, grumpy x sunshine bit about park the shark and the remora he can't live without..
thinking about brendon park and intern!reader who is sooo bright-eyed and unabashed by his knack to be harsh on them. they understand his almost misanthropic tendencies on a fundamental level—a man sharpened by his trade who expects the same outcome of his residents.
and he gets frustrated because his ability to hone their skills by fear-factor is now useless, and he's also pissed because no matter how much he chews them out they're always happy.
their dynamic becomes the talk of the orthopedic department, because why is this first-year so immune to the apex predator of the hospital?
the simple answer: he has no idea what to do with you. but he wouldn't admit that in a million years, so he just acts like he can tolerate the rainbows and unicorns that follow you around.
he brings them down with him on a consult in the ED, some construction worker with a severed hand that had high hopes of reattachment.
everyone puts on their best military-grade facade, even garcia's back straightens noticeably because park is just that much of a dick to everyone.
and here comes reader, practically buzzing with excitement as they trail right on brendon's heels. it really throws everyone for a loop because you're so close to him, and you're the one asking all the questions to robby—who seems so chuffed by all of this—and he answers happily.
park unwraps the hand and you're right there with him, cheek squished against his meaty bicep with eyes glimmering bright with wonder. you're grinning with delight and clapping your hands when brendon green-lights the reattachment.
and then you're both gone, park the shark being tailed by a little intern bristling with anticipation.
everyone is fucking gobsmacked because, what the fuck? since when was anyone under park's supervision happy to be there?
it wasn't uncommon to see park followed by a brood of his residents. the usual joke was that they were his shark pups, his offspring that he molded into annoyingly good surgeons.
but that doesn't apply to you. you're nothing like him, yet you learn from him all the same. your relationship is almost symbiotic, in a way, where you thrive on the challenges he throws at you and he secretly feeds off of the warmth you radiate.
and the correlation smacks garcia square in the face after crossing paths with the two about five ED consults later.
you are his remora. you clean up the mess of his apathy and he feeds you the fruit of his knowledge.
and that's what she starts calling you—that's what everyone starts calling you.
and brendon? he starts to call you the stupid name too.
but to him, it's possessive. it is a name that claims you as his own, not as offspring, but as something far more important that he doesn't want to name.
"i'll write a recommendation letter for you," he says one quiet afternoon when you're both munching on leftovers in the breakroom.
you're confused, he can tell by the apparent tilt of your head.
"when you complete your residency. i'll recommend you for an attending position here."
"... that is disgustingly generous for a guy like you."
"i won't work without my remora."
stay tuned for season 48 episode 7 when they finally kiss and hold hands🙂🙂🙂
summary - jack abbot fucking loves his wedding ring, and hasn't parted with it since the day the two of you wed. after damaging it while helping robby fix his bike, it is back at the jeweller to get re-plated, and he has to endure a shift without both you and his beloved band of metal. without his ring, it becomes apparent that doctor abbot is a hot item. all he wants is to be back in your arms.
warnings/themes - married couple/established relationship, attending!reader, jealousy, poorly written dialogue, fluff, suuuuper mild angst/displeasure, awkward scenarios, reader is the kind of person to laugh at everything, cattiness, corny as fuck
notes - I got myself lost in some other written bits and got so tangled up that I'm sick of them and never want to release them hahahaha - this is the result of me wanting to just create SOMETHING ELSE. I hope you enjoy.
-
Jack Abbot, to his credit, absolutely adored wearing his wedding ring.
When the conversation regarding marriage had first come up between you, now a good few years ago, you had approached the topic of rings with gentle palms.
He had stopped wearing his first ring a few months into your time at PTMC, a decision which was made after many late nights of him pacing around his apartment, whiskey in hand and ring clinking against the glass. When he put the golden band down for the last time, his heart exhaled a breath he hadn’t realised it was holding. Three months later, Jack gave into the butterflies in his stomach - ones he thought would never come around again - and asked you out.
When he proposed you had insisted, a beautiful, sizable diamond on your ring finger, that when the pair of you tied the knot, he didn’t have to wear a ring again regularly, or at all, if he didn’t want to.
But damn, did this man ever want to. The smooth gunmetal band which sat on his ring finger was his pride and joy from the moment you slipped it on at the altar. He loved the subtle weight of it grounding him under his blue gloves. And the way it looked against your smooth skin as his hands found your body. Most of all, he loved the way it linked him to you, showing the world that he was a more than happily taken man. There was very, very little which would make Jack part with his ring, even for a short time.
One of the things which did force him to take his ring off was the scratches and grease which came with fixing Robby’s motorbike. Between reinstalling a chain and shoving his hands between tight metal components, the black rhodium plating on the platinum had been scratched away in several places.
“For fuck’s sake.” The man groaned when he looked down at his hand. Robby looked over at what had caused his best friend so much displeasure.
“Looks like it’s time to make a trip back to the jeweller, brother.” The older man grinned, clapping Jack on the shoulder.
When your husband had come home to you, he looked like a school boy who had just shattered a window with a stray baseball, a shy shame present on his face at damaging something so precious. After he confessed his so-called crime, you had laughed, grabbed his hand and kissed his knuckles, an act so warm it sunk into his bones in a way only your love could. Then you pointed out a cut along the back of his hand, patched it up and booked an appointment at your jeweller to have it polished and re-plated.
And that was how, on a cool Monday evening, Jack Abbot had rolled up to the Pitt without his wedding ring. You were off that night, set to instead take over Collins’ attending shift the next morning, and had bid your husband goodbye with a soft ice-cream flavoured kiss from where you sat curled up on the couch.
The kiss lingered as he walked through the ER doors, bag slung over his shoulder. He had been running his thumb over the empty space on his ring finger, half still thinking about the taste of sweet dairy on your lips as Lena and Dana waved him over. Dana was clearly on her way out, her civilian jacket already over her scrubs. Two unfamiliar women stood beside the charge nurses, each with MEDICAL STUDENT emblazoned on their plastic nametags.
“Amber, Amy, this is Doctor Jack Abbot, our nighttime attending and ER cowboy.” Dana nodded in Jack’s direction as he strode over to the desk. She gave him a knowing, teasing look as the two newcomers took him in. Judging by the way the ginger - Amber - straightened her back and licked her lips, and the way Amy lit up in a shy blush, twirling a strand of platinum blonde hair around her finger, the sight of the older attending had made an impression on them.
“These ladies are our newest medical students and are currently on their emergency department rotation.” Lena continued, glancing over her red reading glasses at Dana. They had seen those looks on more than a few newbies over the years. Jack Abbot just had that effect on people.
“Doctor Abbot, it’s such a pleasure.” Amber smiled, wide and cat-like, extending a thin hand to him. “I have heard such good things about PTMC’s emergency department, and I’m sure you’re the reason for that.”
“We have a good team of nightcrawlers here, I’m just a cog in the machine.” He shook her hand, and then Amy’s, his standard dry, polite smile gracing his face.
Before either medical student could gush further, McKay walked up to Jack, tablet in hand. Judging by the dark circles under her eyes, she was more than ready to begin hand-over. He greeted her with a smile, eyes crinkling.
“What have you got for me?”
-
The last of the day shift filtered out an hour later, surprisingly on time compared to the usual timeline the liminal space of the ER followed.
“Trouble in paradise, eh boss?” Shen needled with a grin as he came through the ambulance bay door, gesturing at his ring finger, which was just as bare as Jack’s in that moment. As one of your closest friends, you had texted him about the situation the night before, but that wasn’t about to stop him teasing the older man. Jack rolled his eyes.
The night progressed with the same erratic heartbeat it always did. A deeply displeased man came in with a mild GSW to his foot, his friend trailing behind the gurney with a guilty look on his face as he attempted to explain the bizarre, convoluted game they had been playing which had somehow involved a shotgun. Jack oversaw Ellis teaching Amy how to remove buckshot from the wound, the blonde turning to him for approval at every step. She flushed bright pink under the fluorescent hospital lights when the attending gave her a ‘looks good’ and a thumbs up, before leaving the room. Ellis shared a look with Shen as he walked past, poorly hiding the amusement on both of their faces.
An hour later a trio of twenty-something year old women drunkenly stumbled through the door of the ER in a mess of flakey mascara and hair extensions, following their friend who sat crying her eyes out in a wheelchair. It had turned out to be a wrist fracture, likely thanks to the broken bright red heel which now sat in her lap. When Jack strolled in, x-ray results in hand, the tears instantly stopped, replaced by a watery smile. Amber trailed in a moment later.
The group giggled quietly, and not so quietly, among themselves as the attending calmly walked the patient through the fix for her wrist. She nodded along, carefully not making eye contact.
“We’re so glad she’s in such good hands, and biceps!” One of the group sputtered out, being cut off by an elbow to the ribs from the friend sitting next to her, who was a tad more sober - that being a very low bar.
“Amber here is one of our med students and great learner and will be putting the cast on for you today.” Jack offered one of his professionally charming smiles, much to the delight of the tipsy gaggle. Amber’s scrowl at the unabashed flirtation from the party-goer melted away at the praise.
Half an hour and one fairly well completed cast later, the med student was pulled from the treatment room to accompany Ellis for a new case assessment.
“So…could I get your number…just in case I need any further…checkups?” The mixture of painkillers, her girls behind her and the late hour made the dark-haired patient unusually bold, even through the now-dried mascara lines on her cheeks.
“Our charge nurse can find you some urgent care contact numbers,” Jack bit back a smile as she flexed her fingers and checked her range of motion. “You can always come back tomorrow if there ‘s any rubbing or discomfort with the cast - might even meet my wife if you do.” The smile pushed its way through at the mention of you.
At the mention of a wife and the genuine, boyish smile which had appeared on the doctor’s face, the group cooed in unison, a new kind of delight making its way into the room with the information that their handsome doctor had deservedly found his other half.
“Oh my gosh I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to-” The patient hid her face in her unimpeded hand.
“Photos! Show us photos!” She was cut off by one of her friends. “Is she a doctor here too?”
“Sure is. Damn good doctor, better than me.” The man chuckled, pulling out his phone. Outside of what was required by the ER, he wasn’t the most tech-savvy, but the first thing he had done upon getting his new phone was to change his lock screen to a photo of you on your last holiday together - far too long ago now - a large sunhat perched on your head and bright smile on your face.
The girls squealed in collective approval, even the patient forgetting her embarrassment to join in on the comments of ‘power couple’ and ‘oh she’s gorgeous!’.
Half an hour later, discharge documents in hand marked 1.17am, the group made their way out, waving their farewells and chirping their sweet ‘goodbye Doctor Abbot’s. Jack good-heartedly returned their waves, an action which brought a sour expression to Amber’s face.
-
Jack Abbot was typically one of the most business-minded, compartmentalised doctors that the PTMC had to offer. On an ordinary day he left the outside world on the other side of the ER doors and focused his whole self on whatever came his way. Yet, that evening, as the night waned he found his mind floating back to you. You’d be asleep right now, tucked under the small mountain of blankets and sheets which you insisted on when sleeping alone. Somehow, without the band of metal sitting against his skin, he felt lonelier than he had in a long while. He should have just called in sick, he thought with a sigh. He could be enjoying the way you curled up into him in your sleep right now, instead of doing whatever this was.
“You alright darl’?” Lena raised an eyebrow at the man and his left hand. He had been standing at the PC for a moment too long, staring blankly at a chart which didn’t need half the attention he was giving it. Shen had shooed the med students away to eat ‘lunch’ - at 2am - and the ER hit the strange, slow, half-awake lull that the nightcrawlers had come to expect on Monday nights. Jack's left thumb ran over where his ring usually sat, again and again. “You’re not wearing your usual hardware, you piss off our girl?”
“Fuck I hope not.” He snapped out of his train of thought, looked up from the screen and smiling wryly with a shake of his head. “Can thank Robby and his death machine for this.” He held up his hand.
Lena scoffed, stapling the stack of paper before her.
“So the only person beating you up right now is you, I take it?”
He grumbled out an agreement, finally closing the patient file before him and beginning charting another.
“She’s so calm about it. She laughed when I showed her.” He murmured. “It’s just…’s unnatural. Being without it.”
Lena let out a chortle at the attending’s unusually soft confession, patting him on the back as she walked past.
“You’ll be okay, hon’.”
-
The worst of the shift came in the form of a middle-aged driver who had been at an intersection at the wrong time. After an hour of stabilising procedures and near-misses, he lay unconscious on the table in the middle of Trauma 1 in the early hours of the morning, a large gaping wound along the side of his abdomen the last remaining obstacle between him and finally heading up to the ICU. Amber had been pulled in alongside Jack and Jesse, the three of them appropriately gowned and geared up. Jack was already covered in blood, largely thanks to the punctured artery which had been addressed, but this was finally a task which he could take the time to walk the med student through.
“Okay - this is a simple closure, what nylon are we using for this?”
“Uhh…standard 4/0 should do the trick?” She looked up at him through her thick lashes.
“Correct, good.” The attending nodded as Jesse handed her the correct equipment. Amber smiled under her mask.
She began the procedure, Jack correcting her tension on occasion, but otherwise remaining silent, looming over her with a watchful eye.
“Y’know…” the student continued sewing, “it’s unusual to have an attending who isn’t…intimidating.”
“Hm?” Jack didn’t look at her, eyes still on the procedure. Her knots and lines were straight enough for a med student, but that didn’t stop his mind from drifting to the, frankly, picturesque closure jobs you performed. His lip twitched upward beneath his mask - you’d laugh at him describing your work as ‘picturesque’.
“You’re just so…warm and supportive,” Amber continued, Jesse cringing from the corner of the trauma room. “So…available.”
The male nurse made a mental note to be moved back to the day shift.
“I mean - uh…” she caught herself and the lack of filter between her brain and mouth. “You’re very, uh- easy to talk to.”
Jack blinked. He was a good attending, he thought, but you handled med students far better than he typically did. Again he smiled under his mask, eyes crinkling at the thought of you. Fuck he missed his ring.
“Thanks. I think it’s important that we operate as a unit to get the job done.” He looked up at the clock on the wall. Another hour to go before you would finally show up, but this task was finally complete.
“Good job today, kid.” He shed his gown and glasses. “Jesse, make sure that the ICU knows there’s one coming up.”
Jesse half breathed a sigh of relief as the attending left the room, and then half rolled his eyes at the look of smug delight on Amber’s face.
-
In actuality it took less than an hour for you to show up, emerging through the ER doors with your messenger bag slung over one shoulder and cherry-coloured scarf thrown around your neck. In typical fashion you beat the rest of the day shift to being on site, something which you made a mental note to hang over Robby’s head later. Your winter coat sat over your dark scrubs, a paper bag hanging off one hand, and four hot coffees in a cardboard tray in the other. You strolled up to the hub, which was empty save for Amber at a PC, placing the tray on the desk. The chief attending wasn’t around yet to complain about food and drink being outside the breakroom.
“Morning,” you gave Amber a smile. After a beat she looked up from her charting. “You know where Abbot is?”
“Oh, you’re Doordash.” She looked at you and then the tray before her, expression flat. “You can just leave that there, I’ll find Doctor Abbot shortly.”
“No need, thanks Amber.” The man in question appeared behind her, face lit up despite the dark circles now under his eyes. “This is one of our normal night attending,” he introduced you with your full doctorly title, grinning at the way you rolled your eyes at the formality. “She’s filling in for one of the day shift staff today.”
At this point your husband was standing at your side, eyeing the tray before you. He gratefully accepted the cup marked with a ‘J’, taking a sip with a satisfied hum. It was black, medium roast, a drip of cream. Perfect. Jack wanted to kiss you so badly in that moment that it hurt, partially because of the coffee but mainly because of the ache in his heart that the absence of his ring had brought about in your 13 hours apart. But no, in accordance with HR’s conditions on you working together, PDA was to be kept to a minimum while at work.
“I’m glad you’re in early - got something that I need an extra set of eyes on.” His lips curved up in a way that only ever meant trouble. “Would you be able to join me for a moment before we begin handover, doctor?”
Amber had been watching this exchange with a sour look of uncertainty. She knew something was afoot here, but was unable to put her finger on it.
“Can I come?” She blurted out, reminding you both of her presence. “To learn, of course. Doctor Abbot has been so informative today and I am always eager to get ahead.”
“No need, Amber. You finish up and clock out. Help yourself to a pastry if you want.” Jack took the paper bag from your hand and offered it to her. She took it silently, watching on as you followed after the man, throwing your coat over the back of a computer chair as you went.
-
“So what do you have to show me in this empty, ordinary treatment room which just so happens to be at the very end of the south wing, Doctor Abbot?” You grinned as your husband pulled the curtain shut, before stepping into your space.
His hands, calloused, skilled, found your scrub-clad waist, pulling you close and kissing you deeply. He tasted like the sip of coffee he had enjoyed a moment earlier, and a tad more of desperation than he normally did. You melted into it, fingers finding his thick curls.
You finally pulled back to look at your beautiful man, running your ER-short nails down the back of his neck.
“Missed you,” he murmured, voice rough as he buried his face in the dip between your neck and shoulder. Jack inhaled deeply, humming softly as he savoured the scent of you and the comically expensive lotion which you lathered yourself in before slipping into your scrubs. It was to stop your skin from drying out under PTMC’s constant air conditioning, you had explained the first time he watched you get ready for work. And he was never one to complain about something which somehow made you even more edible than you were naturally.
“We’ve been apart what, 12 hours? What happened to my strong, independent man?” He could feel you smile through your faux-protest.
“13, actually.” Jack pulled himself away from your neck to graze his lips over the crown of your head.
“Oh of course you’re missing me then. So many millennia have passed, lover mine.” You teased, throwing your arms around his neck to pull him for another kiss. He could taste the sugar of the danish you had had for breakfast that morning.
“How about…” he mumbled against your lips, his fingers finding their way under the very hem of your scrub top. Your skin was warm and familiar under his touch. “...you call out today-”
“What the fuck!”
A feminine screech split the moment. Amber stood before the two of you, having pulled back the curtain just a smidge. She looked mortified, pulling the privacy screen back once more and booking it for the central hub. Jack groaned, resting his forehead against your shoulder. You laughed.
