need stability, I need security, I need something more substantial than the fantasies of a school girl."
“I mean, did you really think it was going to be long term?”
He asks, and he looks at me like he’s really expecting an answer, but I’ve closed my eyes as more salty tears wet my dark lashes.
I’ve closed my eyes like they’ll make the words disappear, envelope them in the dark and erase them, but they seem to only amplify as if spoken into a megaphone, bouncing around in my skull.
Fantasies, fun, little girl, nothing— Nothing. He might as well have called me stupid, an idiot, degraded me and cursed at me, it would’ve been easier to be mad.
Instead, I’m hurt. Hurt that’s blinding and sickening. I’m cut open, I’m bleeding. But he can’t see that. He doesn’t understand he’s holding a knife, that he’s digging his fingers into an open wound, tearing it apart. He thinks he’s doing what’s best for me, and I guess that means he doesn’t know me as well as I thought he did.
Because if he did, he would’ve told me that he loved me. He would have held me and kissed my head and called me baby. He would’ve tried half as hard as I did, as I am.
—————————————————————————————
My eyes snap open again, sending more tears that clung to my lashes down my cheeks.
“I can be all of those things for you, I can be whatever you want, because I want this so bad,”
He scoffs, and he’s turning away again, like my tears and words are empty.
“We could work if you meant any of the stuff you told me,” I reached for his arm and turn him to look at me.
“Did you even mean it? That I was special, a star, talented and different and smart and mature. Was it just lies? You never loved me, you never wanted anything from me other than my body? You think you’re helping me? You just ruined my life,”
I want to hit him, to force anything other than anger off of his face, to crack this facade that he’s put on, because all of it, all of the words, they couldn’t have been untrue. There had to be some honesty, there had to be.
“I love you,”
I say it again. Like it would change his mind he’s already made up. My voice is cracking and weak, but I don’t do anything to mask the pain he’s just inflicting. He didn’t deserve my strength.
He didn’t. He deserved the guilt, the shame, the agony, he didn’t deserve forgiveness or dry eyes.
His face tightens as I list off the things he's said to me in moments of passion, of intimacy, words he'd whispered in my ear like they were love sonnets. Hearing them thrown back at him now feels like unfair, it feels like a jab. He knows he could just reach out, comfort me, and I’d be his again. I’d forget this, I’d forgive him, but his pride is an ugly thing, and he tugs his arm free from my desperate grasp.
"You're being overdramatic," he retorts, his words sharp, but he sounds like he’s trying to convince himself too.
"You're not ruined, you'll get over this. You're young, you'll find someone else."
Was he stupid? How could he be so stupid?
“Don’t you understand?” I scream at him, it’s raw and my voice isn’t the gentle, even tone it usually is with him, and it even sounds unfamiliar in my own ears. Scared and shrill and begging to be understood.
“I gave myself to you! I gave everything up, for you! Everything we did together was because I don’t want anybody else!
I will never be the same again, because you told me you wanted me, and you took things from me that I will never get back. Because you take and you take and all I was asking for return was all of you, because I had nothing left, and you refuse to give it to me,”
I shock myself with the bare truth in my words, because I never thought about it until now.
Well, yeah, I thought about what it would be like to loose him, and yeah, I got insecure sometimes, but I never really considered just how much of myself I gave him. How much was I could never renew or recover because, God, I really thought that he was it, that I’d make this work despite the world being against us.
Because that’s what it was, us against the world. Against everyone who’d say it was wrong, what we had. Us against all of those people who just wouldn’t understand. As long as we were together, everything would be okay.
Me and him, we knew what we had was unique, a once in a life time connection, so it didn’t matter, but life was funny. Time has revealed that it was really just me against everyone else. Me against the world.
His resolve doesn’t falter, though his eyes widen at my raw admission. He knows I’ve just laid my heart bare, but the conflict within him is stronger than ever. So strong I can see it plainly in his features. And he can see the pain plainly in mine, the truth in my words, and it’s a painful reality.
"You're too young to comprehend what love really is," he says, his voice quieter now. "You don't know the weight of that word, and you certainly don't know what it means to give yourself to someone."
He shakes his head. And I want to tell him to stop. To stop treating me like my age defined me, to stop acting like I don’t know what was in my heart, what I’ve felt for him during our time together.
And as he shakes his head and combs his fingers through his hair, I suddenly can’t see the man I fell in love with. The funny, bright, quirky director, the one who was so polite to everyone else but put me on a pedestal and worshiped me and made me see a future.
One who called me an angel and then gave me the wings.
Instead, I saw a tired man. I saw an abuser, a man who was good with his words, a liar. I saw a man in power, one who manipulated that.
And it disgusted me. It made my stomach churn and for the first time, I felt regret for the things I allowed him to take from me.
“You don’t know what love is either. You are sad and you are lonely and needy and pathetic,”
He looks stunned, and I feel stunned, but my words are water falling from not just my lips, but from my soul.
“You talk to younger girls for a thrill, you lie to them for fun. You sleep with them and you gaslight them and you make them feel so fucking special and then you ruin them.
You tear them apart. You break them. And yeah, I fell for it, so that makes me an idiot. And I may be an idiot, but you’re a bad person. And I would rather be an idiot than that,”
When I speak, I sound more grow up than I ever had. My voice isn’t shaking now, although the tears haven’t quite stopped. I feel strangely steady.
His eyes harden at my speech. Deep down, he knows there's truth in them, but his defensiveness, his self importance pushes him to argue.
"God, you— You think you know me so well? You think you can pass judgment on me because I don't want the same things you do? You're just a naive girl who's in over her head!"
He was recycling the same words at this point, and instead of denying it, I waited for him to be finished.
"You think you're in love with me? You don't know what love is. You don’t know! You're just infatuated, obsessed and it’s embarrassing.”
I stare up at him, he was mean, he was cruel and he was searching for words to cut me even deeper than he already had. He was unrecognizable. A rush of pity washes over me.
“At least I have other emotions than need. Than lust, than the fear of being alone. I’d rather be embarrassing and hungry and obsessed, because that means I’m alive. You aren’t alive.
You’re going through the motions of life, you’re spent up and washed and haunted. And I’m sorry that you are, that you’re so sick in the head that you don’t realize that I would have done anything for you,”
It all comes out in a rush and I speak so hard from my chest, from my soul that I feel dizzy. And even after everything, after everything he’s done and he’s said, I want him to pull me into his arms.
I want him to wrap me in his warmth and envelop me in his scent and say he’s sorry and that he didn’t mean it and that he does love me and he was just testing me. That it was a sick joke. And we’d laugh. And he’d kiss me. And I wouldn’t care about the fight because he’d be hugging me.
But he doesn’t. He doesn’t do any of that. He shakes his head again and sucks his teeth. Like I was wrong. Like I was just making up words to hurt him.
—————————————————————————————
“I think you should leave,” He says.
“I think I should leave too,” I say.
It’s not as coolly as he says it, but with its with an equal finality. One thing we could agree on.
His anger fades, quick, and it’s replaced by something that might be regret, but he just can't bring himself to say the right thing. He's torn between what he wants and what he thinks is right, and in the end, it’s his fear that comes out on top.
"Fine. Leave, then. Go find someone who can give you the fairytale you're craving. See how that works out for you."
He hates himself for saying it, I can all but taste the self loathing, but it's too late.
“Yeah,” it’s a response that doesn’t quite make sense in the scenario, I’m aware, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of a last word, but I also wanted to leave him to sit with those ugly words he spewed. The last words he would speak to me.
I turn stiffly and exit his trailer, feeling oddly robotic, empty, and unexpectedly resigned. It’s not relief, not even close, but it’s more like accepting.
As I walk away, he stands rooted in his trailer, watching me leave. He wants so badly to call me back, to take every terrible thing he'd just said back, but the moment has passed.
He sinks down onto the couch we were sitting on together just minutes ago, running a hand through his hair, cursing out loud. Deep down, in the silence of the trailer settling around him like a damp blanket, he knows he's just made the biggest mistake of his life.
He’d never get me back, I would make sure of that. I would never go crawling back to him no matter how much he would plead for forgiveness, or even if he told me he loved me.
The moment had passed. He let me leave that trailer, he had allowed me to physically walk out of his life, dirty words thrown over his shoulder. He had murdered us, stabbed our relationship (if you could even call it that) over and over again until blood seeped out onto carpet and it couldn’t be revived nor repaired nor replaced nor resuscitated.
