Serendipity : (Angst ☺) Reader has been away for two years and goes to a bar expecting to have a one night stand to take her mind off what happened the last time she was in DC. What she didn't expect was the reason she left.
Letters: (Angst ☺) Spencer writes Reader letters during his prison stint. Loosely based off of Hey There Delilah.
Peach Scone: (Angst ♠) Songfic for Peach Scone by Hobo Johnson. alternatively, Spencer is a angsty man
The Sweetest Hurt: ★ Reader is always getting hurt. Spencer finds it stressful, but almost endearing.
Whining and Dining: ★ Reader teases Spencer during a team dinner. Chaos and sex ensues.
Spencer Reid/Cat Adams
For You: (Angst ♠ NSFW) Spencer finds himself at the mercy of one Cat Adams, and he isn't sure that he minds.
Innocence:☺ Set around Season Two, this soon to be series explores the “what if” regarding Cat Adams, and if Spencer had gotten to her before she killed.
Jennifer Jareau/Emily Prentiss
Paramour: (Angst ♠ ) Jennifer Jareau is little miss perfect. Emily Prentiss could be her downfall.
Jennifer Jareau/Reader
Hawthorn: Fairytale! AU. Based on the Bulgarian concept of a Samodiva, This is a little “we are halfway to halloween” fic. JJ and Reader go dancing. (Angst ♠)
Series
The Pantheon: Various Greek myth-inspired fics.
Golden: (★ Angst ☺) Spencer is losing himself. Reader tries to bring him back down before that happens. Loosely inspired by the myth of Icarus.
The War or The World?: (Angst ♠ ) Unsub!Hotch tries to avenge Haley’s death. Inspired by Ares and Atlas
Upcoming
Spencer Reid/Cat Adams
Poison in a Shotglass: Cat toys with Spencer and leaves him her most romantic gifts.
Death Spiral: Cat gets the ice-skating date of her dreams.
Agnosthesia: Cat and Spencer exchange letters while she’s in prison.
Undisclosed Desires: Spencer thinks he can heal Cat, but will it take more from him than it gives to her?
Spencer Reid/Reader
Sweet Hibiscus Tea: Post prison, Reader calls out Spencer for treating her like a therapist.
I'm Gonna Be Just Like You: (Coming Soon!) Reader is Cat Adam's ex, and together, Reader and Spencer discover why they need therapy.
Aaron Hotchner/Reader
My Son's Teacher: Aaron hits it off with Jack's teacher.
Gen Fic
Dimittere Illi: (Heavy Angst) Prison Spencer prays to every God he can think of for help.
Hey friends! I was asked to make a rec list for fics involving Spencer Reid as an unsub, so here it is! (Also, for a bonus of Unsub!Hotch, keep reading!)
If you write/already have a fic involving an Unsub!BAU member, please let me know and I’ll add it here! I will also accept Reidaway or Reidams fics!
Finally, a quick shoutout to @dreatine as well, who is always so helpful in making rec lists ❤️
*Due to the nature of this trope, there are many extremely triggering concepts involved. Please read all Content Warnings carefully and consider whether or not to read the works for yourself. Please respect the authors and do not read any NSFW works if you are a minor. Thank you!
Spencer Reid/Reader (Oneshots)
The Last Cigarette by @ontheoddoccasioniwritestuff: Mr Scratch was an unsub with undoubtedly the greatest impact on the team. Even in death, he pushes Spencer beyond the preconception of his limits.
My Darling by @reidgraygubler: Reader stumbles upon one of Spencer’s darkest secrets.
Oh Ana by @write-orflight: When Y/N’s life falls apart she finds herself playing god with the man that can only bring her destruction.
Cat and Mouse by @adrianaisims: Spencer is a vigilante killer, and Reader finally caught him after months of searching. They meet in an empty hotel, Reader doesn’t bring back-up. They’re mutually obsessed with each other, what could go wrong?
Spencer Reid/Reader (Series)
Lily of the Valley by @imagining-in-the-margins: Spencer was found guilty but mentally ill after the torture and murder of several men. He finds solace in his psychiatrist at the institution.
The Daisy and The Bee by @sinfulspencer: Reader is a serial killer and Spencer might be into her.
Against All Odds by @eideticsreid: You think you know your coworkers, family, friends? Don’t ever believe that you do because I did and that’s how I ended up here.
If Not Victory, Then Revenge by @illegalcerebral: Spencer can’t trust the FBI anymore so Spencer leaves with only one goal: find Cat Adams and make her pay. He doesn’t account for you.
Adaptation and Revenge by @spookydrreid: Jail changed Spencer Reid. At first, it was just little things here and there. But then it got worse and worse until he was out of control.
Article of Faith by @dontshootmespence: After everything Spencer Reid has been through, he wonders what justice truly is. He's supposed to side with the law to put this woman away, but he doesn’t want to.
The New Bonnie and Clyde by @give-me-a-moose: “Do you ever think we should just stop doing this?” // “If we both stick to the story, they can’t prove anything.”
Unsub!Aaron Hotchner
Bloodlust by @arsonhotchner and @shmaptainhotchner: (Series, /Reader) A simple confrontation escalates and leaves your life and sense of humanity in shambles, but your husband is determined to make you see past your mistakes.
Cabin in the Woods by @laurensprentiss: (Oneshot, /Reader) When a camping trip with your friends goes awry and you find yourself wandering through the Washington woods alone, you meet a stranger who offers to take you in.
The War or the World by @reidetic: (Oneshot, Gen fic) Unsub!Hotch tries to avenge Haley’s death. Inspired by Ares and Atlas.
A/N: Surprise I'm not dead! I wrote this for @imagining-in-the-margins fic swap and got my wonderful friend babyleaf! This was my first time writing for Ralves, hope you enjoy!
Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader/Luke Alvez
Category: NSFW
Content Warning: descriptions of penetrative and oral sex, degradation, praise
Word Count: 1.4k
I’ve always loved things that come in threes.
When I was little, it was a tricycle. Too top heavy for my childhood innocence, metal bars dented from gravel flying up as I taught my body my first love, what flying felt like. I can still hear my mom’s laughter and feel my father’s arms wrapping around my stomach and pulling me back, keeping me from the expanse of the asphalt. My first love was brought to me in threes.
As I got older, it was clover leaves. I loved finding four leaf clovers, but there was something particularly enthralling about being surrounded in a sea of trios, green triplets cushioning my toes. I would pick them and bring them to my mother, and she’d chastise me, reminding me that only the four-leafed plants held the luck she thought I was searching for. But it wasn’t luck I wanted, it was company.
As an adult, I found threes everywhere. Primary colors. The hands on ticking clocks. Suits, trilogies, stoplights, blind mice, guitar chords, and love. I noticed three in everything, made it a point to learn three in every language a search engine could give me.
When I met Luke Alvez, I thought my trilogy of findings was over. I had found my duo. I had learned what two fingers felt like, how they learned my body and carved their ownership into my muscles. Felt his lips pressing constellations into my shoulder blades, his two hands caressing my chest and dragging up to tilt my head to the side, moving to capture me in a much too short kiss. His touch left twos all over my skin, all over my body. When I met Luke Alvez, I kissed threes goodbye, leaving them behind for a lifetime of duologies.
Luke and I developed a routine over the next two years, of loving and loving. I memorized what he felt like inside me, memorized his kisses, memorized him in every conceivable way. I looked to Luke Alvez to teach me what good meant, and he taught me what it felt like, too. He was my ethos, balancing me between vigilance and passion. He kept me from my fire and kept me in my ice.
When I met Spencer Reid, everything changed. From the moment I saw him, my love of threes came back in waves. His curls fall down, each ringlet in three turns. His speeches, all three points to be made. Every handshake with three squeezes, every laugh with three crescendos. I never thought threes would be mine again, until I saw the look in Spencer Reid’s eyes when he looked at my Luke, and Luke looked at him the same way.
When I met Spencer Reid, I knew then and there my duo would soon become a trio. There was no way around the way he and I, he and Luke, and Luke and I all looked at each other. Luke came home that day, puppy like and swooning, talking Roxie’s ears off about his new coworker. I couldn't blame, after all I did, and do, feel the same way about our new object of affection. I was just a bit better at hiding it than Luke. How Spencer and his brain didn't piece it together sooner, I'll never know.
Luke had confessed over coffee, sputtered words and burnt tongue spilling every secret to Dr. Reid. I never thought I’d see the doctor turn so red, but I soon found out he could turn me redder than that still.
Spencer Reid taught me the meaning of trilogy, of three, of us. Luke and I thought the duo was the ending, that the two of us had achieved something unlike anything gifted to humankind before. We were proven incredibly wrong the moment Spencer Walter Reid stepped into our life. The power of three was something I had never considered before I felt his love, his prowess, his consideration.
I memorized Spencer, too. The way his hands felt around my shoulders, pinning me back against him with his writhing hands making their way down my body. I memorized his teeth biting at the flesh between my neck and shoulder, the sound of his belt sliding from belt loops, memorized the way he made the hairs on my neck rise with the simplest whispers in my ears. Beyond that, I memorized the way he kept me calm. The way the brushes of his fingertips assuaged my beating heart, his careful ranting filling empty longing spaces between Luke and I’s silent words. He was our logos, our life’s reason and animus. He kept us bound but bated and every bit of him is in our grasp.
That wasn’t the only way he kept us bound, no, the man was deft and practiced with silken rope. Nothing burns in my memory quite so much as the memory of tied hands behind backs and fatigued knees from sitting in front of him, head craned to stare up at his chiseled physique. He’d trace my jawline, pry my mouth open, let his fingers take up precious real estate in my throat.
“What a beautiful, disgusting thing you are. Opened up for me, hm?” He’d mock me, nothing but love behind his eyes as I stared, nodding.
“All for you,” I’d whisper, choking on his hand in my mouth, my words wrapping around him. He always understood the sentiment. Luke would come around then, sliding my shirt off my shoulders long enough to bite his ownership into me.
“Pretty girl,” he’d say, rough hands smoothing up over my chest, reaching up to unbutton Spencer’s slacks and pushing my head forward to take him into my mouth. I remember looking up through shortened eyelashes and seeing his head thrown back in glory and Luke muttering, “Oh, good girl.” He always could sing my praises. That was something else I’d memorize too, the ecstasy loving them provides.
Spencer would pull me up then, fist in my hair and throw me onto our bed, snarling, “Oh, I’m not done with you yet. He may be nice to you, but I won’t be, not yet. You’ve got to earn it.” My face pushed down into the bed, his hand against my back and Luke’s hands running up my legs to trace at my heat, Spencer had pushed into me, moaning something unintelligible for the first time in his life.
He’d use me, thrust into me with a fistful of hair pulling my head up just enough to wrap around Luke, who would caress my face and tell me how good I was being, how sweet and patient. It would only be so long before Spencer would fill me with his warmth, falling over me and pressing kisses to my back, muttering his own praises in languages and feelings I would never understand. Luke would follow soon after, wiping my mouth and giving his own kisses to the corners of my mouth, copying Spencer’s lilted praises.
It’s all of these things that I leave memorized, imprinted, in stone in my mind. It’s now that I understand my place among the trilogy, the pathos of us all. My passion, my love, my desire. It turns out that, after all, I do still love in threes. Luke, Spencer, myself. The trio of a lifetime, of a long while, of our little piece of infinity.
Content Warning: NSFW, MINORS DNI. Fem!Reader, innocence kink, public sex, unprotected sex, chasing, rough sex, Little Red/Big Bad Wolf references, potential dubcon/CNC trigger
Request: kyle with an innocence kink? bonus for nn of little girl/little red
A/N: Surprise blurb because my writing app is down.
MASTERLIST
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A somewhat surprising side effect of the apocalypse was a significantly more varied sex life. Perhaps it was the virus driving you all insane, or maybe evolution resulted in a population of adrenaline junkies waiting for their next fix.
Either way, you and Kyle were no exception.
It had been your idea to take a trip to the remote area of the hiking trail. The dead were minimal in number there, but the privacy was unrivaled.
It had also been your idea to take off running at the first possible chance. He let you go, watching you flitter off into the forest like his own personal fae as you called, “Catch me if you can.”
You knew that he could. You waited with bated breath as you heard the snapping of twigs and rustling leaves. You cursed the whistling wind and your own lungs for hiding the sounds of him, stalking his prey — you — through the forest.
As soon as he found you, though, everything changed. Frightened shrieks turned to laughter bubbling out of your mouth until there was no air left but the breath you shared. He kisses you hard, hard enough that you can feel the bark on the tree imprinting through your back. It draws patterns on your skin for him to trace later while remembering how your exhausted muscles immediately submitted to him.
“You alright there, Little Red?” he asks as he unzips his pants. But you’re already hiking up your skirt, nodding fervently as you hook a weary leg around him and clutch his shoulders tight enough that he groans from the sensation.
“Take your prize,” you say with a smile.
Kyle is more than happy to claim you. First, he does so by sliding his hand into your underwear and feeling the wetness that had already formed from the pursuit alone.
"You know it's dangerous for a pretty little thing like you to be out here all alone," he teases while he carefully traces your folds, teasing the entrance a few seconds longer before he dips a tentative finger into you.
He groans when he finds no resistance. He is met only with feverish cries and whorish moans. You are desperate for him to do something more before the sun goes down and you are forced to retreat back to close quarters with the others.
"Then help me," you beg. "Please, sir."
Kyle notices you growing restless, and relents in an uncharacteristic display of mercy. His pants are already undone, so it only takes a couple seconds before he is even more exposed than you.
You stare, wide-eyed and seemingly innocent as he strokes himself with one hand and holds you in place against the tree with the other. You can't help but anticipate the way it'll feel when it's inside of you again.
He notices you watching. At first, he says nothing. But then, when you are so hungry that you are licking your lips and bucking your hips, he leans forward to whisper, "Oh, I'm gonna help you alright."
The anticipation builds as he lines himself up at your entrance. He only pushes forward just enough for you to feel the way your body immediately submits to him.
"I'm gonna teach you so much, Little Red..." he says with a dark chuckle. "All about what happens to naughty girls that get lost in the forest."
"Kyle, please," you blubber eagerly. And although he still takes his time slowly working his way inside of you, he is quick to kiss your quivering bottom lip.
"Fuck," he mutters when your hands run through his freshly cut hair. He looks at you. He sees you squirming to try and take more of him while he does everything he can to keep you wanting. Then, with a sated sigh, he whispers, "you're too damn cute to say no to."
There is no more teasing, no more chase. Kyle pulls your body down onto him and his jaw drops when he feels you envelope him. He basks in the burning heat of your body. The body that you offered to him as a well-earned trophy.
You do not complain when he is selfish and brutal in his pace. You are too lost in the sensations. Every fiber of your being is on high-alert, but you have also never been freer. You give yourself to him and you trust that he will heal any piece of you he might bruise.
He will not walk away without bruises, either. Your nails are dug deep in his skin and leaving red paths in their wake. When he comes close enough to kiss, you bite down on his lip in an effort to make him stay close.
He does. He presses you hard against the tree again, panting something that sounds only vaguely like your name as he starts to lose control. You feel him press just a few gentle kisses against your neck before his teeth are buried into the sensitive skin to stifle the sound of him coming undone.
You revel in the feeling of his moans vibrating through broken skin. You try to memorize the feel of bark burning your back and the ache in tired thighs that you refused to let close.
With one harsh thrust, he fills the ache between your legs with his warmth. You cry out with relief, a praise that you almost hope the dead will come to envy. Because you have never been more alive.
spencer's first solo interrogation with eric miller vs whatever the hell spencer and cat adams have going on in the interrogation room fifteen years later.
Summary: Spencer and Reader (finally) get their happily ever after.
A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who tagged along to read this. I will always remember the first series I've ever finished, and all of the people who helped me out along the way. I love you all dearly. Thank you for everything.
Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader
Category: Series (NSFW, 18+)
Content Warning: Weddings, alcohol, mild exhibitionism, oral (female receiving), penetrative/unprotected sex, Daddy kink, breeding kink
Word Count: 7.1k
MASTERLIST | Series Masterlist
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It was a cool, calm Virginia morning. The kind of day that begins with crisp air and perfectly tuned melodies of songbirds that somehow knew how to sing in harmony. The early hours sun cast a comforting glow to few droplets that dripped from the morning glory petals.
Inside the bridal suite, however, things were far from serene. As far away as it could get.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I said for what felt like the fifth time of the hour. “How am I running late to my own wedding?!”
JJ, ever the source of reason, tried to placate the disastrous bride with two firm hands on my shoulders.
“You aren’t running late, everything is fine!”
“No, according to Spencer’s very thorough itinerary—" I tried to cut in, only to be drowned out by the shrill command of none other than Penelope Garcia.
“Do not let Reid be a bridezilla! If anyone is going to be the bridezilla by proxy, it’s going to be me. I have waited too long and planned too hard for him to ruin this for me!”
The silence that followed was palpable. The Freudian slip went unnoticed for a few more seconds, until the silence was broken by a half-hidden snort from the other blonde who’d been trying to calm me down.
“I mean… ruin it… for you. Of course, for you,” Penelope whispered in the least convincing way, “Because I’m definitely not using your wedding as a chance to live out my luscious, extravagant daydreams from my dollhouse days… or anything.”
“Right. Of course not.”
Before that conversation could get any farther away from us, the front door opened to reveal two significantly less frenzied women carrying bags with odd clinking sounds that could only mean one thing.
“We brought more wine!” Emily sang, barely making it to the table before she began to pull out the goodies tucked away in brown paper bags. The woman trailing behind her was patient enough to set them all down before she began to unpack.
“Good timing, too,” Tara remarked as she finally caught sight of me. “Looks like you all need it.”
I hadn’t even needed to say a word before a champagne flute was in my hand. I downed half the contents just as quickly, although I savored the taste for a few seconds longer. I let the carbonation tickle my cheeks and tongue, and I used the faint taste of ethanol to bring me back to another day.
I could almost feel the bass, the pulse of the music reverberating through the floorboards beneath my feet. I could smell sweet, ethanol-tainted breath as our faces nearly met just for him to ask why I would kiss him.
My mind swarmed with memories of each time that I’d kissed him after that. There were too many for me to focus on just one, and I hadn’t wanted to, either. I wanted to feel enveloped and lost in everything good my mind could conjure.