-
The two of you made your way back to the hub a few minutes later. You had slung your stethoscope around your neck, looking every bit the professional you were. Likewise, Jack didn’t have a hair out of place, looking down at a tablet as he calmly explained what cases were being carried over by you into the day shift. You had shared a giggling, conspiratorial look in the hallway a moment earlier - you were nothing if not experts at this.
Amber stood at one of the desks, her back to you. She was whispering loudly to Ellis, her voice sharp and irritated. You caught Ellis’ eye as you walked over, and she threw up a peace sign in your direction, one of the brown paper coffee cups being cradled in her other hand.
“-and they were all over each other! It was shocking!” The med student hissed. Ellis nodded slowly, taking a sip from her cup.
“So you saw Doctor Abbot…involved…with another member of the staff?” The senior resident queried, voice dry.
“Yes! It was absurd.”
“Was it that staff member?” Ellis gestured to where you stood, looking down at a patient’s chart as you listened in on the conversation, unable to fully hide your smile.
Amber nodded emphatically.
“So you…saw Doctor Abbot…kissing his wife?”
“His wife!?” The ginger looked incredulous, spinning around to take in where you and Jack stood. “He has a wife? Her!?”
Jack sighed where he stood, leaning in as he handed you the tablet, his shift now over. You smothered a giggle with a faux yawn, hand over your mouth. Your husband pressed a kiss to your forehead, eyes flicking up to meet Amber’s in a very deliberate, very rare, work treat. She shrunk back at the look.
Summary: The roomies want to make it clear it's not all on you to care for everyone.
Word Count: 5k
Warnings: no use of Y/N
Masterlist
The apartment was too small for three people.
That was the truth of it.
There were two bedrooms, one narrow bathroom, and a kitchen that had clearly been designed for a single person who didn’t enjoy cooking. The refrigerator door couldn’t open completely without hitting the counter. Two people could stand beside the stove if neither of them needed to move. The cabinet above the sink had been painted shut by at least four previous landlords, and the radiator in the living room made a violent knocking sound every morning at six.
Dennis slept on the couch.
He’d started doing it after moving in with you and Trinity at the end of his first ER shift at PTMC. At first, his presence had felt temporary. He’d arrived with a duffel bag, a backpack, and a cardboard box filled mostly with medical books. Trinity had tossed him a spare key. You’d found him a clean towel and cleared half a shelf in the bathroom.
Nobody had discussed how long he was staying.
A week became two.
Two weeks became a month.
Eventually, Dennis bought a toothbrush holder and started contributing to the electric bill.
The second bedroom was technically yours, though Trinity spent enough nights sprawled across your bed that the distinction had become mostly decorative. Her own bedroom was filled with clothes, unopened mail, and the exercise bike she’d sworn she was going to use once her schedule became more reasonable.
Her schedule had never become reasonable.
Dennis claimed the couch every night at around eleven. He kept a fitted sheet folded beneath the cushions, a pillow tucked behind the armrest, and a thick blue blanket in a plastic storage bin beneath the coffee table. Before bed, he transformed the living room with practiced efficiency. He moved the coffee table toward the kitchen, spread his sheet over the cushions, and plugged his phone into the extension cord you’d taped along the baseboard.
Every morning, he erased himself.
He folded the blanket into a neat square. He tucked the pillow into the hall closet behind the vacuum cleaner. The sheet disappeared beneath the couch cushions. The coffee table returned to the faded rectangle in the rug that marked its proper place.
By the time you left your bedroom, the living room looked like a living room again.
You hated that part.
It bothered you that Dennis felt as though he had to pack himself away before breakfast. It bothered you that he apologized whenever he left a book on the coffee table. It bothered you that he waited until everyone else was finished using the room before getting ready for bed, even after shifts that left him barely capable of keeping his eyes open.
You’d told him several times that he lived there.
He’d always smiled and said he knew.
Then he’d continued hiding his pillow every morning.
On a random Thursday, you decided to fix it.
It was a decision you made at six thirty in the morning while standing in the kitchen wearing one sock.
Dennis was folding his blanket on the couch. He hadn’t noticed you yet. His shoulders slumped beneath an old gray T-shirt, and his hair stuck up on one side from sleep. He pressed both hands against his lower back before bending to slide the storage bin beneath the coffee table.
His face tightened.
You narrowed your eyes.
“Does your back hurt?”
Dennis startled so badly that he nearly hit his head on the coffee table.
You stood in the kitchen doorway, holding your other sock in one hand.
“No.”
“You just made a face.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
“I was concentrating.”
“On bending over?”
“It’s early.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
Dennis pushed the bin into place using his foot. “Good morning.”
“Dennis.”
“Would you like coffee?”
“Does your back hurt?”
He looked toward the hallway, as though hoping Trinity might emerge and rescue him.
Trinity didn’t wake willingly before eight unless the apartment was actively burning.
You crossed the living room.
Dennis straightened quickly.
“Your back hurts.”
“It’s a little stiff.”
“You’re sleeping on a couch.”
“I’m aware.”
“The couch is older than all three of us combined.”
“That seems unlikely.”
“It came with the apartment. I think it survived the steel industry.”
Dennis pressed his lips together, trying not to smile.
You pointed at him with the sock.
“You need a better mattress.”
“Where would we put a mattress?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
That made his expression change.
The amusement faded beneath immediate concern.
“No.”
You frowned. “No?”
“You’re doing the face.”
“What face?”
“The one you make before you reorganize the entire apartment.”
“I’ve never reorganized the entire apartment.”
“You moved the kitchen table while Trinity and I were at work.”
“The kitchen table blocked the pantry.”
“The pantry is one cabinet.”
“It still needs to open.”
Dennis took your shoulders gently and turned you toward the kitchen.
“Coffee.”
“You’re redirecting me.”
“Yes.”
“My concern remains.”
“I know.”
“You need proper support.”
“I have a pillow.”
“A pillow isn’t spinal support.”
“It can be if you fold it.”
You looked over your shoulder at him.
“That’s the saddest thing you’ve ever said.”
Dennis guided you into the kitchen.
“I work in an emergency department. It isn’t even close.”
By nine, both Dennis and Trinity had left for work.
You had the day off.
You used it responsibly for almost forty minutes.
You did a load of laundry. You washed the dishes from the night before. You wiped down the bathroom sink and sent Trinity a picture of the toothpaste she’d somehow managed to get on the mirror.
Her response arrived a minute later.
Modern art.
You sent back a picture of the cleaning spray.
This is the critic’s review.
You put your phone aside and made the mistake of looking at the couch.
The faded brown cushions had begun sinking in the middle years before Dennis moved in. One armrest was lower than the other. Springs creaked whenever anyone shifted too quickly.
You sat down and immediately felt a hard bar pressing against the back of your thigh.
“This is unacceptable,” you murmured.
You spent the next hour searching online.
A new sleeper sofa cost more than you could justify spending without discussing it with the other two. A futon wouldn’t fit. The living room was barely wide enough to hold the existing couch, coffee table, television stand, and the narrow bookshelf Dennis had assembled against the wall.
Then you found the listing.
Compact folding guest mattress. Excellent condition. Free to collect today.
The pictures showed a thick foam mattress that folded into three sections. During the day, it could fit behind the couch. At night, Dennis could spread it across the living room floor. It wasn’t a bedroom, though it would be flat, supportive, and better than the collection of springs currently rearranging his spine.
The seller lived only six blocks away.
You messaged them.
They responded almost immediately.
You could pick it up at noon.
You checked the weather through the window.
Pittsburgh had been gray all morning, with a thin mist hanging between the buildings. The pavement shone with moisture. Traffic hissed along the street below.
Six blocks wasn’t far.
The mattress folded.
You had two able arms.
It was a perfectly sensible plan.
The mattress was larger in person.
The woman selling it had folded it into a thick rectangle and wrapped two straps around the middle. Standing upright, it came to your chest. It wasn’t particularly heavy, though its width made it difficult to hold.
“You came alone?” the woman asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you have a car?”
“No.”
She looked past you toward the street.
You smiled.
“I only live a few blocks away.”
“It’s raining.”
“It’s barely raining.”
A drop of water slid from your hairline to your cheek.
The woman stared at you.
You tightened your grip around the mattress.
“It’ll be fine.”
She didn’t appear convinced.
You thanked her and started walking.
The first block was manageable.
You carried the mattress in front of you, your arms wrapped around both sides. You couldn’t see your feet, though you could see enough of the sidewalk to avoid walking into anyone.
The second block was harder.
The mist strengthened into a steady drizzle. The fabric cover started growing damp beneath your fingers. A gust of wind caught the broad side of the mattress and shoved you half a step toward the street.
You recovered.
“This is fine,” you muttered.
By the fourth block, you were breathing hard.
Your shoulders ached. Your hands had started slipping against the wet fabric. You stopped beneath the awning of a closed bakery and adjusted the straps.
You considered calling Trinity or Dennis.
They were working.
The emergency department was probably busy. They didn’t need to be interrupted because you’d overestimated your ability to carry a folding mattress through Pittsburgh.
You could call a rideshare.
You checked your pockets.
Your phone wasn’t there.
You closed your eyes.
It was on the kitchen counter.
“Of course it is.”
You tightened your arms around the mattress and kept walking.
The apartment building came into view several minutes later.
Relief loosened something in your chest.
Then you remembered the stairs.
The building had no elevator.
You lived on the third floor.
You managed the first flight by dragging the mattress one step at a time.
It bumped against each stair with a dull thud.
You stayed beneath it, pushing upward with your shoulder while holding one of the straps. The narrow stairwell left little space to turn. At the first landing, you had to rotate the entire thing vertically, squeezing yourself between the railing and the wall.
You paused with your cheek pressed against the damp fabric.
“You’re doing great,” you whispered.
A door opened below you.
An elderly man from the first floor stepped into the stairwell carrying a small bag of trash.
He looked up.
You looked down.
The mattress blocked most of your face.
“Need help?” he called.
“No, thank you.”
He studied the situation.
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
The mattress slid backward half an inch.
You shoved it forward with your shoulder.
The man slowly retreated into his apartment.
You made it to the second-floor landing.
That was where things went wrong.
You turned the mattress sideways to fit around the corner. One end wedged against the railing. The other pressed into the wall. You pushed from below, and it shifted just far enough for you to step up.
Then the mattress slipped.
It dropped toward you.
You caught it with both hands, though the force pushed you backward into the wall. Your shoulder struck the plaster. The mattress settled diagonally across the landing, trapping you between its lower edge and the corner.
You tried to lift it.
It didn’t move.
You tried turning sideways.
Your sweater caught on the railing.
You released a long breath.
“This is less fine.”
The building fell quiet around you.
Rain tapped softly against the stairwell window.
You stayed there for several minutes, supporting the mattress with one shoulder and attempting to decide how much dignity you were willing to sacrifice.
You could shout.
One of the neighbors might hear you.
You’d have to explain that you’d trapped yourself beneath a guest mattress because you were worried about your roommate’s back.
You pushed again.
The mattress remained wedged.
Footsteps sounded below.
You straightened as much as you could.
The front door opened.
Trinity’s voice floated upward.
“Why is there water all over the floor?”
Dennis answered, “Maybe someone’s umbrella leaked.”
“Whose umbrella?”
“I don’t know.”
A beat of silence followed.
Then Trinity said, “Why is there a mattress in the stairwell?”
You closed your eyes.
Dennis leaned around the bottom of the staircase.
He looked up.
You could only see the top of his head from your position.
“Hi,” you called.
His face appeared between the railing bars.
He stared at you.
Trinity stepped beside him.
Her mouth fell open.
You attempted a small wave.
One of your arms was pinned beneath the mattress, so it wasn’t particularly effective.
Trinity blinked.
Dennis blinked.
You smiled.
“I can explain.”
Trinity started climbing.
Dennis followed close behind her.
“What happened?” he asked.
“The corner’s narrower than it looks.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Did you fall?”
“No.”
“Did the mattress fall?”
“Only a little.”
Trinity reached the second-floor landing and stopped directly beneath you.
Rainwater darkened the shoulders of her jacket. Her hair was damp around her face. She looked from you to the mattress and then back again.
“Where did that come from?”
“A woman six blocks away.”
“You carried it here?”
“It folds.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“It was free.”
“That also wasn’t my question.”
Dennis moved to the other side of the mattress, examining where it had caught against the railing.
“Can you move your arm?”
“Yes.”
“Your shoulder?”
“It’s fine.”
Trinity pointed a finger at you.
“Don’t.”
You stared at her.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t say you’re fine like you haven’t somehow gotten yourself trapped beneath a mattress in our stairwell.”
“I’m not beneath it.”
“You’re using your body to hold it up.”
“That’s different.”
“It isn’t.”
Dennis placed one hand on the upper strap.
“On three, I’m going to lift this end. Trinity, can you pull her out?”
“I don’t need to be pulled out.”
Neither of them acknowledged you.
Dennis counted.
He lifted.
Trinity grabbed you around the waist and pulled you away from the wall.
You stumbled against her. She caught you firmly, one arm locked across your stomach while Dennis lowered the mattress onto the landing.
For a moment, all three of you stood in silence.
You could feel Trinity’s breath against the side of your face.
Dennis looked at the mattress.
Then he looked at you.
“What is this?”
You adjusted your wet sweater.
“It’s for you.”
Dennis frowned.
“For me?”
“You can unfold it in the living room at night. It’s foam, so it’ll be better for your back. During the day, we can stand it behind the couch.”
His expression softened immediately.
That was almost worse than Trinity’s stare.
“You did this because I said my back was stiff?”
“You didn’t say it. I noticed.”
Trinity released your waist only to take hold of both your upper arms.
“You walked six blocks in the rain carrying this?”
“It wasn’t raining when I left.”
“It was misting.”
“Mist isn’t rain.”
“Your hair is dripping.”
“It got heavier.”
“You didn’t call either of us?”
“I left my phone at home.”
Trinity’s eyes widened.
“You went out alone, without your phone, carried a mattress through the rain, and tried to drag it up three flights of stairs by yourself?”
“When you say it like that, it sounds worse.”
Dennis rubbed a hand over his face.
You looked between them.
Both of them appeared exhausted. Their scrubs were wrinkled beneath their jackets. Trinity had dark circles beneath her eyes. Dennis’s hair had begun curling from the damp weather.
You hadn’t wanted them to come home to another problem.
You’d wanted Dennis to see the mattress unfolded and ready.
You’d imagined how surprised he would look. You’d imagined Trinity making fun of the matching sheet you’d found in the closet. You’d imagined the three of you ordering dinner and rearranging the coffee table until everything fit.
Your shoulders dropped.
“I was trying to help.”
Dennis’s face softened further.
“I know.”
“I wanted you to be comfortable.”
“I know that too.”
Trinity’s thumbs rubbed unconsciously against your sleeves.
“You could’ve asked us.”
“You were working.”
“We still have phones.”
“I didn’t want you worrying about it.”
Trinity gave a short laugh.
There was no anger in it. It carried disbelief and affection, with enough exhaustion to make the sound slightly unsteady.
“You didn’t want us worrying, so you did all of this alone?”
“I almost had it.”
“You were stuck.”
“I was taking a break.”
“You were pinned against a wall.”
“Pinned feels dramatic.”
Dennis glanced toward Trinity.
“She’s going to keep arguing.”
“I know.”
“I think it’s a defense mechanism.”
“I’m standing right here.”
Dennis’s mouth twitched.
Trinity tilted her head, studying you.
The concern in her expression made your chest ache.
You offered them a sheepish smile.
“We’re in this together.”
Trinity stared at you for one long second.
Then she threw both hands into the air.
“You can’t go do stupid stuff on your own and then claim we’re in this together!”
Her voice echoed through the stairwell.
A door opened somewhere below.
The elderly neighbor from the first floor leaned into the hall.
“Told her she needed help,” he called.
Trinity looked over the railing.
“Thank you!”
The door closed again.
Dennis pressed his lips together.
You watched his shoulders begin to shake.
“Are you laughing?” you asked.
“No.”
“You are.”
“I’m not.”
A quiet snort escaped him.
Trinity turned toward him.
“Huckleberry.”
That was enough.
Dennis started laughing openly.
You glared at both of them, which only made it worse.
Trinity tried to maintain her stern expression. Her mouth gave in first, curving at the corners.
“You’re both horrible,” you said.
“You brought a mattress home on foot,” Dennis managed.
“For your spine.”
“My spine appreciates the gesture.”
“It should.”
Trinity leaned her forehead against your shoulder.
You felt her laughing there, warm and breathless through your damp sweater.
“You’re impossible,” she murmured.
“You love me.”
“Unfortunately.”
Dennis wiped beneath his eyes.
“Can we get this upstairs before the neighbors start selling tickets?”
The three of you carried the mattress together.
Dennis took the top. Trinity held the middle strap. You were assigned the bottom corner under strict instructions not to lift more than necessary.
It still took ten minutes to navigate the last flight.
The apartment door was barely wide enough. Trinity had to move the shoe rack. Dennis nearly knocked a framed picture from the wall. You became trapped behind the door for several seconds and were forbidden from describing it as another break.
Once the mattress was inside, it occupied most of the living room.
Dennis unfolded it across the floor.
It stretched from the couch to the television stand, leaving a narrow strip of carpet near the kitchen.
Trinity stood with her hands on her hips.
“How are we supposed to walk?”
“It folds up during the day,” you reminded her.
“And what happens if I need water at night?”
“You step over Dennis.”
“She already does that,” Dennis said.
Trinity pointed at him.
“You sleep directly between me and the kitchen.”
“It’s a rectangular room.”
“You could shift left.”
“There’s a bookshelf on the left.”
“You put the bookshelf there.”
“You approved the location.”
“I wasn’t aware it would affect my nighttime hydration.”
You slipped off your wet shoes and lined them up beside the door.
Dennis pressed one hand against the mattress.
“It’s comfortable.”
You looked over quickly.
“Really?”
He lowered himself onto it, first sitting and then lying flat on his back. His arms rested at his sides. His eyes closed.
The tension left his face.
“It’s much better than the couch.”
Satisfaction warmed your chest.
“See?”
Trinity looked at you.
The pleased expression on your face must have ruined whatever lecture she had planned. Her shoulders dropped.
She reached over and tugged lightly on one of your damp sleeves.
“You need to change.”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re soaked.”
“I’m damp.”
“You’re going to get cold.”
“I run warm.”