It was gone. Dead. And I would bury it by myself, and I’d dig the grave and toss in the remains and far too many tears would be shed and I’d never truly recover. I’d always be in some form of awful grieving because I still believe he’s the love of my life. And I’d never hate him, I just wouldn’t. I couldn’t.
He was my first love, my person, the sad part was that I just wasn’t that for him.
Was it a case of right person, wrong time?
I think it was more of a right person, wrong person sort of thing.
—————————————————————————————
He stares at the empty space where I once stood, his chest aching physically in a way he can't quite name. For the first time in years, he feels truly alone.
And it scares him.
He grabs a sketchbook from his desk—one filled with little doodles of me: my smile during takes on set, my laugh as he poked fun at me between scenes. His fingers hover over one particular drawing—a quick pencil portrait where he’d labeled it "My Muse" with an arrow pointed to my face.
He can’t even bring himself to smile, and tears sting behind his eyes. He feels sick as reality begins to creep in, settle in his bones.
And with that, the bleeding, crushing reality, the silence envelops the trailer, becoming deafening. He is alone now, his sketchbook still open to the drawing of me, the word "muse" mocking him cruelly. He runs his fingers across my face on the page, a tender touch that doesn't compare to the warmth of my actual flesh.
A warmth he can almost feel, and won’t ever forget.
To say he lost me would be too nice, in truth, he threw me away. He's thrown away the smile that made him ache in the best way, the touch that is comparable to heaven. He’s thrown away something irreplaceable.
He’s thrown away the only muse he ever truly cherished and the only muse he’d ever truly want.
—————————————————————————————
The End
Thank you for reading my little story that’s a peak into my sad little mind.
I love you guys, let me know if this was good, I’ll take constructive criticism too
For all the angry daughters who spend the days in their rooms, who tear out their hair, who scream under water, who pinch themselves and wonder why they are the way they are.
I am an angry person.
Not because I crave violence, or need to yell.
Not because the vulgarity of the word appeals to me.
Not because I find comfort in chaos or because I like to scare people.
I am angry because I am hurt.
I am angry because there are things I cannot control no matter how tight my fist, no matter how set my jaw, no matter how straight my steel spine.
I am angry because I love.
And love is a scary thing, love is a creature with wings that flies away and cannot be caged.
Love is passion, love is pain, love is the quiet moments in between.
Love is anger, and anger is me.
I’ve spent so long running from it, hiding from it, denying it.
Trying to purge it from my soul because I refused to be angry.
To be angry was to be dangerous.
To be angry was to be spiteful, hateful, evil.
But really to be angry is to be alive.
To be angry is to be fire, and to be rock.
To be stone and to be ash.
To burn and burn and burn. And burn.
How could I glitter, how could I overcome without anger?
Is anger not just a greater show of strength?
Of determination?
Is anger not beautiful in doses?
Is anger not caring? Is anger not a feeling? Emotion?
Wrath is a sin, but to be angry is to be human.
Are we not human? Are we not all of one flesh made from dust of the Earth?
I am an angry human.
I am angry and I am hurt.
I am angry and I love. And I feel and I crave and I create.
I am an angry person.
Not because I love to shout, not because I need to be heard.
I am angry because I need to fight for myself.
I need to fight for the child inside of my young adult skin.
I am angry because I am my father’s daughter, and I am stubbornly, passionately, fiery angry because I am my mother’s.
I am angry because we all are.
But I am not a hermit crab.
I do not have a shell to hide in when my anger begins to boil.
I am a just a girl, I am just a daughter, I am just a soul trying to be alive.
Summary: when the AC is broken, the temperature is not the only thing that’s heated between a couple !!
A/N: came to me in a dream, not really but it’s been so hot over here and I recently finished OBX and needed to write something angsty !!
WARNINGS: none really, brief language, use of Y/N like three times, angst, might not be entirely lore accurate idk ?
WC: 2.5k~
Dialouge: Rafe is in bold, reader is in italic
—————————————————————————————
The sun was high in the blue ranging sky, and clouds were absent, meaning it was hotter than it should’ve been in April. You were sat at a bar stool at their island, upper half draped over the cool marble counter that was absorbing the heat from your skin quickly, a tub of ice cream, mint chocolate, and a spoon stood melting beside you. Forgotten because even the action of lifting a spoon to your mouth seemed to be too much in this hellish temperature.
It was miserable, the way the strands of hair, escaped loose from your claw clipped hair, clung to the slope of your neck, glistening with salty sweat, muscles heavy and sluggish, the skin of your thighs sticking together where your denim shorts cut off. All of it, unmistakable signs of summer, except it was still April, not mid July. North Carolina was having a heat wave, and it definitely didn’t help that the air conditioning was busted.
It had broken back in December, when AC was definitely not a major concern. Rafe had planned to call the maintenance man but it kept slipping his mind, it wasn’t a top priority and he seemed more distracted than usual. But it could’ve waited to the end of May, when air conditioning was actually more of a relevancy. But now, when in dire need of it, there was none, and you were left to melt into puddles. Of course. Life always seemed to have a cruel sense of humor.
~
The sound front door opening doesn’t bring your head up from the counter, forehead pressed to the surface, it’s the heavy footstep, the sound of keys literally being thrown, and the call of your name, a tad too eagerly for a Tuesday afternoon, that does it.
“Y/N! Honey?”
It’s your boyfriend, Rafe, (of course), a smile spread onto his wolfish features, dimples spearing into his golden cheeks when he turns the corner into the kitchen.
“There you are, you didn’t hear me calling you?”
The smile doesn’t leave his face though, the blue of his eyes electric.
“I heard you,” You responds, and you can’t help the smile that spreads onto your own face, mirroring his. The rarity of his pretty smile was just too contagious not to pull one onto your features. He rounds the counter to pull your chair out from being tucked into the island, hands bracketing on either side of the arms of the seat as he leans close, so close you could count his light colored lashes.
“Then answer me when I’m talking to you,”
He says lowly, trying for menacing, but you can’t take him seriously with his glittering eyes. He attacks your face then with pecks, hands slipping to your thighs as he connects their lips that’s more giggles than a real kiss. His body heat is radiating off on to yours, but that’s not what makes you place your hands on his chest to draw back enough to create some space, it’s his excitement. It’s the way he’s bouncing on his feet and his face is practically glowing.
Out of character for him.
“What’s got you all excited?” You urge as his lips trail down to the soft curve of your jaw because you won’t allow access to your mouth right now. It tickles and you pushes at his chest again with gentle hands.
“Can’t I come home and just be excited to see my beautiful girlfriend? Is that a crime now, huh?”
He murmurs into your neck, the heat of his breath almost uncomfortable on top of the stagnant air in the air-conditionless house.
“Not a crime, you just seem like you’ve gotten some good news?” You prompts, finally tugging him back enough to look at him again, that ruggedly handsome smile of his playing at his lips.
“Maybe,” You knew it.
“Tell me,”
“It’s a surprise,” “Rafe,” “Y/N,” “Rafe,” “Alright,”
His hands come up in surrender at the way you press, because sooner or later, you would always pry the truth out of him. Maybe you were persistent or maybe he was just softer around the edges for you than he should be.
“We’re gonna be rich,” He says with a soft laugh, as if that was enough clarification to the questions swimming in your head.
“Rafe, we kind of already are?” Your brow arches in questioning.
He sighs, running a hand over his buzz, like he really didn’t want to spoil the surprise, but he would if it meant placating you.
“Even more so, then, more than you could even imagine, baby. I signed this contract to half of Goat Island, and we can sell that half for triple the amount I signed over for,”
Your mouth hangs slightly open as he rambles, the words hitting you, but he takes the silence as a sign to keep going, encouragement instead of disbelief.
“Baby, we’re talking one million and five thousand dollars. Cash,” He laughs again afterwards, so pleased with himself. Again, he mistakes your silence as overwhelming awe, as impression, as gratitude.
He gently cups your warm face and presses a kiss to the corner of your agape mouth.
“I know. I know, it’s a lot to take in,” He shushes you, smoothing loose hair away from your face. “But this is great for us,”
You takes his heavy hands away from your face with a slow exhale.