“You look beautiful,” Alex said. The woman chuckled a bit when I jumped, but promptly took a seat beside me while she poured us both another drink.
That time, I opted to sip, instead. The morning was young, after all, and I hadn’t wanted to blur the memories too badly. Even just the thought of looking back on this day with rose-tinted nostalgia made me smile. The dopey, lovesick look was enough to earn another soft, warm sigh from the older woman.
“He’s going to be so happy to see you. I’d say more than usual, but we all know that isn’t possible.”
“Thanks. I’m so stressed out,” I said with a few awkward chuckles. “There’s so much going on and I feel like I’m being pulled in a million directions and I’m no help with any of them.”
“And the one person you desperately want to see is the one person you’re not allowed to,” she aptly noted.
While her point was valid, I got the feeling she’d just wanted to remind me about who would be waiting for me at the end of the aisle. It had worked, too, as her plans usually did.
With a more lighthearted laughter, I added, “To be fair, breaking social norms has always been a running theme in our relationship.”
At first, Alex only gave a knowing nod. It wasn’t until she had scanned the room twice before she leaned closer and whispered, “Could still be today, too.”
“What?”
“I’m just saying…” she drawled, dragging out the words and waving a nonchalant hand in the air around us. “No one is looking right now. Not even me.”
I turned to confirm her thoughts and was surprised to find that it was true. The briefest reprieve was bound to end at any second, and I felt my heart start to race before she’d even said it.
Then she did.
“If you were to make a run for his suite… who would stop you?”
“Really?” I whispered back, already gathering my wits before I asked again, just to be sure, “You think I should?”
Alex was no fool. She’d seen my bouncing feet and the fire in my eyes, and she knew that she had been right to think that nothing would be able to stop me once I’d made up my mind. But there was no judgment in her eyes — only a recognition of a pure kind of love and anticipation that couldn’t be broken down to any one narrative.
“It’s not my wedding day,” she mumbled with a sarcastic little shrug.
Then, she held out her hand to accept my flute, and I was gone. With the wind at my back and my husband on the other end of the hall, I didn’t even hesitate. My feet didn’t falter once, carrying me straight to a door propped open to reveal the heavy scent of cologne and hairspray. I could hear his laughter on the other side of the wood, and the handle was within my reach.
I had almost made it.
Then Derek Morgan had to go and get in the way.
“Alright, alright, back it up,” he ordered through laughter and with a firm yet gentle hand pressed on my shoulder. “I know you love to break rules, but Penelope made me doorman for a reason.”
“You really want to pick a fight with me? On my wedding day?”
He did not respond with words. Instead, he began to shoo me back with his other hand until I surrendered. I only took one step back, but it was enough of a victory for him to grin like a damn cat that got the canary. The sight made my blood boil, the competitiveness and playful territorial nature of our relationship coming to a head on the last day we were on somewhat equal footing.
“I know you know me, Derek Morgan,” I warned, “I know you know better than to stand between me and my husband.”
“He’s not your husband yet, Princess,” he teased.
The anger inside of me bristled. I bit down on my tongue to prevent more colorful language from slipping through. I glared at the man and tried to find whatever inane insecurity might eat at him the most, and I was fully prepared to weaponize it to get what I wanted.
But then, from the other side of the door, I saw a mop of brown hair peek through the cracks.
“Actually, we had a courthouse ceremony a few weeks ago, just the two of us, in case something happened and we had to miss this ceremony,” Spencer explained.
He probably would’ve had a more thorough story planned, but that never came to fruition, either. The second the door had opened wide enough to accommodate me, I was already through it. Like at another hotel years before, I nearly tackled the poor man to the ground in my haste.
But we were both older and wiser, now, andSpencer was ready to catch me before we both fell. A few things would never change, though; like always, when we came together it was in a flurry of laughter and kisses that would slowly become more involved until we really ought to stop.
It was that point that Derek accepted his defeat, throwing his hands into the air with a heavy sigh.
“Hopeless. And selfish!” he chastised. “Penelope is going to kill me, you know?”
Despite his cries, however, Derek knew better than to fight the two of us together. Because the second that he’d touched me, the rest of the world ceased to exist. All that mattered was the sound of his excited heart trying to find my own amongst bone cages and soft flesh.
Spencer held me as tight as he could without crushing me, burying his face in my hair enough that it was barely audible to anyone else when he asked, “Hey, little girl. Are you having a good day?”
“I hate your stupid itinerary,” I whined into the crisp, pressed shirt that I was certainly going to ruin if I cried. Somehow, I held back the tears. Most likely due to the fact that Spencer’s arms were around me, and his hands were busy drawing comforting patterns wherever they could reach.
“I know,” he sighed.
And after a few soft, calming moments later, I continued, “I don’t hate you, though.”
“I don’t hate you either,” he promised, “Not even a little.”
It turned out that it was exactly what I’d needed. Just a few blissful seconds of a pocket universe where no hatred existed. It was only the two of us, an eight-limbed, two headed monster with no intentions of ever being anything else again.
I could’ve stayed like that forever, and I wouldn’t have complained. But fate, and the itinerary, had other plans in mind. The first in the cool, albeit joyful tone of Aaron Hotchner.
“I should’ve known that I would find you two breaking rules.”
That sound, of a man recently freed from the confines of witness protection and finally ready to see his found family again, was probably the only thing that could have convinced Spencer to let me go in that moment. I had expected as much, so the fact he continued to hold my hand was good enough for me.
“What are you doing here?” he squeaked, still too frozen to do anything but stare.
“Was I meant to miss it, or am I late?” Aaron asked, to which I quickly answered, “You’re late.”
Aaron let out a heavy sigh, which was followed by a burst of air that one might categorize as a laugh. In all actuality, it was Spencer squeezing the life out of him. The man didn’t mind, though. He was all too happy to offer that same kind of calmness and comfort that I had just had the honor of receiving from my husband.
I watched the two of them, barely able to understand the incoherent whispers of happy greetings and disbelief that I’d managed to keep a secret from his this long. I let the delight emanating from Spencer fill the space where his heart had been against my chest moments earlier.
Together, we all enjoyed the long overdue reunion for as long as we could. Then, when the world started to turn again, Luke joined me at my side with frantic eyes and an even more wild voice.
“You have approximately 2 minutes until my girlfriend shows up here, and I would very much like to live, so…” he said in hushed tones like she might be able to hear his bartering, “For my life? Spare me?”
“You’re all terrified of a woman who uses stuffed animals instead of pillows,” I answered through the side of my mouth.
He had come well prepared for my insults. He’d heard the variations enough times and contemplated the perceived weaknesses of Miss Penelope Garcia, and he knew just what to say to explain how terrifying a woman wearing cat ears could be.
“Exactly,” he muttered with growing volume, “She doesn’t even need regular spinal support. She’s indestructible!”
He had a point.
“Fine. I’ll go,” I caved, much to his relief. As he started to usher me back to the door, we both glanced back to see the childlike joy still radiating off my husband. And although I smiled, I offered one final warning to the man torn between his duty as a groomsman and a partner.
“You better tell him to be more excited to see me walking down the aisle than Aaron.”
“Will do,” he laughed.
I almost thought to bolster the threat, a brief flash of worry crossing my mind as I made my way back to the exit. But then Spencer looked up and saw me, standing in a nightgown, a robe, and slippers. I knew it in his eyes, that he was acutely aware that he was seeing the woman that he loved by a different name for the last time.
His hand raised in a tiny half-wave, but the smile on his face spoke the words we had managed to forget to say.
I love you, he’d said with teary eyes and trembling hands.
I love you, too, I answered.
I’ll see you soon, I wanted to say, but we both knew it could never be soon enough.
—————————————————
I am, first and foremost, a man of science. Since a very young age, I have believed that there are few things in this world that are sure. Even the most basic of fundamental principles have changed through the years. Things that we once thought to be common sense turned out to be nothing but the false, unsubstantiated arrogance of man.
I hesitate to say that any one thing is definitive or true. When it comes to my future, I am even more of a skeptic than usual. But there was one thing that remained true through it all.
I was meant to be with her.
Most days, it felt more like an inevitability than a hypothesis. Unlike my usual drive to disprove the obvious, I did nothing but bask in the joy that never ceased to exist when she was beside me. For once, I did nothing to fight happiness when the universe rewarded me with it.
It was a simple, yet recklessly brave thing, to simply accept that I had the privilege of loving a woman who happened to love me back.
Granted, her typical expressions of love were always unique and at times confusing — I was finally starting to believe Derek when he told me that people pull on pigtails when they like you — but at some point over the years, I had learned her language. It was as natural to me as English.
That was why, of all the people in the room, I had been the most nervous when the procession music started playing. My heartbeat was masked by the playful prancing of the others, but it did nothing to calm the frantic organ.
There was only one person in the world who would be able to appease the demands of a lovesick heart in that moment. The moment that I had been waiting for my whole life, the one that I often thought would never come for me.
My life started to flash before my eyes, growing ever quicker until it arrived on that fateful night. The first time that I laid eyes on her, lost in the sound of deafening music and the sea of bodies. Her eyes called to me from so far away that it seemed downright almost impossible to feel as close to her as I had.
I’d never told her how I’d tried to hide. I didn’t want to admit to her that my first instinct upon seeing a creature as beautiful as her look in my direction was to run as far away from her as I could. But be it fate, luck, or instinct, the two of us had found each other again.
Looking back now, it was a silly memory. I couldn’t tell if I was ashamed or proud to say that our dynamic had never really changed from the absolute idiot of an FBI agent all but pinned against brick by a girl who wielded nothing but a sharp tongue and quick hands. I would be a victim to them for the rest of my life, and I was all too happy to surrender.
Some part of me had known. That was the only explanation for why my body reacted like both sides of a magnet when faced with her presence. I kept her away because I knew that she was dangerous. She represented everything I’d never had; a peace, serenity, and unconditional affection that I would forever crave to continue.
She was… terrifying, and beautiful, and everything I’d ever wanted or needed. Everything I could ever dream of; the only existence in the infinite realities that I would want to exist in.
I wished I could tell her all of that now, but my heart was so full that it threatened to choke me.
The beginning of the end began. The final song that I had trained myself to react to like Ivan Pavlov’s canine friends. I kept my eyes closed as I turned my attention to the sound of silence. I waited until I heard the fabric of her dress move, and the sound of soft, happy gasps filled the air. I waited until my eyes had already begun to fill with tears and my lips trembled under the weight of the waiting.
Then, only when I was sure that she would be able to understand just how happy I was to be the one on the other end of the aisle, I opened my eyes to find my future.
The second that our eyes met, the rest of the universe started to disappear. Aaron’s arm around hers grew tighter, but her hands were still just as quick as the day I’d met her.
She tried to take her time, God bless her soul, but she couldn’t wait. I saw no reason to make her.
She’d only made it about halfway down the aisle before she gave up any remaining semblance of patience. With her dress gathered in her hands, she ran to me until she crashed into me at full speed.
I caught her, only barely, but enough. I stumbled enough to draw giggles from the people who’d gathered to watch us. I had enough in my arms not to care.
I had my entire world, my future, and the rightful owner of my heart.
To her credit, she kept her composure fairly well from that point on. I could tell by the smile plastered on her face and the tightness of her pinky around mine that she would attribute her newfound patience to some kind of diffusion of temperament. She would be wrong, though. I had never felt such a sense of urgency in my life.
I was so ready for them to say the final words, to end this existence and begin a new one where I was legally and socially recognized as the half of her that I’d always felt that I’d been. I mouthed the words along with him, counting down the syllables until it was over.
And then, he broke script.
“Before we get to the big finale, the bride has prepared something to read to her groom.”
Whatever I thought he’d say, that was the furthest thing from it. The words were so strange and foreign to my ears, that it took me an embarrassingly long time to process it. But when I turned to the woman standing beside me, I knew that I had nothing to fear. Not even a little bit.
“She has?” I asked, just to be sure I wasn’t dreaming.
“Sure did,” she said, letting her tongue sneak between her teeth (no doubt to alert me that I should, in fact, be at least a little bit scared).
But I wasn’t.
“Go ahead,” I urged, instead.
I was immediately met with her body bumping into mine and a laughter spilling from her lips.
“Give me a second!” she cried.
I gave it to her freely. With a knowing smile and shaky breath, I promised her the rest of the life that I had left. I would do anything to hear her, even at the cost of my own voice like the naive girl from Hans Christian Anderson tale.
But luckily, I didn’t have to give her anything but the continued use of my hand, which she held onto for dear life as she began with one simple word.
“Spencer,” she said.
She looked up at me as if to ask for my permission to continue, but she found nothing except the fullest adoration and pride. That was enough.
“From the moment I met you, I knew that you would be a very important person in my life. I didn’t quite foresee this, although I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that you did.”
I could see flashing lights in her eyes, the amalgamation of everything, both beautiful and disastrous, that guided us to where we were. I saw tears that were caught in each other’s hands. Words smeared against skin already starting to wrinkle from few too many smiles.
I saw her as she was now, as she had been, and all the ways she would come to be.
“Because you are as brilliant as you are kind,” she said, and I wondered if she could feel my heart aching, in the best way, with every word standing between the two of us. A bit ironically, she chuckled, “You are as patient as you are funny, and as strong as you are... Well, actually, we’ll get back to that one.”
Everyone joined her to laugh, then. Myself included.
“Still, despite your adorable stature, you have never failed to pick me up when I’ve fallen. So much more often than I could ever offer in return.”
My heart stopped entirely, then. I heard the shaky, shame-tainted timbre, and my grip around her pinky became relentless. Determined to object the only way I felt capable.
But that girl just shook her head with a knowing smile, as if I’d proven her point.
“And I know that’s probably never going to change. There is so much that you do for me that I’ll never be able to replicate. I’ll never be able to fully pay you back for the way that you have loved me over the years. But…”
Her voice cracked, taking with it any sense of decorum that remained. My hands, tired of being so far from her, reached out to hold her. My thumbs tried to catch tears without ruining all the hard work she’d done to look as she did then.
I wanted to tell her that I would have been her husband no matter how she looked. That I had seen enough of her to know that I would never find her to be anything but perfect. But I saw the pain, the rawness of her throat and the vulnerability in her whisper.
“But I promise you…” she said, barely making her way through the words but needing them said, nonetheless. “I will spend every day of the rest of my life… trying to make up the difference.”
My body acted without my permission, forcing all else out of the way before I found her again. Our lips met, aided by salty tears and sweet laughter. The ordained minister was all too happy to skirt the rules, not even bothering to grant me permission to do what I was destined to do.
Although I heard the crowd, each individual voice of everyone we’ve ever loved cheering us on, I couldn’t find it in me to care about anything but getting in those last few, final words.
“There is nothing you have to prove to me,” I urged the girl, my wife, as I held her as tight as I could without breaking. “I already love you, and I always will.”
“I love you, too,” she whispered.
And, in that rare way, I knew it to be definitive and true.
—————————————————
I hadn’t really ever been the kind of person to fantasize about my wedding day. Or at least, it didn’t seem that way when I’d been flanked by Penelope and Spencer during the planning. The number of spreadsheets and repurposed evidence boards made even the worst bridezilla seem relatively calm.
But now that the day had come, and the ceremony had passed, I allowed myself one moment of peace and quiet to consider where I was. I walked through the bridal suite, drawing my fingers over discarded robes and bits of bouquet that hadn’t quite made it to the main event.
It was a strange, but soft moment. A realization that everything I’d been through led me to that moment, there in the present, surrounded by so many diverse tokens of love. It wasn’t in my nature to get misty eyed at the thought, but I did. After chuckling to myself at how soft I’d become, I allowed myself the patience and understanding that I’d gone through enough bad tears.
I deserved at least a few more of the good ones. As they fell to stained lips, I cherished the taste of salt that carried no bitterness. Only love in its purest state.
Then, as if a message from the universe, my husband’s hand wrapped around my waist with all the care and stealth in the world.
“Could I help you out of this, Mrs. Reid?” he hummed as he dragged his knuckles against the side of my first of two dresses for the evening.
“That sounds nice.”
“Which part?” he teased.
If it had been any other day, I wouldn’t have crumbled at the implication. I would have fought him harder and made him beg. But in that moment, alone on our wedding day for the first time, I couldn’t help but to melt further into his embrace. I did, however, provide him with a colorful nickname.
“Arrogant prick.”
Despite the insult, Spencer’s hands remained relentless. He quickly gathered as much of the skirt as he could, all while his mouth buried itself against my neck. I laughed, not just from the tickling, but because it was so very like him to want to have me before I managed to switch into my reception dress.
“That’s no way to talk to your husband, Mrs. Reid,” he reprimanded playfully.
“And you should know better than to expect your wife to behave.”
“Funny you say that,” he chirped, his tone taking on that warbling sound that accompanied his highest states of joy. “I happen to know a number of ways to make you behave.”
I managed to escape from his grip for just long enough to turn around to face him. My husband was quick to correct the dress as it fell to cover me again. Once again, he found my hips underneath the fabric and helped hoist me onto the table behind us.
He didn’t remove his hands, instead making good use of their placement to begin to remove the frilly, fragile underwear that I’d hardly expected to make it through the day. Spencer, however, did not break them as I thought he might. His motions were precise and careful as he guided my legs until the fabric fell away.
When he joined me again, with his nose touching mine and our breaths intermingling to create a cocktail of champagne and enthusiasm, I asked the question that had been on my mind ever since he’d mentioned the word.
“Why would you ever want me to behave?”
“Maybe… I don’t,” he sighed in surrender. We’d both known it was the truth.
His usually competitive spirit was dampened, though. Or maybe distracted was a better term. Deftly fidgeting with the strip of lace wrapped around my thigh, Spencer’s breath began to shake with a desperation that made my heart stutter just as hard.
“I thought we agreed we weren’t doing a garter toss?” he asked once he’d worked up the nerve.
“We did,” I confirmed.
Dragging his lips over mine, but continuing to entertain his fingers, he whispered, “So what’s this for, then?”
“You,” I said without any hesitation.
When I felt his smile against my cheek, I had to follow suit. Although I knew I’d be losing sight of those eyes soon, I couldn’t pretend that I hadn’t dreamed of this exact scenario the moment I began looking for garters.
Just as he pulled away, Spencer shared a few magical words.
“Well, I’d hate to disappoint the bride.”