“That’s my excuse.”
“You complain when I use it.”
“Because it’s stupid.”
Dennis opened one eye from the floor.
“She has a point.”
You looked down at him.
“You’re supposed to be on my side. I carried that for you.”
“You’re not allowed to use the mattress as leverage.”
“Why not?”
“Because you nearly sacrificed yourself to acquire it.”
“That’s an exaggeration.”
Trinity took your shoulders and steered you toward the hallway.
“Change your clothes.”
“You’re bossy.”
“You’re a menace.”
“Dinner needs to be started.”
“We’ll order something.”
“There are vegetables in the refrigerator.”
“They’ll keep.”
“The spinach is already questionable.”
Trinity stopped outside your bedroom.
“Take off the wet clothes. Dennis and I can handle dinner.”
You glanced past her.
Dennis remained stretched across the mattress with his eyes closed. His shoes were still on. Trinity looked tired enough to fall asleep standing.
“You both worked all day.”
“And you spent your day fighting furniture.”
“I did laundry first.”
“That doesn’t help your case.”
You hesitated.
Trinity’s expression softened.
“Let us do something.”
The words were quiet.
You looked at her properly.
She still had hold of your shoulders. Her fingers were warm through the wet fabric. Behind her, Dennis had opened his eyes and was watching from the living room.
You were used to taking care of them.
You knew how Trinity liked her coffee. You knew Dennis always forgot to replace the cap on the toothpaste. You knew which nights they needed conversation and which nights they needed a plate left in the refrigerator without questions.
Being useful came easily.
Letting them return that care left you feeling exposed in a way you didn’t quite understand.
“It was only a mattress,” you said.
“It wasn’t only a mattress,” Dennis replied from the floor.
You looked toward him.
He pushed himself upright.
“You noticed I was uncomfortable before I admitted it. You found a solution and carried it home because you wanted to make things better for me.”
“That’s what roommates do.”
“Exactly.”
You frowned slightly.
Dennis folded his legs beneath him.
“Roommates help each other. They don’t have to do everything alone.”
Trinity squeezed your shoulders.
“You keep treating us like we’re your responsibility.”
“You’re terrible at looking after yourselves.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“It’s relevant.”
“You pack our lunches,” Trinity continued. “You remind us to sleep. You keep track of when Dennis needs clean scrubs. You leave the hall light on when we’re coming home late.”
“You trip over things when it’s dark.”
“I know.”
Dennis reached for one of the loose straps around the mattress.
“You made room for me here before I knew how to ask for it.”
The apartment suddenly felt very quiet.
Rain tapped against the windows. The radiator released a single metallic knock from the corner.
Dennis looked around the living room.
There wasn’t much space.
His books crowded the shelf. Trinity’s jacket hung over the back of a chair. Your laundry basket sat in the hallway because the bedroom closet was too full.
It looked lived in.
It looked like all three of you.
“I don’t mind taking care of you,” you said.
“We don’t mind taking care of you either,” Trinity answered.
You lowered your eyes.
She pulled you into a hug before you could say anything else.
Your damp clothes pressed against her scrubs.
“You’re getting wet,” you warned.
“I’ll survive.”
“You complain when I hug you after rain.”
“I’m making a point.”
Dennis climbed to his feet and joined you.
His arms wrapped around both of you, slightly hesitant at first. Trinity grabbed his sleeve and pulled until he stood closer.
The hallway was too narrow for three people to hug comfortably.
Your elbow struck the wall. Dennis’s cheek pressed awkwardly against your hair. Trinity’s hand was trapped somewhere between your shoulder blades.
Nobody moved away.
“We’re in this together,” you whispered again.
Trinity tightened her arms around you.
“This time you’re using it correctly.”
Dennis rested his chin lightly against the top of your head.
“It means you tell us about the plan before you end up trapped in a stairwell.”
“It wasn’t really a plan.”
“That part was obvious,” Trinity said.
You pinched her side.
She yelped and nearly knocked all three of you into the wall.
Dennis laughed against your hair.
That evening, the living room became Dennis’s room as it always did.
The routine was different.
You helped him push the coffee table toward the kitchen. Trinity moved the rug so the foam mattress could lie flat. Dennis pulled his pillow from the hall closet.
You found a clean fitted sheet and stretched it over the mattress while Trinity complained that you were doing too much again.
“I’m putting on a sheet.”
“You’re supposed to be sitting down.”
“My shoulder doesn’t hurt.”
“You hit the wall.”
“I barely hit it.”
“You made a noise.”
“I was surprised.”
Dennis handed you a bag of frozen peas wrapped in a dish towel.
You stared at it.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Put it on your shoulder.”
“My shoulder is fine.”
Trinity pointed toward the couch.
“Sit.”
“You’re both enjoying this too much.”
“Immensely,” Trinity said.
You sat.
Dennis placed the peas against your shoulder himself before stepping back to examine his new bed.
The folding mattress took up nearly all the available floor space. The coffee table blocked half the kitchen entrance. Trinity would definitely trip over Dennis during her first attempt to get water.
It still fit.
Barely.
Dennis sat on the edge and bounced once.
“This is great.”
Your chest warmed.
“Your back will feel better.”
“Probably.”
“And you won’t sink into the middle.”
“That was becoming an issue.”
Trinity dropped onto the couch beside you.
“He slept folded in half.”
“I adjusted.”
“You looked like a lawn chair.”
Dennis rubbed his eyes.
“I’m choosing to accept the mattress and ignore the commentary.”
You leaned back against the cushions.
The apartment lights were low. Rain blurred the view beyond the windows, turning the buildings across the street into soft shapes. The sounds of passing cars rose from the wet road below.
Dennis unfolded his blanket over his legs.
He usually waited until you and Trinity went to your rooms before setting up the couch. Tonight, neither of you seemed interested in moving.
Trinity stretched out beside you, putting her feet in your lap.
You pushed them away.
She put them back.
“Your feet are cold.”
“Warm them up.”
“I’m not a heating pad.”
“You’re the mom. It’s your job.”
You stared at her.
Dennis looked up from the mattress.
“That seems like dangerous wording.”
“It is,” you agreed.
Trinity smiled, completely unrepentant.
“You make us lunches.”
“Not anymore.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I’m putting a new house rule into effect.”
Dennis reached toward the coffee table for the notepad you kept beside the television remote.
“What’s the rule?”
You thought for a moment.
“No one’s allowed to hide their problems until someone else notices.”
Dennis’s amusement softened.
Trinity’s feet went still in your lap.
“That applies to you too,” she said.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
You sighed.
“I’m learning.”
Dennis wrote the rule across the paper.
His handwriting was careful and slightly slanted.
Beneath it, Trinity added another.
NO CARRYING FURNITURE ALONE.
You took the pen from her.
MIST ISN’T RAIN.
She immediately crossed it out.
Dennis added a third line.
THE LIVING ROOM IS ALSO DENNIS’S ROOM. KNOCK FIRST.
You looked at him.
“You want us to knock before coming into the living room?”
“Only after eleven.”
“The bathroom is through the living room,” Trinity said.
“You may pass through respectfully.”
“What does that mean?”
“No turning on the overhead light.”
“What if I need to find something?”
“Use your phone.”
“What if I leave my phone in the kitchen?”
You and Dennis stared at her.
Trinity folded her arms.
“That’s happened before.”
“You shouted from the bathroom for someone to bring it to you,” you said.
“It was an emergency.”
“You were watching a video.”
“It paused at an important part.”
Dennis wrote one more rule.
EVERYONE MUST KEEP TRACK OF THEIR OWN PHONE.
You leaned into Trinity’s shoulder, laughing.
Dennis settled back onto his mattress. He pulled the blanket to his chest and looked around the cramped living room.
His pillow was visible.
His blanket wasn’t tucked into a plastic bin.
His books remained on the coffee table.
For the first time, his space didn’t look temporary.
“You don’t have to put everything away before breakfast tomorrow,” you told him.
Dennis glanced at the couch.
“We’ll need somewhere to sit.”
“We can sit on the mattress.”
“We’ll have to step over it to get to the kitchen.”
“We already step over Trinity’s shoes.”
“That’s different,” Trinity said.
“It’s really not.”
Dennis ran his fingers along the edge of the blanket.
“I might leave the pillow out.”
You smiled.
“That’s a start.”
The radiator began its nightly knocking.
Trinity groaned and pulled a cushion over her head.
Dennis reached for the lamp switch.
You pressed the frozen peas more firmly against your shoulder and listened to them complain about the noise.
The apartment was still too small.
There wasn’t enough closet space. The bathroom schedule required military precision. Dennis’s new mattress nearly touched both the couch and television stand.
There wasn’t much room left for anything.
Somehow, there was enough for the three of you.
There was room for Dennis’s pillow in the corner.
There was room for Trinity’s cold feet in your lap.
There was room for your concern, even when it turned into poorly planned furniture retrieval.
There was room for them to worry about you in return.
Dennis reached over and switched off the lamp beside his mattress.
“Goodnight.”
Trinity removed the cushion from her face.
“We’re still sitting here.”
“I know.”
“You’re going to sleep while we’re talking?”
“I’ve learned to adapt.”
You lowered your voice to a whisper.
“He’s setting boundaries in his bedroom.”
Trinity nodded solemnly.
“We should respect his privacy.”
Dennis’s eyes remained closed.
“You’re both very funny.”
You and Trinity stayed on the couch until his breathing grew slow and even.
Then you carefully moved her feet from your lap and stood.
You picked up the empty glasses from the coffee table.
Trinity caught the back of your sweater.
“Leave them.”
“I’m taking them to the kitchen.”
“Tomorrow.”
“They’ll be in the way.”
“It’s Dennis’s room right now.”
From the mattress, Dennis mumbled, “Thank you.”
Trinity stood and guided you toward the hallway.
You looked back once.
Dennis slept flat on his back, his body properly supported for the first time since he’d moved in. His pillow rested beneath his head. The blue blanket covered him to his shoulders.
The glasses remained on the coffee table.
You let them stay.
In the morning, you would all deal with the clutter together.
Summary: You came in to work every day with a fun fact, determined to catch the BAU's genius with one that he wouldn't know (friends to lovers, co-workers to lovers, mutual feelings, fluff, confession)
Note: my spencer reid debut fic <3 sorry if there are any inaccuracy, just started rewatching after 3 years
Word count: 10.9k (sorry)
“Small facts lead to great knowing” - Patrick Rothfuss (2011)
“I can’t believe anybody would do something like this,” you commented whilst looking down at the two documents in your hands—your thoroughly highlighted case dossier and your finished report. Every new case always exhibits unimaginable horror and unfortunately, there will always be something worse than your current worst.
You turned to Spencer whilst perched cross-legged on the edge of his table.
The corner of the genius’s mouth curled at your words. They were the very same ones that sprouted daily despite the nature of your job. But to Spencer, there was a strange comfort in such small repetitive murmurs of disbelief.
“I gotta agree with Rossi. This job really includes some of the worst lunatics out there.” You sighed before straightening up at a sudden thought. “Actually, fun fact…” You noticed the way your words peeled Spencer’s attention from his report. He finally glanced up, eager for the second half of that sentence.
“The word lunatic was invented based on the belief that mental illnesses were affected by moon phases.” You beamed at the idea of potentially providing your genius friend with new knowledge.
“Yeah, and it actually originated from the Latin word ‘lunaticus,’ which means moonstruck or influenced by the moon. The word was first used for conditions like epilepsy or overall just madness,” Spencer replied, perking up at the thought of a potential conversation about this.
The excited smile on your face instantly faltered and you groaned in feigned annoyance. Perhaps you should have known better than to think you could out-fact Spencer and say something he had not already known.
“Is there anything you don’t know, Spence?” you glowered jokingly.
“Well, it’s hard when you’re a child prodigy and genius.” You let out a scoff-like laugh at Spencer’s cocky admission, but you knew he was joking. Despite his IQ of 187, Spencer rarely ever announced himself a genius. It was a title dubbed by those around him. You knew if you had Spencer’s brain, though, you would hardly ever stay as humble as him.
“I’ll get you someday.”
Your declaration drew a snort from another work desk and you twisted around to face the source of such a faithless sound.
“You don’t believe in me, Derek?” You arched a brow, your competitiveness rising to the surface.
“Sweet girl, I believe in you for many things, but this is just not one of them.”
“But surely there is one single fact out there that Spencer doesn’t know about.” Penelope piped up from next to Derek, defending you.
“We’re talking about the same Spencer, right? Spencer Reid? Three PhDs and an IQ of Einstein?” JJ spoke as she made her way down the bullpen.
“Actually, there is no way of measuring Einstein’s IQ as he never took the test, so to say that—” Derek quickly interrupted Spencer.
“Come on, pretty boy. She’s backing you up.”
“Sounds like grounds to start a betting pool going,” Rossi spoke up as he approached the whole group, briefcase in one hand, car keys in the other. “$20 says she’ll do it within four months.”
“I think she can do it within three months.” Emily chimed up from her desk.
“I’m placing my bet on eight months,” Penelope added confidently.
“Alright, and if she can’t do it within one year, JJ and I will split the win,” Derek announced before directing his next words to you, “Stakes are on, sweetheart.” He winked.
“Yeah, yeah. I got it.” You rolled your eyes before turning towards Spencer, declaring to him with exaggerated cockiness, “I’m gonna get you real soon, just wait.”
“You’re welcome to try.” The challenging glint in Spencer’s eyes met your own. Again, you knew better than to think that you would know something Spencer did not already know. He was practically the master of facts. But, unfortunately, you were incredibly bad at quitting.
So, let the challenge begin.
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
“Did you know that Australia is wider than the moon?” you questioned the second you saw Spencer enter the office the next morning. “Fun fact.”
“Yes, diameter-wise. Australia is almost 4,000 kilometres wide, while the moon’s diameter is nearly 3,500 kilometres. However, in terms of their masses, the moon is still larger.” You sighed dramatically at Spencer’s reply before spinning your chair towards your computer, turning the device on.
“And day one status: unsuccessful,” you grunted to yourself, catching Spencer’s grin from your peripheral vision.
“Oh? It’s gonna be daily?”
“You bet your ass it’s gonna be. There’s a betting pool and I’m unfortunately too competitive for my own good.” You caught the amusement dancing in Spencer’s gaze.
“Well then, good luck.”
“Won’t need it.”
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
“Did you know a cloud can weigh like a million pounds?” You crossed your arms while peering at the cotton candy-like objects floating amidst the bright blue summer sky. “Fun fact.”
Both of you had your bulletproof vests on, leaning against a car while waiting for JJ to finish speaking to the press before driving back to the precinct. Another case wrapped. Another unsub locked up.
Under the nice weather, you had your cap and Spencer’s sunglasses on, having forgotten yours. He had heavily insisted so, even after you had declined a handful of times.
You turned and looked at Spencer briefly. Though, for a split second, your body stilled as the sun played in his favor, casting nice highlights to his woodsy colored locks. The light crinkle of his nose and his squinting eyes made your lips curl, cause once again, it showcased just how self-sacrificing Spencer can be when it came to the people close to him.
“Yeah, because they contain different states of matter like trillions of condensed water droplets and ice crystals. Its weight is equivalent to the world’s largest aircraft working at full capacity. Though despite its heaviness, clouds have lower density in comparison to the dry air around them, enabling them to float in the same way as oil floats on water.” Spencer tried to maintain eye contact with you despite the blaring sun shining into his eyes.
“Hmm…” you pursed your lips before removing your navy blue cap and placing it on your friend’s head. This cast a shadow over his eyes, blocking the harsh sun from blinding his vision. “Beautiful weather to fail at winning this fun fact thing again.”
Spencer didn’t reject the clothing item.
Some time in the history of human beings, the act of sporting others’ clothing items—especially of the opposite gender—had been made to seem important. Spencer has never understood the significance in such a small exchange. But as your hat landed on his head, Spencer felt an added weight that was beyond the small clothing item.
Neither did he have it in him to adjust how you had left the cap on him, even if it didn’t sit on his head perfectly.
“I still have time to get you,” you continued after a moment of silence.
“359 days left.”
“More than enough.”
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
The clock was close to hitting 11pm. The whole team was taking a short break for a fresh perspective. Most were on their phones or taking a quick nap, but Spencer and you were playing a round of cards.
“Did you know ketchup used to be medicine? Fun fact.”
Both Emily’s and Derek’s watchful gaze panned from you to Spencer, anticipating his reaction to your daily shot at winning the bet.
“Around the 1830s, yeah. They marketed it as a cure for various ailments such as indigestion and diarrhea.”
Emily instantly groaned at Spencer’s reply while Derek snickered. Once again, Spencer already knew the information you provided, just like the 13 previous times.
“See? Not a single thing he doesn’t know,” Derek chirped up, earning him a glare from the co-worker beside him.
You finally placed your next card down, instantly eying Spencer, wanting a read of his reaction to your play. There was a distant look in his eyes, a clear indication that he was taking this game just as seriously as you were.
Your eyes swept over the rest of your opponent. The un-neat edges in his usually tidy work attire and the way his hair stuck in different directions had your lips curling. They were details that only unveil during late work hours after a long day. But strangely enough, there was something endearing about the slight tiredness in his eyes and the way his cardigan hung disheveledly on him.
“I won.”
Your eyes snapped to the pile of cards on the table at Spencer’s declaration.
“What?! No way. You must have cheated.”
“Now, now, don’t be a sore loser just because pretty boy over here won,” Derek teased you, despite also highly suspecting that Reid had cheated.
“Are we talking about the same pretty boy who is banned from many Vegas casinos because of his expert skill in counting cards?” JJ countered, placing her phone down.
Your co-workers’ discourse began fading out of your focus as Spencer took out a ticket from his bag and handed it to you with a cheeky grin. With hesitation, you took the paper begrudgingly. You knew you had to hold your end of the deal. You had lost, after all.
You glanced back at the winner of the card game, catching his toothy grin at your sulking manners. Against all maturity, you poked your tongue out in petulance, but such childish action had Spencer laughing quietly in his spot, eyes gleaming with fondness.
“Sore loser.”
“Cheater.”
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
Hotch halted in his tracks upon spotting you and Reid in the break room.
Both of your heads were side by side, just a hair short from touching, fighting to have adequate sight of the newspaper that the two of you were sharing. Each of you also sported a pen in hand, scribbling hastily onto the delicate paper with vigorous competitiveness.