“Rafe, you did what?” The pure look of confusion that wipes the smile off his face would’ve been comical if you weren’t so worried. You grip onto his wrists, looking straight into his baffled eyes.
“What- what is Goat Island? What contract? With what money? Just— what?” Your brows pull together in confusion that mimics his, voice tight as the weight of his words begin to settle in your hippocampus.
“I— I signed a contract with Hollis. I had to make a down payment for insurance, but none of that matters because—“
“Whoa, whoa, Hollis? Like Hollis Robinson? Babe, she’s, like, known for her sketchy business, you know that right?”
He shakes his head, brows furrowed, retracting his hands away from your face, shaking your hands away from his wrists, like he can’t understand why you aren’t sharing in the joy of such good— no, such great news.
“What? No, God, where do you get this stuff?” He was growing frustrated, but so were you.
“We’re gonna be rich and you don’t care. You’re acting like—“ He refuses to believe the words coming out of your mouth, and you grab his at his wrists again to keep him from turning away entirely.
“Rafe, with what money?” You repeat firmly. A sigh from him and a refusal to look at you.
“The money my dad left. The rest of it,” You gasp in utter disbelief. What?
“Rafe, you gave her half a million dollars— No, not just half a million, the rest of the money your dad left you? In his will?” You hope with the punctuation of each word, he realizes just how ridiculous it all sounds.
“Just gave it to her, no reassurance, no nothing? We don’t even know if Goat Island is a place!” You raised your voice because he pulled away, pacing now, hands running over head, a sign of growing frustration, back towards you.
“It is a place, it is a place, and we are going to get the money back. With interest,” His voice is shaking from poorly concealed rage, and maybe even growing panic.
“No, you don’t know that. Have you seen it? Have you been there? Is there proof?” You know the answer to each question is no. A big, fat no. So you keep going.
“You signed a contract with a sketchy bitch and now the money that we kind of need, Rafe, to pay, you know, bills? It’s gone. Gone.” You stand from your chair even though your limbs creak in protest from sitting still for a little too long.
“Honestly, I don’t know why you didn’t talk to me first. This is kind of a big deal,”
“I didn’t talk to you because I was trying to do something for you! For us!” He spins around to face you, so fast that his shoes squeak on the tile floor, his eyes pleading with you for you to just try to understand. To see why he did this. It was all for a good cause.
So, with his pleading eyes, he drops to his knees before you, hands taking yours, too tight to be comfortable.
“I did this for us, baby. For once in my life I was trying to be selfless. You know, do a good deed?”
He looked utterly miserable, but you just couldn’t understand why he could do something so ridiculous. So careless. Just so… So stupid.
“No, you weren’t. You did this because it’s never enough. The money, the house, the business, me, it’s never enough, Rafe. And on top of that,” He shakes his head, not wanting to hear it, whispering something over and over again, his hands tightening even more on yours. It’s painful now, his rings digging into the skin of your fingers.
“Look at me,” You demand, ignoring the metal pressing into your hands, but he doesn’t look at you. He’s saying no, no, no under his breath. Denial, denial, denial. Though he doesn’t meet your eyes, you press on.
“And on top of that, you didn’t think to discuss this with me,”
“No, no,” He stands, releasing your hands (Thank God) and resumes his pacing. His jaw ticking, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.
“Yes! Yes, Rafe. You lost half a million dollars chasing some fairy tale when we had everything right here!” His hands slam down on to the counter of the island while you barely finish your sentence, sending the spoon that sat idly clattering to the floor from the sheer force.
You flinch and when he looks back up at you, any semblance of the man he came into the room as has been replaced by a lightning storm. Dangerous and deadly.
“Bullshit! Why is nothing I do ever enough for you!” He shouts, the vein in his neck jumping, hands clenched tightly into fists on the counter.
“Why? I am trying my best!”
You raise your voice to match his volume because his words couldn’t be more untrue.
“Everything you do has been enough for me! I have always been here! I was there at your lowest and at your highest, and I’m standing here now, aren’t I?”
“That’s not fair—“
“Aren’t I?” He scoffs, eyes closing as he tries to swallow the burning fury, the ache of what your words in all their truth are threatening to drag out of him.
“I don’t give a damn about the money, you know that,” He did, you told him every time he brought home a new necklace for you, offered to pay for your next nail appointment, asked you to quit your little job at the country club because he could “take care of you”.
“I know, I know, I just want to build a better life for us,” You shake your head, that wasn’t the truth.
“Bullshit. We have a perfect life, Rafe. This isn’t what this is about.” His jaw works again as you call him out, and a heavy silence fills the kitchen, almost as suffocating as the heat that causes a droplet of sweat to drip down his brow. He swipes at it with the back of his hand before pinching the bridge of his nose.
Your voice is much softer now as you look at him, all tense shoulders and grinding teeth, from across the counter.
“What is it really about, Rafe?” The mild prompting in your words is what has him dragging a hand over his face, blinking hard to will the glistening of unshed tears away.
Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, he begs himself internally.
“I don’t know,” He lies weakly, that stormy gaze of his switching to study a wall, his nose scrunching in a fight to not cry that he’s basically loosing. The sight has your heart doing something funny, and it pushes you from your side of the counter to behind him now, hands lifting to gently lay on his back.
“Rafe,” His name from your lips strangles a sound from his throat, it’s nothing short of wounded.
“I don’t know! I just wanted— I wanted to make you happy, I don’t know,” His voice breaks off into a shaky exhale, both hands pressing against his face as he tenses further.
“Okay, okay,” He didn’t need to say anything more, you pressed yourself into his back, forehead resting in between his shoulder blades, arms snaking around his waist. You hold him for as long as it takes to let him control his breathing before you speak again.
“Rafe, look at me,” You let go so he can turn around in your arms, eyes red rimmed. He was still so charming, even a mess as he searches your face for peace of mind.
“I am happy,” He exhales once again, harsh, through his nose. Like he doesn’t believe it.
“I am, I swear. And it’s not because of the money or because of anything you can give me in material,”
You know it was strange for him to hear that, girls around the Cut were always so materialistic. The man with the most money got the most girls. That was the culture here, who had the best boat, the biggest house, who could blow the most money on useless shit.
But here you were, wanting him whether there was a dime to his name or not. “I’m happy because I know you love me, and I know you would do anything for me, and I know that I feel the same way,”
Your hands travel up to cup his face, thumbs swiping at a stray tear along his bottom lash line.
“So. That means you can do whatever you want with your money, but if it’s something that you claim is for us? You need to talk to me,”
He nods in your hands, a brisk shaking of his head up and down, his own hands loosely hanging around your wrists, not in control, but as an anchor to himself.
“All I ask is that you talk to me,” your voice is quieter than a whisper, and he opens his mouth to speak, to say that he will from now on, that he won’t ever do anything like this again, that he’s so sorry, that he’s an idiot, but all that comes out is—
“I love you, Y/N,” That pulls a slow smile onto your lips, and you roll your eyes.
What a sap.
“I know,” You say. He smiles too, one that is a phantom of the smile he wore earlier, barely there, but still there and that’s something you’ll happily take. He takes you into a hug then, strong arms encircling your sweat-dampened body as he crushes you close to his own. He dips his head so that his mouth is directly next to your ear, breath as heavy as his words.
“I’ll get the money back, I swear,” he whispers, voice still unsteady, but full of convicted determination, amplified by the way his arms squeeze tighter around you.
“I know,” You whisper back, voice muffled from the way your face is tucked against his shoulder. You are thankful for that because he might’ve caught the disappointment, the exasperation.
If there was one thing Rafe Cameron would always be counted on to do, it was to get his money.
~
This work does not contain any use of AI, I don’t wanna hear it guys. This has come from my own silly brain !!
Spencer and his wife are making a docuseries for their future child.
pairing: future dad!/husband Spencer x future mom/wife reader
WC: 1.1k
WARNINGS: none really, MAJOR fluff, no use of Y/N, reader is pregnant, they are married (?)
“No, you’re doing it wrong—“
“No, I doubt that I am, actually,”
“Spencer, stop. Touching. It.”
Despite the seemingly straightforward inked instructions to follow on the white paper manual that came with it, the camcorder was much harder to work with than either Spencer or his wife had anticipated and the two of them had spent the better half of a warm Saturday morning bickering on how to set it up and get it properly functioning.
“I’m not even touching it! But, I believe this button right here—“ Spencer argued, hands that were hovering by sides reaching over to almost press a button.