And then he was gone, disappeared under the swaths of fabric as I broke out into a fit of giggles. I could feel his breathy laughter just as well as I could hear it. My legs wrapped around his shoulders on instinct, betraying the words I forced myself to say because I knew I would feel guilty if I hadn’t.
“We don’t have a lot of time before we’re meant to be there,” I groaned just as his teeth caught the fabric.
“They can go on without us,” he mumbled with a full mouth.
The sensation of his lips against my inner thigh was causing a flood of endorphins that felt all-consuming. I couldn’t see, breathe, or speak. The room was filling with a haze of haloed lights that began and ended with his tongue.
“B-But… the itinerary,” I strained, nonetheless.
Once the garter was far enough down, Spencer let gravity carry it the rest of the way to my ankle. He apparently hadn’t wanted to stray too far, although his ascent back up was leisurely as could be. Every few inches, his lips would pause to leave marks from feverish kisses that became more involved as he got closer.
“Fuck the itinerary,” he growled when he’d arrived where he’d wanted to be. “I want to take my time with my wife.”
With that, his mouth came to rest between my legs. There would be no further commentary or protest from me that did not come in the form of wanton moans. My own hands scrambled among the fabric, trying to find him in the mess.
For all his talk about taking his time, he seemed perfectly happy ushering me along. His tongue, as deft and unforgiving as the first night that I’d met him, lavished every bit that it could reach. His fingers, too, joined in the carnal praise.
I could almost hear him laugh as I rifled through the skirt, and as much as I wanted to join him, I couldn’t. All I could feel was the way that he still knew how to break me down in a matter of minutes. I thought of the first time he made his way down my body with a promise that I’d never leave unsatisfied.
He had been right. That day was no exception.
The sounds and smell of sex were far more intoxicating than the champagne. The setting alone was enough to make even the smallest touch feel like fire.
“Spencer,” I purred.
He hummed in response, the vibrations like sparks and gasoline. My husband obviously sensed my impending undoing because his movements became faster until it was all lost among the unending, lustful bliss.
“I can’t,” I panted. “Don’t stop.”
As usual, he obeyed. He flattened his tongue until it moved in tandem with his fingers, which drew long strokes against my walls. Each time, I shuddered until my muscles gave in entirely. My head dropped back and my hands, still searching all this time, finally connected with his hair just before the euphoria hit me.
There was no stopping it; no muting of the pleasure he provided. But through it all, I never once stopped thinking of not just how wonderful he was in that moment, but in how he had spent years memorizing every part of me. How he had never once stopped, how he only became hungrier each time he succeeded.
Spencer’s ears must have been burning from the thoughts (as well as my thighs clamped around the poor old man’s head), because he wasted no time returning to me once my body settled back to its normal, albeit trembling state.
“Hmmm,” he pondered, inspecting my blissed out, smitten smile with something more powerful than simple admiration. “Someone must be in a good mood today.”
“Yeah, so what if I am?” I scoffed. “You’d think my husband would be more grateful that I’m easy to please.”
Whether it had been the sarcasm dripping from the words, or the fact that I’d continued to smile through them all, Spencer just couldn’t let it go. I heard his belt buckle coming undone, but my eyes were locked on his. I found that spark, the playful yet twisted competitiveness that landed us in a halfway decent hotel bed.
The same one that led us here.
“Oh, you are anything but easy to please,” he corrected as kindly as possible. “I just happen to be very good at it.”
My retort died on my tongue, replaced with a sharp inhale as I felt the head of his cock slip past well-loved folds. Aided by the fruits of his labor, he slid into me with very little resistance.
It still felt like home. Our bodies melded together so effortlessly that it was impossible to find where he ended, and I began. I hadn’t wanted to, either. I wanted to share myself with him however I could. I wanted us to be consumed within one another like colliding stars, always seeking something brighter.
Then, as if he’d read my mind, my husband sighed into my ear.
“God, this never gets old, does it, little girl?”
His question was punctuated with a rough thrust that sent me further away from him than he would have liked. But it was no matter; he simply pulled me back again. He held me there, groaning as he tried to find a way to go deeper, to lose himself in me just as I’d begged him to.
But it wouldn’t have been me, the love of his life, if I hadn’t made the obvious joke.
“Not as old as you,” I mumbled.
I wish I could say that I regretted it, but I hadn’t. In fact, I quite liked where it landed me. Spencer’s nails dug into my hips, marking ten perfect crescent moons that I’d wished could be permanent.
He pulled me all the way to the edge of the table, stopping me from falling back by grabbing as much of my hair as he could without risking ruining the work that had gone into it.
“Look at me,” he ordered.
A chill ran down my spine, forcing it to arch forward. But Spencer did not move — not yet. He waited, his fingers in my hair growing tighter until I followed his directions.
Then, once I was looking at him with fresh tears in my eyes and a pout on my lip, he forced himself even further into me. He bottomed out inside of me, pressing hard against the end while still tugging my head farther back. I never once looked away; I refused to close my eyes because I wanted to please him more than anything.
“Say sorry,” he continued once he realized I wouldn’t do it on my own.
It was an easy instruction. A simple thing to do.
But he should’ve known better than to think I’d take it lying down.
After a few more moments of torturous silence and an unrelenting pressure between my legs, I let the three words spill from my lips with as much desperation and pity as I could muster.
“I’m sorry, Daddy.”
I actually saw Spencer’s pupils shift. I watched them pulse like waves that flowed through his whole body until he couldn’t help but continue his pace, slow and purposeful with each thrust.
“Fuck, don’t do that,” he begged. “You almost made me come.”
Giggles abound, I didn’t even try to stop my body from tensing around him with each motion. My legs drew him in until we came together in short bursts of powerful movement.
“Do it, Daddy,” I dared that brilliant, beautiful man.
His hand in my hair fell gently, floating down to cup my burning cheek. He held me as tenderly as he could during the collision. He tried to kiss me, but neither of us could keep our lips closed for long enough.
We stayed, anyway. We looked into each other’s eyes and basked in the love radiating from us, the undying affection that filled the space that physics demanded to remain. I found him, too, with my own hand against his opposite cheek. My thumb brushed over damp red cheeks. I smiled, unable to contain the multitudes I felt in that moment.
“Do it, Spencer,” I begged. “I wanna make you a daddy for real this time.”
My husband found a way to kiss me then. His lips crashed onto mine, and his whole body tensed as his hips joined mine in bruising, staccato motions. I kissed him back as hard as I could until I felt it. The warmth, love, and relief flooded me unlike ever before. My mouth dropped open, but Spencer continued to litter my face with kisses.
Anything to be closer, to shower me with enough love to last a lifetime. Enough to sustain life, to bring life anew.
It was so terribly romantic that I couldn’t even bring myself to joke. The laughter that followed was sleepy and unsure, but he didn’t mind.
“Sorry,” he mumbled as he joined in. “I, uh… I somehow wasn’t expecting that.”
“Oh, don’t worry. That’s what I wanted to happen,” I said with a sated sigh.
We stayed like that for a little while longer. Spencer snuck his finger around the garter, pulling it back up to my thigh where he fiddled with the lace and recalled memories that had only just passed. I rested my head against his shoulder, feeling the soft beat of his pulse as it finally started to calm.
“So…” I mumbled with a mischievous timbre he couldn’t ignore.
“Go ahead,” he grumbled back.
“Turns out I’m pretty good at pleasing you, too.”
“Yes you are, little girl,” he conceded with grace, knowing it was one of the few final words I was willing to let him have. “Yes, you are.”
—————————————————
The soft chirping of stubborn insects permeated heavy Virginia air. It still somehow felt light to tired lungs that had finally found a chance to rest after hectic festivities.
Of course, it might’ve had something to do with the fact I was still squeezed into my wedding dress, and my muscles were barely strong enough at this point to lift my head from Spencer’s shoulder. But I hadn’t minded where I was stuck. I would’ve stayed there forever.
“I’m exhausted, but I don’t want the day to be over yet,” I mumbled when the symphony around us began to calm.
“I’ve found that time doesn’t really care what we think,” my husband answered with a saturnine smile that faded further into bliss with every passing second. He turned to me, pressing soft kisses against the top of my head between the words, “But… I wouldn’t be too sad. We always have tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” I murmured back, “Tomorrow.”
He offered his own hand, palm up like a promise to never let go. A promise we’d made a few times before that night, but I accepted, nonetheless. The second our fingers interlocked, I felt the weight and anxiety begin to melt away. It soaked through the present like rainwater to sustain thirsty roots.
I pulled my hand away to get a better look at the innocent ring perched in its place. I spun the small band around, thinking of how Spencer once told me about how the world moves. I thought about the moon, the planet, and the sun. I thought of universes upon universes into infinity.
Then I called, “Hey Spencer?”
“Yeah?” he returned.
“I want to go watch Star Trek.”
Based on his reaction, the feeling was very much mutual. A heavy sigh fell from his lips, followed by a kiss unlike all the rest. He pulled me closer and closer until the laughter broke us apart.
Then, he cried, “God, I’m so in love with you!”
His voice echoed, returning to us just before we’d chased one another inside. There was no time to be carried over the threshold. We raced until we were able to strip down and switch to more comfortable attire. The domesticity reinvigorated us just long enough to land us back where it’d all started: Curled in bed together, wondering just how many times we could fall in love with one another all over again.
The first night Spencer and I spent in our marital bed was probably not what others might expect from us. The only kinks to be found were those made up of bobby pins and hair, and the loudest noises we’d made were various types of sleepy laughter. Although, as promised, there was a lot of Star Trek.
We were tangled together, but only in the most innocent of ways. Spencer’s head rested against my chest until the soft, rhythmic thumping led him straight to a dreamland I could only imagine to be remarkably similar to reality.
I, however, stayed up just a little bit longer. I did it out of spite for time and how she never stopped moving forward. I forced my eyes to stay open as the clock sat steady at 11:59.
I dared the time to change. Because as I welcomed the new day, and the many more to follow, I held tighter to Spencer’s hand. I found strength in the simplicity of his embrace; the star-crossed fate of two people finally having found one another among the billions. I remembered that first night, and I laughed to myself as my eyes began to shut.
I let them open one more time, watching as the clock struck 12:01 before I let the voice of Captain Jean-Luc Picard lull me to sleep. In that moment, he reminded me once more of the beauty that can be found when you are finally willing to grant yourself the patience and love that you deserve.
Hi there! Would you ever be open to writing a smut where after Cat Adams is executed they find out she left everything she owned to (y/n), her ex girlfriend and Spencer becomes obsessed with (y/n) but little does he know she’s obsessed w him too and they meet and basically have really intense sex that’s a battle for dominance because cat Adams both tucked them up mentally so much
Friend! I hope you see this! I wanted to answer this quickly rather than posting it in a Rejected Requests post ages from now. I just wrote a prompt very similar to this [Yellow Light, where Reader is Cat’s sister].
THAT BEING SAID! I know someone who will do this request so much more justice than I would if I tried to force myself to write it.
My friend @reidetic offered to write this one for me, since they are a huge Cat Adams fan and do great with this kind of charged scene. I promise you that you will love it. If you still don’t believe me, check out their most recent work (Golden) and you will see that I am correct. I look forward to reading this request with you over there!
Hi!! Anon, I hope you're reading this!! I am incredibly excited about writing this and getting back into writing for Cat and related topics. Thank you to Pom and thank you to this wonderful requester. I hope I do it justice, and feel free to hop into my inbox if you want to add anything :)
hey, anon, i’m hoping you see this!! this fic is about 1/2 written and i've just been unmotivated to write recently, but i didn't want you to think i forgot about you!! i am still chuggin away at it. ty!!!
Summary: You find a group to stick with in the zombie apocalypse, and Kyle is the only one with a bed big enough for two people.
A/N: I cannot believe I finished this in time, lmfao. This is for my Only One Bed Challenge, and it is dedicated to my wonderful friend who would hate if I tagged her here. I hope you all enjoy! Very bad gif is mine, btw <3
Couple: Kyle Orfman/Fem!Reader
Category: Smut (NSFW, 18+)
Content Warning: Gun mention, fingering, penetrative sex, unprotected sex (pulling out), mild D/s dynamics, brat kink, Daddy kink, mild degradation/praise, nickname “Princess”
Word Count: 6k
MASTERLIST
——————————————————
I always thought that the end of the world would be followed by constant disasters of varying levels. The experts had warned us about the downfall of humanity, of the melting of the ice caps and the inevitable storm that never ended. But when the dead came to life, I guess all those theories went out the proverbial window.
Most days the world looked pretty much the same, save for the occasional walking, talking corpse. But that day was not one of the good ones. The rolling thunder was somehow less off-putting than the crackling spit of electricity ripping through the atmosphere.
But there I was, wandering on the side of an abandoned highway littered with empty, looted cars and flanked by forests. I’d meant to return home — or whatever version of it I’d found — sooner than this. Realistically, I figured the last group had left without me after the 48 hour mark. I wouldn’t have blamed them.
When you run into people in the apocalypse, there is always a certain set of risks. The cliques had formed early, and the bonds were, for the most part, pretty unbreakable until someone required a bullet in their skull. I was one of the unfortunate few who never really found a group willing to take me in.
So, I was alone. Terrified, but willing to take the risk of running into a nasty group of lowlifes if it meant shelter from the kind of wildfires Smokey used to warn me about all the damn time.
As I stumbled upon the small local inn, sporting lit windows and a functioning A/C unit, I considered the possibility that it was all an elaborate trap, a mirage of an oasis in the apocalypse. Of all the things that could have been waiting for me on the other side of the door, Judy Orfman was the last thing I ever would’ve considered.
The woman ushered me through before a single droplet of rain had the possibility of slipping through. I wish I could say she was wordless through it all, but she wasn’t. In fact, she said so much in such a short span of time that I honestly couldn’t track half of it.
There were, however, a few recurring themes. One in particular.
“Oh! You’ve got to meet my so— I mean Kyle,” she’d gushed, like the correction would be enough not to rouse my suspicions. “He has a room with extra space for you, dear. And I know it’s probably unsettling to stay with a man, but my son—Kyle— is very respectful.”
Of course, it wouldn’t have been the first nor the last time a mother was wrong about her son. But she’d made it sound like it was the only real chance I’d had of sleeping in a bed that night. And realistically, I was fully prepared to kill a man if it meant a peaceful night’s rest. Wouldn’t be the first time, although I suppose it would be the first fully live one.
Moments later, there I was, standing outside again, but this time in front of a different door. Right after I knocked, I glanced behind me to find Judy still peeking around the corner, although she tried to hide at the last second.
I was thankful for it, though, because it meant when the man named Kyle opened the door, he caught me with a rare, genuine smile. His face, however, looked nothing short of baffled. That would be the second thing that I noticed about him, though. The first thing I’d thought when I’d seen him was twofold: (1) The Orfman family had powerful, beautiful genes, and (2) this man did not need his mother picking up women for him. Not even in the apocalypse.
Nothing he wore was noteworthy. If anything, it looked like he was trying to blend in the same way a soldier in a lineup might. He wasn’t quite good enough at it for me to mistake him for military, but I could tell from lean muscle and a firm hand on his holster that his not being a soldier hadn’t been for a lack of trying.
My slack-jawed staring wasn’t doing either of us any good, though, and it was clear from his equally shocked expression that he wasn’t going to be the one to break the silence.
“Hey, I’m sorry to bother you. I just got here and I was directed to your room by…” I considered referencing her by name, but then decided the more awkward, and thus the funnier way, would be to say, “a very kind woman who I can only assume is… your mom?”
He didn’t laugh at my joke. From the crew cut on his head to the desert eagle in his holster, I really should’ve gotten the feeling he wasn’t a laughing sort of guy.
Instead, he asked, “Why did she send you here?”
Fighting the urge to ask him if we could talk about it inside, rather than continuing to leave me to the storm still raging on behind me, I tried to summon enough courage to laugh.
“Um… I think she was— I mean, I was… sort of hoping I could maybe… stay with you? Just for the night?”
Kyle didn’t answer. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw his grip around the gun loosen. I clung to that hope, the gleam of weak lantern lighting off silver, the sliver of light through the storm.
“It’s kind of scary to sleep alone out here, and I got separated from my group. Who I’m also pretty sure left already, so…”
“So you want to stay… here?” he continued without hesitation, “In my room?”
I once again snuck a look into his room, surprised to see that he let me. He took a step back for a brief second, but then returned to his prominent placement in the threshold.
He was still a few inches away from me, but I could feel the rush of cool, dry air from within the room. Still, that wasn’t the oddest part about him. No, that was the distinct lack of smell. There was no overcompensation of cologne, no body odour, no… nothing. Not until I inched ever so slightly closer and caught the faintest hint of laundry detergent.
I’d also caught his eye, in a number of ways. Frantic, wayward glances seemed impossible for him to control. Every time he would come back to my face, he’d get distracted immediately. Either by the outline of my body in the soaking wet clothes, or by the realization that he should really be looking anywhere else.
“Sorry, is this too weird?” I said to break through the nonexistent chatter.
Kyle started to shake his head yes, then changed direction to try to say no. Neither was particularly convincing.
“It’s fine if it is. I thought it might be weird, but your mom—“
He cut me off before I got too far, stepping aside and beckoning me in with his hand now fully off the weapon.
“No, it’s fine. It’s fine. Come in.”
It wasn’t until I fully entered the room that it had occurred to me why he had questioned my desire to stay in his room. Against the wall on the side of the room not visible from the door was a bed.
Just the one.
I cared less than he might’ve thought I would. After all, it wouldn’t be my first time sleeping on the floor. Probably wouldn’t be the last, either. The only unfortunate part about it was that my sleeping bag — along with basically everything else — was sitting in the lobby and soaking wet.
While I’d been cautiously scoping out the room now that I’d been offered refuge, Kyle had done very little. He was still standing just a couple feet from the door, and staring at me.
I opened my mouth to say something, but he showed no signs of a reaction. For whatever reason, it was the apathy that made my stomach flip. I turned away from him before he could spot any sign of just how flustered I was. That brought my attention to the carefully organized collection of toiletries laid out on his bathroom counter.
“Oh, wow, do you guys have running water here?”
Kyle joined me much faster than I’d been anticipating. I hadn’t even heard him approach me before he was right next to me, barely avoiding touching me.
“Yeah, it even has a water heater,” he answered before stepping past me to flip on the switch. I hadn’t really needed a visual demonstration to believe him, but was nonetheless happy to see the water run clear.