The unit chief entered to refill his coffee, though his eyes continued investigating you two. In the narrow gap between your heads, Hotch caught sight of Spencer rapidly filling out a crossword puzzle. Meanwhile, just as fast, you were solving a Sudoku piece that resided on the same page.
“Did you know, like fingerprints, people also have unique tongue prints?” you murmured, eyes still glued onto the puzzle in front of you. “Fun fact.”
“Yeah, humans have unique color, tongue shape, and textural features, therefore making it a great form of identification. However, we currently do not have the suitable technology to capture intricate surface details of tongue prints. Also, switching costs are high partially because the idea of having to stick one's tongue out in public for authentication can be seen as rather awkward, unhygienic, and undignifying.”
You pursed your lips at another unsuccessful day. But such expression vanished when you dropped your pen on the table and declared with unadulterated joy:
“Done!”
Your victory drew a defeated noise from Spencer.
“Imagine though, having to stick your tongue out at airport immigration and place it onto a public scanner or something like that.” You cackled at Spencer's grimace and the way his body slightly shivered from such a mental image. Eventually though, your laugh reduced to a teasing smile.
Spencer’s gaze lowered to the little crinkle that appeared around your eyes as you smiled, before holding eye contact with you. Spencer knew there was no such thing as “eyes twinkling,” but you had him doubting that scientifically established truth for a second. It was lighting and he knew that, but he had to admit that he could finally somewhat understand why poets and writers were so obsessed with dedicating lines towards such a tiny detail.
Because even though there was no reason for him to, his own lips began to curl, mirroring the smile on your face.
From behind you both, Aaron Hotchner took a sip of his coffee before departing the room. Though on his way out, his eyes glinted a knowing look, while his lips lifted just the slightest bit before schooling back to a neutral expression again.
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“Did you know that back then, when raising a toast, people would literally drop a piece of toast into their wine?” you blurted out the second you slid yourself into the empty seat opposite Spencer at his breakfast table. Never have you ever skipped free hotel breakfast and today was no exception.
“Well, hello to you too.” Spencer grinned at your straight-to-business behavior.
He carefully placed the coffee he made for you into your hand—a casual daily routine. You took a good whiff of the comforting aroma before humming at the first taste. It was exactly how you liked it: a dash of milk along with two and a quarter teaspoon of sugar.
To date, Spencer has never asked how you liked your coffee.
He simply has always gotten it right.
It was not hard to guess that he had learnt your preferences from watching you make your coffee in the past. But you could not help but wonder if he took mental notes on others the same way he did with you. However, like every other time, you dismissed it as an occupational habit. Every member has been trained to be observant and notice little details. Spencer probably knew everybody’s coffee preferences.
“It actually originated from Ancient Rome, and back then, toast was an act to honor the gods and people would pour wine onto the floor. However, the custom evolved in many ways over time, depending on geographic regions. Around the 1600s, it became a common custom in England and this is where people would put a piece of spiced toast into their wine. They did it to improve the flavor of their beverage and also to “toast” to good health.”
Spencer caught your hum of satisfaction at the coffee and instantly felt pleased.
Science has long documented humans as naturally validation-seeking creatures. Your existence often humbled him from thinking he was not a recurring participant in that particular human instinct.
His eyes fell from you to your coffee—a particular mix that has ingrained itself into his memory since your first meeting. Funny that some time since then, he could no longer look at the beverage without ever thinking of you.
Neither could Spencer for the life of him recite the coffee order of anybody else at the BAU.
“36 days down…” you murmured, already picturing yourself rummaging the internet for more fun facts tonight.
“Maybe tomorrow.” The words came out softly, almost encouragingly. You hummed before matching his tone.
“Maybe.”
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“Flies rub their hands as a sanitizing act, rather clean for an insect commonly associated with dirty places, no?” you murmured before peering up from your book whilst curled up in your seat on the BAU’s jet.
“Yes, it’s a self-grooming act. They do this primarily for two reasons. First and foremost, it’s because their legs are their flavour receptors, so they rub their front legs to ensure they can taste when eating. The other motivation is to remove dust and debris, therefore, ensuring survival.”
Your bottom lip jutted out slightly at another unsuccessful attempt.
“I’ll get you tomorrow…” you murmured with a teasing smile before re-immersing yourself in the fantasy world of your current novel.
Reading has become your escapism and method of self-grounding prior to any case. You tried to plunge into fictional worlds while flying to prepare yourself for the terrible realities that accompanied upcoming cases. Though at one point, Spencer started joining in. But instead of having his own book, he would lean over and scan your current page with unrealistic speed while you leisurely let each letter sink in. It became a routine that occupied your journey from Quantico, whereas on the way back, Spencer and you maintained your tradition of engaging in chess matches.
Spencer spotted your finger flipping the page once more and his eyes instantly swept over the printed words hastily.
Twenty thousand words per minute. That was Spencer’s known reading speed, which meant in merely two seconds or three, he was already done with the two pages in front of you both. As always, you were still reading at your own pace, unhurried. He knew he could adopt a slower speed to enjoy your chosen fictional literature. But lately, he found himself in a hurry, rushing himself to finish pages in a way that made him think maybe he was now above his previously established reading speed.
Why?
His gaze flicked over to you, mulling over the familiar details that made you, you. He studied the way your fingers trace the fore-edge of the book mindlessly, lingering on the way you tease your lips with your teeth as you registered the adventure that the story was taking you on. Spencer caught the slight shift in the space between your eyebrows and how they slightly twitch according to plot progression, displaying your commitment to your reading content.
Spencer would not classify himself as a people watcher, despite his necessary observant and analytical traits as a profiler. Yet, somehow, watching you had become one of his favorite quiet activities. In your little habits were his comfort. In moments when cases were overwhelming, his eyes have made a tendency to land on you. The spike in his heartbeat would normalize, whilst rapid thoughts would regulate. It was only in moments when Spencer would get caught by you that he would tear his gaze away sheepishly, before attempting to pretend that he was looking elsewhere instead.
The sound of paper rustling pulled Spencer out of his mind, and he instantly plunged himself into the same self-established cycle again.
And despite his fondness for literature, for once, it did not hold a candle in his eyes.
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“Cows have best friends, how great is that?”
Spencer stopped eating his ice cream the second he spotted someone passing the two of you in a cow onesie, giving away why you decided on that particular fun fact. His eyes fell back on you, glimmering with amusement.
“Yes, cows do have a ‘best friend’ who they tend to share spaces and rest side by side with. Research shows that when separated, these cows would show signs of stress and anxiety with higher heart rates.”
You hummed at that. By now, you were used to his immediate expansion on your facts, no longer surprised or disappointed every time he added onto your words.
In fact, you fondly looked forward to hearing what he had to say about whatever fact you would sprout. There was a deep sense of appreciation that you have grown for this challenge. You felt like, intellectually, your general knowledge had expanded immensely, both from researching fun facts to tell Spencer and also from the informative responses that you would receive from him.
“You know, cows also can develop what some may refer to as ‘accents.’ Research observed variations in their moos based on different regions and herds.” Spencer leaned closer to you before adding cheekily, “Fun fact.”
“Nuh uh, don’t go stealing my line. You’re not allowed to put me out of business.”
This tore a laugh out of Spencer, and you immediately bit back a smile at such a sound.
If humans have the ability to bottle noises for keepsake, you know now what sound you would try to capture.
Surprisingly, this was only the second time that Spencer and you had spent time together one-on-one out of work.
With the working hours at the BAU that forced you and all your co-workers to be in close proximity for an extensive amount of time, you tend to allocate your scarce free time to those who were outside of your work circle. But something about spending time with Spencer today had struck you with an epiphany:
You really, really wanted to see Spencer outside of work more often.
Both your phones started ringing at the same time.
“Penelope, is everything okay?” you answered quietly.
“Emily?” Spencer whispered at the same time into his phone.
After a few seconds, you both ended your respective phone calls before slowly turning to face each other again. You scanned yours and Spencer’s outfit before sighing.
“There’s not enough time to go home and change.” The devastation in your voice was imminent.
“I know.”
A few minutes later, both of you entered the office, and almost instantly, the noise level declined significantly as the whole team paused their actions. You winced, knowing immediately that you two were about to be the butt of many incoming jokes.
“Whoa, what time period did you guys travel back from?” Emily teased.
“We were at a convention, okay?” You huffed, picking up your go-bag from under your desk for a change of clothes.
“And you two are dressed up as…?” Rossi crossed his arms, undoubtedly amused.
The team scanned over both of your outfits. Spencer was wearing a brown fedora hat, an oxblood colored corduroy jacket, and grey pants. Despite the only semi-chilly weather, he also sported a colorful striped knitted scarf around his neck. As for you, you were in an all pink attire, but what stood out was your long pink coat, high pink boots, and long white scarf.
“The fourth doctor and Romana II, from Doctor Who,” Spencer answered, grabbing his go bag.
Derek’s eyes comedically bulged out at that, and he immediately spun his chair towards you. “Blink twice if Reid is blackmailing you with something to make you go to this convention with him.” You laughed at his remark.
“Listen, remember the card game I lost two months ago? That’s why I had to go, but when I actually started the show, I really enjoyed it.” You raised your hands in surrender.
“Oh, we lost another one. She got Reid-ified,” Derek exclaimed dramatically before placing a hand on his chest in jest heartbreak, grinning at your eye roll.
By now, Spencer had returned to your side with his go-bag. Though just as you two turned around to head off and change, an abrupt flash halted you both in your steps. Blinking away the after-effect of the blinding light, you saw Penelope with her phone facing you two and a cheeky grin on her face.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Delete that,” you immediately instructed, hands on your hips while your brows furrowed in fussiness. You then sucked in a deep breath and used your hand to comb through your hair before a smile broke your feigned annoyed expression. “I was not ready.”
Then, with dramatic flair, you posed properly for the camera, grabbing Spencer’s scarf exaggeratedly with both hands while tugging him lightly.
Spencer was unsure if his knees had buckled due to a slight loss of balance or from your proximity. He glanced at the camera, face slightly flushed, before witnessing another flash go off, evidencing his blush and putting it on record.
Your hands were gone from his scarf like a breeze.
“Alright, I’m gonna go change now.” By the time Spencer registered your words, you were already gone. All that was left at the spot you previously occupied was his attention. Spencer's eyes eventually moved when he heard a quiet giggle from Penelope, who was indescribably entertained by the dazed look on his face.
The tech expert slowly angled her phone towards Spencer to show what she had captured, and she carefully observed Spencer’s contemplative gaze. His eyes landed on you first, and they softened at the sight of your beaming face. They then traced the slope of your smile and the crinkle of your eyes before reluctantly trailing down to your hands and the way they bossily clung onto his scarf.
The sentiment of pictures has always been just a concept to Spencer Reid. He does understand the logic behind people’s attachment to colored captures of moments and why people have ‘important’ photos in their wallets or have framed physical copies. But personally, he rarely ever practiced it. Yet, in this precise moment, he suddenly wanted to begin.
Without even looking at himself in the photo, Spencer murmured to Penelope:
“Can you send that to me, please? Thank you.”
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“Where is she?” Derek’s gaze darted up to his friend. One glance at Spencer and the man already knew who he was referring to.
“Garcia said she called in sick this morning. Why?”
“Nothing.”
Derek scanned over Spencer from head to toe properly this time. Realisation flashed through his eyes before the man smirked as he looked back down at his work.
Ah, the perks of being a profiler.
“Sure, pretty boy.”
“What was that loo—”
The sound of Spencer’s phone ringing interrupted his question. He took the device out of his pocket, and the phone almost flew out of his hand when he saw your name flashing on the screen. He immediately picked up and placed the device beside his ear, breathing out your name in greeting.
Instead of your usual cheery tone, Spencer was met with a muffled voice and snifflings.
Immediately, his body stiffened.
“Are you okay?” He was by his desk within seconds. His fingers grazed over his jacket, as if prepared to scoop the clothing up and dash out of the office if your answer indicated any distress.
“My nose is blocked. Both sides. It’s horrendous,” then came a dramatic sigh, “I’m becoming a mouth breather, Spence.”
Your melodrama tore a laugh from Spencer’s throat.
Derek’s lips curled discreetly at the noise.
“Anyway, don’t think you can escape your daily fun fact just because I’m not physically in the office.” Spencer was glad you were not physically with him, because if you were, you would have seen the idiotic grin stretching his face. But how could he not smile at your stubborn resilience, and the cute sound of your nasally voice that was slightly more high-pitched than normal.
“You’re sick, and you took a day off work, but not off the fun fact thing?”
“In sickness and in health, as they say.”
Spencer accidentally snorted at your words and immediately cleared his throat in an attempt to cover it.
Derek’s brows scrunched at that.
“Apparently, while wired to specific scientific machines and whatnot, two lucid dreamers can have two-way communication in real time. How cool is that?” Spencer hummed fondly at your words before sitting down, his plan to flee from office hours long gone.
“That’s quite a recent fun fact. The study was recently concluded just about two years ago,” his voice came out soft as he focused on any sound that the technological device beside his ear could carry over from your end.
He caught your hum, though the sound resembled the same one you always did while sitting next to him on the jet as the team flew back to Quantico. The noise that often preceded the soft landing of your head on his shoulder and the way he’d sit straighter up to accommodate you entirely despite his germaphobia-led touch aversion.
“You should sleep and rest,” he whispered, despite wanting to hear your voice for longer. But selflessness came easy when you were in consideration.
Spencer carefully began listing all the things you ought to do later to get better. But halfway through, he noticed the lack of noise from the other end, except for your rhythmic breathing, signaling your sound asleep state. Spencer sighed before removing the phone from his ear. He stared at the device in long contemplation before clicking the end call button.
Finally placing down the device that signified his only contact with you today, Spencer flipped open today’s case dossier. However, he found himself re-reading the first sentence over and over again. His eyes kept scanning over the same words, and he felt the way they slid past his comprehension the same way small external details occasionally would escape his notice whenever he spent time with you.
Spencer’s mind kept trailing back to the phone call and to you.
It’s familiarity—he tried to tell himself. Humans were, afterall, creatures of habit, and considering you have been swirled into his daily routine like a necessity, it made sense that the lack of your presence had set him off balance.
Eventually, Spencer got up and went to the break room for coffee. But the second he opened the cupboard and his eyes landed on your mug, he felt his mouth run dry.
For the past one and a half years, he has always made two cups of coffee instead of one at the start of each day.
His eyes darted to his mug right next to yours. The idea of separating them sent some sort of ache in his heart, even if logically they were just ceramic vessels.
Perhaps he had mislabeled what missing someone meant all along, because your absence was bringing a hollowness that nobody had managed to carve out of him before. It was the kind of emptiness that made him feel incomplete, as if a piece of himself was not with him. Yet, as opposed to the expected numbness that often accompanied such a feeling, Spencer felt every second of your absence with a constant stinging ache that felt too akin to withdrawal symptoms.
Eventually, Spencer shut the cupboard and returned to his desk, coffee-less.
That evening after work, Spencer made a detour instead of going straight home, missing the way his friends huddled together, exchanging hushed whispers about his departure.
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Twenty two hours, forty eight minutes, and thirty one seconds.
Spencer witnessed as time quietly slipped through the cracks of his remaining strength.
The whole bullpen lacked the life his work family usually colored in. The janitor had long shut off the main lights, so the only thing illuminating the space near Spencer was his desk lamp. Everybody else had gone home except for Hotch, but the unit chief was in his office, leaving Spencer as the last man standing in the bullpen.
After a few more ticks, Spencer finally tore his gaze from the timing instrument and glided his vision back down to the pen in his hand, forcing it to ink his unfinished report, but words refused to string together.
Spencer’s free hand began tapping his desk rhythmically in a pathetic attempt to comfort himself.
Twenty two hours, fifty one minutes, and twenty one seconds.
Spencer wanted to say that it didn’t matter. Why should it? But he knew damn well that the answer was because the team mattered to him.
However, perspective was truly a funny thing. Someone could be your number one priority, and you barely just made it in their list.
Spencer averted his gaze from the unfinished report to the brand new photo frame on his desk, where a captured version of the recent memory of you two as Doctor Who characters resided.
It did not take a genius to see that you two were closer to one another than with others on the team. However, the fun fact challenge had truly unlocked another level of bond. It was the kind of connection that meant he had started placing you above the others, a position that implied he also expected more from you, cause perhaps he thought you had also valued him just as much as he treasured you in his mind.
So as much as the whole team was the source of his dismay, there was a spotlight reserved for your absence, one that was beyond glaring and punched his guts in ways that others could not.
His eyes traced your face in the photograph again, like they had done every morning since he had gotten the picture framed.
Oftentimes, you could never be absolutely sure where you stand in someone’s life.
Twenty two hours, fifty nine minutes, and ten seconds.
A resigned breath escaped the narrow gap between his lips.
With more effort than it usually took, Spencer got on his feet, hoping that another cup of coffee would be the cure for his inefficiency. He slowly placed more weight on one side of his body to turn around. At the same time, Spencer began rubbing his face in hopes that exhaustion and melancholy would push themselves aside for a brief moment so that he could finish this impending task.
When Spencer finally reopened his eyes to navigate the darkness, he froze at the sight that was once behind him.
Eight steps away was you, looking like a deer caught in headlights.
Then came your escaped nervous laughter, like you were scared of screwing up, but that was only because you were unaware that you could almost never do wrong in Spencer’s eyes. His heart—which Spencer’s brain has been having a harder time controlling lately—provided you with a much larger margin for error than anybody else.
Your gentle tone filled the fragile silence that was intertwined with suspense.
“Fun fact, birthday cakes are traditionally round as an Ancient Greek tradition to resemble the moon for the goddess Artemis.” Your eyes crinkled as your lips curled into that familiar smile that had previously held Spencer powerless on numerous occasions. “Happy Birthday, Spence.”
There you were, cake in hand after a long day of work on a gruesome case.
There you were, with a homemade cake after a long day of him thinking everybody had forgotten his birthday, or more importantly, that you had forgotten.
But maybe his probability was not entirely against him.
“I know I’m quite late, but trust me, there’s an explanation. When I got to the office this morning, I realized that I had forgotten your cake at home. I was planning to grab it after work, but the case kept us all back so late, and then traffic was super bad because of a concert today. But hey, I got the cake now, and I really hope you like it.”