“Wait, wait! It’s on,” She backs up and stares down the camera, eyes squinting in suspicion to whether or not it was seriously recording.
“Is it on?” She turns her head toward her husband, ponytail flicking her face as she does so from the speed of the head movement. Spencer looks equally as suspicious, that crinkle in between his brows giving it away.
“I don’t know,” Mr. Genius is speechless for once. He picks up the recording device and points it at his wife. She’s a soft-focused picture in the frame, squinty eyes and frowning lips and messy Saturday morning hair. The little screen displays a run time, seconds steadily ticking by in white numbers across the top.
“It is on,” his voice is nothing short of relief behind the camera and her shoulders bunched in frustration loosen, a smile gracing her face in the two of their shared alleviation.
“Alright,” she claps her hands in front of her, exhaling softly through her nose.
“Hi, future baby, it’s me, your mom,” she introduces herself, and her hands go to cradle her tummy. Though she hasn’t started showing yet, knowing that he or she, a product of the deepest form of her and Spencer’s love, is being formed in her womb makes her already feel far too maternal.
“You’re in here right now, and although I don’t know who you are yet, I know that I love you already,” On the other end of the camera, Spencer can’t help but smile, feeling the same warmth of love for something that doesn’t even have eyes or feet yet. But it will, and the premise is exceedingly enough.
“I know that you’re gonna make me and your dad so, so proud because you’re gonna be you,” She speaks with such sureness and such passion into the camera.
“And you’re gonna be the coolest little dude ever,” After her little spiel/introduction, hands leave her tummy to reach for the camcorder. Roles reversed now, her behind the camera, the lens pointed at Spencer’s face, she makes a little gasping sound.
“And, oh my goodness, who is this?” She coos into the camera and Spencer looks away very awkwardly, eyes darting all over the room. He wasn’t very good at these sorts of things, even if it was his idea to create a baby video diary.
“Well, I’m glad you asked, future baby, because this handsome creature,” Spencer scoffs, cheeks heating up as he swats at the camera. She sidesteps the swat and readjusts.
“Stop it,” despite his lighthearted protests, she continues.
“This is your dad,” A wave from Spence, awkward, lips pressed into his signature thin lipped smile, and out of frame, soft giggles erupt. He’s barely looking into the lens, more or less keeping his honey-nut eyes behind his glasses on the girl holding the camcorder. If he could put into words on how beautiful she looked, he’d be at a loss (a rarity for him), the closest would be glowing.
“I know, right?” She continues. “We are so lucky, let me tell you,” Her hand appears in frame as she points to Spencer, nails painted in a wide array of different shades of purple and he exhales a laugh, with it, some tension.
“This guy? He’s the bestest person ever, and he’s, like, super smart, so if you ever have any questions,
Dad will have no problem answering them,” Her voice goes from silly to soft with honesty as she introduces Spencer, future dad, properly, wanting their kid to know that he or she were going to have the best dad to walk the Earth. No one is ever truly ready to be a parent, but if anyone was to be a good one, it would be him. She was certain of that fact.
Spencer doesn’t like being in the spotlight for too long though, so he takes the camera from her once again and wraps a lanky arm around her waist, angling the camcorder above them so they are both in frame.
“We are so excited to meet you, and we miss you already,” Spencer speaks as his wife rests her head on his shoulder, nodding along to the words pouring out of his mouth.
“Well, missing someone you have never met isn’t actually possible, it’s really the idea of someone that the mind subconsciously makes—
“Actually, in Russia they call it tocka which literally translates to the spiritual anguish of missing someone or something you’ve never had,“
The info dump will probably make little future baby’s head explode, but she didn’t dare interrupt him. That would be a habit never developed in this household. He had spent his life with people who didn’t appreciate his quirks, and his home would not be one of those places. She presses a kiss to Spencer’s jaw, the closest bit of skin at the moment, and nods once again. Affection would also be something to be proud of, rather than ashamed of.
“So, we miss you already,”
She says, a repeat of his earlier words, a simple reiteration. Spencer’s free hand moves to rest on top of hers that’s lying gently on her belly. They gaze at each other briefly, but words aren’t needed for the look exchanged. It’s nothing short of pure adoration and respect and love. That’s what the household would consist of. This baby would be brought into a world of cherishing.
Future baby wouldn’t have to worry about doors slamming or belittling or being forced to eat food that made them sick, they would have to worry about lipstick stains left on skin for the first day of school and laughing until their cheeks hurt.
“Mommy loves you,” She brings the camera to her lips, an exaggerated mwah sound leaving her mouth and then she nudges Spencer.
“And- and Daddy loves you,” he says, it’s more in a Spencer fashion, reserved, shy, but his eyes tell the story his tone can’t convey properly.
She gives the lens a kiss for him, another over the top mwah (but that’s why he loved her) and clicks the button that ends the recording—
“No, that’s not the right button,”
“What? That’s literally the one you pressed, I saw you,”
“No, it’s this o—“
Though the screen goes black, the amount of love poured into the short video, an introductory if you will, is left lingering, and maybe a few laughs can be taken away as well. But, future baby was already adored, and future baby was already the best thing that happened to the Reid household.
AI-Free Blog, no AI was used in the writing of this.
a/n: maybe I should attend therapy for my parental issues, but why pay when writing Spence as a dad is free??
a/n #2: spring / summer baby fever is no joke
This was loosely based on this edit I saw on TikTok, credits to @edit_inqq!!
Angels did not exist. Not ones with wings and halos and bare feet, but instead with eyes like a wounded doe and fingernails painted the most perfect blue on the planet. The blue of a summer Florida sky.
Angels existed, but they had hair that caught the light of sun perfectly, jaws that softly curved like the gentle edge of polished wood, a nose that even great deities would be envious of.
Angels existed, Derek Morgan knew— he was sure of it, because one was standing approximately 8 feet away from him.
••••••••••
“Can I help you, sir?” Her voice repeated her question into the open again, just as melodic as the first time and Derek Morgan was rendered speechless. He worked his brain to say something, man, anything, but he remains staring for a beat too long. So, that prompts her to ask—
“Are you lost?”
This, in the history of evers, has never ever happened to him. Of all people, he was the one that was doing the rendering of speech gag, not the other way around. Never the other way around. So naturally, he had to get his act together. He had to flip the tables, pick his hand back up, play the house in his favor, bet on red. He gathered his metaphorical jaw up from the ground and walked closer to the voice that suited the face like a glove.
Morgan closed the distance until there was approximately four feet of safety between them, because being FBI meant never being too careful no matter how sweet the honey looked or sounded. His chest physically ached when he realized that she was all the more drop-dead gorgeous up close, though. She could easily be the muse for an 18th century artist. Like, seriously. He could’ve died and gone to wherever you go after you die as long as she was there to greet him.
Okay, Morgan. Be cool, be smooth.
“No, ma’am, I’m Agent Derek Morgan with the FBI,” A flash of his credentials that’s too quick for anything to be actually read.
“Me and my associates were just stopping by to speak with Reverend Chelsea,”
Was mentioning that he was part of the FBI right off the bat the smoothest move that Derek could’ve rolled out? Absolutely not. Was flashing his badge like she was under arrest any better? Hell no. But he’d kick himself for it later. Right now? Well, right now, he had her undivided attention, and something deep inside of him didn’t want to let that go, not even for a second to exhale a breath.
Her brows, ones that fit her face so perfectly, furrowed until her forehead creased and her facial expression now favored that of a kicked puppy more than a doe. Sorrow bounced around in her pretty eyes, the same sort of miserable earnest that the Reverend had in his. But, a biased Derek believed hers far more than the man inside of that church.
“Oh. You’re here about the girls, the murders,” It wasn’t a question, just a simple conclusion spoken out loud, but Derek wanted to confirm anyway. An attempt to ease some of the utter misery that was coloring her features perhaps. She looked so torn up about it.
“Yeah, we’re just asking a few preliminary questions, mapping the land out,” Maybe he was using bigger words right now to impress her. What about it?
“Did you know any of the victims personally? You look pretty eaten up, baby girl,”
The pet name seems to throw her for a loop and she blinks those big, gorgeous eyes a few times, like she’s blinking off the term, like it offended her more than it flattered her. Ouch.