My mind was racing with potential. I was glancing back and forth from the door to the bathroom, wondering how stupid it would be to go get my things in the hope of sneaking a shower.
The desire must’ve been obvious from my actions, because Kyle immediately asked, “Do you… want to shower? You can if yo—“
I didn’t need his permission before I yelled back, “Yes! Oh my god, yes!”
If I’d taken a moment to pause, I would’ve seen the way my enthusiasm made him smile. Although, I would’ve simply written off his fondness as relief that he wouldn’t have to smell the delightful mix of rainwater and body odor.
“I promise I’ll hurry!” I shouted from inside the bathroom, although I had no intention of doing such a thing.
That time, as the door shut behind me, I did manage to catch a glimpse of a charming little smirk sprouted over slightly pink cheeks. I couldn’t be sure if he actually had been as cute as I imagined, or if it’d just been too long since I found a man who hadn’t made me hate him in the first five minutes.
But one thing was clear about this man based purely on his bathroom setup: he took care of himself. Each thing had its place, and each place was carefully cleaned in a way that most people would have given up on the day the apocalypse began.
As the freshwater washed over me, I found myself wondering about the man on the other side of the tile walls. I wondered if he was the kind of person that was calmed by things like the scent of bleach; whether he took the utmost satisfaction in watching the water turn brown and then back to clear as it slipped through the drain.
I had to giggle when I opened his shampoo to find that it smelled exactly like one would expect a guy like him to smell like. Although I much preferred flowers or fruit to the masculine scent of wood and whatever the fuck ‘musk’ was, I was still grateful to find that the product hadn’t completely obliterated my hair.
Instead of dwelling on the fact that I now smelled of a log cabin filled with whiskey and idiots, I closed my eyes and tried to enjoy this small moment of bliss. I was unbothered by the realization that I would be marking this memory with his smell — knowing full well that olfactory memory was one of the strongest — in fact, I reveled in it.
My bliss was enhanced when I heard the gentlest knock on the door, which was answered to reveal only his hand offering a t-shirt and gym shorts. When I finally emerged from the bathroom, what I’m sure was ages later, I found him with his back turned and his hands busy unraveling a sleeping bag over a cot in the corner of the room.
“Oh, thanks! I had my own, though. You didn’t have to lend me one.”
Kyle was, in the very least, kind enough not to point out that my sleeping bag, like the rest of my belongings, was currently drenched and sitting on a pile of towels in the lobby of the inn many doors down. He was also gentlemanly enough to make sure his eyes scanning over my figure in his clothes was quick as could be. However, that was where his mercy began and ended.
“This is mine,” he stated as definitively as humanly possible. “You’re staying in the bed.”
What is this, a bad romcom? I thought to myself. When my dropped jaw apparently hadn’t said enough for him to understand, I somehow managed to make it say words.
“What? No! I can’t take your bed from you.”
Kyle remained stoic, if not a little annoyed at my refusal. In a way, I think he thought I’d only been refusing the offer because I wanted him to insist. But in all actuality, I hadn’t wanted to take his bed because it was big enough for the both of us.
If I hadn’t made it abundantly clear by this point, it had been a long time since I’d found anyone even remotely close to a viable suitor. And Kyle almost made it, too, if not for the regrettable sigh followed by the worst string of words in the English language.
“You’re a damsel in distress. You take the bed. It’s the rules.”
“Excuse me?” I balked, “According to who?”
But without skipping a beat, he gave me an answer that was so infuriatingly charming that I felt inclined to forgive him.
“My mother,” he said, “My mother decided when she sent you to me and you listened.”
I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth because I was worried that if I had let myself speak, I would’ve said something regrettable. I barely knew this man, and what I did know of him was that he was both charming enough for me to not want to strangle him but infuriating enough that I honestly might if he’d wanted me to.
After I took a few deep breaths, I settled.
“You know what? Fine. Sleep on the floor for all I care.”
I’d meant for it to be insulting, or at least mildly condescending. So why was it, then, that when I’d heard him chuckle in response, my heart skipped a beat? Why had I immediately felt my own lips follow, stretching across my cheeks like a smile in return would be any closer to kissing him the way I’d wanted to?
My questions would go unanswered. The man whose mother had funneled me towards him with high praise and overt intentions remained dedicated to the gentlemanly persona he’d adorned from the first time our eyes met.
While I laid there, alone in his bed with a perfect view of his back as he lay a few feet away from me, I tried to think of literally anything else. I wanted to hit myself every time that my mind took notice of another one of his movements. But like a nightmare, the harder I tried to suppress it, the more pervasive the thoughts became.
It was so hard not to notice. The sleeveless shirt revealed enough skin of his back that I could see the prominent arch of his shoulder blades. The broad, albeit bony protrusions of his shoulders that rose and fell with each slow, rhythmic breath. Around his neck was a simple chain bearing dog tags, providing a hint of a gleam each time that the lightning struck.
I decided then that his beauty had not been a figment of a tired, touch starved brain. That strange, soldier-like man had complexities that I wanted to unravel like a kitten with a roll of string. Although I might end up tangled in a foolhardy excitement, I would be willing to deal with the aftermath if it meant that my limbs would be locked with his. Even just for one night.
“Kyle?”
“Is everything alright?” he asked, turning to remind me just how sculpted his jaw really was.
“Are you cold?” I asked.
“I’m alright, why?”
Finding no other reasonable alternative, I did what anyone would do in that situation. I lied.
“I’m just really chilly and I was wondering if you were, too.”
It was a reasonable solution, although foolish with the little bit of knowledge I had about the man. Because before I could tell him to stop, he was already halfway across the room and pulling an extra blanket from the closet.
“I don’t know how you’re cold,” he muttered, “but here.”
His hands were careful, coming as close as possible without touching me as he draped the extra blanket over my body. Although he couldn’t seem to meet my eyes, they were stuck on him. They bounced along every feature and freckle on his face, trying to memorize the way the little bit of moonlight caught along his skin.
“Goodnight,” he whispered upon the beginning of his retreat.
He never made it far. Almost like one of the walkers, my hand came to life without my knowledge. It shot out to him, grabbing hold of his wrist and halting all movement. I swore we didn’t even breathe.
“Okay, fine, I lied. I’m not cold,” I admitted, unsure of where to go from here. The truth — that I wanted him to come, to touch me and hold me and make me feel something beautiful for once — seemed either too intimate or too crude. I couldn’t decide.
I hardly knew him. I had nothing but loneliness to blame for the way my heart ached for him, my body starved for touch.
My attention was briefly caught by the reflection of lightning off pistols and bullet casings, all in their rightful place. And I came up with an idea.
“I’m… scared,” I whined, frightened to hear how genuine the words sounded. “Will you come lay in bed with me?”
Kyle’s demeanor shifted, a strange defensiveness forming while his eyes wandered over my almost trembling figure. Tucked away underneath the blankets on his bed, he must’ve seen some truth to my words.
Oddly, when he did answer, he phrased it fairly differently.
“You really think I can protect you?”
My toes curled involuntarily, my stomach tensing at the latter half of the phrase. The sentiment behind the words, the thought of someone taking on the role of protector for no reason other than finding me worth having.
I nodded.
Again, he began to shift, although this time literally. His hands were in his pockets, but I could see him readjust himself. He’d tried to hide it behind the sound of clearing his throat, but that did nothing to dissuade me from shamelessly ogling him while he inched closer.
“Fine,” he said simply, “But only because I trust myself not to take advantage of this… delicate situation.”
I would’ve laughed if I hadn’t felt paralyzed. My heart was beating so fucking hard that I thought he might be able to hear it. I didn’t even turn to follow him when he walked to the other side of the Queen sized bed. I just waited; listened and felt for his presence once the sheets started moving.
It felt like neither of us were breathing. My eyes had fluttered shut, waiting for the warmth of a body pressed against mine that seemed like it was never coming. But I wanted to be held by him so badly, that the second I felt his leg brush up against me, I squirmed backwards until I felt his chest against my back.
His breath hitched, a sharp inhale into empty lungs. He wouldn’t breathe again until I reached back and grabbed hold of his hand — not his wrist this time — and draped it over my hip. Kyle stayed dead still in every way but his mouth.
“Your hands are cold,” he pointed out matter-of-factly.
“Yeah, I wasn’t totally lying about being cold.”
Again, silence fell between us. That odd man still hadn’t moved after several moments had passed, other than a brief moment where his hips shifted away from me in a movement that seemed purposeful. I allowed him to retreat. The sting of his rejection would be healed by the softness of his embrace, and the knowledge that there were still men out there who would hold you when you were scared without trying to force anything else out of you.
But I wanted him to try. I wanted him to desire me and my touch the same way I clearly craved his. Although I tried to stave off the thoughts, they wouldn’t stop returning. The wondering and yearning for a reality wherein the gentle man couldn’t resist touching me harder.
I daydreamed at night, unable or unwilling to fall asleep when I was surrounded by him. I wanted to remember each sensation, each twitch of his muscles. The longer I envisioned him lost with me in a passionate exchange of souls and saliva, the harder it became to separate my fantasies from reality. It seemed impossible and downright cruel to sit still when he was there, with blunt nails digging into my hip and his legs winding ever so cautiously with mine until…
“Fuck.”
Kyle pushed away from my body quickly. He held me at a full arm’s length, but I still felt the force with which he was breathing as his hands remained on me despite the distance.
“Sorry, I—” He continued to struggle for breath, his hands unsure of just how dedicated he should’ve been to letting me go. Eventually, his palm flattened against my hip, softening his arm until he began inching back. “I’m afraid your movements, while probably completely innocent, are having a very unintended effect and…”
But while he was talking, I was doing absolutely nothing subtle. I had grabbed hold of his arm, tugging him back to me at a much greater speed while he dutifully followed my lead. Through that obvious excitement, though, he still managed to choke out a few more words he clearly meant, but didn’t want to say.
“I-I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“Kiss me,” I answered.
Before I’d even finished the words, he was already agreeing, “Okay.”
Immediately, I’d forgotten even the vaguest concept of ‘cold.’ The second Kyle’s hand cupped my cheek, I was completely aflame. Engulfed in the white-hot flames of ungodly lust. Without moving our positions, he craned my neck back until our lips met.
From there, I fell apart beneath him. Each staccato breath was devoured by him, each whimper consumed and returned through a wide range of noises of his own. Every now and then, his moans would crack and reveal a song that reminded me of lightning, only to be followed by the thunder of his groans.
“Fuck, you’re so hot,” he mumbled between the kisses.
His hips, which had been still before, were now rocking against mine. Our bodies rolled harshly against one another, seeking friction that we both knew wouldn’t be enough. He must’ve felt my frustration, too, because he quickly switched our positions.
I couldn’t even keep track of my limbs, and I didn’t want to. I wanted him to do what he would with them. I fell like a ragdoll when he flipped me onto my back, looking up at the man now straddling me with half-lidded eyes and my mouth hung open while I struggled to breathe.
Based on my limited experience with him, I got the feeling that he was smarter than people had led him to believe. Because I saw the way that he analyzed every aspect of my expression, carefully noting how badly I was begging him to touch me. Kyle stopped, every few moments, ever so surely, to be absolutely certain that I was still enjoying myself as much as he’d wanted me to.
But something about the way I looked then must have been different than before. There was no more fear in his eyes, no more apprehension or concern that he was ‘taking advantage.’ And he was right to think as much.
The second his fingers reached under the waistband of the shorts he’d provided me, I threw my head back with relief. My hips lifted for him, and he wasted no time in revealing the bare skin underneath.
Once I’d wiggled out of them, Kyle lowered himself above me again. Except, unlike before, he placed only one soft kiss against my lips. I was charmed by the tenderness with which he’d done it, but realized that it had only been shown to me to contrast the delicious torture of rough fingers slipping between my folds.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” he whispered with saccharine sarcasm.
I wanted to say yes, but just as I went to answer, he began a fast, ruthless pace. It would’ve been impossible for it to hurt because the anticipation was practically pooling at my thighs. The slick sounds of sex were filling the air like the echoing storm outside, and all I could do to answer him was nod.
“You’ve been begging me to fuck you ever since you showed up at my door,” he whispered before he spat, “Brat.”
My mind was spinning, my body unable to do much of anything beyond responding to the rhythmic pumping between my legs.
“Please…” was the only pathetic utterance I could make, and just like everything else, he gladly accepted the offering with no hesitation.
“You want me to take care of you, huh?” he whispered playfully. Then, with that trademark sarcasm that made my teeth rot, he cooed, “I’ll take care of you, Princess.”
But he immediately betrayed the promise, pulling his fingers out of me and laughing at the way I whined.
“Calm down,” he ordered. When my squirming continued, his voice dropped in register and the enunciation of each word became firmer. “I said be patient, you spoiled brat.”
I tried — god as my witness — I tried. But the waiting was torture. I swore, he was taking longer than any human could possibly need. When he had removed all of his own clothing, he was even slow to help me finally remove the last piece of my own. He pulled his shirt off of me and then stared with hungry, greedy eyes at the sight of my fully naked figure.
He took a few more moments to just touch me, to run calloused fingers over softer skin and see how he could make me shake. When he had finally had his fill of my humiliation and desire, he straddled me once more. With one hand, he guided the head of his dick and pressed it just hard enough against my heat for me to feel the muscles start to stretch.
Then, he stopped. My body immediately protested, my back arching and hips rocking as I tried to take more of him in. Kyle didn’t stop the way one might expect, either. He did not force my hips down, nor did he provide an order to stop.
Instead, he forced his fingers past my lips. Although I accepted them, displaying my tongue for him despite the pressure he exerted, he still wasn’t satisfied enough by the submission.
“Beg me,” he commanded.
“Please,” I answered without hesitation. The word was muffled, but I didn’t care. I said it again and again until I choked on it. Until tears welled in my eyes and my whole body was vibrating with need for any movement at all.
“Please what?” he teased.
“Please fuck me,” I warbled, pleased to find that his fingers lifted enough for the words to become understandable again. That way he could hear me perfectly when I rasped, “I want you to fuck me, please.”
What he heard pleased him, clearly. Because Kyle had started to move again, slowly inching deeper into me with each sound of desperation I awarded him. That cold, analytical facade was fading faster with every passing second, revealing a man filled with emotions and fantasies that were equally debaucherous to my own.
“Not so bratty anymore, huh?” he said through a smile. But that smile, too, would fade. When there was almost nowhere left to go, Kyle pressed harder against my hips until he elicited an honest to god scream from my throat. Until he was as far as he could go, with his cock pressed against the very end of me.
“You fit me perfectly,” he groaned. “Fucking made for me.”
I couldn’t argue with him. He had been right. Any protest or agreement would have been lost, anyway, because before I could speak, he withdrew and bottomed out again in an instant. The force with which he fucked me was reflected in my body sliding against the sheet and his dog tags tickling my chest.
I couldn’t breathe, but I still begged him, “I need you, please.”
I didn’t even know what I was asking for. I couldn’t put any words to the thoughts and feelings raging inside of me. All I knew was that I wanted to feel him, the pure, unadulterated honesty behind the front. Sure, I wanted to see the polite, charming boy his mother had spoken so highly of. But more than that, I wanted to see him for who he really was.
A man who wanted something to protect. To feel coveted and strong. To have something of his own, for his consumption alone.
Catching his face in my hands, I tried to kiss him, but wasn’t able to close my lips long enough. Instead, the pleas poured out of me like a prayer until they changed just enough to matter.
“Please fuck me, daddy,” I cried.
The risk was calculated, but it was worth it. As soon as the word left my mouth, any semblance of gentility vanished with it. His rough thrusts became even harder, an almost unbearable pressure of his hips meeting mine with bruising force.
Unable to hold back anything anymore, my mouth dropped open in a moan perfectly timed with the thunder. But while I was more than happy to sing him praise, Kyle was quick to silence it with a firm hand over my mouth. I could feel the way he struggled to keep his touch light, but my head sunk into the pillow and the headboard had already started to shake the walls.
“Be quiet unless you want everyone to know,” he growled before giving a dark little chuckle. “You’d probably like that, though.”
Barely able to keep my eyes open through the pleasure alone, I struggled to memorize the way the drips of sweat clung to his jaw. I just watched and basked in the glory of his ruthless passion. I couldn’t keep my legs up, so I simply let him hold them open while he continued to slam into me with his full force. He finally removed his hand from my mouth, but I was too busy trying to catch my breath to provide him anything but the softest whimpers.
“You know exactly what you’re doing. Using this tight little fucking body—Fuck—“ he cried, his voice breaking from the force with which the word came, “—letting me fuck you so I’ll protect you.”
But Kyle was nothing if not persistent to his clear objective; to thoroughly break me down to my parts so that he could tuck them neatly away. To consume me like an indulgence of the highest sin. There was no feeling as sweet, no taste as delicious as his lips against mine until we both tasted like me. The passion ended purely out of necessity, by nature of his laughter as he came to a conclusion that made my hair stand on end.
“And let me tell you, Princess,” he whispered, “I think it’s gonna work.”
“Please, daddy,” I whined back without pause. Then, just as his hips began to falter, and his jaw dropped open with heavy breath, I repeated, “Take care of me, daddy.”
“Fuck!” was the final eloquent cry, the last sound of pleasure before the silence as he swiftly pulled out of me. His hand continued to work over his aching cock, aided by the wetness left behind, until he finally finished in hot spurts across my stomach. Each drop that hit me still felt hot against my skin, like the gentle embrace of showers and Summer rain.
But after a couple of seconds, the chill of the air conditioning — and the lack of his body heat — kicked in.
“Shit,” he muttered when he’d finally caught his breath. I shared the sentiment.
But when he followed it up with, “Are you alright?” all I could think to respond was, “Gimme towel.”
To his credit, he tried not to mock my slurred speech. I couldn’t blame him when some slipped through, though. I decided it was nice to hear him laugh.
When he returned, he didn’t hand the warm, wet washcloth to me. Instead, he cleaned the mess he’d made with the utmost care. Similar to how he had draped the blankets over me, Kyle made sure that I felt welcomed, comforted, and cared for until the very end.
He climbed back into bed with me without thinking, and when he settled down next to me, I think he realized that he hadn’t stopped to seek permission first. Any worries were sated immediately, because I wrapped my arms and legs around him before he had a chance to protest, either. And neither of us did.