You peered down at your own baking product and the slightly wonky penmanship before turning your eyes back onto Spencer.
“Also, since it’s your birthday, I’ll give you a bonus fun fact. There are roughly 30,000 people who have their birthdays on October 12th in the States, but…”
Your voice fell quiet as your eyes diverted back to the cake again.
“You’re my favorite October 12th.”
And right at that second, all of Spencer’s previous attempts at rationalising his feelings via scientific explanations collapsed. For once, science could no longer shield him, because as much as it was a field built on facts of concrete evidence, there was also an undeniable truth: he liked you.
It might not be rational, but it was still a fact, and that alone terrified Spencer.
And while he was your favorite October 12th, you were his favorite every day.
Spencer glanced down at the handmade cake and the singular purple candle pierced in the center. The tiny flame provided just enough light for the space between you both. His eyes then flicked back onto you, and they softened.
God, you were so clueless about the effect your actions have on him and his whole world.
One breath extinguished the fire, and grey smoke fluttered into the air.
Then, for the first time since he saw you five minutes ago, Spencer managed to form the only words he felt were worthy enough of your time.
“Thank you.”
Even if the significance behind those words didn’t reach you today, it was okay. But they carry the weight of his whole heart and every unspoken reason behind his gratefulness.
Thank you for not forgetting about him today. Thank you for always being so kind and paying attention to the details about him. Thank you for being such an important part of his life. Thank you for choosing the exact career path that you did to lead you to him. Thank you for existing.
And someday, maybe Spencer Reid will gather enough courage to tell you all of this.
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You halted in your step, and almost immediately Spencer followed suit. His eyesight followed yours, and he instantly knew what you were gonna ask from him.
“Come on, can you play for me? Please?” you urged, and it didn’t take more than your pleading face to make him approach the instrument that lay abandoned in the corner of the hotel where the whole team was staying.
Saying “no” became a significantly harder task for Spencer ever since he realised what kind of position his feelings were in when it came to you. It especially felt like an impossible task when your words came in that pleading tone and the smile that had him wishing stopping time was one of his abilities.
You followed Spencer and leaned against the instrument eagerly. You observed as he lightly cracked his knuckles, eying the mixture of ivory and ink-dark keys with a calculative gaze before placing his fingers delicately on them while his foot pressed gently on one of the pedals at the base.
For a moment, you wondered what Spencer would play. Maybe one of the classical pieces he liked a lot. Perhaps Bach? Or—
A familiar tune overtook the pleasant quietness in the empty hotel lobby, and recognition struck you with every flawless execution of each note.
First off, you knew he was a liar, saying he only dabbled in piano. But what caught you off-guard was hearing the piano version of your favorite song.
It was things like this that made you conclude that Spencer Reid was one of the sweetest individuals you have ever had the privilege to know. From making you coffee daily to hunting down first editions of your favorite books (the most recent one in which he handed over along with soup the day you got sick and were off work). Now, he was learning your favorite song on the piano.
Lucky felt like an inadequate word to describe your position in life when Spencer was in the equation.
Only when he finished the very modern composition did you speak up.
“I thought you only listened to classical?”
“I…did,” was all that came out of Spencer’s mouth, but it was enough for you to catch his implication that he had learnt this song specifically on the piano for you.
Spencer sniffled, diverting his gaze from you shyly as he inspected the keys in front of him again.
Ever since his birthday, Spencer could constantly feel the urge to confess right on the tip of his tongue while his lips trembled in self-control to keep them to himself for now. According to the internet and its various articles, he should try to ‘woo’ you first, and hence these actions instead of confessing right away. He wondered if you got his message. He wondered if you could tell this was his version of flirting. However, Spencer also knew that he had accidentally portrayed himself as an extremely sweet friend from your perspective, so thoughtful actions with the aim of impressing you romantically were most likely ruled as platonic gestures.
You began toying with the ring on your middle finger, the flattery from his sweet action manifested itself through the heat beneath your cheeks. For the first time in your almost three years of friendship with Spencer, you were struck by a minor nerve-wracking sensation. There was also a fleeting stutter in your chest that you decisively ignored.
You moved on with a quiet murmur.
“You know, humans owe squirrels a lot. They have planted at least thousands of trees.” You gave him a soft smile when his eyes met yours again. “It’s accidental, but no less a noble act contributing to the environment.”
“Yeah, they would bury nuts for later usage, but forget their locations. Many forgotten nuts can grow into trees, therefore, contributing to forest regeneration.”
“Anddd another fun fact failure.” You groaned, though your expression melted into a smile when you heard Spencer chuckle at that.
“We should head up. It’s getting late.”
You nodded in agreement and began walking, but looked back briefly at Spencer. “But it’s not too late for an episode of Doctor Who, right?”
An outstretched grin spread across Spencer’s face at your words.
“Never.”
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“No way.” You were speechless as you made way out of Spencer’s car, staring at the building in front of you in disbelief. “Don’t tell me…”
“Yeah, it’s for your favorite film,” Spencer confirmed your suspicion.
“So, it didn’t matter that I had lost, huh?”
Shortly after your Doctor Who convention together, Spencer had invited you to this event that was two and a half months after. Though he insisted on keeping the details a secret, relaying only the dress code—smart casual, but whatever you were most comfortable with.
The secretive factor of the whole ordeal had you guessing in suspense for the entire two months, but now that you were here, you fully understood why.
This was the event that you both would have gone to instead of the Doctor Who convention if you had won that game of cards.
An orchestra movie concert of your favourite movie.
Spencer sucked in a deep breath, fingers toying with the loose threads of his cardigan. There he went again, attempting to present to you that he was an option—the best one, at that—and giving signals that he was pursuing you. He has read at least five hundred online articles on the art of flirting in the past week alone. If Derek ever found his online searching history, Reid would never live it down.
“God, this is the best thing ever.” Seeing how pleased you were with his action made Spencer want to physically preen with pride.
Once you two had settled down inside, you took a couple of photos and observed your surroundings. You looked around at your neighboring audiences before averting your gaze to the empty chairs that were soon to be filled by instrumental experts. Your body was flooded with excitement at the prospect of finally being at this event.
You decided to chime in with your daily fun fact just minutes before the concert was due to start.
“Did you know that there’s a planet that is ⅓ made of diamonds?” you whispered.
“55 Cancri e, right?” he matched your volume, shifting in the chair beside you to make himself comfortable.
“Yeah, that one,” you confirmed, turning your head back to him. “Go on, I know you have details on it.” You encouraged, shifting yourself into a comfortable position as well.
“55 Cancri e is a super-Earth exoplanet, approximately twice the size of Earth, though roughly eight times heavier in terms of mass. First sighted and discovered in 2004, scientists have found that it is a very hot and rocky planet with a molten lava ocean surface due to its incredibly close orbit to its star…”
You were leaning into your palm while listening to him, clinging onto every word as they absorbed into your brain. The space you left in between you both out of consideration for Spencer gradually lessened as he leaned in closer the more he talked. His tone, too, grew more quiet as he went on, as if the information he was telling you did not exist in some cyclopaedia, but a secret passed in full trust.
The corners of your lips curled at the twinkle in Spencer’s eyes as he detailed out knowledge that previously sat in the corner of his brain, collecting dust.
Spencer’s intellectual rambling will always be one of your favorite things about him. You loved hearing him talk and the way he enunciated each syllable so clearly, as well as his wordings and his tonal patterns. You should have gotten used to it by now, but it marvelled you every single time that you had the chance to listen to him talk about things you would rely on an internet search to know. Just like usual, today was no different.
Spencer Reid was remarkable. It was almost impossible to take your eyes off him when he talked. He was a bundle of many things that made him an individual worth a lifetime of getting to know.
You wondered if you were looking at him a little bit too fondly right now. But how could you not when he was whispering sweet facts to you as if he only wanted you to know of it? It felt almost as if this fun fact challenge had turned into a sacred tradition between you two.
“Even though it is widely said that the planet is ⅓ of diamond, this is actually still only a theory and yet to be proven. So, to dub it the Diamond Planet when they’re not even sure if there are diamonds on the planet itself is like…suspecting you are a quarter or half French and then introducing yourself as French to people anyway.”
Your laughter burst out unfiltered, and you instantly grounded yourself by clearing your throat and pulling yourself away from Spencer slightly, putting yourself on timeout.
That was kind of embarrassing.
The joke was slightly funny, but nowhere close to warranting that kind of laughter.
It sort of reminded you of the videos you have seen on the internet about the kind of laugh that people would let out in reaction to their crush’s jok—
Oh.
You subtly slid deeper into your chair as thoughts shot in your mind at a hundred miles per second. Your fingers immediately curled into your palms to dig at it. You could not look back at Spencer in fear that he would notice that something was wrong.
Oh God.
But were you really surprised though?
A part of you had seen it coming, because as much as you adore all your co-workers, you knew in the bottom of your heart that Spencer was the only one you were willing to lessen your sleeping hours to prolong hanging out and conversing with. Also, to be immune to such sweet actions, you would have to be some statue made of stone. For years now, Spencer had intently taken time to know you and go out of his way just to make you happy. If anything, you were grateful that your heart had picked someone so kind and worthy to give itself away to.
You glanced at Spencer from the corner of your eyes, and just the sight of him alone had your heart hiccupping in a way that you had become familiar with for the past month. It was the kind of stutter that you had outright been trying to ignore and written off as nothing. But unlike all the previous times, you knew you could no longer deny that man next to you was the reason for such palpitations.
And maybe it was also time to face it: you like Spencer Reid, your genius of a friend and very much also a profiler.
Your eyes snapped away from him the moment you realized the significance of playing it cool. You could not have him picking up the signs and figuring out that you have feelings for him. But then again, you have seen how clueless he was around women who were hitting on him and failing to pick up their signals. So, maybe he would not notice your current body language either.
Before you could think more on the matter, the lights dimmed and instruments began stringing together in a well-rehearsed manner. It was only then that you began breathing again, relieved that you had two hours to collect your thoughts and come to terms with the newly attained knowledge about yourself.
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
“Alright, what’s the fun fact of today?” you heard Spencer’s voice before peering up and seeing him behind your chair, hands on the back of the furniture, looking down at you with a shy smile. The sight of his adorable expression made your cheeks heat up, and you had to avert your gaze to prevent him from spotting signs of your flustered state.
The other members just boarded the jet as well, settling into their own spots after a tiring case. You were much less the same, sporting the now more noticeable eye bags that matched Spencer’s. Yet, that does not deter his gaze from the warmth they hold.
You gestured to Spencer’s usual seat right next to you. Once he had settled down, you made your next move on his chessboard, resuming your current ongoing match with him. You could see the instant way the cogs in his brain started spinning. At that, you provided your fun fact of the day, hoping it would serve as a distraction.
“You know, I read that there are more possible variations of chess games than the number of atoms in the universe.”
“Yeah, it’s known as the Shannon number—the number of possible chess games, I mean, which is 10 to the power of 120. Meanwhile, the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe is 10 to the power of 80, to 10 to the power of 82.”
He made his move, catching your discreet yawn in the corner of his eyes.
“Fascinating, isn’t it?” The weight behind your eyes turned them half-lidded. They landed on the chessboard, trying to formulate the next best move, but your brain refused to cooperate as a fog of sleepiness overclouded your judgments.
“You don’t have to play now, you know. We can just play next time.”
“No, no. Give me a second, I’ll make my move.”
“You’re tired.”
You slowly turned your head towards Spencer, and there it was again. You caught the concern leaking from his gaze, and it instantly reminded you just how caring Spencer was to those in his life and especially you. Your mouth formed a tired yet grateful smile at his expressed worry.
You felt sorry for those who have never had the opportunity to be the subject of his affections.
For a split second, you pondered the kind of doting that Spencer would do if he were pursuing someone romantically. You have never seen him express interest in any woman during your time at the BAU, despite the advances he has gotten from various good-looking women. But if he was already this sweet platonically, you were fairly certain your heart would give out at what he had in mind as romance.
Your shoulders finally slumped before a truthful sigh escaped from you. “Yeah.”
Unlike usual, where you would fall asleep and land on his shoulder while you were knocked out, he outright shifted to sit up straighter for you, offering his shoulder.
Spencer never admitted it out loud, but he had foolishly started wanting the friction of your skin against his or the fabric of his belongings. It was an impossible he thought would never occur, but here he was, anticipating the next rare moment of physical touch beside the one where his shoulder would become your pillow.
Of course, he had noticed it—your lack of touch when it came to him. He was devastatingly aware of your mindfulness of his germaphobia, and Spencer was grateful, he really was. However, your reservation to accommodate his tendencies had begun feeling like deprivation. In fact, Spencer could count on one hand the amount of times you had ever touched him deliberately, with the last one being one hundred and sixty three days ago.
But it was that particular initiative factor that Spencer deeply yearned for. He craved and awaited for a touch made with purpose.
He wanted you to mean it.
You stilled at such a small action, gaze stopping on his shoulder. You did not want to over-interpret such a simple movement, but knowing Spencer, there were implications and significance in that little offering.
You knew it had become a recurring thing. As embarrassed as you were, you could not help the fact that you were the type to move around a lot in your sleep. You had tried using an airplane pillow, leaning against the wall, and so many other methods. However, most of the time, you would still wake up on Spencer’s shoulder before instantly jolting up and freeing him from the physical touch.
But the certainty on Spencer’s face left your rejection stuck in your throat.
Hesitantly, you began shifting closer, giving Spencer just enough time to retract the offer if he wanted to. But he stayed confidently still as your head started leaning down before finally landing on his shoulder.
One single small action had Spencer questioning how much longer he could go on like this. How much longer could he keep these feelings tightly locked and concealed? Because Spencer was utterly gone for you. Gone in the kind of way where one casual compliment from you about the cardigan he was wearing had him immediately putting the item into his clothing rotation a lot more frequently.
“I’m gonna get you some day, Spence…” Spencer watched as you drifted to sleep before closing his own eyes, all while he wished the flight back would last forever.
Unbeknownst to you both, the team exchanged knowing looks and discreet smiles at the sight they were witnessing. There had been nothing more obvious to them than this, but instead of intervening, they decided to let things play its course.
Because, despite the uncertain nature surrounding the occurrence of events in life, this was the one thing everybody was sure was inevitable.
﹏ ﹏ ﹏
The jet finally arrived back at Quantico around 11pm. Spencer had finished his report a few minutes before you did, but lingered behind as usual to wait for you. About two weeks ago, he had established a new routine between you both.
“Ready?” Spencer carefully peeled your bag from your hand, checking his watch to see that it was already past midnight, marking a new day.
“Yeah…” you breathed out tiredly, eager to collapse in bed. “More than ready.”
You like to think you have kept it cool well, in general. But Spencer’s new routine of walking you to your car after work had you a nail tip away from laying all your cards bare and revealing your feelings. Even on days when you finished your report first, he would walk you to your car before returning to the office. But the thing was:
Spencer Reid rarely ever drove to work, which meant he was going to the employee parking lot every day with you for no reason.
Well, for no reason but you.
The elevator began making its descent from the sixth floor with both of you inside. You were listening carefully as Spencer discussed an academic paper he had read last night. The doors soon jerked open, revealing the fairly empty parking lot. At the sight of your car, you subtly began slowing down your steps, biting back a smile when you noticed him mirroring your change of pace.
You observed as he animatedly gushed about the methodology of the research paper, paying particular attention to the tiny detail of his body language. The way his hands were passionately waving around, exaggerating certain points Spencer was trying to make. The flutter of his eyelashes as he blinked a bit faster than he usually would—a habit that often occurs when he speaks quickly, as you have learned. The smooth movements of his lips as his mouth tried to rush out words to match the pace of his incredibly brilliant brain.
Now that you were looking at his lips, you have to admit that it was kind of hard to look away.
Suddenly, an idea brewed in your mind, and it felt like the holy grail had finally landed in your lap. Who would have known that a random Thursday would be the day you ought to finally win this challenge and put Spencer in checkmate.
“Spence?” Your lips curled mischievously, observing the way Spencer halted in his steps at your tone.
God, despite being subjected to harsh and unflattering parking lot lights, Spencer still had the audacity to look good in a way that tugged at your heartstrings. The sight had you questioning if he was capable of ever looking bad. His warm eyes colored with interest as he eagerly awaited your next words. You took a couple more steps forward, wanting to hide the plotting expression on your face.
“Fun fact…” You paused before peering back at him. At those two words, you instantly caught the anticipation rolling off him. There was also a subtle confidence from him that signalled he was sure he already knew whatever you were planning to tell him. But you knew that this time, things would be different.
With a competitive glint in your eyes, you finally divulged today’s fun fact, your voice calm and stable.
“I like you.”
Just as you predicted, Spencer froze while his mouth fell agape. No words fell out of those talkative lips, a stark contrast to how fast he was speaking a couple of seconds ago. You practically beamed in victory at such a reaction. You wanted to celebrate, you really did. But you decided not to gloat about your win yet. Instead, you prioritised the better option: teasing your friend.
“I recalled you mentioning once that kissing spreads fewer germs than shaking hands?” You winked playfully, expecting nothing from it. It was simply a joke to make Spencer flustered for your entertainment, and there was zero expectation that he would somehow miraculously confess that he had been secretly liking you too and would actually kiss you at your workplace’s parking lot at 1am.
Because there was no way Doctor Spencer Reid liked you, right?
You observed as his lips slowly curled up in amusement as your words sunk in, and that partially made your shoulders relaxed. Well, at least your joke landed, and your friendship would make it out intact despite your confession.
But then, out of nowhere, that closed-mouth smile stretched into a full-on grin before a chuckle of disbelief escaped from Spencer.
Now, you were on alert. Instantly, you tried to read his reaction—was he in disbelief that he was finally stumped by a fact he had not yet known of? Was he amused by your clever trick of using your own feelings as a fun fact? But the elation on his face and the awestruck look in his eyes hardly aligned with someone who had just lost a long-term challenge.
Your lips parted as you continued assessing the man, but you caught the way his eyes flickered down at that small movement before he sucked in a deep breath.
Oh…?
Suspicion crept in, but confirmation came quicker.