“No, no, I didn’t. I mean, I had seen them around the church, but,”
She absently fidgets with the end of a loose strand of her that poured from the confines of the hair tie that tied the rest of it atop her head.
“We never spoke. Any of us. They were a bit out of my age range,” Her voice trails off, her eyes wandering to the trees. Everyone knows that the bodies were dumped there, news spread fast out here in Clearwater. He wants to tell her, eyes on me, pretty, because he can’t stand the sight of the self-loathing that taints her gaze. Like she could’ve possibly predicted the outcome of what had happened.
“Maybe I should have, you know? Maybe I could’ve—“ She stammers out.
“Don’t do that.” He shut her down almost instantly. There was nothing anyone could’ve done, especially not now when they were already six feet deep. Killers were always going to kill. That much was in their DNA, a chemical makeup that no amount of pondering the past was ever going to correct.
“Hey, look at me,” Morgan knew what it was like, playing the blame game, and all it ever got him was a twisted gut and heavy shoulders. There was no fruit to be picked from that tree that tasted anything other than bitter in the mouth. He waited for her eye line to flit back from the old man trees to meet his own. All it took was for those pretty eyes to look into his, and he felt like his entire soul was being bared naked before her. Like she could see through him, and he subconsciously wondered if she would hate what she saw.
Focus, Morgan.
“There she is,” He smiles at her, slow and encouraging. She returns it with the softness of butter, and he could’ve been reduced to a puddle if he was a weaker man.
“Don’t blame yourself, never works,” He warns carefully after a minute of silent gazing that he felt he earned. “Trust me, sweetheart, been there done that,” He says it to her gently, and maybe if he had been closer, he would’ve placed a hand on her upper arm. It would be reassuring to her, but to him, it’d be a chance to know what that smooth skin felt like underneath the roughness of his hot palms—
“I’m sure you’ve done that. Blame yourself. With everything that you’ve seen,” She crosses arms over herself, like she was cold, even though the air was stagnant and the sun was high in the cloudless sky. Again, he yearns to reach for her, replace her hands that wrapped around her biceps with his own. He opts for a shrug of shoulders instead, trying for ease, landing like ill-timed nonchalance.
“Eh, you get used to it. I’ve been doing this a long time—“
“Get used to seeing dead bodies?” She questions with thinly veiled mortification, a perfectly shaped brow arching. Strike one.
“That’s not— it doesn’t get easier, I have just as many nightmares as the next guy—“ he attempts to backpedal, almost sputtering (not so smoothly, if only the team could see him now) over his words, a hand rubbing at the back of his neck, the skin there damp and tacky with sweat.
“Hm. I know a trick for nightmares,” She interrupted him, taking a handful of careful steps forward, and Derek wonders if she did it out of pity, as if she couldn’t stand to see him make a fool out of himself any longer. But he doesn’t care, because she’s closer now. Close enough so that he can smell the salted sweat on her skin, the clean shampoo lingering in strands of her hair, a hint of cinnamon from the breath mint she had tucked behind her molars as she conversed with him. It was intoxicating, addicting, stronger than any drug, and twice as dizzying than any liquor.
“I’m all ears,” the volume in Derek’s voice had decreased, but that’s thanks to the lump that rises up in his throat, lodged there like he’s swallowed a cement block. Or maybe two. His confidence had been lost the moment she looked at him, if he was being frank. It had dissolved like salt in hot water.
••••••••••
Here she was. Inched forward and smelling like something Derek wanted to make a candle out of. She was about to let him in on the secret, the trick, she was leaning forward, invading his space even more, not that he gave a damn at all, when the double doors to the church swung open, causing the both of their heads to turn to the source of the disturbance.
“Morgan, we’ve got some new information,”
••••••••••
Internally, Derek groaned because the woman was retreating, and with her, dragging her scent away from its invasion on his senses. And the secret that he would now never get to have insider knowledge on. Damn you, Hotch.
Morgan straightened himself, pushed the sleeves of his shirt further up his elbows, and turned to face his superior.
“Hit me with it, Hotch,” But the older man isn’t looking at him, he’s looking past him. Following his line of sight, his own eyes land on the woman. Right. New details meant disturbing ones (disturbing being the mildest word to be used), and there was a civilian they were not looking to traumatize any more than she already could be.
She stiffened under the pressure of 3 pairs of intense FBI agent eyes on her as anyone would, but she wiped her hands on the skirt of her sundress anyway and extended her right hand to Hotch as she stepped forward. It was most likely her dominant one, Morgan noted, for no other reason than to file away into his internal folder he’s already labeled Her inside of his brain. Yes, it was already that bad.
••••••••••
Introducing herself to both Prentiss and Hotchner, she did it with a polite smile, an almost imperceptible nod of her head. When she said her name, Morgan suddenly couldn’t imagine one that would suit her more than the one she was gave. (Good on her parents for that). He also feels a sick wave of envy wash over him. Envy that he wasn’t the first one to be christened by the word falling from her lips— and that she touched the other agents’ hands.
Get a grip, man. Be cool.
“I see you and Agent Morgan have already met,” Maybe he’s crazy, but Derek swears the smile that she gave him was different than what she had allowed the other two agents. It felt more genuine, tailored to him, a smile that he already stuck claim into owning like a property for sale.
“Yes, we have,” She says with that smile that could lure him to a very violent death, yet he’d still categorize it as bittersweet. They shake hands anyway, and it was a mistake. Huge mistake. Big mistake.
••••••••••
When the man’s hand closed around hers, he didn’t ever want to release it. Her skin was soft, naturally in a way no amount of copious moisturizing couldn’t ever achieve, and when her fingers curved around his, it felt like they were just made to do so. Even though the handshake lasted all of five seconds, maybe even less, Morgan squeezed her hand briefly before they retracted from one another. He burned the feeling of her hand, the pressure of it, the shape, deep, deep inside of his mind. He’d never forget it. Ever. And pathetically, he had craved the touch all over again as soon as it was over.
And Hotchner, ever the profiler, he did not miss the puppy dog look in Morgan’s eyes, a look he wasn’t unfamiliar with, but coming from his hard ass agent, it was unsettling, to say the least. So, the man cleared his throat and did something out of character himself.
“We’ll be in the car, Agent, catch up,” His tone is the regular monotone, but Derek knows that this is his boss doing him a solid. Giving him the chance to spend just a few minutes longer with this mystery girl who had begrudgingly stole Derek’s heart… captured his attention.
“Will do,” He responds as the two agents walk off, Emily Prentiss having a sort of look seeping through her professional expression of… Giddy? That she throws over her should at him. He had assumptions that he would be nagged about this the entire ride back to the temporary office.
But, back to the matter at hand.
Morgan clears his throat. They’re alone once again, but this time, they are closer, so much so that he could almost taste the scent of her, so much so that this time, if he wanted to (which he did, but he had self control) he could touch her easily, without so much as a second thought, he could feel that skin—
“So, will you be around?” She asks, dragging him away from where his mind should definitely not be wandering right now.
“Hmm? Wh-what?” Did he just… stutter? This kind of thing was to be expected by a man without his background regarding women, a man like Reid (no offense, kid), but not Derek Morgan. What was she doing to him? He should slap himself.
“You know, for the case? Sorry, I was just assuming because it’s still unsolved—
“—No, yeah, the case, yeah, we’ll be sticking around for as long as need be,” he interrupted, because why else would he be casually in Clearwater? Miami made sense, nice beaches, nice visual stimulation, but Clearwater? There was nothing here that was worth gawking at with its ugly trees and unimpressive architecture. Well, except for this girl right here.
And the girl in question nods at his abrupt response, like she’s considering the weight of the words.
“Well,” She began, chewing her words over in her mouth, “we offer a really great service,” Derek chokes on spit, air— quite literally nothing and his thick eyebrows shot up in questioning. What?
Oh. Oh. Her eyes flood with panic, her cheeks color fuchsia due to the implication the man before her seemed to take her words as, and she quickly waves her delicate hands in denial.
“Oh, no,” An awkward laugh. Great. Strike two.