“All dirty again right after my first real shower in like a month,” I said with a heavy sigh to fill the silence.
Kyle snorted in response, displaying his own slurred speech proudly as he muttered, “You can take as many as you want.”
“Oh really?”
Turning to look me in my eyes despite the darkness, he whispered words that sounded like a promise and made my heart stop.
“I told you I’d take care of you.”
I couldn’t be sure if he had mistaken my blissful joy as abject horror, if he simply hadn’t meant for it to sound so intimate, or because he had been shocked to hear his own feelings bleeding through, but Kyle cleared his throat. He rid himself of the tenderness and turned back to stare at the ceiling.
“For the record, as excited as I am by the prospect of fucking you again, I would have protected you regardless.”
When the lightning struck again, I saw an unmistakable pink tint covering his cheeks. And I realized that, sexual persona aside, his mother had absolutely been right about him. No matter how badly he wanted the world to see him otherwise, he was at his core a good boy with a big heart.
“… Hey, Kyle?”
“What?”
After a moment of silence, and another calculation of risk, I broke into a fit of giggles.
“Your mom got you laid.”
“I’ve changed my mind, suddenly, actually,” he squeaked, shooting up in bed in a feigned attempt at leaving. But the combined sound of our laughter stopped him, and he was already laying back down when he sighed sarcastically, “That sleeping bag is looking real appealing.”
Kyle turned to me again, meeting my eyes as the pouring rain began to settle into a melodious pitter-pattering in tune with our hearts.
“No, stay,” I begged for the umpteenth time that night. “I want you to stay.”
“Sure thing, Princess,” he whispered back. “Whatever you want.”
And, like a true gentleman, Kyle stayed true to his promise.
Summary: Spencer and Bunny have a discussion about socks (and a strange wedding invitation in his mailbox).
A/N: This is a bit of a “filler” chapter, meaning that it’s mostly closing out/setting up arcs. Next chapter is a big one, though. I can’t wait to share it with you all! (Gif is mine)
Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader
Category: Slow Burn (NSFW, 18+)
Content Warning: Mentions of bastinado (foot whipping from Revelations), canon consistent trauma, parents arguing, holidays.
Word Count: 7k
MASTERLIST | Series Masterlist
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The hardest thing about dating a profiler is that they see the world in a very different way. Spencer, for example, often saw the worst-case scenario to any situation in our daily lives. I had quickly learned that the worst-case scenario to basically everything was me being mortally wounded in a dramatic fashion.
So when I told him that I had to meet with Professor Hawkin, his first instinct was to tell me ‘no.’ I stopped him before he’d had the chance. Not only was the meeting mandatory, but she’d also even gone through the trouble of sending me a second and third invite when I’d taken too long to respond. The last one had included a simple note of, “I need to speak with you. You deserve an apology.”
At first, I’d confronted Spencer, assuming he’d put her up to it. But I learned rather quickly that he hadn’t known about any of it. He’d actually seemed genuinely angry about the whole situation.
Eventually, though, I’d talked him into letting me go (and out of waiting by the door). He gave me just a few more words of advice before he promised me that he would leave the building.
“Be strong. Don’t cry. She can’t hurt you, and she is not worth your tears.”
I hadn’t realized how badly I needed to hear them until then. The mere mention of tears made them start to well up, but Spencer peppered my face with kisses until he heard laughter again. His final farewell was not advice, but encouragement.
“It’s not fair you have to be strong like this,” he said, and I knew he wasn’t only talking about Candy. I knew exactly what he’d meant when he’d whispered, “But I know that you can.”
For a while, I believed him. It wasn’t until I was standing in front of her office that I realized just how nervous I was. Every thought that I’d had, every carefully planned out script evaporated the second my hand met her door handle. I could barely even hear her voice calling me in over the sound of my own heartbeat.
But once I was there, things were about as mundane as any other student meeting. Unlike what I’d expected, Professor Hawkin dove straight into reviewing coursework and discussing my paper. She’d hardly even provided a greeting before explaining that I’d passed the class with flying colors. I would’ve felt a bit patronized for it if it weren’t for the extensive commentary she immediately provided on my topic.
It felt uneasy, but not necessarily in a bad way. There was an undercurrent of tension that we both wanted to ignore. It wasn’t entirely unlike my second meeting with Max at the coffee shop.
By the end of the discussion, though, we’d both run out of words. Professor Hawkin stared at me with an open mouth and an obvious lump in her throat. I’d recognized the look as the same one she’d given Spencer when she stood at our door the last time that I’d seen her this close.
And I realized that I didn’t particularly care to hear her apology. Not because I hadn’t deserved one — I definitely did — but because she was clearly already so fucking miserable. For now, I decided, that would be enough. But once I stood up and grabbed my bag, her courage broke through the facade like a hairline fracture turned into a crevasse.
“Ms. (y/l/n), wait!”
My body froze at the command, not because it was an order, but because I heard just how flustered it sounded. Raw and vulnerable. It sounded like something that needed to be said, no matter how much she struggled to get the words out.
“Yes?”
“Does he…” Candy’s voice cracked. I watched as the realization dawned on her the same way it had on me. The remembering that, no matter how badly I wanted to paint her as nothing but a villain… there was more to it than that. There always had been.
She regained her composure much quicker than I had, and she finished her question much easier than before.
“Does he make you happy?” she asked, “Does he treat you well?”
For the first time, I saw the way her hands shook as she held them together. I wondered what else I’d missed when I’d chosen not to look. Just how unreliable a narrator I’d really been due to my own jealousy and insecurity.
I was certain about one thing, though.
“Yes, he does.”
With a brief, distant laugh, Candy whispered, “I thought he might.”
I thought about leaving it at that, despite seeing her lip trembling as she tried to carefully choose her next words. But I wanted to hear them. I think I needed to.
“I would tell you to be kind to him, but I think you’re probably a better advocate for that than I am,” she started. It was as far as she got before she broke down just a little bit further. With her face in her hands, she sucked in a sharp breath. “The way I treated you is unforgivable. I just… god, I was acting younger than you actually are.”
When her hands fell away, I saw the evidence of tears already whisked away. I wondered how often she had to do that, and how few people had cared to notice. I thought of all the ways our relationship could have been different. I saw her thinking just the same.
After a long look, Candy sighed.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me. Heaven knows I wouldn’t if the roles were reversed… but I wanted you to know that I wish you the best of luck and a very good life. And I suspect you two will do… just fine. Probably better.”
Her last words were whispered with a smile. A genuine curvature that someone like Spencer might even liken to lily petals and ferns.
But as soon as I answered, “Thanks, Professor,” she began to shift back into that cold, apathetic mask.
I let her. I watched as her back straightened from the sudden lack of weight, and I smiled when she turned back to her work like nothing had happened. She was nothing if not painfully consistent.
“Goodbye, Ms. (y/l/n),” she instructed, “You can shut the door on the way out.”
I did as she instructed. But before I stepped out of the way of the old wooden door, I paused. My fingers thrummed on the frame until I came to a decision.
“Hey Candy?”
She jumped a bit. I wasn’t sure which shocked her more— the fact I’d used her nickname, or the fact she’d immediately responded, “Hm?”
“It wasn’t unforgivable.”
The comment was met with an even more stunned silence. Dry eyes wet again, but she said nothing.
“I’m not there yet, but I need to make sure you know that. It isn’t over.”
“Thank you,” was her answer. And while it was enough for me, I couldn’t leave the exchange without offering her something in return. An assurance that her efforts hadn’t been in vain, nor had they gone unnoticed.
Spencer did not manifest the day I’d arrived. Someone else had watched over him before he found me. And that woman was not evil. All things considered, she’d been pretty damn selfless up until the last few months.
“Thank you for taking care of him until now. I know how hard it is,” I offered, hoping it would be enough. “But you don’t have to worry anymore. I’ve got him for now.”
“That you do,” Candy laughed, and I realized it was a beautiful sound.
—————————————————
The easiest thing about dating a profiler is that they know how you feel, even when it seems impossible for you to identify those feelings yourself. As I walked into his office, with a vacant expression that must’ve mimicked only a good kind of confusion, Spencer’s entire body perked up. His eyes scanned over every inch of my body, and with every bit of information gathered, he began to relax.
“How did your meeting go?” he finally asked, but I could see that he’d already found his answer.
“It went… sort of great. I’m really happy about it, actually.”
“As you deserve to be,” he said through his trademark goofy grin. He came to me within seconds, his hands finding home at the small of my back.
Just like that, I’d been transported to a world far from the pressures and concerns of university strife. Despite being surrounded by literal piles of papers and books, I cared only about the way our bodies began to sway through the room.
“Can we go celebrate now? I have a gift for you.”
If my first statement had excited him, the second had nearly killed him. There was no hiding that childlike joy when he answered, “A gift? It’s not Christmas yet.”
“Humor me,” I whispered. We were close enough now that I could feel the burst of air that resembled a laugh. I laughed, too. Grabbing his tie with both hands, I playfully muttered, “You could also come in… and spend time with me.”
“How am I meant to say no to that?”
“Easy!” I chirped, “You aren’t.”
“Well, now I want to,” he whined back.
Before my plan of pouting and puppy dog eyes could even begin, Spencer had swiftly cut off the attempts with his lips over mine. I would’ve protested, but he tasted like he’d put a little extra honey in his coffee, and I didn’t want to break free from the sweetness just yet.
The last week had been hard. The day after Spencer’s meltdown, he’d done just about everything to avoid talking about it. I could see it eating him alive, but like the fly to the Dionaea muscipula, he’d found himself trapped by the sturdy walls built with teeth like prison bars. He hadn’t wanted to admit to what he’d done, but he had to if he’d wanted to make it out alive.
It took him a few days, but he’d eventually managed to say the words aloud. To admit to what had happened and acknowledge the fact I had stayed. I think the second one had been harder for him than the first. The details of the conversation, although clearly stored somewhere in my memories, had been pushed aside at the first available opportunity.
Spencer spoke only in vague generalities. He still hadn’t told me much of what had happened to him, or who exactly he’d been talking to in the park. I figured I didn’t need to know the specifics so soon, although I imagined that it might matter one day. I didn’t want to think about it for the time being. I just wanted a kiss to be a kiss, shared between two people who cared for each other enough to not let go when things got hard.
When he pulled away, then, my pout was for another reason. He still knew how to fix that, though. Because true to his profiler nature, he didn’t need to know why I was upset, to know that I didn’t need to be.
“Don’t look so sad, Bunny. I have a solution. We’ll swing by your place and grab the gift… and an overnight bag.”
My mood flipped with my stomach; my body was buzzing with anticipation with such fervor that I’d actually started to bounce in his arms before his sentence had even finished. He persevered, though.
“So you can come with me to my place… where I also have a gift for you.”
I hadn’t needed any more convincing. I was only held in place by his arms, which mostly tried to contain me so I wouldn’t knock both of us over.
“Score. Let’s go!”
As I dragged him through the office by the sleeve of his suit jacket, I thought to myself that things were finally starting to be normal again. Not the same normal, because it never was after a breakdown.
A new normal, though. One that I could live with.
The kind of normal where the both of us knew all of the words to each other’s playlists. Where I would be scolded every time I snuck a kiss at a red light, but only because Spencer had failed to land one first. I wanted to throw myself into that life where our hands were together, not because they were paralyzed with fear of the other’s leaving, but because we had stopped finding the space between our fingers necessary.
Eventually, though, we would have to break apart. It would only be for a few seconds, but the both of us would lock eyes and flash a smile that assured us we were both thinking the same thing.
As Spencer gathered his mail, I let my eyes wander from the subtle smile still stuck on his face and the flashing colors between his fingers. One of the envelopes stuck out more than the others, though. An ornate, pretty pattern with careful calligraphy.
“What’s that one?”
“Which one?”
Just like that, he’d slipped it between the rest in front of my eyes. I hadn’t even noticed how quickly his fingers had moved until he’d displayed basically every damn envelope except the one that I’d clearly wanted.
“Don’t pull your sleight of hand on me. The fancy one!” I huffed. When I reached out to grab it, I was somewhat surprised he’d let me. He hadn’t put up a fight at all, and I’d almost expected to see it was nothing but a cleverly created solicitation.
But it wasn’t. All it took was one glance at the return address to realize that the ink was definitely hand drawn, and the embossing was not an optical illusion.
“No way! Why is Lila Archer sending you mail?”
“It’s a wedding invitation. The third one, too,” he grumbled, as if it wasn’t the strangest thing in the world.
“That’s so cool! You’re going, right?”
Through a grimace, he replied, “I told her no several times already.”
That obvious regret, paired with the even more blatant ridiculousness of ignoring an invite to a celebrity wedding, urged me to ask the only two questions that came to mind.
“What?! Why?”
Something occurred to him, then. The little grin had been replaced with a wide, contagious smile that both made my heart stop and my thighs clench. It was the same look that either spelled trouble or pleasure, or a little bit of both.
“Well, at the time I didn’t really have a plus one,” he explained calmly, “so the thought of flying out to Las Vegas where the only people I knew were Lila, and the boys who tormented me in high school, was… unappealing, to say the least.”
His eyes scanned my figure, noting the sudden tightness of muscles and the way my bottom lip was firmly tucked beneath my teeth. While my wandering eyes were innocent, his had been anything but. It was almost like he was daring me to say something. Like he could see the thoughts before I spoke them.
Cautiously, I drawled, “At the time you didn’t have a plus one… But not anymore.”
“You’re clever,” he noted sarcastically.
I would have accepted the compliment, anyway. I wouldn’t even make a fuss about it on the condition that he did what we both knew was right.
“Ask me! I wanna go! Please, please, please!”
“Do you want to go to a wedding with me, Bunny?” he asked, pleased with my answer being made clear through my every move.
Spencer had even predicted my reaction, opening his arms just before I leapt forward and nearly knocked him to the ground as I shouted, “Yes!”
A few pieces of mail fluttered to the floor now that his hands favored me, instead. Neither of us paid them any mind. Even when someone else walked through the doors of the apartment complex, they just laughed at the horribly shameless public display of affection. That only seemed to further stroke my boyfriend’s ego. Which meant that he was happy to finally concede.
“Okay. I’ll let her know that her persistence paid off.”
But in all the excitement, we’d lost track of one seemingly important detail.
“Wait, you never told me how you know her.”
Spencer froze. His hands stayed on me, but his mouth floundered, and his eyes did that thing where they found everything in the room other than me. They looked for an answer on the ceiling and in the fancy lettering of the envelope still clutched in my hand. Whether he was trying to hide something or not, I got the feeling that the answer he provided was genuine in some shape or form.
“Uh… We uh, helped her on a case a long time ago. I was her bodyguard, I guess.”
I searched for the answer for only a few seconds before he continued in more of a hurry than before, “I did a pretty bad job, too, so, maybe don’t bring it up to her unless you want to taint your perception of me with the truth.”
I could have pressed the issue, and I suppose at another time, I would have. But it was clear that this was one of those things he didn’t want to explain just yet. So, I chose to ignore it… for now. I figured if it was something I needed to know, I would find out one way or another. I just really hoped it would be a less disastrous lesson than the last.
“Oh, awkward,” I muttered before letting out a deep breath.
We both looked at each other, silently questioning whether the conversation should end there. The almost imperceptible shaking of his hands told me that it should.
“Okay, whatever!” I laughed, a nervous but still thrilled sound. Perhaps not entirely convincing, but just strange enough to be contagious. “I’m so excited — I love weddings!”
“Do you?” he asked, and I was shocked to hear the surprise in his tone.
I slipped from his arms, leaving him to ponder the smirk I’d flashed in response. I gathered his mail while he watched, his teeth dragging over his bottom lip to hide the smile that’d formed from watching me. I popped back up, spinning in a rather dramatic fashion to make sure he would follow.
“I do, Spencer Reid,” I answered.
After a few wholehearted giggles, he returned, “I do, too.”
And I thought to myself that I think I liked this new kind of normal.
—————————————————
Anyone who had known me for longer than thirty seconds could come to an informed conclusion about how comfortable – or, rather, uncomfortable – I am around other people. They would say that I’m awkward, distant, and unsure of myself in every sense of the word. And they would be right.
That was especially true this time of year. Holidays were hard for my family for several reasons. When my father was there, they were replete with screaming matches that would only end when one of them had had enough and left the house to find one of the many bars still open. It was Las Vegas, after all. The den of sin.
Despite the disappointment year after year, I’d always held on to the type of Christmases I’d seen depicted by hand puppets reenacting Charles Dickens. I waited for my light at the end of the tunnel, the day the angels ascended back to heaven now that I’d learned the lesson from the pain.
As Bunny sat beside me, now donning the delicate bracelet I’d gotten her (rabbit charm and all) and holding onto a moderately sized box with clumsy wrapping paper and an extravagant bow atop it, I wondered when it had happened.
I wondered how I’d missed the angel’s departure. Because I was there, with a full heart and home at Christmas.
How long had it been since I’d felt this way? Had I ever? I thought I had at least once before, but it seemed so different in the warm yellow lighting that reflected from her eyes that were already so impossibly bright.
“Open it!” she cried, shoving the box between my hands that had only wanted to hold her.
I figured the gift would do for now. Anything to see that smile for a little while longer.
Doing as she instructed, I was at first pleased to find a collection of colors as diverse as any rainbow. I laughed, then, pulling the paper back farther to reveal that she’d gone through the effort of separating each of the pairs of socks just to put them back together again in a different way.
“Tadah!”
Her eyes were wide and hopeful, brimming with excitement that I suddenly felt horrible for. If it had been any other day, I would’ve been able to cast aside the thoughts and love them as much as she deserved. But it wasn’t any other day. That day felt like a blur, a sun-bleached memory lost to us, only to be reached through the rose-tinted memory of nostalgia.
I put on the bravest face I could, but I saw the way her smile faltered and her balled up fists dropped and spread to flat palms over her lap.
“Do you like them?” she asked with a whisper.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out.
She isn’t going to hurt you.
Not even if you’re honest.
After a few seconds of silence — which I’m certain felt as much like an eternity to her as it did to me — I turned to her with a genuine smile. One borne out of the overflowing fountain of adoration I held for that girl and her attention to detail (and taste for houndstooth).
“I love them,” I said, and I meant it.
“I thought you might,” she chuckled. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen your bare feet.”