In the blink of an eye, Spencer had completely eliminated the two steps between you both, sealing you two in a proximity that was closer than you had ever been with him. His palms found your face, and they cupped your cheeks in a careful yet certain way.
Spencer’s eyes darted all over your face, searching for all the clues that you were okay with what he had next in mind. He could see that your pupils were slightly dilated, as well as feel the way you were leaning into his touch and the heat that was transferring from your cheeks to his hands. Though it was only when you did not pull away and instead, had your tongue dart out to wet your lips, did Spencer kill the remaining space between your faces.
His lips slanted against yours in a desperate manner that outmatched his need for oxygen, kissing you like it was long overdue. He swallowed the gasp escaping your throat and the surprised noise that followed. There was an urgency he could not hide as his straining self-control snapped from your green light.
You began kissing him back just a second or two after, and almost instantly, you heard a sigh of relief. Your lips curled, but any trace of smugness vanished when his thumb began rubbing your cheek fondly. Suddenly, you were aware of just how close you two were. Every point of contact was sending a searing heat through your body, because despite his fears of germs, Spencer was touching your skin like it was a need, rather than an obligation for moments like these.
You pressed your lips harder against his.
Good lord, Spencer could do this forever.
He might have been able to count the number of times you have touched him on one hand, but even with the whole team, there were not enough fingers to account for the number of times he had glanced at your lips this week alone.
Your own hands touched the sides of his waist, and you instantly caught the longing noise that escaped from Spencer’s throat, echoing onto your lips. At such an encouraging sound, you curled your hands to the back of his body and snaked them up his back. Your lips smirked against his at the way he arched into your touch.
One hundred and sixty three days—Spencer reminded himself again, humming in utter satisfaction at the way those numbers spun down to zero. Finally, you were touching him on purpose and with purpose. He practically melted at the way your hands roamed so confidently without any trace of guilt that he was uncomfortable, because he was far from that.
In fact, he eagerly wanted to keep the number of days since the last time you touched him at zero permanently.
You picked that precise moment to pull away, documenting the way his eyes fluttered open and dawned into existence the unadulterated glimmer of yearning in them.
You have always thought he was gorgeous, but how he looked right then rendered the word inadequate. It was a vision exceeding all your daydreams, and to be the reason behind the look made you feel like you were an award winning fashion designer who had just invented a magnificent masterpiece. But unlike most, you had no intention of sharing this artwork with the world or with anybody else.
Spencer felt his heart squeeze at the sight of you again. Was it possible to miss someone so badly from not having a visual on them for approximately a minute? Maybe he was more screwed than he thought.
Breathlessly, he finally whispered the confession that he had long to say for a month.
“Despite all the facts I already know and have learnt during my whole entire life, you’re my favorite thing to study and know more about, and have been since you stepped into my life. Nothing I learnt after felt like it could outrank anything I learnt about you.” It was true. Every speck of information about you gets the forefront of his memory’s line-up, taking priority over every other knowledge. Spencer licked his own lips for remnants of you before continuing, “You’re my favorite fun fact, you know that?”
Your heart tugged at his words. You had no idea how you managed to compete with the vast amount of interesting information that existed in the world, but under Spencer’s stare, you truly could see he meant every word.
“But…” The smile on your face instantly dropped at that single word from Spencer. Good rarely ever followed that three-letter conjunction.
“But?”
“I do have to admit that, uhm…” The familiar sheepish glint in his eyes had one of your eyebrows shooting up. “I kinda already know that fun fact already, that you liked me.” Your hands on him stilled their movement before falling onto your sides in disbelief.
“Oh, come on. You can’t be serious.” He resisted the urge to whine at the lack of physical touch from you. “But you looked shocked.”
“I was shocked you actually said it. I didn't think you’d do it today…or tomorrow…or maybe ever–” You slapped his arm, but he gladly welcomed that contact. Anything was better than nothing.
“I thought you’re like highly oblivious to romantic signals? I’ve seen you being completely clueless and not picking up on the fact that women were flirting with you.”
“I think I wasn’t clueless when it came to you because my eyes were always on you.” Those words came out shamelessly. In fact, Spencer almost sounded proud of himself. You tried not to let his words make you flustered.
“When did you figure it out?”
“That you like me? At the orchestra.”
“How? I barely figured it out myself that I liked you then.”
“Yeah, I could tell.” Your huff drew a chuckle from him.
You finally peeled yourself completely away from Spencer, grabbing your bag from his hand before making your way to your car. As you unlocked the vehicle and swung the driver’s door open, you could hear his footsteps following. You crouched to lean into your car and place your bag onto the passenger seat. You could feel Spencer’s presence stopping just behind you, standing much closer than he had ever before tonight.
As you bent back up and leaned against your car, you didn't miss the way Spencer’s fingers twitched, giving away his urges for physical contact. You crossed your arms before tilting your head back teasingly.
“I’m still gonna get you someday.”
Spencer’s gaze melted to an even softer look than before at your declaration. There was a freeing component in his eyes, showcasing the joy from being able to openly look at you in the way he had really wanted to for a while. His voice lowered to a sweet, promising whisper.
“I’m counting on that.”
With that, Spencer leaned in again, wanting a second run of things before the two of you had to part ways for the night.
You grinned into the kiss and quickly wrapped your arms around him again. Quietly, your mind logged in today’s score.
Day 187 status: unsuccessful.
But it hardly matters when you think you’ve already won something a lot better.
link to: epilogue/bonus bit
・┈・┈・┈・┈・┈・
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synopsis: as a photographer for the daily planet, you were almost always at the wrong place at the right time. lucky for you, you can always count on supergirl coming to your rescue. aka two times supergirl saves you and the one time kara does.
word count: 2.4k
warnings: reader almost gets mugged! other than that, i think it should be fine. no mention of y/n or [name]. fem!reader.
author's note: smth short & sweet for my current fave girl before i have to study for my midterm T__T !! she might be a bit ooc but tbf i’ve been up for almost 24 hours so gimme some mercy ..
your resumé had always been a bit lacking before your big break.
you thought that after months of picking up odd photography jobs and working late nights for wedding photos, you’d be able to secure a job at the daily planet. but as it turns out, all you needed was a photo of supergirl in order to impress perry white.
the only downside of your dream job was now you were placed on supergirl duty. for some reason, perry seems to favor your photos of her over anyone else’s.
“you should count it as a blessing in disguise.” lois tells you as she types away at her keyboard.
you scoff. “right. risking my life just so i can pay my bills is a real blessing, lois.” your desk is a mess, photos of supergirl littered all over the place. her in various poses, surrounded by rubble, grabbing a cat out of a tree. “besides, jimmy’s photos of supergirl are just as good as mine.”
“i mean, you’ve never got hurt.” she points out. “not once. plus, think of it as job security.” she looks past her computer’s monitor to focus her eyes on your desk across from hers. “sounds to me like a blessing.”
you look over at her, feeling your stomach erupt with butterflies. “shut up.” you bite, although your tone isn’t serious. “she’s just at the right place at the right time.” you toss an eraser at her. “if i die, so do her glorious photos.” you roll your eyes, remembering perry’s words vaguely.
lois makes a noncommittal noise, rolling her shoulders and stretching in her office chair before returning to her work. “i’m sure she doesn’t plan on letting that happen any time soon.”
you’ve always cut it a bit close. you’ve always written it off as an occupational hazard.
the ground rumbles beneath you as you try to get just the right angle. supergirl’s holding up a building while a few civilians scramble out from underneath it. you adjust the depth of field slightly, snapping a few shots and focusing on her in your viewfinder.
you don’t even notice the building behind yourself starting to topple. within a moment’s notice, the area underneath the building she’s holding up is cleared and she flies towards you. she scoops you in her arms and flies you up towards the roof of a standing building, placing you flat on your feet.
“do you mind holding your pose for a moment?” you ask, stepping back a few feet to focus her to perfect your rule of thirds.
she calls out your name, exasperated.
“no, seriously. this is front page material, supes.” you tell her, even crouching down to get a better angle.
you get one photo in before she’s snatching your very expensive camera out of your hands and huffing out a curse. you smile up at her before raising to your full height. behind her, you can roughly make out the justice gang fighting some robot or kaiju or funky alien. you couldn’t care less, really.
she holds your camera out of your reach. “i’m not always going to be here to save you, shutterbug.” supergirl’s mouth is pinched in the corner of her mouth in disappointment.
“you’ve done quite a good job so far.” you tease, a fluttery feeling in your stomach at the sound of your nickname. you try reaching for your camera to which she only hovers in the air to get it out of your reach.
“just lucky.” she retorts back. she turns around to look at the monster wreaking havoc on metropolis and a sense of urgency surges in her chest. she looks back at you. “don’t let it run out on you.” she tosses your camera back at you. you fumble with it a few times before finally getting a good grip on it.
she gives you a slight nod and lopsided smile before flying off to help the justice gang. not before you snap a few photos, of course.
the next time she saves you, though, you really should’ve been paying attention.
metropolis is nowhere near as crime infested as gotham, anyone could tell you that. but you should’ve been a bit more aware of your surroundings on your daily commute after work.
you hum along to the song playing in your earphones, digging in your purse for the keys to your apartment before you feel something cold press against your back. someone tugs at the wires of your earphones, effectively ripping them out of your ears.
“no one has to get hurt, girly.” the slimy voice tells you. immediately, you raise your arms in the air defensively. you nod incessantly, unable to find your voice in such a moment.
“i’m gonna count to three and you’re gonna slowly drop your purse, alright?” he commands. tears prick at your eyes and you’re about to nod again before you hear a second voice.
“i’d call it more of a tote bag, but i don’t think you’ve got a big enough brain to tell the difference.”
“supergirl?”
supergirl!
“you fuckin’ bet it is.” you can feel the gun pressed to your back start to shake. you hear her footsteps draw closer. “so here’s what’s gonna happen - cause i’m a bit tired tonight, if i’m gonna be honest.”
you turn around to watch the scene unfold, slowly lowering your arms back to your side. the robber, however, is frozen in his spot.
supergirl reaches for the gun, crunching it in her fist before tossing it down the alley she emerged from. “you -” she pokes his chest with enough force, nearly knocking the robber off his feet. “are gonna stop following innocent girls home. you’re going to stop your life of thievery, or whatever you call this, and get a real job. like grownups do.”
she pushes him again, actually causing the robber to fall flat on his ass. “and you’re gonna get lost before i actually get pissed off.” there’s a beat. “do i make myself clear?” supergirl asks, crossing her arms
it’s his turn to nod incessantly. she turns to look at you, gaze softening. “anything else to add, shutterbug?”
you feel that devastating, lovey-dovey sensation in your stomach again. “think you got it all covered, supes.”
she sends a smile your way before looking back over at the robber, who quickly scrambles to his feet and scampers off like a dog with his tail between his legs.
supergirl watches him for a moment, to make sure he really doesn’t come back before swiveling on her heel to look at you. she steps towards you, placing a hand on your arm and a finger under your chin as if she was inspecting you.
“you okay?” she asks, sounding oddly vulnerable.
“now that you’re here.” you smile at her.
when she’s deemed you safe enough, she swats your arm gently with the hand that had been caressing it. “you’ve seriously gotta be more careful.” she huffs out your name exasperatedly - she’d been doing that a lot more often as of late.
“i swear! i swear i will. moving forward, of course.” you nod, feeling a bit embarrassed at her having to save you.
there’s a beat of silence between the two of you, comfortable yet charged. you swear she’s leaning forward before you speak. “were you watching me on my walk home?”
“very presumptuous of you.” supergirl scoffs.
“don’t tell me you’ve got a soft spot.” you tease, a knowing grin on your face.
“i don’t.” she’s not very convincing. “i hear the justice gang. and a cat stuck in a tree. and some other girl getting mugged!” she gasps sarcastically as she backs away from you.
“thank you, supergirl!” you call out to her before she sends a wink your way and takes off.
you cringe inwardly at yourself as you continue fishing in your tote bag for your keys. note to self: don’t listen to music on the way home.
you’d hate to admit it, but you’ve rehearsed this moment more than you would like to admit. clark’s birthday had rolled around since the first time you had gotten hired and of course, you got an invitation.
well, everyone at the daily planet did. but, hey, your invitation was specifically adorned with a supergirl sticker by clark himself.
you weren’t sure why you were nervous. it was just clark’s birthday party. you’d been to plenty of banquets for the daily planet within the short time you’d been hired. for some reason, this just felt a little bit more intimate than you would’ve thought.
you teeter on the balls of your feet as you stare at the door to clark’s apartment. you can hear the faint sound of some pop-punk song you’ve never heard of and laughter. clark’s wrapped present sits in your hands and you have half the mind to leave it at his doorstep and scurry away.
before you can even weigh your options, the door swings open to reveal clark. he’s dressed down from his typical office attire, but still donning a grin as he looks down at you. it’s almost as if he could sense your trepidation.
he greets you by name, placing a warm hand on your shoulder as he ushers you in. “i’m glad you could make it!” clark tells you, voice slightly raised so you could hear him over the music.
“thanks for inviting me!” your smile is a bit forced as you watch him close the door behind the two of you. you hand your wrapped present to him. “i hope you like it.” you chuckle nervously.
he takes it with a smile, thanking you gently before placing it on his coffee table with, what you assume are, the rest of his gifts. “i’m sure you know everyone here!” clark nods, pushing his glasses up with his pointer finger.
he’s about to open his mouth to speak before jimmy interrupts, wedging his way between the two of you. you can smell the fruity scent of beer on him before he even speaks, excusing the two of them to go take some photos.
you nod, wetting your lips nervously before taking a seat on clark’s couch next to the loaded coffee table. you tap your fingers on your knees, looking around awkwardly before someone sits down next to you.
“you look like you need a drink.”
you whip your head towards the direction of the voice. it’s a blonde girl offering you a beer. although you don’t recognize her, she looks oddly familiar. she tilts her head in your direction before waving the open beer in your face tauntingly.
“thank you.” you say, although you huff and take it from her grasp. you take a sip of the beer, grimacing a bit at the bitter carbonation.
“i take it you don’t go out very often.” blondie teases.
“not enough hours in a day to work at the daily planet and have a life, i’m afraid.” you purse your lips.
that earns you a chuckle from her. you’re not sure if it’s the liquid confidence or the simple fact a pretty girl has come to your rescue, but you can feel your stomach flutter with something disastrous.
“kara.” she introduces, sticking a hand out towards you. you blink at it. typically only reporters and businessmen offered you a handshake, but you shake hers anyway. her hand is warm in yours. “clark’s cousin.” ah, must run in the family.
you introduce yourself, taking another sip of your beer before letting your hand fall back down to your side.
“i know.” kara tells you. you squint at her. “i - i mean, clark talks about you sometimes.” she rushes out, almost a bit too quickly.
you nod at her response. “he talks about you too sometimes. mostly your dog, really.” you chuckle.
her smile grows at the mention of her dog. you can only feel it be reflected on yourself, feeling your own nerves settle. subconsciously, you feel your body shift towards hers.
“krypto? ah, he’s just a puppy.” kara fondly explains, waving a hand in the air absentmindedly. you’ve seen the pictures. he’s well past puppy, but you let the pretty girl tell you otherwise. “he means no harm, seriously.”
you spend the rest of the night talking to kara, moving from his couch to his balcony where the air is cooler and you can hear each other much better. the two of you lean against his balcony, backs towards the rest of the party where it’s sealed behind his glass sliding door.
“i feel like we’ve met before.” you tell her in your tipsy stupor, on your third beer of the night while she’s stayed sober.
she swallows thickly, eyes drifting from the night’s skyline back to meet yours. “i think i know what you mean.” kara shrugs, almost mysteriously. you bump your shoulder against hers before letting your head rest on her shoulder. she wraps an arm around your shoulders, letting you lean against her easier.
you don’t know how long you two stay like that, but you can hear the sliding door open behind the two of you. “we’re about to sing happy birthday, you two.” lois’ voice calls out. you almost jump a foot in the air.
“right, we’ll - we’ll be back in a minute.” you offer a sheepish smile. her eyes flicker between the two of you before she squints just the tiniest bit, then goes to close the sliding door once more and head back to the party.
you turn to kara. “we should .. probably ..” you point your thumb in the general direction of the party.
she nods at you, about to head back to the party before you tug at her sleeve. “i, um, wanted to say thank you, by the way.” you start. kara turns to face you. “i was totally content just sinking into clark’s couch and pretending to be busy on my settings app. so. thanks, for coming to my rescue.”
the smile on her face is kind and affectionate. “seems like it’s kinda my job,” she retorts. you blink at her, confused and a bit embarrassed. you open and close your mouth, trying to find the words. “isn’t it, shutterbug?”
this time, your jaw falls open and her smile only grows wider. “c’mon, we can’t leave clark hanging.” she wraps an arm around your waist, the motion way too familiar, as she opens the sliding door and ushers the two of you back inside.
summary: your chemistry partner is a dick, and you don’t know why!
word count: 4.7k
contains: angst & humor, eventual fluff. collegeAU! one-sided enemies to lovers, footballplayer!clark, englishmajor!reader. reader is a D1 hater, clark is clearly obsessed. teasing, snark/sass, miscommunication, trapped in the loft, anger, fighting. shut up kissing. science jokes. *no use of y/n
a/n: oh delicious. i took ur request and ran anon, i hope you like the tweaks i made.. this was so fun for me & felt like a break from my last few !!!!
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You didn’t like Clark Kent, which was something most would wager you should be burnt at the stake for, but you had a good reason: he was a jerk. Simple as that.
Clark Kent, MetU’s golden boy, was a complete and utter asshole. Being the quarterback for the Bulldogs made him a god around campus; his defense was the best in the state, he was in line for all sorts of professional tracks, and whenever he showed up to any party, pep rally, or game, it seemed like the entire school swayed on its feet. People revered him for scoring goals and having the cool head to open a door for a girl now and again. But these noble acts, these shows of modesty, they meant nothing to you. You only knew him as the pompous ass he was in the morning.
You knew for a fact you’d never done anything to make him act in such a way towards you. In fact, when you first met him as a transferring junior in a new city with no friends and no life, you had gone out of your way to be nice. Something like a last ditch effort to make the most of a scary situation. A poor mistake on your end.