“I meant we do,” she clarifies by gesturing to none other than the outwardly dilapidated church standing behind her. It clicks. That’s why she was here. He hadn’t questioned it before (a red flag for any profiler, not immediately asking questions— that was Profiling 101, stranger wandering around the crime scene). But, it all made sense, the welcoming but wary demeanor, the way she spoke about the victims, seeing them around church (could it have been anymore blatantly obvious?), the airy way she carried herself, and he catches something he hadn’t notice before; the cross pendant, thin and gold and delicate, perched in the hollow of her collarbones. It wasn’t as obnoxious as he felt the Reverend’s was, but the way that it was there, hanging like a mockery, ruining everything he had any semblance of hope for. That’s what happens when you get your hopes up, he thought. He knew better than to do that, yet he managed to do so anyways, disobeying his own rules.
••••••••••
“Oh, I don’t do that,”
It’s dismissive, and he shoves his hands into his pockets with an air of nonchalance. If Hotch was here though, he’d say that he was closing himself off, his body language no longer open.
“Don’t do what, Derek?”
She just wants to hear me say it, he thinks, but for the love of all that is holy (haha), when she says his name— another thing to file away and open up late at night and pick apart, the way her lips formed around each letter, the way it pushed itself out of her mouth with such ease— he couldn’t help himself but to want to open up to her.
He takes one hand from his pocket and motions behind them as she did, towards the building that desperately needed a pressure washing if nothing else.
“Services, church, just, this,” For once, unlike every other church oriented community, every pastor or volunteer he’s ever talked to, she didn’t seem like she was judging in that condescending way him for his explanation (if one could even classify it as that), instead, she just nodded her head again. Like she understood. Like there was no need for anything else to be said or expanded on. Her eyes even softened.
“Well, you’re always welcome. We— I would be happy to see you around again,”
I would be happy to see you.
He repeated this to himself internally over and over, like a vinyl on repeat in his head, his new favorite song. It was a shame he’d never see her again. A damn shame that the next words that would come out of his mouth, the last words he’d say to her, they would be a flat lie.
And he hated himself for it.
••••••••••
“I’ll see what I can do,”
He wouldn’t. As soon as he got in the black FBI SUV, he’d let out a breath of finally. He would be escaping from the clutches of the ridiculously performative establishment. He wouldn’t regret not looking back, he wouldn’t regret not speaking a word to the man who sinned, just like every other man, except under “holy” pretenses, so he was absolved automatically.
He wouldn’t see what he could do. He was lying through straight, white teeth and they both knew it. And, if it wasn’t for her, he’d probably have a smile on his handsome face. If it wasn’t for her, it wouldn’t have been as hard as it was to walk away.
God, if it wasn’t for her, he wouldn’t have pictured himself doing something he’d hadn’t done since he was in high school.
He wouldn’t have pictured waking up on a Sunday morning, dressing to the nines, and seating himself in a pew surrounding by others with tears in their eyes and outstretched hands. He wouldn’t have pictured himself clapping along to worship music, he wouldn’t have pictured himself holding her pretty hand as they watched Reverend Chelsea preach.
A/N: jeez, this took me longer than I would’ve liked it to, but finals have been tortuous!! thank you for reading part 2, and I’m really excited to keep this story growing!!
please reblog, it’ll help so much, and go read the first part !
Florida. Why were the worst cases always in Florida?
Derek Morgan wasn’t thrilled to get on the jet that morning. It wasn’t just that this case was sickeningly sadistic, the images that JJ had displayed on the monitor this morning flashing like a perverted slideshow every time he shut his eyelids, no, it was never just one thing. It didn’t help that Garcia wasn’t being her usual silly sunshine-y self. Somehow, he had managed to say the wrong thing about this guy she had brought up in a conversation and even though the man wasn’t much of an over-thinker, the lack of a flirty sign off they so normally exchanged had Morgan’s jaw ticking. For the entirety of the jet ride, his headphones remained locked over his ears, gaze steadied on the empty seat before him. No banter with the team, no coffee breaks, no teasing Reid’s poor handwriting.
The team knew not to bother him, not like this. Not when his arms were crossed over his chest and his dark eyes were brewing. Not like espresso, not rich and smooth, rather like storms instead. Dark, clouded, striking. Focused and unfocused simultaneously.
••••••••
Florida. Why was it always so damn hot in Florida?
When the jet landed, rockier than normal, Morgan let out a low curse in between his teeth. Coupled with the unrelenting sun, the humidity that had thickened the air made it hard to have a solid breath in or out. It squeezed one’s lungs and created a film in the mouth, and definitely worsened the sour mood Derek Morgan found himself in. The sweat trickling into his eyes behind his dark tinted shades stung, and his sleeves rolled up past his elbows were not helping to cool him off. Not even by a half of a degree, internally or externally.
He didn’t know why, but his blood was boiling like a pot of salted water on a gas burner. Not just because of Garcia or the case, but there was something else. Deeper, hiding underneath his melanin skin, scratching and clawing and attempting to rear its head, but he’d push it down. Like he always did, like he always would. He was ever the resilient one, ever the tough guy, ever the ladies’ man. He’d stay professional, he’d stay focused.
••••••••••
The sheriff’s office in Clearwater, Florida was nothing less than a mess of hustle and bustle, paperwork and sweat and coffee all marinated in one cramped space. It appeared as if all hands in the county were on deck due to the string of disgustingly violent serial murders that were going unsolved, coming up on four months now. And despite that, nothing was really getting done. Typical. The BAU always needed to grab the towel and mop up the big boy spill at the end of the day.
The sheriff was an older man. He had crows feet and wrinkles that decorated his tanned face like an old leather boot, with a heavy ‘stache on his upper lip that wasn’t quite the same shade as the hair on his head, and some funky looking sideburns that were oh so 70s. He stuck out his meaty, freckled hand to Hotchner when he caught sight of the six serious looking agents that stuck out like sore thumbs.
“Sheriff Gibson,” Hotch says as he takes the older man’s hand in his signature, controlled drone. Classic Hotch fashion.
“You must be Special Agent Aaron Hotchner,”
“Yes, sir, I am and this is my team, SSA Jennifer Jareau, SSA David Rossi, SSA Emily Prentiss, SSA Derek Morgan, and Dr. Spencer Reid,” He introduces the team with equal respect to each name, each handshake exchanged was firm, save for Dr. Spencer Reid, who opts for a awkward wave of his hand and a tight lipped smile. Classic Reid fashion, believe it or not.
“We— I am glad you’re here, agents. We are in above our heads out here in quiet, little Clearwater,” Gibson says with a laugh that’s more coughing wheeze than much anything else. Derek can tell by the heavy bags underneath Sheriff Gibson’s eyes that sleep was not something that he had been graced by for at least a week or two. It doesn’t take a profiler to tell that this little office was swamped, no pun intended.
“Thank you for having us,” Hotch replies. “Is there a place where we can set up shop?” The sheriff nods and motions for the six of them to follow. Leading them through the cramped building, they land in the back of it, huddling into a small, dense room that barely fits the foldable table that’s littered with the details of the case, and a white board smeared with leftover dry erase marker residue, let alone 6 other adults.
“This is all we’ve got,” Gibson sighs, his tone apologetic when the silence settles heavy. Derek scoffs, hands moving to rest on his hips, eyes judgmental. It was just so freaking laughable. Cramped, stuffy, very little resources, no leads, backwoods Florida folk to deal with— this was going to be one hell of an easy case, for sure. Hotch narrows his eyes in Morgan’s direction, a nonverbal warning and turns back to the sheriff with a polite but stiff nod.
“We’ll manage, Sheriff. Thank you,”
“I’ll leave y’all to it, then. Y’all need anything, just give a whistle,” The sheriff exits and a few preliminary thank yous are thrown over the shoulders of Jennifer Jareau— JJ— and Emily Prentiss.
“Yeah, we’ll manage,” Morgan grits out as he unceremoniously drops himself in one of the chairs wedged awkwardly into the room to provide some sort of seating. He feels as if he might break it as it creaks underneath the weight of muscle.
“It smells like stale mildew in here and Reid can barely stand up straight,”
The complaints fired off by Morgan were shallow, hardly of any relevance, and usually not something he would even bother to bring up. He was always first to jump at leads, putting his mind to work, no matter the working conditions. Additionally, they’ve had way worse. Today, he was offering the opposite, though. It strikes Hotch as odd, out of character, somewhat troubling. But, he ignores the quips instead, using his judgement (whether for the better or worse was yet to be determined) and chooses to turn focus to the images of the abused and mutilated young adult female corpses laid across the table instead. He clears his throat.