But despite how well I’d been doing, I wasn’t able to stop the way that sentence cut straight through me. I knew she hadn’t meant anything bad by it. She’d made it very clear to me that — so long as they were not dangerous — she’d found my idiosyncrasies and silliness to be charming. She hadn’t meant it to, but it just sounded so much like a reminder that I wasn’t right.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ was what she’d asked the other night.
“… Why is that?” is what she asked this time.
The change, although important, still felt too much like the heavy weight of a gun that I’d yet to pick up again since that night.
“It’s complicated,” I muttered as I pulled a pair of soft socks from their place among the many. “I won’t bore you with the details.”
With careful hands and a steady voice, my Bunny forced me to turn to her. She held me there, left to gaze upon the determined look in her eyes and the flatness of her lips. Once she was satisfied that I’d seen just how serious she’d wanted to be, she said slowly, as if to a child, “Spencer, I want to know about your life. Okay? Even the ugly bits. I want you to feel safe here.”
“Do I have to?” I asked, surprised to find the words barely audible.
“Of course not,” she answered without hesitation.
She won’t hurt you. Even if you’re honest.
“But I would listen to you talk forever. About anything.”
It was the truth. The unadulterated, genuine, obvious truth. She had done it a million times over, sitting patiently even when her eyelids got heavy, or the clock ticked past the time she absolutely had to leave. She had never given me any reason to doubt her.
So, with an unprecedented amount of courage, I asked, “Did you know it’s incredibly difficult to scar the arch of the foot?”
“No,” she said while trying to hold back her proud little grin. “I didn’t know that. Tell me more, please.”
“The skin is so elastic, and our feet are intended to walk on rough terrain, so… it’s very difficult. But there are so many pain receptors there. Which, again, makes sense. You want to be alerted early if you take a wrong step. But…”
As the words continued to run ahead of me, I cut them off with a powerful crack in my voice. My throat closed around them, forcing me to play catch up with my mouth and pray that it wouldn’t say the wrong thing again.
But then she took my hand in hers. With her thumb caught in the colorful fabric, she rubbed the back of my hand through the barrier like it hadn’t changed her mind at all. She let the wall separating us continue to stand. She did not try to force her way through; she just tried to help me scale it with her.
“People tend to exploit things like that. You know?”
My Bunny nodded with a silent understanding. Even though she didn’t know, not yet, I took it and ran with it, pushing through the lump in my throat in the hope that it might make her proud. That it might make me feel less burdened by the weight if I knew that some part of it had brought her closer to me. Even just for now.
“Bastinado is still popular today, especially in religious or punishment contexts. And…”
“They did it to you,” she said. I didn’t mind her cutting me off, because I honestly wasn’t sure I would’ve been able to say the words so easily. But they seemed easier then.
“Honestly, it’s really nothing compared to the rest of it but—”
“No, it’s not,” she croaked. Her voice crackled like drought ridden wood on a Christmas fire, even when she repeated it. “It’s not nothing, Spencer. It’s not.”
I wanted her to stop crying, but I also felt so much comfort in the way her eyes knew when to fill with my tears. That odd, extraterrestrial connection that bound us together through it all.
I knew I didn’t need to say it all. I knew she was smart enough to extrapolate and infer everything that had happened. She’d already admitted to having read a great deal about my past before I ever saw her face.
Then again, it always felt like I’d known her so much longer than that.
“Really, I should count myself lucky for my prison experience,” I tried to reassure her. But the thoughts kept getting away from me. “I mean, at least I had the option of socks. Granted, most people kept them as weapons, instead.”
It was like my heart was so full and was finally given the microphone after years of being locked away. And now it just wanted to tell her everything, to divulge every last secret and let her do what she wanted with the information.
“Spencer…” she whispered.
I trusted her, because I knew that she would only ever use it to take care of me a little bit better than she’d been able to before.
But wasn’t that so fucking selfish? She had managed to make it a whole twenty-five years of existence without having to see this kind of horror. Sure, she’d been through things before me — and I was so proud of her for that — but there was just nothing quite like knowing just how close we’d come to never having met.
I looked down at the socks that she suddenly felt uncomfortable touching. Her hand had slunk away, now resting against my wrist where I could still feel the sting of cold metal in the blistering Mexico heat.
“Sometimes on bad days, that’s still all I see when I look at them,” I whispered absently. Silence followed until I saw a single tear crash onto the present that she’d worked so hard to put together for me. Then, the guilt returned tenfold, lost in the sea of grief that I’d just released onto her without so much as a warning.
I clenched my eyes shut, covering my face with my hands to hide any light that might’ve made its way through. And I begged her to forgive me.
“I’m sorry,” I whined, “This is so silly, and I’m just… I’m sorry.”
But that whimsical girl did not accept my apology. Instead, she just wrapped her arms around me before I’d even opened my eyes. I didn’t do it just yet, either. I kept them closed so I could properly focus on the way it felt to be surrounded by her. My face buried in her neck, her hair tickling my skin while her throat trembled from withholding tears as she spoke with her whole heart.
“Don’t be sorry, darling.”
The tears that had been hanging on by a thread dropped, traveling down skin rough with shadow. But to my surprise, they were not followed by others. The experience of running out of tears was not a new one to me, but it had never felt like this.
It had never felt so warm, so soft, so… safe.
But the fear remained. As much as I wanted to reach out, to hold her back and show her just how grateful I was for the oasis only she could provide to this Las Vegas desert boy, I couldn’t. My hands felt stuck shut just like my eyes.
I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t want to make another mistake.
Almost like she could read my mind, my Bunny answered my fears with a reassurance so perfectly suited to her that I couldn’t doubt its authenticity for a second.
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” she said. “None of this is silly except your socks.”
I’d said it before — that she tore down my walls with sledgehammers and controlled explosives. But this was unlike any other time. This was a raw sort of vulnerability; a fire tearing through an old structure and finding a new purpose in its destruction.
Greedy hands shot around her without needing to think about the aftermath. I pulled her forward with everything I had, no matter how hard it was to breathe when my mouth was pressed against her shoulder. I didn’t care; I just wanted to be closer to her.
My lungs felt empty, but my mind felt clear in a way I’d never experienced before. Every worry I’d harbored, every fear that had kept me from her was quickly dwindling. The longer she held me, the more alive I’d felt. The stronger my arms were until her laughter was too loud.
“You’re tickling me!” she squeaked when my breath hit her neck.
I couldn’t let go of her just yet, though. I compromised, choosing instead to hold her face and bring it to mine for what must’ve been the millionth time by now. It would never grow old, though. I would always find that embrace to be of the most heavenly indulgence. I would crawl back to it no matter what.
I wondered if she’d felt it, but my Bunny answered in her own way. With a few teardrops smeared between smushed cheeks, she told me everything I’d needed to know. They were gone by the time we separated; the only evidence of their existence lost between our lips that came together again a few more times before she managed to sneak in any protest.
The words she chose could hardly be described as that, though.
“One day, Spencer…” she giggled, “I hope I can make you so happy that I actually knock your socks off.”
In her usual way, she’d cast out the darkness from a dreary apartment and brought light back to the twinkling stars wrapped around the Christmas tree. And I realized that perhaps I’d gotten it all wrong.
Or maybe Dickens had gotten it wrong. Maybe it wasn’t the presence of angels that brought our attention to the mistakes. Maybe it was exactly the other way around. Maybe that was why she was here, smiling in that way where her tongue snuck between her teeth and failed to stifle her self-assured laughter.
“How do you do that?” I asked with a feeling I could only correctly describe as wonder. “How do you make the scary things seem so easy?”
In a fit of newfound panic and insecurities that I’d come to expect, my Bunny stumbled over her words.
“I-I don’t know. By being really cute and awkward?” she offered.
And you know what? I was inclined to agree. She must have seen it in my smile because her face lit back up like the sunrise after a gloomy night. She’d had too many of those lately, but she was ever so determined to change that.
I could see her determination burning in her like a flare lighting the way, and she sat up straighter as she announced to her audience of one, “Speaking of… I’m gonna do it.”
“What?”
Her hands clapped together, and then planted themselves firmly on my shoulders.
“I’m gonna kiss all your booboos better!”
That was the only warning I got before she was on top of me. Her body clung to me like rainwater, her lips feverishly tickling my skin all the same. I couldn’t stop the laughter from pouring out of me, no matter how guilty it made me feel that, even after I’d all but ruined a lovely heartfelt gift, she was still the one trying to make me feel better.
The least I could do, I figured, was to return the favor. I held her just as passionately, although mine was a bit more productive. Despite our combined clumsiness and her inability to separate her lips from me, I managed to lead us both into my bedroom again.
From there, the layers of winter clothing were stripped down to bare essentials before we’d even hit the comforter. I was dedicated to regaining some of the power I’d lost in her embrace, and so I practically threw the young girl on the bed in our fit of laughter.
As I tried to undo the buttons on my shirt, I found myself distracted by the sight. The way she looked, sprawled on my bed but somehow still curled up. Her almost bare body presented to me at the height of playful passion — which was objectively the best kind.
Then, I couldn’t get the clothing off fast enough. I opted to not be entirely bare since I knew where it would end. But I had wanted to give her as much of myself as I was able. Because I knew that, as soon as I was within her grasp, she would consume me like a wildfire.
And she did. No sooner had I come to kiss her than she’d wrapped koala legs around my waist and flipped our positions. On any other occasion, I would’ve protested the action. I would have engaged in a childish battle of wills, biceps, and hamstrings until I took my rightful spot atop her.
Most days, I wanted nothing more than to protect her. But that day, with her tears still smeared on my cheeks and her lips pressing soft but involved kisses down my jaw, I gave in to the desire I’d managed to keep hidden for so long.
I allowed her to worship me, and I allowed myself the understanding to enjoy it. My hands tangled in her hair while her tongue drew patterns against my neck. I gasped when her lithe tongue pressed against scar tissue. I remembered the way it had made me shiver when she’d first touched it with timid hands.
Nothing about her touch was timid anymore. She poured every bit of her into those kisses, that cherishing of each time I’d found the strength to pull through. I could feel it between her lips. My heart swelled with the knowledge that she hadn’t lied when she said she was grateful that I existed, despite the bumpy history stitched into my skin. I felt as her naive enthusiasm began to break blood vessels; I knew she was marking me with her tongue and teeth, and I didn’t care. I had meant it when I said that I belonged to her.
What a sweet possession it was. To feel her tickle me with soft petals and saccharine wetness. I closed my eyes because I couldn’t bear to see her when she was so blatant in her affections. I just held her whatever way I could as she started to flow down my body, lavishing every bit she could without compromising her quick descent.
Her hands roamed the skin she didn’t have time to kiss. I allowed us both to bask in the joy of unlimited affection for as long as it took her to slip sneaky little fingers underneath the hem of my boxers.
I ended it, then, with my arms hooking under hers and hoisting her back up to me. The adorably confused blinking that followed was well worth it, as well as the pout that followed.
“Sorry, but… You missed a booboo,” I explained.
“Oh yeah?” she challenged, swaying her hips at a steadily increasing pace until I answered with a little tap on my lips.
“Right here.”
She dutifully followed my implicit request, paying special attention to chapped lips that would never get enough of her. I tried to keep her there, to protect and sustain that innocent visage of her for a while longer. But that coquettish, devilish young woman had other plans.
Against my still open lips, she purred, “I missed a few, I think.”
Before she could go too far, I yelled out a regrettable command.
“Bunny, wait—!“
She froze. I felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise as I grabbed a handful in an attempt to stop her without hurting her some other way. She stared up at me, with a trembling lip and a deep-rooted concern that I was going to break her heart again.
I let her go and tried to put any words to the thoughts running in my head. Truthfully, I don’t know why I’d told her to stop. Heaven knew that I wanted her to keep going more than I wanted to keep breathing.
But… I could see it. The visions wracked my mind. Visions of her, seated on my lap and holding me in a new way for the first time. I saw her with lips just a little darker and pupils just a little bit wider, with her body rolling in tandem with mine while I tried to memorize every inch of her.
“If you do that, I know what’s going to happen, and I…” I whispered, trying to shove the lustful thoughts down to a manageable level. It got harder with every passing second, each miniscule movement she made as she readjusted on my lap. It was the sweet, torturous pleasure of her hips grinding against mine as she came to a stop that forced the last few words out. “I don’t think I’d be able to stop myself this time.”
Immediately and dejectedly, she replied, “Would that be so bad?”
Yes, I thought to myself.
“No,” I said aloud. “I’m convinced nothing involving you could ever be a mistake.”
I wondered how I could believe both of those things at the same time. That I could see her, so ready and willing and perfectly perched on me — and still believe that I hadn’t earned her affections. How I could deny her the pleasure and company and love that she sought while also being fully aware of just how much she deserved to feel it.
“I’m sorry, I… I don’t want it to be like this,” I said. As if she would ever be able to understand that none of it was any fault of her own. At least, besides her abysmal taste in men. But I’d told her that before, and we’d had enough lover’s spats over it for the time being.
I could see them brewing in her mind again. Her clever little mind was trying to find a way to break down the last remaining barriers between us, and if I gave her any more time, I think she might have been able to do it.
So, I requested the one thing from her that I knew she was more than happy to provide.
“Do you think you could… could you just… hold me? Like you did before?”
That whirlwind girl was different once again, her whole demeanor changing back into the soft, protective shelter of a tree canopy at dawn.
“Of course,” she said while wrapping tired limbs around me in a different way. And again, I relaxed and melted into the feeling of home. The subtle warmth of a dying fire whose light was not needed through the night.
“Are you sure you don’t mind waiting for me, Bunny?” I muttered, almost afraid to hear the answer.
Apparently, she was also afraid to give a straight one.
“Hey, what do I know? You’re the expert. On… everything, really,” she said, instead.
How wrong she had been, too. Because at no point in my forty years of living had I ever gotten in my way so often and so adamantly. Even when faced with literal addiction, I found myself more willing to give in to my own illogicality.
“Not this. I’m as clueless as you are,” I sighed.
Through the side of her mouth, she grumbled a joke just silly enough to calm any racing thoughts.
“Drats, I was really hoping on riding your coattails,” she groaned, “Guess I’ll have to settle for other things.”
Then, we were laughing again. Through the kisses and as we shifted into an embrace that would last us through the night, of my heart against her chest and my hand over hers.
“I can’t wait,” I whispered, but I could hear the question burning in her mind.
So why are you making me?
I was too scared to admit the answer.
I don’t know.
—————————————————
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Summary: Bunny runs into Kyle and learns things about Spencer she isn’t ready to handle.
A/N: Gif is mine (here) Big thank you to everyone for your support so far - this early chapter is dedicated to you all!
Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader
Category: Slow Burn (NSFW, 18+)
Content Warning: Physical assault, slapping, sexual threat, screaming/arguing, guns, discussions of hypothetical rape/sexual assault.
This chapter also features a graphic PTSD episode/flashback and autistic meltdown in which Spencer’s canonical trauma (and implied CSA) is briefly recounted/referenced. This chapter might be troubling for those who have trauma-induced flashbacks, feelings of suicidal ideation, sexual or physical trauma, or experiences with gun violence or domestic abuse.
On the Series Masterlist, I will include a brief description of the events that take place in this chapter for those who choose not to read it. This is your reminder that no story is worth your well-being, and I do not mind if you opt out of this chapter.
Word Count: 8.6k
MASTERLIST | Series Masterlist
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I’d never liked frat houses. After the first five minutes I spent in one, I was convinced that no one ever could. It seemed downright impossible. Beyond the sticky layer of sweat, beer, and something else I didn’t want to think about, was an undercurrent of sinister, unsettling behavior.
Drunk men had never been my forte. I could hardly handle them when they were sober. Granted, it was a lot easier to trick a drunk man into thinking you’d follow him into a room just before you shut the door and locked it to protect the rest of the crowd from the menace.
It hadn’t been my decision to come to a frat party — obviously. But my friends had insisted that they missed the carefree behavior that only seemed fit for somewhere so grimy. Also, they had a few choice words about how sad it was that I was the only one of them that had been ‘getting any.’ I didn’t want to explain to them that my answer would vary based on their definition of ‘any.’
I’d begged Spencer to grant me any excuse not to go, but he’d insisted that I spend at least some of my very little free time with my friends. Judging by his usually jealous nature, I think he’d really just seen it as an excuse for him to finally get some work done without me distracting him. It made sense, considering we’d just wasted a weekend lounging in a hotel bed together when we’d meant to be working.
Still, it was nice to know that he trusted me. I tried not to consider the reality that he only trusted me because he saw me as a carelessly lovesick girl incapable of straying. Granted, I never would stray, but I wanted him to trust me because he knew I would make the right choices.
Either way, I had ended up tagging along with a group of already half-drunk girls, freezing my ass off in the cold just to turn around and walk into the most disgusting steam room in existence. I was firmly stuck in it (and again, the beer-laden floor), and I had nowhere else to go. So, I figured that I might as well find some way to enjoy myself.
However, it had been a lot easier to do that when at least one of my friends felt obligated to stick by me, the perpetually awkward virgin who desperately needed social lubricant. I still was all of those things, but they’d apparently seen my relationship with my professor 15 years my senior to be enough of a growth spurt.
I had wandered around the house for approximately fifteen minutes before I saw a familiar face among the sea of young men. Ironically enough, he was also one of the few men who seemed completely uninterested in talking to me.
Honestly, it sort of seemed like Kyle was trying to run away from me. He’d never done that before, which only made me want to chase him further. Spencer had warned me before that I tended to bite off more than I could chew. I’d always assumed he was talking about the way I pursued him, but once Kyle was trapped at the dead end of a hallway, I think I finally understood what Spencer was talking about.
“Hey, Kyle,” I said with an awkward half-wave.
He returned an even more awkward nod of his head but said nothing.
So, I continued, “It’s been a while. I heard you dropped the class.”
“Yeah, I did.”
If I’d thought our interactions before had been uncomfortable, this was an entirely different meaning of the word. While I understood that men had a tendency to be put off by rejection, I’d never experienced something like that. The poor boy almost looked scared of me. Me, of all people! And even though he hadn’t been the most welcoming or gentlemanly of the men I’d met, I still didn’t like the way he seemed unable to meet my eyes.
Maybe I was just being insecure. Maybe I was trying to convince myself that I hadn’t done anything wrong in stringing him along when I knew it was never going to work. Whatever it was, the sinking feeling in my gut wouldn’t let me let it go.