You were fulfilling the one and only credit which didn’t transfer over from your county college back home: general chemistry. It was already annoying enough that you had to repeat a course, given you were an English major with no interest in science whatsoever, but there was no waving it, and by the time you transferred into MetU all the good slots were gone. You had to take it at eight in the morning with all the other jocks who scheduled out their time for afternoon practices. Every Thursday, you were forced to sit in a room that smelled of body odor and hope to God the ammonia didn’t explode one of the test tubes.
Something good had to come of it, right? You had to think so. And for a split second, you thought it could have been true when you sat beside him. When you stepped in on the first day, the only chair around was beside the beast of a man. He had that dark hair, deep enough to be black but without the menacing edge, that seemed to flirt with his eyebrows; piercing eyes that changed between blue and green by the day; the prominent canines of a golden retriever. What wasn’t there to admire? His Bulldogs hoodie squeezed his shoulders. The pencil in his hand looked dwarfed in comparison. All in all, a proper specimen. But the lesson lied in how he stared at you. He stared just how every other boy had all your life– with confusion, which melted into discomfort, and then into a slow reproach. He was no golden boy, he was just cute. You’ll never forget it– all you said was, “It’s nice to meet you. I hope we can be friends,” to which you received the most lifeless stare in return and a gruff little, “Sure.”
Every conversation after that was kept to a minimum. You weren’t an idiot.
The year passed in a flurry of projects that kept you in a perpetual state of nails-on-chalkboard aggravation. Clark was needlessly up your ass, commenting on every little equation you screwed up and fighting with you about quantities and solutions in every lab. It seemed every other word coming out of his mouth was a snarky one.
“Don’t you think you should use the calculator?”
“You can’t mix those, remember?”
“No, genius, that’s the other side of the equilibrium.”
“You know, for someone as smart as you, it would be great if you listened more.”
If you had a penny for every time Clark’s voice curled over your shoulder to choke you out with his attitude, you could personally fund an expedition to Mars and send him up alone. He’d do great up there with the aliens. He’d piss them off and start a galactic war.
What was worse was that he was never wrong. When it came to the retention of the material, Clark was light years better at chemistry. He had the periodic table memorized, for one thing, and he could calculate isotopes in his head. He knew the nature of it, the math, the processes. Everything. When he caught you making an incorrect calculation or a misinformed hypothesis, he was quick to show off, but your grade had yielded the results. You were going to pass the entire semester with a straight 95, all because of Clark. The fucking bastard.
Well, as long as you survived the final project.
Professor John Jones, who got along so well with Clark it made everyone want to stick a finger down their throat, assigned the class a final project that was meant to be ‘freeform’ and ‘fun’ – as if there was anything fun about metals and acids. Perhaps how they could burn skin off, but little more. Everyone had to perform an analysis of a mineral found in their hometown and construct not only a unique study of its properties, but come up with an efficient way to use it for energy-saving processes. Because rocks can save the ozone layer, right? God, maybe it worked for a bunch of scientists, but you just didn’t have the heart for it.
But Clark planned to throw himself (and you) in headfirst. He insisted he had the best study in the class waiting back home on his family farm. He touted it while the class waited for the professor to show up at his usual fashionably late time of 8:15.
“What did you call it?”
“Kryptonite,” he deadpanned, chewing on the string of his hoodie. “They started calling it that back home because it glows a greenish color in the light. Y’know, like Krypton does when it’s electrified in a tube.”
You stared into Clark’s eyes, feeling the familiar burn of frustration beneath your skin. Wracking your brain for a second, you thought, Krypton, Krypton, shit, what is that again…?
Clark’s eyes never left your face. He minded how you seemed to search for the answer, using that pretty brain of yours to try and muster the care for something you clearly despised. He smirked and said, “Krypton? Number 36?”
You blinked and pursed your lips. Shit. Element. Right. “Whatever. So what exactly are you suggesting we do?”
“Krypton’s been used for all kinds of stuff. They make energy-efficient lighting for cameras and signs, lightbulbs, they use it for medicine, they insulate windows and houses with it,” he rambled, spinning on his lab stool. “We can study the properties and see if it works even better than the original element.”
“Is it even linked to Krypton’s properties?"
“No idea,” Clark grinned, wiggling his eyebrows. “That’s what the experiment is for.”
“That could be incredibly dangerous. What if it’s poisonous?"
“It’s a rock, genius,” Clark scoffed, “you’re telling me you’re afraid of a rock?”
“I don’t like the idea of a special rock that can only be found in your bumblefuck hometown, Clark, yeah.”
Clark clapped a hand over his heart in false pain. “You wound me.”
You grumbled softly and shut your laptop as Jones walked to the front of the room.
“You’re coming to the farm this weekend so we can get this done,” Clark leaned in close to whisper. You could smell minty toothpaste as his breath brushed your ear. “Unless you’ve got a better plan.”
You scrunched your shoulders and shoved him away, practically growling as he let out a small snicker. The ghost of him still lingered, clean and warm in the space beside you. He did that a lot. Got close to tease, to mock, to prove you wrong. You hated it as much as you hated him. Everything he did snuck under your skin, proving that you were never quite going to get a handle on your anger with him around. All you had to do was pass this class, and then you would never have to see him again. All you would know of Clark would be his face plastered on the side of the stadium in a blue jersey, and his face plastered in the dining hall, and his face plastered on the campus newspaper… fuck, it might just be time to transfer again.
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Smallville was not just bumblefuck. It was podunk, redneck, Dorothy-and-Auntie Anne levels of nowhere. The Kent Farm sat on acres of golden land that sprawled in every direction, all fenced in by handmade posts and full of grazing cows and fluttering hay. It was beautiful, quaint, and absolutely fucking desolate. The thought of spending your entire weekend here with the guy you could stand the least sounded like perhaps you had already died, and were being condemned to a lifetime of torture inside the male psyche. This was what men liked, right? Trapping a girl in their sad, little nowhere?
Clark’s truck never ceased smelling like Old Spice and stale coffee for the entire trip. The quarterback showed up at your dorm at five in the morning on Friday, banging hard enough on the door to wake your roomie Lois and get a pillow chucked at his face while you hurriedly dressed. “Oh, please don’t change on my account,” he had said, staring you down with that same smirk. You contemplated slashing his tires.
“Nice, isn’t it?” He sighed, rolling up the long, winding driveway. A yellow house poked through the sparse trees, spotted with pink flowers hanging on the awning and white-curtained windows.
“You’re really going to make me stay here until Sunday?”
“Nobody is making you do anything, smartypants,” Clark flashed his canines, “you just didn’t have a better plan.”
You huffed and clambered out of the truck, sneakers sinking into the muck of a freshly rained-on farm. Clark giggled at the squish of your shoes and watched you struggle to haul your duffel bag to the house, rolling his eyes at your stubbornness. At least it was cool outside, you reasoned. If the heat got any worse than this, you might kill him, and that would not even be your fault. The heat gets to everyone sooner or later.
“My parents are home,” he said as he reached the porch steps. “Be nice.”
You grimaced as the porch found its way beneath your feet, and you let your luggage hit the wood with a thunk. “Can’t we just dig up some of your stupid rocks and get out of here?”
“You’re gonna want some pie first,” Clark grinned, swinging open the front door.
Here you were, being forcibly subjected into the world that made such a monstrously rude young man. Surely his parents were the problem…
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By Saturday night, you had come to the conclusion that you were the one making Clark such a fucking nightmare.
Jonathan and Martha Kent were two of the kindest people you had ever met in your life. His father was a mild-mannered and sensible older man, well-aged, outspoken, funny; Martha was the picture of beauty and grace, a talented cook and bookkeeper, and an even better conversationalist. And Clark– well, wasn’t he just sweet? Sweet with his mother and father, washing the dishes, begrudgingly passing you old photo albums, offering you his childhood bedroom and taking the couch. He made every effort to be accommodating when his parents were around. But the second he took you out into the fields to dig for these ridiculous green rocks, he went right back to being the guy you revolted.
“Have you ever held a spade before?”
“No, genius, that’s just a regular rock.”
“I wouldn’t work too hard if I were you. Your head can’t handle all that thinking.”
It truly was a matter of one more joke and you would throttle him. You dreamed of it– lunging across the dining table or the makeshift lab in his barn loft, clasping your nails around his long, tan throat, and squeezing until that minty breath made its last pass through those mauve lips. It would be so rewarding. Especially after having to watch the guy dig up dirt for hours on end, sweating in the sun, soiling a Bulldogs t-shirt. You had to sit there and pant in the heat, tugging at your clothes and swatting back your hair, aware of your every curve and roll and move; while the corded muscle in his arms moved easily while digging, his thick hair slicked behind his ears, his big hands pawing at green rocks like they were calling to him, or avoiding you. It was just wrong. A grievance the universe must have had with you was being repaid somehow, some way.
Clark had done the original labs that night in the barn– studying the rock, breaking it apart with a pick and running all kinds of tests on its hardness, makeup, and reactions to certain catalysts. You perched on the couch and took notes on his findings, eager to let him do the hard part he was so insistent on performing. For a while, there was no speaking. Only the occasional comment from the quarterback about how the Kryptonite reacted to fire, which you scribbled down.
It was when the storm started that Clark opened his mouth again.
The shift was a shock. The night had been so cool and clear, with a slow breeze wafting past the barn window; but it seemed in a split second, the indigo sky broke open and began pouring sheets of rain. You yelped as Clark cursed and rushed to lock the windows. Rain flew inside the barn sideways along with huge gusts of wind, soaking your notes and scattering shavings of the rock meant for his study. Water speckled your clothes and hair. You glanced around and saw a small fire catch across the room by his precious rocks, and you threw yourself at it. By the time he latched the window, rainwater soaked the wooden floors and your project was smudged to shit.
“What the hell?” He whined, snatching your notes up and blowing on them. “Look at this!”
“Don’t what the hell me! I didn’t make it rain!”
“You couldn’t have saved the notes at least?”
“Well, I apologize for going after your fucking work station! That wind blew the flame from your bunsen onto the wall!”
Clark’s eyes darted across the loft to his desk full of minerals, where a black stain marked the wall. You were putting out a fire, he could tell that much. As you stood before him, chest heaving and shirt soaked, his heart hammered in his chest. Clark had imagined this moment many ways, but in none of them did you look this upset. He set down your notepad and ran a palm over his face, huffing in exasperation.
A low rage coiled in your gut as he slumped onto the couch, seemingly resigning from work for the rest of the night. Who gave him the right to be so mad? First of all, what kind of idiot puts a bunsen burner in a wood-and-straw barn? What asshole blames their partner who's never been in their house nor touched their weird, special rocks? A Clark-sized one, that was who. You were sick of it– the hypocrisy, the snark, the treatment. All you ever did was come to class. He was the one who took it upon himself to get you going.
The quarterback glanced up as your frame stomped closer, eventually standing with arms crossed over him and frowning on a level par with Eeyore. Not every girl could look so beautiful when she was losing her temper, but you could. Your hair was sticky with rainwater at the ends, your sweater was dribbling onto the light wash of your jeans, and mascara was clumping under your eyes, but none of it mattered. You were close, and you smelled like his soap. You were in the place he grew up. Very few things could make him happier.
“Do I really want to do this?”
“...Do what?”
“Jesus. Yeah, I do,” you snapped. “What’s your problem, Clark?”
Clark’s gut clenched. “What?”
“I know you hate me, but this?” You scoffed, turning around to look at the barn and seemingly looking past the walls out over the farm. The storm drowned the fields, surely, and for a moment you imagined standing out there and being washed clean of all the confusing feelings in your chest. “Making me come here, making me meet your parents and dig for rocks like a fucking five year old, when I know you hate me? What’s the point? What are you getting out of this, huh? I’m not going to thank you for figuring out a final project, and I certainly won’t be spoken to like an idiot!”
Clark froze as you spouted your anger over him, hands gesticulating in his face and making his body thrum. Hate?
“I don’t hate you.”
“You clearly fucking do! All you do is treat me like shit! You purposefully make me feel stupid, you clearly derive pleasure from correcting me when I’m just trying to fucking pass–”
A slow heat began to burn beneath his cheeks as he sat there and allowed himself to be berated. Your mouth turned down as you shouted, punctuating your skin with little dimples. The flame in your eyes burned bright, that same glint he caught when he first met you. He loved that spark. He missed it when you were gone. He only saw you once a week, and so he had to fit as many of them in as he could. He poked and prodded the bear to see her bite so that he might wear the mark for days.
“And all I want is to finish this, I just want to go back to school and turn it in and be done, I want to move on! You make everything so– so impossible, don’t you see that? What did I ever do to make you be so fucking rude?”
Clark’s lips parted as he tried to find the words, but nothing was forming. He studied how you turned your back and paced the barn, tugging at the ends of your hair and grumbling.
“I don’t hate you,” he said again. “Far from it.”
“Yeah, right,” you rolled your eyes and sat at his desk. “I’m sure you treat every girl this way.”
The storm raged, spray battering the siding of the barn. The whistle mimicked a tornado, but he knew there was no chance of that. It was only a high tone, not the rumble of a train. There was something he hated– the rain. The rain did nothing for him. It was good for the grass and the animals, but it made sludge of the fields he ran drills on and it trapped him inside the house. The rain didn’t talk back, didn’t shoot dirty looks, and didn’t give him a reason to work twice as hard. The rain didn’t need to pass chemistry, a class she shouldn’t have to even take over again, a class she hates. He hated the rain. But you?
Clark rose and started towards you, pausing when you pressed yourself into the desk chair on the other side of the loft. “I mean it.”
You swallowed thickly. “Yeah? Well, you sure don’t act like it.”
“You’re fun to tease,” he offered.
“It’s not fun for me! I hate it! You think I want to show up at the asscrack of dawn just to deal with you breathing down my neck, watching for my next mistake, ready to pounce and make fun of me for it? Maybe you’re some kind of science freak, that’s great, but I’m not, and you, Clark Kent, do nothing but cause me undue stress!”
His heart took a tiny bullet then, or at least something like it. The hairs on your arms were raised, your pupils dilated, your breath short. You were mad. Humiliated, even. You were looking up at him like you didn’t trust him. And really, what reason had he given you to do so? You were right about everything. You were so bright, so quick to hit back, and he adored that about you. He loved the way your nose scrunched when you fell prey to a confusing equation, and how you wrote hard enough to tear paper when you were angry. But very quickly and all at once, he started to see just what his feelings had blinded him to. When he thought he was giving you the answers, you thought he was treating you like you were stupid; when he poked fun at you for not caring, you felt he was mocking your attempts. Clark would have gone so far as to call his behavior flirtatious, but the reality was that he had been a complete and utter asshole, and now he was paying for it.
“I didn’t mean to make you feel like this,” Clark said after a few moments passed. “I really didn’t.”
“What did you mean, then, Clark? Please enlighten me!”
Your jaw was set hard, and he wanted so badly to reach out and smooth a thumb over the bone. He wanted to cup your squishy cheek. He wanted to kiss you and give you the answers to the final test. He wanted to get you an A on this project.
He sighed, “I was trying to flirt with you.”
The sound of about nine hundred alarms began to ring inside your ears. Clark Kent was walking closer until his knees brushed yours where you sat, his hands flexing at his sides, his big, stupid head full of remorse. Flashes of every time he angered you began to wash over you, muddling the emotions into murky water, making everything incredibly unclear and twice as frustrating. You leaned back a bit when he squatted before you, trying to catch your eyeline.
“I hurt your feelings,” he continued, “but I didn’t mean to. I thought it was like… like a game, or something. Like you wanted to fight.”
A lump settled in your throat as his eyes– blue today– bore into yours. The response scraped past your throat. “That’s not how you flirt with a girl, you asshole.”
“How, then?”
“You– you fucking– you compliment her, you help her with things, you– fuck you, I don’t have to tell you this!”
Clark smiled a little, his guilty face glowing. “But I was doing that. All I do is call you smart–”
“Calling me genius and smartypants is an asshole move and you know it!”
“But they’re true! I say them because it’s true,” he barreled past your interruption, “and I did give you things. I gave you answers. Help. Taught you the material.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that! I could’ve done it on my own!”
Clark huffed and rubbed at his eyes, letting a hand fall to your knee. You flinched but didn’t yank away. “I didn’t want you to. I liked doing it. God… I really got this all wrong, didn’t I?”
Everything felt discolored. With his palm on your leg, the world was incredibly hot. Your lab partner had been… helping you, complimenting you… underneath layers of sarcasm that only drove you further away. How were you supposed to detect that? No genius could. When you met him, what did that first Sure mean? Did he want to be friends? Had you misread him then? Was it you, too? Were you the asshole? No, you promised yourself, because men are always responsible for their actions, they should be smarter and better and braver… even though it was getting more difficult to think straight as he gazed up at you with those eyes.
Clark’s face flushed as his thumb dimpled your thigh. “Bringing you here was supposed to help. I wanted to see if you’d ease up when we weren’t in class. You’re hard to track down on campus, y’know, and I thought maybe if we spent a little time…”
You blinked and muttered, “You’re an ass.”
Clark’s eyes lifted. “Huh?”
“You’re an ass,” you repeated, leaning forward. His head tipped back to follow your lording, baring his neck to you. “When you like a girl, you tell her. We’re not five. You can’t pull my pigtails and expect me to assume that’s flirting. I just think it’s mean.”
“I see that now,” Clark gulped.
“And to think, I thought you seemed nice before you ever opened your mouth. Such a genius at science, but such a fucking idiot in every other way.”
Clark bit back a laugh as he watched the flame licking in your eyes. It was… it couldn’t be. Were you softening?
“I’m so sorry,” Clark urged, leaning up a bit. You drew him in like a magnet. You could keep screaming in his face for all he cared– he just liked it when you looked at him.
“You’re going to have to be more than sorry,” you breathed, lashes fluttering. He looked the same as when you met him. He hadn’t changed. He was still dark and beautiful, tall, strong, the image of perfection. He also still looked smug as a motherfucker, and whatever part of you got so angry clearly did so over how much you liked it. “I want an A.”
“You’re gonna get one,” he promised, letting both hands run up your thighs now.
You chewed the inside of your cheek, and one curious hand betrayed your restraint as it reached up to touch his skin. His cheeks were searing, and for the first time, you felt in control of the situation. With Clark on his knees, you could say anything you wanted, and it wouldn’t be a tease about your skills or your struggles. It would just be allowed.