“So, here’s what we know— all of our victims were adolescent females, ranging from 14 to 17, minors with no racial preference from what we can tell,” He slides each member their own photo to study as he speaks.
“All have heavy evidence of sexual assault and severe trauma to their bodies, from blunt force to stab wounds to strangulation, and all have experienced severe torture and starvation prior to death,”
Morgan’s eyebrows set lower, a grimace shadowing his face as he listens to Hotch repeat the details of the case. They’ve already heard them all, they needed to do was organize it, familiarize with it— like always, because there’s no room for mistakes when dealing with a serial killer, especially one with this level of psychological sadism. So, why was Derek taking it so hard this time?
Focus, Morgan. Get your head in the game, man.
“And, the kicker—Each had a rib removed,” Reid adds as he studies a photo, a close shot of the jagged wound from a paled, lifeless body. It makes the coffee Derek had as a substitute for breakfast churn in his stomach.
“The cuts made, they aren’t skillful, and get significantly worse with each kill. So does the cooling down period, killing within days instead of months, which is a symbolizer for a slipping further into psychosis, his urges to kill getting stronger,”
“Usually, unsubs become more precise as they progress and become more familiar with killing, but these gashes, they get deeper, more passionate, more brutal. Almost— frantic,”
It’s an observation made by the doctor, coincidentally the youngest one on the team, and nods are exchanged throughout the room in agreement.
“Passionate?” Derek questions, the word settling in his sternum in an uncomfortable way.
“Yeah, our unsub, he’s obviously driven passionately by the book of Genesis,”
“Genesis? You mean, in the Bible?” Prentiss asks, earning her a brief nod from Reid.
“In the book of Genesis,” Reid continues,
“Or, at least in our unsub’s perspective, Eve is the considered the sole reason for the downfall of mankind. The birth of sin, if you will,”
Another scoff drags itself from Derek’s lips.
Of course. It was always these nut jobs, the most evil bastards that drove their work from the Bible. The so-called Holy Book. They had a message of God, dreamed of prophecies, needed to cleanse the world of evil according to His will.
Yeah, right.
“So, he’s punishing these women. Punishing them for being sinners and for the sin of being a woman, essentially, hence the missing rib, and the brutality. He harbors a deep hatred towards women,”
“But how does he choose his victims?” Rossi inquires, more as an out loud thought, notepad in one hand, but they all lean in to look at the gorey Polaroids spread over the wooden surface, contemplating the question.
No one has an answer. That’s the next step, then.
“JJ, call Garcia and ask her to dig deep into each of our victims lives, find us anything you can. Reid and Rossi, I want you interviewing the families, friends,” Hotch adjusts his suit jacket as he directs each team member with practiced familiarity of having done it for so long. Maybe too long.
“Prentiss, Morgan, you’re with me,” Prentiss stands without questioning, ready to kick some ass, classic Emily Prentiss fashion, but Derek is slower to rise to his feet.
His gaze is still transfixed on one particular photo— it’s the youngest victim, just fourteen years old, a large, open gash in her honey-colored skin, below her breast, revealing the harsh red of her insides. A missing bone is obvious, and it makes Morgan sick. She was just a kid, a baby.
But Morgan knew that in the eyes of the “righteous God”, that held no importance.
“Morgan,” Hotch says with a little more intensity, causing Derek’s brown eyes to meet his finally.
“Yeah,” Morgan says and pushes himself from the chair that made his lower back ache.
Focus, get your head in the game.
••••••••••
The drive to the church was one Morgan spent with his fists clenched at his sides and his teeth grinding inside the walls of his mouth. Garcia had run a background check on each of the victims, and they had all been active members of Palm Church, a Baptist church, 0.5 miles away from the location of where each and every body, all six, had been found.
The dumping site was less than one mile away from a church. God’s house, as it was commonly labeled (a fact from Reid). The concept— no, actually, the reality of that, settled thick, like a bitter syrup in Derek’s bones, and hardened into disdainful agate by the time the SUV tires crunched on gravel, signaling the inevitable arrival to their destination.
••••••••••
A white building, not tall by any means, not at all impressive either, stood proudly, like an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence. It didn’t look new by any means, the stained glass windows must’ve been original, and the way wild poison ivy vines and clover roots crept up the sides told a wordless truth. A cross, a white, thin structure, a symbol, an idol, sat perched on the roof of the building and the very sight of it sent a wicked shiver down Derek Morgan’s spine.
He hated this place. Despised it.
Not because it was old and unfortunate to look at, but because of what it was. What it claimed to be. What it begged to be.
It could’ve been big and beautiful, grand and clean and new, yet, he would’ve despised it all the same. That’s why as he climbed out of the car, he felt like he was moving in slow motion. Like he was wading waist deep through a pool of black molasses, and no matter how much he willed his limbs to move faster, he couldn’t get them to obey.
At least, spiritually, that’s how it felt. Outwardly, he fell in perfectly synced steps next to his boss and coworker. Yet, his gait wasn’t the confident swagger he usual pushed into a room with. Not that it was awkward either, it was rather… hostile. Tense steps, heavy steps, one angry foot in front of another.
•••••••••••
Pushing past the double wooden doors of the church, doors that smelled like the same mildew the office back at the station had, the sight inside was a stark contrast to the outside. The interior was lined in a dark oak paneling, from high ceiling to floor. Polished, lacquered wood that shone like a waxed sports car, and smelled even better. Like fresh fruit or roses or something else sweet and vibrant and full of life. It made Morgan dizzy. The pews were perfectly spaced, cushioned and even and even the alter was a sight. It was a matching oak, and the soapbox for the preacher held the source of the sickeningly sweet scent, a bouquet of flowers sat atop of it—roses. Bingo.
“My brothers,” A male voice, clear and warm, cut through the silence in the church, echoing through the emptiness of the room. A man with kind eyes and dark skin emerged, dressed in a pressed lilac polo and khaki slacks, arms spread.
“And my sister,” he added with a dimpled smile when he caught sight of Prentiss. She smiled back. Morgan wondered if it was genuine or obligatory.
“To what do I owe the pleasure? We are closed today, but there’s always time for the Lord here,”
Morgan had to fight all the nerves in his body to refrain from rolling his eyes, or laughing outwardly in the old man’s face. He wasn’t a disrespectful man, even he drew lines at human decency, but the words were undoubtedly rehearsed. Disgustingly so. He would know, he’s heard them countless times in his youth before.
“You must be Reverend Chelsea?” Hotch steps forward to shake the man’s hand while the other two agents remain flanked at his sides.
“Yes, sir,” The reverend confirms, the ease of a smile never dropping from his face. Despite the man’s age, he was good looking. Handsome and put together and carried himself well, a straight back, but without the prideful air a man of his nature might usually have.
So, he was a better faker than the others, Derek would give him that.
“I’m Special Agent Aaron Hotchner with the FBI, and this is Special Agent Morgan and Prentiss,” Obligatory introductions require handshakes, as per usual. Prentiss complies but Morgan keeps his arms crossed, guarded.
Reverend Chelsea seems to take zero offense, like he knows the reason for Derek’s absence of tolerating warmth even though he couldn’t possibly. He was just a man. Of the flesh like any other.
“Agents, you must be here for the murders,” The man concludes, his hand rubbing over the salt and pepper goatee that decorated his chin, his kind eyes going soft with a sorrow that was beyond words. The sort of sorrow you would only see from a parent who had lost their child firsthand.
Derek Morgan was an excellent profiler, one of the best in his field, but as he scrutinized the reverend’s face, he detected no signs of deceit, the sorrow was earnest. Or appeared to be. That pissed him off to no end and as Hotch began to speak, the younger male agent spun on his heel, away from the other three, away from the reverend and his kind eyes and his clear voice, away from the glittering cross he wore on a chain around his neck. An obnoxiously showy sign of his so-called faith.
He felt the stare of confusion drilled into his back by Emily Prentiss, but he frankly didn’t give a damn. He couldn’t be under this roof, in this place a single nanosecond longer— not with the headache inducing scent of roses on the altar, not with the high ceilings and the perfect pews, not with the lies in guise of something holy.
He needed air or he might’ve imploded on the spot. Or worse yet, exploded. Ticking time blobs tended to do that.