“I’m sorry that I couldn’t help more. I know Professor Reid can be a bit... particular. But I promise it is not a reflection on you,” I tried to reason over the deafening, pulsing bass.
His answer, however, was perfectly heard.
“Listen, I don’t want to talk to you.”
“What?”
“I said I don’t want to talk to you.”
All I could hear was my blood rushing in my ears, the once shaking floorboards suddenly just a blip in my radar. I waited for him to say that he was joking, or to make some insensitive comment to prove he was just hurt. But when I looked into his eyes, all I saw was fear and anger — absolutely none of which appeared petty.
“D-Did I do something wrong?”
It had apparently been the wrong question to ask because he was quick to laugh in my face.
“Don’t act all innocent, alright? It’s annoying as fuck and no one believes you.”
Through trembling lips, I managed to answer, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Spencer had always warned me that my curiosity and determination would hurt me in the end. He’d urged me on several occasions to just believe people when they said I couldn’t handle the truth.
“Really?” Kyle said, stepping away from the wall I’d backed him into and reversing the roles.
I should’ve listened to Spencer.
“So you don’t know anything about your forty-year old felon boyfriend breaking my nose? About how he threatened to fucking kill me if I didn’t leave you alone?”
Everything in the world seemed to dull. In a split second, the world around me went from vibrant and exciting to a slurred, chaotic mess of lackluster color. It was the emptiness that struck me the hardest, making me feel like I was built of nothing but carbon dioxide that couldn’t escape and bile that came out as weak words.
“That didn’t happen,” I whispered at first. Then, I grew more confident in my foolhardy admiration and said louder, “Spencer wouldn’t do that.”
Then it happened. The inevitable change as any respect once held for me withered away. It happened every single time that I tried to stand for something as a person who would always be perceived as a stupid little girl. The rage that I’d seen in his eyes shifted to a familiar, stifling pity.
“No? Tell that to my medical bill.”
But I wasn’t ready to let go. I wanted the answers to how something like this could have happened — how I could have been so wrong about the man who had laid beside me and patiently waited for me to fall asleep before disappearing into the night. The man who’d had multiple opportunities to do the unthinkable, but always chose kindness. I couldn’t imagine Spencer, my Spencer, doing something so utterly stupid and cruel as to hurt a young man for his mere proximity to me.
He knew I was madly enamored with him. He knew I would choose him. He’d been a bit arrogant about it as long as I’d known him. So then… why?
“Why would he do that?”
“Why the fuck would I know?” he spat back.
It was a fair response, and I might have accepted it if he hadn’t gone on to make it so impossible to want to root for him.
That’s not fair, I tried to reason with myself before he interrupted the only productive thought with his own peanut gallery commentary of, “Babe, you’re hot, but you aren’t worth that.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Or what? He’s gonna kill me? Go back to prison because he loved it there so much?”
The acid and alcohol sloshing in my stomach made the already spinning world even more sickening. I didn’t want to believe the unsavory things he was saying. I didn’t want them to be true. I wanted them to be the products of an immature, selfish boy trying to hurt me.
That small part of me, though… I think it had always known the truth.
That didn’t mean I was willing to listen to it, though.
“You’re lying!” I shouted just as the music had started to fade. A number of nearby people turned, and although I could feel their eyes on me, it meant nothing to me. It did nothing to change the fact that I desperately needed him to be lying. “Spencer wouldn’t hurt you like that. He’s a good person and he trusts me!”
I’d expected Kyle to do a lot of things. I’d thought he might be surprised at my outburst, to be angry that I still sided with Spencer. I’d thought that he might just be bored by me or find my attempts at defending the man who wasn’t there to be a bit endearing.
But when the songs changed and returned to their usual, nauseating rhythm, Kyle just laughed.
“Christ,” he muttered, “Maybe you really are that fucking clueless. No wonder he likes you. You’re the only one stupid enough to believe him.”
There was no more pity, no more rage. It was nothing but the emptiness that I now realized was terribly contagious. It was just that feeling inside of me that begged to be replaced with anything but apathy.
Like the monster Spencer had always made him out to be, Kyle seemed nothing but excited by the dead look in glassy eyes. He seemed to revel in the tremors wrecking my body as I clutched the cup in my hand enough that it crumpled and fell to the floor.
Leaning closer, he waited until my head thunked against the wall, and I’d started to shrunk into myself before he sneered, “I should’ve fucked you when I had the chance. At least you would’ve made it worth my time.”
Time felt like it was moving in slow motion. I knew I could still slip away, but the second I turned to look towards the exit, his arm had blocked it. I turned around and met his eyes, struggling to try to remember every warning and instruction I’d ever been given. Trying so hard not to give in to the desire to fawn, trying to make Spencer proud even when all of this appeared to be his fault.
But then he said it.
“Then again, I bet you aren’t worth shit now that you’ve been broken in.”
The troubling feeling that had come out as angry words warped into something even more sinister. A pounding in my hands and head that demanded to be felt. It forced its way through the perfectly cultivated exterior, broke free from the confines of every rule of decency and self-preservation that I’d ever been taught.
My palm made contact with his cheek hard enough to burn like a hand on the stovetop. The sound of our skin making contact rung through the music, alerting everyone around us to the mess that I’d made.
I didn’t know why I’d done it. If I’d been thinking even a little more clearly, if I hadn’t had the last few drinks, I would have reasoned my way out of it. I would have reminded myself that it didn’t matter what he thought about me. It didn’t matter if he thought I would be worthless after a man had taken what he wanted from me and left me in the lurch.
If I hadn’t been so reckless, I would have realized that it wasn’t even Kyle that I was upset with. Of course he was a jackass, I’d known that back when he kissed me without asking. But that wasn’t why I was angry. He wasn’t the one that had betrayed my trust, the one who’d proven so many people’s warnings to be true.
He had just been a foolish, unlucky boy who voiced all my fears out loud. He spoke the words, and I heard them as confirmation that every paranoid thought about Spencer was right. That when he’d sunk his teeth into my neck, it had always been about taking whatever he could from me until I was of no further use to him.
I hadn’t been angry at Kyle, but within seconds, I was terrified of him.
It wasn’t even so much the way he looked at me, nor the way he cocked his fist back. It was knowing that he had been right, and I had once again become the stupid little girl I’d insisted I wasn’t.
Kyle didn’t hit me. Several men a little less drunk than him grabbed hold of his fists before they ever made contact. Part of me almost wished that he had hit me. Maybe then I could have convinced myself that Spencer had been right to hurt him.
That thought scared me even more.
So, I ran from it. I ran from the hallway, the house, the world. I took off without any thought of where I would go. None of it seemed to matter. I just knew that I had to get away from the face of rage that felt like the worst kind of funhouse mirror. I ran until my feet and my lungs refused to let me go any further, and then I walked. I kept going, venturing through the monotonous residential streets like I would be able to find some comfort among the other cookie-cutter things.
But then I felt mascara-ridden tears drip from my chin with his name, and I realized that I no longer belonged there. I was no longer one of them; the pure and unassuming. The ones untouched by cruelty and bloodshed.
Spencer had been right about not being a delicate man. I didn’t know how I could have ever doubted him. In that moment of forced self-reflection, I realized that even his concerns were only ever wrapped around his own fear of guilt. Perhaps if he’d stopped to give me the right warning — the one that told me I was a silly little girl begging to be broken — I might have listened.
But then again, who could blame the wolf for wanting to believe the lamb?
—————————————————
Virginia was the first time I’d ever seen snow. I vividly remembered that day, watching as the flakes fell against the windshield like stars crashing onto unknown planets just to burned up and disintegrated by the atmosphere. I witnessed the newborn water droplets dissipate over the heated glass, and I wondered how the loss of something could be so beautiful.
That night, though, there was no pondering the fate of snowflakes. It was just frantic, panicked driving somewhere I’d never been. I never once stopped to consider the fact that I hated driving at night, to places I didn’t know, and during any kind of inclement weather. I didn’t care about my preferences because all I could think about was the text message that I’d gotten with nothing more than a few words and a geotag to a park.
‘Please come here.’
That was all it said. It’d been nearly 20 minutes, and I still hadn’t heard back from her. Despite calling her several times, her end of the line remained painfully silent.
My mind ran wild with every terrible thing that could have happened. Each droplet felt like a taunt, a reminder of how easily life could be snuffed out and forgotten as it returned to the atmosphere.
I liked it better when I wasn’t thinking about snowflakes. If I hadn’t been paying attention to their patterns, though, I might have missed her. My Bunny was perched on a forgotten swing, dusted with snow and barely moving.
Truthfully, I hadn’t even remembered the car stopping. All I knew was that something had happened. Something bad enough to leave her abandoned in the snow in a random residential neighborhood.
Any fears of her having been rendered paralyzed or otherwise hindered faded immediately upon her noticing my arrival. The young girl stood from the swing with more energy than I would have anticipated. It was not unusual for the darling thing to bounce and skip to me, but that was not the movement I saw.
With enough fury to melt the ice beneath her feet, she turned to me with a scowl I’d never seen before.
“Bunny, are you oka—?”
The words never finished leaving my mouth before hers cut me off, sharp and swift like the biting wind.
“Did you hurt Kyle?!”
“What?”
She did not repeat herself. She just stared at me with that blue fire in her eyes that reflected on each silent snowflake that fell between us.
After a moment of counting my breaths, I asked again, “What are you talking about?”
My Bunny didn’t relent, either. If anything, the stalling seemed to push her further into the flame.
“Did you hurt him? Did you break his nose and threaten him for talking to me?”
“That’s not...”
I begged myself to lie. I wanted nothing more than to strip him of his final attempt to come between us. But I knew that it would be wrong. I knew it had been my fault.
Yet when I was finally able to make words again, all that came out was, “You don’t understand.”
“How could you do that, Spencer?!” she yelled, immediately recognizing the avoidance in my answer. She must’ve known that I wouldn’t care of muddying my own reputation, because she turned the topic onto her own disgrace before I even had a chance to answer. “How could you humiliate me like that?!”
You don’t understand.
Didn’t she, though? Hadn’t she been the one who’d already been forced to suffer through an unwanted advance? Hadn’t she even admitted it to me the first opportunity she’d had? She hadn’t even framed it as anything particularly memorable or noteworthy — just a blip on her journey back to me.
For a brief second, I considered the possibility that I had projected my own experiences onto her. Would that have been so bad? Was it so wrong for me to want to protect her the way that no one was able to do for me?
Then the anger came. It forced its way forward, past the atrophied man that had tried to convince himself he was the one still in charge. It bared its teeth and spat the only thing it could think to keep itself sane.
“He was going to hurt you!”
The hard part about arguing with someone like her was how easily she could see through the facade. My Bunny took a sledgehammer to the mirror I’d refused to acknowledge. She forced me to look at her, to see her as a person affected by my rash, repulsive decisions.
“He’s a fucking kid compared to you! What the fuck is he going to do?!”
I looked into once naive eyes that now burned with hellfire — the same flames I’d stoked with my own two hands, and I thought to myself how stupid I had been, how horrendously idiotic of me to think for even just one moment that things would work out. That I had deserved simplicity or happiness when I was so incredibly rotten in every aspect of my being.
Just as I thought to myself that I hadn’t wanted her to see me as this man, she confirmed that I had finally failed hard enough for her to notice that I had never once lied about my nature. She simply hadn’t wanted to look.
“I can’t believe you would do that!”
And then I had gone and made her. All but smashed her face against the mirror to be a forced audience of her own destruction. I tried to convince myself that she was only really upset because I’d made a fool of her. But the plan backfired once I looked up and remembered that it was the thing I’d wanted to do least of all.
She never should’ve let me near her.
You wouldn’t have let her go.
She should’ve minded her own business.
You wanted her to know.
She shouldn’t have asked the question if she didn’t want the truth.
You just wish the honest answer was ‘no.’
“I called him a liar! I defended you!” she continued when she didn’t get a reply.
I could hear myself, or some version of my voice, answering her in a bitter tone never meant for her ears.
“I didn’t ask you to do that.”
The girl scoffed while she waited for an explanation that wasn’t coming. Finally, she asked, “That’s all you have to say?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Apologize to me! Apologize to him!” she yelled, throwing her arms in the air and releasing hot breath that looked like plumes of smoke flowing from tired lungs.
I sighed, but the clouded condensation seemed so much weaker for me. It felt like all of the fight had left me, replaced with an apathy that was only temporarily shattered to make room for the love I held for the girl in front of me.
“I am sorry I hurt you. I’m so sorry for that, Bunny.”
It was the truth. Unfortunately, however, so was everything that followed. The things she had suspected but hadn’t wanted to believe.
“But he... he doesn’t deserve a single fucking second of my time! The things he was going to do to you— the way he treated you, he deserves worse than a broken nose.”
The stare she returned was terrifying. A gut-wrenching disgust, a visage built of superiority and moral reprehension. The final call for me to repent and admit that I was wrong.
I did not.
She took a step back, her arms curled into her chest like she might still protect herself from the icy sharpness of my words. Then, she dealt a blow unlike all of the others. Five words uttered with absolutely no compassion from the mouth of a girl who was once overflowing with it.
“What is wrong with you?”
“Don’t...”
But I’d already seen it. I’d seen the fear flashing in her eyes like the sirens in the rear view. I felt the panic take over as the consequences of my actions nipped at my heels, a mere whisper of the dreadful desert ahead.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I said, a little too much like an order to be comfortable, “Don’t. You don’t understand what boys like him are capable of.”
“And you are?” she challenged.
She should have known I would accept it.
“Yes!” I shouted, my voice echoing into the darkness scattered with falling stars. “Boys like him are the reason I know exactly what it’s like to be powerless! Is that what you want?!”
When I grabbed hold of her wrist, I hadn’t recognized that it was an extension of her. I saw only the hands of others, drawing claw marks and scars in the shape of their hands. I felt the handle of a whip brought against the soles of my feet. The sound of Cat’s laughter, my father’s breath against my neck compared to the cold steel of a goalpost pressed against my back.
“Do you need me to explain exactly how it feels, to have a boy like that strip you naked and hold you down? To laugh louder the harder you cry?”
‘You’re scaring me…’
How do you think I feel?
“Is that what it’s going to take to get you to understand what happens to naive, childish people like you?”
‘Let go of me!’
You know that isn’t going to work. Begging never does. It only makes them hit you harder.
“To feel their hands on you, even after they’re gone? To wake up every night with their ghost in your bed — Do you have any idea what the world does to stupid children like you?! Or is it going to take them hurting you, making you watch as they spin the chamber of a loaded gun cocked at your head?”
‘Spencer!’
Just spin the fucking chamber already. Give me another dose. Anything to make it stop.
“Until you’re so tired of fighting that you start to hope that the next time they pull the trigger, it finally fucking works?!”
“Spencer!” she screamed, her voice cracked and shrill and making it through for the first time since the visions started. “You’re hurting me!”
And I looked down to see one of my worst fears come to life. The psychotic ramblings of the madman I tried to keep locked away had warped small hands into shackles that didn’t exist. I looked down to find her hand craned and twisted, her wrist crushed beneath my blanched knuckles. Her other hand clawed at me, struggling to free the unbearable pressure of all the years that I’d spent fighting for my life.
I looked up and saw her, crying out in pain but still trying not to hurt me while begging me to let her go.
I let her go.
The girl stumbled backwards, all of her momentum carrying her as far as she could go before she fell to the ground.
“I’m sorry.” I heard the words in my own voice, but I felt somewhere else entirely. I could see her, scrambling further away from me on the grass when I took a step closer. Her hand rubbing at her bruised wrist instead of the tears streaking over her face. They looked nothing like diamonds or holy water. They looked like mirrors and regret. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t you ever touch me like that again, Spencer!” she snapped, she shouted with a raw throat and her face stuck in a pained snarl, “Do you understand me?!”
I had never seen her so angry. At one point in time, I’d thought the sight impossible. But there it was, my Bunny broken at my feet after I’d done the very same thing the boy had threatened to do. I’d aligned my proverbial crosshairs over her, and I hadn’t missed.
“I won’t. I promise, I won’t hurt you.”
I wanted to believe myself, but I couldn’t. Even when the tears came like brackish waters pouring over a forgotten, demolished dam, all I could taste was the bitter bile rising in my throat. All I could feel was the most disgusting kind of self-hatred.
I could feel them, all the people I’d ever failed, chastising the man I’d become. As if I ever could have made gold thread from the cobwebs they left behind. It wasn’t enough that I had fashioned body armor from the spider’s silk. I would never be able to make up for who I was.
“I’m so sorry, please,” I pleaded from my position still above her. It figures that even when my body gave in, it refused to fall. It maintained that level of superiority as long as it could. I looked down at her as I cried what I was almost convinced were crocodile tears. “I won’t hurt you, please. It was an accident. I’m so… I’m so sorry.”
But she believed me.
My Bunny saw something.
Ever so cautiously, the young girl stood on shaky legs with even more precarious breath. After a moment of silence, or the closest we could come with both of us crying, she took a step forward.
It was an unfortunate move. It wasn’t her fault. It was the culmination of decades of training and a goddamn permanently fucked up prefrontal cortex and amygdala that had made me do it. But there was no describing the way it wounded me to see the sheer, unadulterated panic on her face when my hand went straight to my holster.
Danger. You’re in danger. It’s going to hurt.
The same second she saw the silver catch the moonlight, she screamed, covering herself with frail arms like that would have been able to protect her if the scared child inside of me had seen her as something, someone else.
“Don’t,” I begged like she would understand the instruction. “Please… don’t… don’t do that.”
Don’t look at me like the monster I am.
“Spencer…” she whispered, a hint of hope among the bleak and the terror. “Spencer, look at me.”
But I could hear the rest of them. All their voices so much louder than hers, their hands burning through my body and replacing the parts of my soul with their own.
‘You’re a liar.’
‘I think you really liked hurting those men.’
‘I know you’re awake, Spencer.’
“I don’t want it, please.”
‘We’re all sinners.’
‘Daddy loves you, you know that?’
‘Once you cross that line, you can't ever go back.’
“I didn’t mean to hurt you!”
‘Time to confess, Spencer Reid.’
The metal in my hand suddenly felt scorching, the weight of it too much to bear. Slamming it back into the holster, I struggled to tear the leather from its place. When it did fall to the ground, though, it almost took me with it. I almost dropped to my knees into the snow so that I might find something in me still worth praying for.