••••••••••
Morgan broke free of the double doors of the church in record time for speed walking. (He surprised even himself when he didn’t break out into a full on jog). The swampy, suffocating humidity that hung in the air was more welcome than the indoor cleanliness. It was too good to be true, the level of clean. It had to be covering something up. Perhaps the scent of unspeakable sin underneath the fragrant bouquet of blood red petals.
With hands on his hips, chest heaving like he just ran a marathon, sweat already beginning to bead on his brow, he looked out at the landscape surrounding the church. Flat land, a building built on a patch of grass, and in the near distance? Ugly, bent over trees. Hunched trunks and branches infested with Spanish moss that hung like old men’s beards and covered their leaves. They were lined up along the horizon, a sparse sort of wood where the bodies had been located.
It was strange. Sparse woods tainted with the memories of blood and death of innocent souls seemed more inviting than being enclosed in the doors of a church to Derek.
“Can I help you?”
Derek’s eye line snaps from the ugly, old men-esque trees to the source of the question spoken by a new voice.
A female voice, carrying the lilt like a breeze of sweet wind and possessing the softness of a petal from a lily. Not a rose. Never a rose.
••••••••••
When his dark eyes concealed by sunglasses found the source, he pressed his lips together to keep his mouth from falling open like the male protagonist in a cliche rom-com.
The voice be personified, a woman, stood about 8 feet away from where he did, loose hair— from an updo lazily tied atop her head to spare her skin from added heat— hung around her face like curtains, making the color of her glossed lips pop.
Her eyes, orbs of the prettiest color he’d ever seen, shimmered in the Florida sun, and even her hands perched on her hips were strangely otherworldly in an elegant way, the lengths of her nails painted a blue that resembled the color of the afternoon sky.
Suddenly, for the first time in his adult life, Morgan considered the possibility of angels and their existence, because what else could provide explanation to the deity standing before him?
Angels, in fact, did not have wings or halos or harps.
They had glossed lips and bright eyes and blue fingernails.
in watching dead poets society, you are this close from calling it nothing spectacular, just another cute coming of age movie with slightly more memorable quotes, boy bonding, obvious yaoi that will never be fulfilled and then…
“I was good, I was really good,”
Excuse me? EXCUSE ME? This was possibly worse rhan brokeback mountain, I am physically fucking ill. Everyone who wrote this and participated in this film needs to be locked up immediately. Rights revoked.
Spencer and his wife are making a docuseries for their future child.
pairing: future dad!/husband Spencer x future mom/wife reader
WC: 1.1k
WARNINGS: none really, MAJOR fluff, no use of Y/N, reader is pregnant, they are married (?)
“No, you’re doing it wrong—“
“No, I doubt that I am, actually,”
“Spencer, stop. Touching. It.”
Despite the seemingly straightforward inked instructions to follow on the white paper manual that came with it, the camcorder was much harder to work with than either Spencer or his wife had anticipated and the two of them had spent the better half of a warm Saturday morning bickering on how to set it up and get it properly functioning.
“I’m not even touching it! But, I believe this button right here—“ Spencer argued, hands that were hovering by sides reaching over to almost press a button.
“Wait, wait! It’s on,” She backs up and stares down the camera, eyes squinting in suspicion to whether or not it was seriously recording.
“Is it on?” She turns her head toward her husband, ponytail flicking her face as she does so from the speed of the head movement. Spencer looks equally as suspicious, that crinkle in between his brows giving it away.
“I don’t know,” Mr. Genius is speechless for once. He picks up the recording device and points it at his wife. She’s a soft-focused picture in the frame, squinty eyes and frowning lips and messy Saturday morning hair. The little screen displays a run time, seconds steadily ticking by in white numbers across the top.
“It is on,” his voice is nothing short of relief behind the camera and her shoulders bunched in frustration loosen, a smile gracing her face in the two of their shared alleviation.
“Alright,” she claps her hands in front of her, exhaling softly through her nose.
“Hi, future baby, it’s me, your mom,” she introduces herself, and her hands go to cradle her tummy. Though she hasn’t started showing yet, knowing that he or she, a product of the deepest form of her and Spencer’s love, is being formed in her womb makes her already feel far too maternal.
“You’re in here right now, and although I don’t know who you are yet, I know that I love you already,” On the other end of the camera, Spencer can’t help but smile, feeling the same warmth of love for something that doesn’t even have eyes or feet yet. But it will, and the premise is exceedingly enough.
“I know that you’re gonna make me and your dad so, so proud because you’re gonna be you,” She speaks with such sureness and such passion into the camera.
“And you’re gonna be the coolest little dude ever,” After her little spiel/introduction, hands leave her tummy to reach for the camcorder. Roles reversed now, her behind the camera, the lens pointed at Spencer’s face, she makes a little gasping sound.
“And, oh my goodness, who is this?” She coos into the camera and Spencer looks away very awkwardly, eyes darting all over the room. He wasn’t very good at these sorts of things, even if it was his idea to create a baby video diary.
“Well, I’m glad you asked, future baby, because this handsome creature,” Spencer scoffs, cheeks heating up as he swats at the camera. She sidesteps the swat and readjusts.
“Stop it,” despite his lighthearted protests, she continues.
“This is your dad,” A wave from Spence, awkward, lips pressed into his signature thin lipped smile, and out of frame, soft giggles erupt. He’s barely looking into the lens, more or less keeping his honey-nut eyes behind his glasses on the girl holding the camcorder. If he could put into words on how beautiful she looked, he’d be at a loss (a rarity for him), the closest would be glowing.
“I know, right?” She continues. “We are so lucky, let me tell you,” Her hand appears in frame as she points to Spencer, nails painted in a wide array of different shades of purple and he exhales a laugh, with it, some tension.
“This guy? He’s the bestest person ever, and he’s, like, super smart, so if you ever have any questions,
Dad will have no problem answering them,” Her voice goes from silly to soft with honesty as she introduces Spencer, future dad, properly, wanting their kid to know that he or she were going to have the best dad to walk the Earth. No one is ever truly ready to be a parent, but if anyone was to be a good one, it would be him. She was certain of that fact.
Spencer doesn’t like being in the spotlight for too long though, so he takes the camera from her once again and wraps a lanky arm around her waist, angling the camcorder above them so they are both in frame.
“We are so excited to meet you, and we miss you already,” Spencer speaks as his wife rests her head on his shoulder, nodding along to the words pouring out of his mouth.
“Well, missing someone you have never met isn’t actually possible, it’s really the idea of someone that the mind subconsciously makes—
“Actually, in Russia they call it tocka which literally translates to the spiritual anguish of missing someone or something you’ve never had,“
The info dump will probably make little future baby’s head explode, but she didn’t dare interrupt him. That would be a habit never developed in this household. He had spent his life with people who didn’t appreciate his quirks, and his home would not be one of those places. She presses a kiss to Spencer’s jaw, the closest bit of skin at the moment, and nods once again. Affection would also be something to be proud of, rather than ashamed of.
“So, we miss you already,”
She says, a repeat of his earlier words, a simple reiteration. Spencer’s free hand moves to rest on top of hers that’s lying gently on her belly. They gaze at each other briefly, but words aren’t needed for the look exchanged. It’s nothing short of pure adoration and respect and love. That’s what the household would consist of. This baby would be brought into a world of cherishing.
Future baby wouldn’t have to worry about doors slamming or belittling or being forced to eat food that made them sick, they would have to worry about lipstick stains left on skin for the first day of school and laughing until their cheeks hurt.
“Mommy loves you,” She brings the camera to her lips, an exaggerated mwah sound leaving her mouth and then she nudges Spencer.
“And- and Daddy loves you,” he says, it’s more in a Spencer fashion, reserved, shy, but his eyes tell the story his tone can’t convey properly.
She gives the lens a kiss for him, another over the top mwah (but that’s why he loved her) and clicks the button that ends the recording—
“No, that’s not the right button,”
“What? That’s literally the one you pressed, I saw you,”
“No, it’s this o—“
Though the screen goes black, the amount of love poured into the short video, an introductory if you will, is left lingering, and maybe a few laughs can be taken away as well. But, future baby was already adored, and future baby was already the best thing that happened to the Reid household.
AI-Free Blog, no AI was used in the writing of this.
a/n: maybe I should attend therapy for my parental issues, but why pay when writing Spence as a dad is free??
a/n #2: spring / summer baby fever is no joke
This was loosely based on this edit I saw on TikTok, credits to @edit_inqq!!