I couldn’t breathe, much less see through the haze of every mistake I’d ever made. My surroundings felt like so many things, and I wished that I could blink and be back in that hotel bathroom again. I wanted to collapse in her arms and find that I could wake up next to her again.
I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want her to see me like that. But I had no choice. I had trapped her beside me with the pomegranate seeds of my desire and so there she stood, watching as the snow fell to reveal just how dark I’d become. The contrast to the purity that clung to her like static but turned to tears on my skin.
While I stayed, crouched and cowering against enemies that weren’t there, she found the courage to approach me now that the weapon sat as innocently as she had. It soaked in the winter water, but she did not lay down in defeat with it. She stood above me, looking down at the mess at her feet with a surprising amount of sympathy.
The recognition did nothing to ease the blow of the next words from her lips, and the answer that immediately followed.
“What happened to you?”
Exactly what I deserved.
“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t justify it,” I said instead. With outstretched palms, I stood to meet her with a still withered form until I saw that she was no longer afraid of raised hands. “I’m so sorry. Please, just… just let me take you home.”
Her eyes finally fell to the scar that had yet to be healed by her. The tears that had freely poured were now perched at the ends of her lashes, too heavy to bear but too light to fall.
She took my hand, and I wondered if she felt the same way about me.
We didn’t speak. I was grateful for the silence. Normally, it would lead to overthinking, but the gleam of headlights and whirring star shaped snow was the only thing that I could think of. Even in that disaster, I saw her eyes.
“Can I stay with you tonight?”
I’d somehow convinced myself that she hadn’t been talking to me. It simply couldn’t have been that after everything she’d just witnessed, she would honestly trust me to touch her again. To hold her at her most vulnerable, to protect her as she presented the sweet-smelling blossom of the night blooming jasmine.
She hadn’t liked the silence in response, though, so she pressed forward and called out to me again.
“Spencer?”
“What?”
“I’d like to stay with you, if that’s alright,” she repeated.
“I...” My words caught in my throat as I swallowed, struggling to find a way to express just how dangerous it was for her to be with me. All of the words refused to come out, though. Each carefully curated statistic about PTSD fueled meltdowns and the likelihood of harm clawed their way deeper into my chest.
They hadn’t wanted her to go.
“I don’t think you should,” I said.
But I wanted her to stay.
For the first time since I’d met her, though, my Bunny did not put up any sort of fight. She took the answer at face value with a brave nod and a painfully practiced and pretend smile.
“Okay,” she reassured me, “That’s okay, too.”
But it wasn’t. Just like it wasn’t okay when the car came to a stop, and she had opened the door within seconds. Nor was it okay when I watched her walk away, wondering if it might be one of the last times. Her heavy footfall temporarily marked those steps until they, too, would fade.
How easy it must be for her to forget me. But impossible it would ever be for me to do the same.
I thought to call out to her, to beg her to come back and hold me like I’d always been too scared to ask. I thought of the first time they came to take my mother away, and how I’d listened to her screams for hours after. They echoed off the walls of an empty home.
Bunny was not being dragged away by other men. Like before, this goodbye was entirely my creation. I hadn’t realized that I’d closed my eyes until I heard the crunching coming closer once more. I didn’t open my eyes for fear I was going insane again and would open my eyes to find another’s face over hers.
“Professor?” she whispered from her position hung above my still opened window.
“Go inside, Bunny. It’s too cold out here for you.”
I could see in her eyes that she’d heard a metaphor where I’d meant it literally. I didn’t correct her because both had been true. She refused to listen to both, anyway.
“I will in a minute, I just… Spencer, I…”
My frost-bitten flower, the small bit of sunshine on an overcast day. She struggled against the cold because it had the audacity to exist without asking her permission first. Just like that day from lifetimes ago, I wanted nothing more than to wrap my scarf and my arms around her and feel the warmth return.
And it was there, in her voice.
“You’re safe now,” she said, the words awkwardly fractured but so obviously proud and full of an innocent sort of honesty. The kind that comes with unconditional acceptance.
I’d heard it before, muttered from the mouths of mothers of almost-victims. The pleading from loved ones on the other side of prison plexiglass. I’d heard it before, but never like that. Never directed at me with hands that obviously wanted to reach out but knew it was better not to.
Still, she let her words embrace me in her place. Again, she repeated more confidently, “You are safe now, with me.”
She offered no explanation. She saw the understanding and the rejection of the simple thought clear in cloudy eyes.
The longer I stared at her, the more obscured her vision became. Fluffy snowflakes coated her hair, soaking the blossom that had waited through the winter with the hope she could bring life back into lackluster fields.
“I know it’s going to take some getting used to, but...” she tried to chuckle, but then must have decided not to. Any hint of a smile dropped once more, and she spoke with a trembling lip, “You’re safe here, Spencer. I want you to remind yourself of that as often as you can.”
A single stray tear finally broke free from her lashes. Neither of us reached out to stop it. Instead, it clung to her until it was too heavy to bear.
As it faded from existence in the pure snow below, I whispered a goodbye to that last piece of a certain type of innocence.
“Thank you, Bunny.”
Soft lips against my cheeks surprised me, and as I leaned into it, I realized why the flowers needed the sun to bloom. Like sugar water dropped on a half-dead petal, she breathed life into the already damned.
“Goodnight, Professor,” she said.
And then she was gone.
I reached my hand out like it might still be able to reach her, but all I found was snow that still couldn’t bear to touch me without breaking.
And she was gone.
—————————————————
“Did you get home safe?”
Leaving Spencer in that parking lot was the most painful thing I’d ever done. By all accounts, it should have been easy. My wrist still ached, blooming with bruises so brutal they had already started to blur together. They didn’t even look like his fingertips. My eyes still caught moonlight glimmer from the metal of a gun that hopefully still sat faithfully where I had placed it in the trunk of his car.
It should have been easy to let him go when he’d told me to leave and gave me every reason to believe him. But as I stared down at the same five words, unchanged and unanswered, it was hard to feel anything but the pain. To relive the feeling of vacant eyes following me past closed doors.
I thought about each of my options, and the varying level of danger they would require of me. I thought about the fact that I’d still never been to his house, and now I imagined the decision had been purposeful. A way to ensure that I couldn’t come to him when he didn’t want me to.
I could’ve done nothing, I suppose. But when my heart was that heavy, it didn’t seem like a viable option. So, I did the next best thing I could do besides blowing up his phone with text messages that would probably just cause anxiety too overwhelming for him to answer.
The soft rhythm of the ringback tone almost felt like it was getting faster, building to an unsatisfying end of his voicemail message. Just before his voice started, though, another noise interrupted him.
Knock. Knock.
There were no other thoughts in my head as I bolted towards the door. I don’t know what I’d expected, but I knew who I’d hoped it would be. Still, when I opened the door, I made sure not to do anything too quickly. I opened it slowly, watching with an increasing amount of relief as his features came into view.
Spencer said nothing. He stared at me with red eyes that were locked onto my own. It would have been suffocating if they hadn’t looked so… empty.
“Professor, what are you still doing here?”
The sound of his title on my tongue brought some life back to him; enough that he was able to answer.
“Can you come over?”
“What? To your place?”
“Yeah.”
I hadn’t meant for the silence to feel as dreadful as it had. I just needed a moment to think, to reconsider every concern that had filled my mind seconds before he appeared before me like a fairytale. It was hardly silent to me, filled with the sound of my heartbeat trying to catch up with everything that had happened so far.
The broken man at my door, however, saw my silence as apprehension. A fear not unlike the one displayed at an abandoned park covered with a thin sheet of snow and a whole lot of tears.
“I-I changed my mind. I want you to come over, please,” he pleaded, his voice breaking harder and more often each time he paused to take a shaky breath. “I want to hear your voice… I want you to tell me more nice things.”
He was breaking into pieces that I’d never seen before. The kind with jagged edges that couldn’t be neatly put together again. The splintered glass shredding any hint of decorum that remained. Spencer wept, both hands clutching his chest like he didn’t trust them to be anywhere else. As if his heart might actually disintegrate if not held together by sheer force of will.
“Because I think I really need to hear nice things, and I—“
He paused, taking note of the damage he’d already caused. He looked to my wrist, and then closed his eyes tight enough that I knew he’d see stars.
“—I really don’t want to be alone,” he said. “Please… help me.”
There were very few words to describe the way I felt. Well, I suppose there were many. Sad, scared, angry, concerned, confused. I swore I felt every emotion that Aristotle and Hippocrates could have ever dreamed of, all at once.
But most of all, I felt a small light forming in the center of the darkness I now carried in my heart. Because as I looked at my Atlas, about to fall to his knees from the weight he’d carried for far too long, I saw his humble request as the most amazing thing. The weary Titan had thrown his hubris and pride to the side, extending trembling arms with the understanding that he did not have to bear the burden alone.
I saw my Spencer, begging me for help because he knew that I would give it.
And I did. I cupped his face in my hands until forest fire eyes showed their light again. I soaked in the warmth and comfort that I could only find in him.
“Of course I’ll come keep you company, Spencer,” I whispered. “Let me grab some things, okay?”
Letting him go again, albeit temporarily this time, still hurt just as badly. I tried to stay with him as much as I could, but I saw how futile it was. Every perceived abandonment — every minor absence destroyed him in another irreparable way. I was afraid that by the time we actually settled into bed, there would be nothing left of him.
The first snapshot I got of Spencer’s apartment was one shrouded in darkness. I was guided only by the soft street lamp light filtering through cracked blackout curtains, and his hand in mine. The poor thing had barely let it go since the moment he took it just outside of my apartment. The spaces between my fingers were clammy, and his grip was tighter than normal, though nothing like earlier.
Spencer was just holding on to me, to the hope that we could salvage the night and make it something less scary.
Lord knew I was trying.
When he flipped on the lamp beside his bed, I watched the way red rimmed eyes winced. I saw the flash of pain from a million memories I’d never understand, and then there was the nothing again. The void where all his feelings seemed to hide when someone else was watching.
I’d once joked to Spencer that I wanted to watch him change, but I hadn’t meant like what we did then. I hadn’t wanted to struggle to help him remove the buttons from his shirt because every time our hands started to slip apart, his terror would take over. His breath would become uneven, and the tremors would return.
After ten minutes of struggling with the body of the man I respected more than anything, we managed to get him in more suitable clothes. I didn’t mind taking care of him. I needed him to know that I’d meant it when I said I was familiar with badness and fear. I understood insecurities and I didn’t judge him for harboring weakness behind the mask of the man who knew everything.
But, god, did it hurt. The space in my chest that had once filled with butterflies at the sight of him felt devoid of anything that flutters. It felt filled with rocks and thorns and not a single petal.
To have seen Dr. Spencer Reid curl up like a child, desperately seeking to find a way to disappear within my arms, very well could have been the thing that broke me.
But I refused to let it. Out of spite for all the horrible people that had ever looked at him and even thought of harming him, I clung to that boy and I held on for dear life. Metaphorically, of course. The ruthlessness of my embrace was not literal — it was quite the opposite. I held him like dried blooms and scorched roots. I kept him safe.
And when his breath became even, and his hands turned from fists to flat palms against my back, I spoke into the silence.
“Are you ready for the holidays?”
At first, he said nothing. He remained lost in his thoughts until his tongue let him speak again, albeit clumsy and with a noticeable pout.
“Not really,” he mumbled, “They just mean time away from you.”
“Says who? I’d spend them with you. You just haven’t asked.”
Spencer relaxed further. His breath, though troubled, was steady against my collarbones. Slowly, the man I knew had started to emerge from the dark recesses of his mind.
“I don’t really have anyone to celebrate with anymore. My mom isn’t here anymore.”
I cursed myself for bringing it up. I should’ve known better. He’d talked to me about his parents before — or at least, his mother. Then again, the lack of discussion of his father told me more than enough.
“I’m guessing your dad wasn’t really ever there, huh?”
“Not in any way worth having,” he said with something between a sigh and a chuckle. “I’ve turned you into a profiler.”
“You’re rubbing off on me, it seems.”
I wish there was more I could say. The truth was, recognizing his suffering and putting a name to it was only half the battle. When it came to actually healing the damage done, I don’t think either of us really knew what to do.
But the whole time I laid there, running my hands through damp, unruly curls, I heard Max’s voice from the month before.
“What I’m asking you is— is the happiness he provides you worth the frustration? Because there will be frustration. Spencer has been through a lot — a lot— and… it takes a special kind of person, a very, verypatient and understanding person, to get him to feel safe.”
I clutched him tighter as the words became more painful than I’d ever thought possible. It wasn’t the uncertainty of my answer — my answer was yes, yes he is worth it every time — No, it was the way that it hurt to remember that distant look in her eyes that told me she’d also found a home in him somewhere. That she had seen the same scared little boy with his face buried in my chest, and she tried to help him.
But she couldn’t. I tried not to imagine myself reaching the same conclusion. Because I didn’t want to let him go. I wanted to grant him a safe place to hide, to stay. To flourish the way everyone ought to.
Spencer seemed unaware of my worries, and merely accepted the tight squeeze as a reminder of just how much I cared about him. He’d be right about that, too.
“I think I would like Christmas with you. It sounds...” he trailed off with another dreamy sigh as he pictured a million memories yet to happen. The only word he could come up with to describe them was a very succinct and poetic, “… nice.”
“Nice is good.”
“Do you like Christmas lights, Bunny?”
“They’re my favorite,” I answered, much to his delight. I almost couldn’t even finish the sentence with his arms closing around me even as my laughter tried to break free.
When I glanced down, I found him looking up at me with a brilliant, childlike stare. The kind that was pure and untouched, a call upon a distant memory that didn’t hurt for once.
Sensing that he was waiting for me to say something, I offered the only reasonable related experience.
“Do you want to walk around and look at them sometime?”
“Yeah, I do. That sounds nice,” he whispered. It wasn’t as heartfelt or enthusiastic as I’d been expecting, but I accepted it nonetheless. At least he hadn’t felt the need to pretend for my sake.
He was still sad, despite the happiness surrounding him. I think everyone could relate to that feeling sometimes. Although, I had a suspicion that Spencer hadn’t found himself in that position often.
Because when he spoke, he did so cautiously.
“Will you tell me more nice things?” he asked like he’d been expecting a ‘no.’
But of all the stories that I proceeded to tell him, ‘no’ was not a part of any of them. The stories, a mixture of my memories and tall tales from my childhood, weren’t entirely new to him. He’d heard many of them before, but he never once complained about the repetition. Of course, if I’d taken a time to look down at him between my retellings, I would’ve noticed that he’d long since fallen asleep against my chest.
The only reason I hadn’t laughed was because I was afraid to wake him. So, I just watched. I continued the same practiced patterns over his skin and through his hair. I kept talking, even when my words were unfinished and barely thought through.
I kept him safe.
Because there were times when Spencer was undoubtedly shrouded in darkness. I’d witnessed the eclipse of the parts of him he normally kept at a safe distance. I’d stared directly into the light of the newborn sun, and I knew that I would forever harbor the scars. I wouldn’t be able to see the world the same way again. The same way that the stars found new life in each rotation, I saw Spencer in a new way.
“If I hadn’t bored you so quickly, I would have told you the nicest thing of all,” I whispered as his heavy eyes began to fade away.
Basked in the pale blue hue of moonlight glimmering off freshly fallen snow, there was a childlike innocence that still existed beneath the surface. There was something to be treasured and protected; to be loved and cherished before it was lost to desiccated roots.
The winter was not over yet, but I saw the sun rising with his chest as he finally found peace enough to sleep. In that new light of day, I saw Spencer for what might have been the first time.
And it’s you, was what I thought. Just you.
—————————————————
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Summary: based on the song “this is how you fall in love” by jeremy zucker and a cute tiktok i watched of a first look at a couple’s wedding.
A/N: i haven’t written in a while, so i’ve given you a small blurb to kind of rekick my motivation. also i wrote this almost entirely for my pal who has a thing for marriage.
Couple: Spencer Reid/Reader
Category: SFW fluff.
Content Warning: None!
Word Count: 547
The aisle in front of me is littered in crushed and fluttering petals, the little girl responsible for them skipping towards the altar. I see myself in her, watch my childlike innocence and perception of love make my path down the aisle. When you’re little, love just means, ‘who will hold my hand on the playground when we play tag?’ and I can’t help but think that’s not much different from what love means to me now. It’s less playground and more life, but I know now all I want is someone to be there. Whether it’s during the formation of love or the expression of it, Spencer is the one I want by my side. I can’t make myself look up though, not yet, gaze fixated on my shoes. Will Spencer be excited, grinning from ear to ear? Did someone fix his hair, or is it curling over his collar? Will he cry? Oh, I hope he doesn’t cry. If he cries, I’ll cry and both of us will look ridiculous.
When he asked me to marry him, we were in his living room. He had been fidgety all day, keeping his hands in his pockets the whole day. We had laid out a blanket and pillows to have a movie night, my one request for our date night.
He couldn’t get comfortable, and finally I turned and asked, “What is up with you today?” and when I turned, there was a little back velvet box in his hand.
“Is that…?” I had asked.
He nodded, tears welling up. “Will you marry me?” Of course I said yes, and now here we are, my hands fiddling with my engagement ring around my bouquet, and I get the nerve to look up at him.
He’s not crying now, at least from what I can see at the beginning of the aisle, but when he meets my eyes, I feel everything from the last few years in his eyes. Clutching my arm, Hotch gives me a look that says, Are you ready? I nod as we start to walk down the aisle to him, and I mouth “I love you” to him, and he says it out loud, over the music and our family and friends burst out into joyous laughter. I remember then that Spencer and I are not alone, and grin sheepishly up at Hotch.
“It’s okay.” He whispers. “This is about you, not us.” I settle back down, meeting Spencer’s eyes yet again. He’s starting to mist up, and I shake my head and mouth, Don’t cry! and he laughs. I see the smile crinkle the skin beside his eyes, and I feel tears coming to mine too.
We reach the end of the aisle, and Spencer reaches out a hand for me. We’ve never been one for tradition. Hotch smiles, and hands me away, and I take my place in front of Spencer.
“Hi.” He whispers.
“Hi.” I giggle back, seeing stars and life and love and everything in the eyes of the man before me. I squeeze his hands not once, but three times. I love you.
And that is how you fell in love, and this is how you fall in love, and this will be how we fall in love forever.