“I want a lot from you,” you began, pressing a finger to his pout. “I want more apologies. I want walks to and from class. I want to come back in the summer and see your mother. I want you to show me you can learn how to treat me nice, because that was the girl you would have gotten in the beginning if you weren’t so stupid.”
Clark had no objections. “Okay.”
“And I want one more thing.”
His knees pushed up a bit, closing the space between his face and yours. “What’s that?”
“My name comes first on the project,” you smirked.
Clark erupted in soft laughter, and before you could react, two strong palms hooked behind your back and slid you to the edge of the chair. His lips found yours with a surging intensity, locking and never letting go; the eucalyptic taste of his tongue slid against yours as you craned over him, cradling his jaw and feeling the slow worship that got lost in translation pouring into every grunt and hum. Of all the things he was great at, kissing was another. Man, he was easy to hate. Well– envy. Easy for you to envy. That was what it was, wasn’t it? Envy. Covetousness. Desire.
“You really have to work on your communication skills,” you panted, tugging at his hair in the way you’d always hoped to– be it like this, or in a fight.
“And you really need to work on your anger,” Clark beamed, chasing after your mouth.
“That’s not my–”
“I’m trying to kiss you here, genius.”
“I hate it when you call me that,” you flushed, nearly falling out of the chair as you knocked his back onto the loft floor.
“Just shut up and come here.”
As his hands slid under your shirt, the flutter in your gut was clear as day. You were a smart girl, there was no denying it, but you did well with words– things that were interpreted rather than solved. In matters of the heart, your emotions were as clear to you as pages in a book. But Clark did not work that way. His biology was scientific. His methods, his needs, were all components collected to achieve the desired result.
It was only now, as the rain began to lighten on the roof, that you finally learned your first lesson from him. This was an equation you could solve: The properties of this kiss, plus the factors of you and Clark, multiplied by months of miscommunication and divided over one night in bumblefuck Kansas, equaled undeniable chemistry. Considering your margin for human error, that was the quickest problem you had ever correctly solved. And it felt good.
Maybe, you thought (with his mouth against your neck), science wasn’t so bad after all.
SUMMARY: The brothers and reader are investigating a new case when they makes a new furry friend. Dean is not a big fan of him at first, but they both soon find out that they are more alike than they expected. 5.3k
WARNINGS: fem!reader. this is all pretty fluffy and cute. finally getting together.
NOTES: goth!reader is back! I genuinely love writing for her so much. I had a more complex plot for this idea but it was way too long as it is. Maybe one day I will expand it and post it in ao3 instead. Let me know if you'd be interested in that! As always, English is not my first language. Enjoy<3
You hated hunts when you didn’t know what you were dealing with, but they were usually also the most “fun”, as fun as hunting monsters that can kill you can get.
Because yes, vengeful spirits and vamp nests and werewolves were always easy to recognize, and more or less an easy gig. But when the creature was unknown, it was dangerous. Not knowing what you were dealing with could make the difference between life and death, but the research was just so much fun.
Reading books and articles of lore about creatures all around the world, Sam and you hunched over his laptop for hours talking about Telkhines, or maybe an unicorn? And What the hell is a selkie?
It was like a big game of Clue where you had to put together who, where, and with what. Just that in this game, you could be the next victim, or Sam, or Dean.
Anyway, the important thing was, you didn’t know how to feel right now.
People had been disappearing without any explanation, not a trace of them anywhere. There was no connection or similarities between the victims, all different ages and different genders. It had to be your kind of thing, because the people would disappear from their home, usually at night, but there was never any sign of break-in, and it was very improbable that so many people from the same town had just decided to ditch for no reason.
That is why, after a long day of talking to victims’ families and going over every police report and lore book available, Sam, Dean, and you return to the motel room with exhausted expressions and slumped shoulders.
The night was cold, and you couldn’t wait to take a hot shower and finally get some sleep, your feet aching from the platform boots you refused to stop wearing and your eyeliner smudged after you accidentally rubbed your eyes three hours into researching.
When you had checked into the motel room that morning, you were told that there was only one room available. This was something that happened every once in a while, and if you had to be honest, it didn’t really bother you. Yes, three grown adults in one shitty motel room was a little cramped, but you had spent so much time alone, it felt nice to be around people, especially people you trusted as much as you trusted the Winchester brothers. This was also why you never minded sharing a bed. It was… warmer, less lonely.
So every time this happened, you would swap who you share with.
Sharing a bed with Sam was fine. He was huge and would eventually push you to the edge of the mattress, but it was fine.
Sharing with Dean, on the other hand, was an ordeal.
He would usually try to take the couch, except when the motel was shitty enough to not have a couch or for it to be more akin to a huge rock than a comfortable place to lay down. Those times, you forced Dean to sleep in the same bed with you.
“It’s not big deal, Dean. Come on, stop throwing a tantrum. It is cold, get into bed.”
That would usually do the trick. You would lay awkwardly next to each other, both of you on your back and facing the ceiling. But then, when the only thing around you was the darkness and silence of the night, you would get more comfortable. Turning around in the bed, facing each other, knees brushing or arms touching. You would listen to the other breath, and your eyes would sometimes meet under the barely-there moonlight filtering through the window, both of you frozen, but feeling more at peace than you ever had. One night, when Dean had an especially bad case of insomnia, you ended up running your hand up and down his back until he fell asleep.
But you were friends, of course.
This time it was Dean’s turn to share, and you were equally excited and terrified.
It all leaves your mind when you find a huge, majestic doberman sitting down in front of your motel room. The sight of the dog immediately makes all exhaustion fly away from your body, but before you can say or do anything, Dean is taking a step towards it.
“Excuse me, dude.” He murmurs, trying to get around the dog.
The doberman immediately snarls, snapping his sharp teeth towards Dean. You watch as Dean jumps back, and in a reaction that you know is pure instinct from fighting monsters for years, he gets ready to fight. He doesn’t hurt the dog, doesn’t even try to. But his shoulders tighten in that way they do when he is expecting something to jump him, and he is thinking what the best way to knock it down is.
Before anything else can happen, you grab Dean’s arm and pull him back.
“Don’t.” You command firmly, quickly dropping to your knees in front of the animal, who was still baring his teeth. You ignore Dean’s warning and you simply make yourself small while quickly taking all of the rings in your right hand off, sliding them into your jacket pocket before slowly, very carefully offering your hand to the dog.
Dean says your name urgently again. “I don’t think you should-”
“Shhh.”
The doberman, who was almost taller than you as you kneeled on the floor, was still baring his teeth and tense, but he wasn’t snarling anymore. You slowly move your hand closer, palm down, and he growls when you get a little too close. Both Sam and Dean call your name this time.
“It’s okay.” You murmur gently, for both the brothers and the dog. “It’s okay, pretty boy. I won’t hurt you, okay?”
Your sweet, soft voice seems to calm down the animal, and he moves his snout closer, smelling your hand from a distance. He is careful at first, hesitant, but a second later he is knocking the palm of your hand with the top of his head.
“There you go, see? It’s okay.” You pet the top of his head, movements soft and slow. When the doberman stops baring his teeth, you scoot closer. “You’re not dangerous.You’re just scared, right?”
By now both your hands are petting the dog, cradling his little (or not so little) face, rubbing up and down his neck, scratching behind his ears.
“See?” You ask again, but this time you do turn to look at Sam and Dean, who are looking down at you in disbelief. “There was no need to fight, he’s a sweetheart.”
“He looked ready to bite my head off.” Dean grumbles, and you are about to retort when the cold nose of the doberman hits your neck and he starts to sniffle you, from the collar of your jacket to the apple of your cheek. He ends up licking your face and it makes you giggle, leaning your face away and turning back to the giant animal.
“He was just scared, weren’t you, boy?” You ask in your best puppy voice. “The world has been cruel to you, and you learned to bite first.” You whisper as you notice how cold the dog was, how there was no collar around his neck, and the long scar across his right eye. Not to mention the fact that his ears and tail were cropped. “But all you need is a little love, isn’t that right? A little kindness and it all melts away.”
The dog’s nose nuzzles against your chest again and you almost melt from the inside out. You keep gently petting him as you turn back to Dean, who was now looking down at you with dark, unreadable eyes. It leaves you breathless for a moment, and you don’t know what even prompted that reaction.
You open your mouth to say… honestly, you don't even know what you were going to say, but thankfully Sam, who looks like all the exhaustion has also banished from his body and is now smirking, walks past you and opens the door to the motel room.
You quickly get up from the floor, the doberman following your lead. You walk up to the door, both Dean and the dog behind you.
“Come on in, boy.” You point towards the inside of the room when the dog– you would give him a name, but then you’d get too attached– stopped right before walking into the room.
“No way.” Dean interjects, arms crossed, and frowning.
“Dean, it is freezing out here. We can’t let him sleep outside.”
“I refuse to sleep with dog smell all over the room.” He insisted, and was that a pout?
“I’m team ‘he stays’” Sam announces, still grinning, before making his way into the bathroom.
You cross your arms too, turning to look at Dean with a challenging look on your face.
“That’s two against one. And if I have to choose between you and the doggy, then good luck sleeping in the Impala.”
You hold Dean’s eyes for a long moment, not faltering for a second. He looks at you in disbelief before he seems to notice that there’s no arguing with you in this one. You were incredibly stubborn sometimes, like when you refused to leave the cemetery that first night you met.
But that was the reason why you were here right now, so maybe you were right about the dog. He would never admit it, though.
He simply sighs in defeat, shoulders dropping, and a pleased grin quickly takes over your face. You do a little jump, and Dean once again feels impressed by how well you move in those high boots.
“Yes!” You giggle with that sweet smile on your face, your lipstick faded from the long day out but still somehow that smooth wine color that made Dean weak in the knees. “Now come in, pretty boy.”
The dog, who had just been looking up at you during the conversation, seems to finally be convinced to walk inside the motel room. He still turns around to check that you’re walking inside too, sitting right by your side as you take off your jacket and boots.
It was adorable.
It had been a few hours since you had gotten to the motel. Right now, Sam was doing some more research while Dean called up Bobby to see if he could find anything. You had walked to the nearby grocery store to buy some dog food and some plastic containers. You served the food and some water on them when you and the dog returned from the store, since he refused to leave your side.
You had to be honest, walking alone at night never felt safer with a huge black doberman walking alongside you. For just one second, you could live out your goth princess dreams.
Now, the pup was eating his food. The poor thing was probably starving out there in the street. You wonder who could have abandoned such a beautiful animal, and leave him to freeze on the street. The dog was friendly enough, sometimes sniffing at Sam’s shoes but hiding behind your legs when he tried to pet him. He was clearly still scared, and you feel a sense of pride fill your chest at the knowledge that the dog decided to trust you.
You change into your pajamas and lay on the bed, groaning as your tense muscles finally relax against the almost comfortable surface of the shitty mattress. You hear the sound of paws hitting the floor and you turn your head to look down the edge of the bed, where the doberman was staring up at you with– there was no other way to describe it than puppy eyes.
You chuckle, and get more comfortable on the bed before patting the spot next to you once, and that was enough for the dog to jump.
“Oh, come on! I gotta sleep on that bed.” Dean complains, but you ignore it in order to laugh when instead of the big space next to you, the dog decides to climb on top of you, laying his head on your chest and making you groan at the weight on your stomach.
“Seriously, dude?” You ask the dog, who only licks your cheek once and seems to get even heavier.
You lay there on the bed, a giant puppy on top of you with no way of moving and no heart to push him away.
You hear Sam laugh and you try to look at the brothers past the big fur ball resting right in front of your face. You catch sight of the younger one’s smirk and Dean’s unimpressed face. He looked almost offended, and it was hilarious. You laugh, and it causes the doberman to tilt his head and look at you curiously. Your heart aches, and you remind yourself not to get attached.
You sigh, starting to pet the dog gently. You distantly hear Sam and Dean chat and bicker about something, but you focus on the puppy on your chest. You scratch behind his ears and boop his nose with yours, murmuring sweet nothings under your breath.
Humans were complicated. You had realized from a young age that not many people felt as much as you did, not everyone had so many emotions that they threatened to spill out every time they opened their mouth. Your heart was too big for your body, your mother used to say when you were a kid. But she didn’t say it as a good thing, because it made you too vulnerable, too weak, too much like her. So when you were confronted with the cruelty of this world, when you discovered how awful people could be, you learned to keep that part of yourself hidden, locked away in a little box on your chest that only opened up when you were writing poetry or when it was time for your monthly crying session.
Or when you were in the presence of animals. Animals were pure creatures, sweet and loving and unjudging. When you found a stray cat in a cemetery, or when you encountered some critter while foraging, or when little moths landed next to you in the abandoned house you used to spend your time in, that little box opened up and you let all the words stuck in the back of your throat come out. Because animals were the only creatures that deserved them. Or that’s what you thought, until some green-eyed hunter, who at first looked at you with the same seemingly angry but actually scared eyes as the doberman had, had made his way into your heart and was now threatening to break the lock that kept the box closed.
You brush your thumb over the long scar across the dog’s eye. It is healed, but it also looks recent.
“You’re so beautiful.” You murmur to the pup, giggling when he pushes his head up into your hand for more ear scratches.
“Aw, thank you.” Dean places a hand on his chest, as if he was actually touched by the compliment. He was now standing on the side of the bed, looking down at you with a teasing grin. But there was something in his eyes, an edge that you couldn’t recognize. “I knew you wouldn’t resist my charms.”
You laugh at that, shaking your head. Noticing that your attention wasn’t on him anymore, the doberman turns his head towards Dean, and he snarls again.
“Hey, nuh-uh.” You scold the pup firmly, tapping his snout softly twice. It stops the snarling, but the dog is still baring his teeth. “Dean is a friend, okay? He is amiable, even if he doesn’t look like it.” You can’t help but tease Dean, making him roll his eyes.
The doberman’s eyes stay wearily on Dean, but he doesn’t make a move to attack. You try to sit up on the bed, but the dog seems to somehow push you down into the mattress. You laugh, accepting your fate and extending your hand towards Dean instead.
“Give me your hand.” Dean looks at you with wide eyes for a second, but then he places his hand on yours. You ignore the feeling of his rough skin on yours, how warm he is in comparison with how cold you always are, how his silver ring feels against your palm, how much you wanted to intertwine your fingers with his.
Instead, you move both your hands closer to the dog’s nose, slowly.
“If the mutt bites me, I’m gonna kill you.” Dean warns, but he sounds a little out of breath.
The pup lets out a low growl, and you move your other hand to scratch behind his ear.
“It’s okay, I promise. He’s a friend.” Your reassuring tone seems to calm him down a bit, and he slowly leans in to sniff at your joined hands. You slowly move your hand until it is holding Dean’s wrist instead of his palm, letting the dog smell only Dean. He apparently deems the human acceptable, because he stops baring his teeth and leans the tiniest bit forward. You guide Dean’s hand to the top of the doberman’s head, letting it rest there softly for the hunter to pet him. “See, puppy?” you whisper towards the dog, but your eyes move up to meet Dean’s. “He may be a little rough around the edges, but he’s actually harmless.”
That makes Dean snort, eyes darting down to the dog still laying on your chest while he scratches his head, and you think his cheeks flush a little.
“There are several creatures, both human and non-human, that might disagree with that.” He jokes, but his voice is softer and low. It is your time to snort.
“Well, I was never known for agreeing with the general public.” Dean meets your eyes again, and something passes in between you two. Your breath hitches at the rawness in his gaze, and then your fingers bump where you were both petting the dog. “I always had a soft spot for what others consider scary.”
A long moment of silence, your fingers brush against his again, Dean opens his mouth.
And then the doberman is licking your cheek and almost all the way up to your forehead. You let out a surprised shriek and you turn your face further to the side, laughing and trying to get away from the dog’s wet kisses.
“Hey! Stop, boy. Sto– ah!” You are trying to push the pup off of you, but there is no way of pushing him away. You try to turn his face away with your hand but instead he gives you a little bite.
It is playful, a barely-there nip with his front teeth. You look at him with an offended look in your eyes, and you can almost swear the pup is grinning. Dean starts laughing at the scene, and you pout, turning to Sam for help. The younger Winchester is useless, simply giving you a shrug and going back to his research. You stare at the ceiling and start to question your life choices.
“How did I end up trapped in a motel room with three insufferable boys?”
Dean ends up not letting the dog sleep in the bed. You somehow manage to move him from on top of you and lay down a couple of blankets and some of your clothes on the floor next to the bed for the pup to sleep in.
It was late into the night already, and you were half asleep already, lulled by Dean’s warmth. Because you gave one of the blankets to the doberman, now Dean and you had to share the other one. He complains about it for like an hour, and you had to admit the night was cold enough for one blanket to not be enough. But once you threaten him with letting the dog on the bed and sending him to the floor, Dean accepts sharing the blanket.
It turned out to be as much of a bad idea as it was a good one. Not only did it force you to be even closer to each other to fit in, but it also gave place for a lot more physical contact. Now when your knee brushes his thigh, it is skin on skin instead of over the covers, when his fingers brush your lower back, it is right where your Type O Negative shirt has lifted up. It was a magical kind of torture.
At some point when you are more asleep than awake, you feel a new weight on the mattress. You are too tired to even register what it is or what it could mean. You just scoot to the side, giving the creature more space and pressing closer to the figure next to you. You would think that by this point, your hunter’s instincts would be more developed, but you weren’t very smart when you were sleepy.
You quickly fall back into unconsciousness completely when the heat radiating from both your sides now envelopes you. You were cold almost all the time. Even in the summer, somehow your hands managed to find a way to stay icy. On low temperature nights like this, it was worse. You didn’t mind it, you enjoyed the cold, but the boys constantly complained when you touched them with your freezing hands. But right now, with two extra-hot bodies pressed against either side of you, you sleep through the night like you haven't in years.
The next time you wake up, it takes you a few seconds to understand where you are. The bed feels smaller than it did when you went to sleep, and there is a new weight on your waist. It isn’t until you hear two different snores that you finally open your eyes, confused. In front of you, curled up in the little nook created by your torso and bended knees, is the doberman sleeping peacefully. He somehow got into the bed at some point in the night, you register, and now he is taking up half of the bed. One of the snores is coming from him, but the other one comes from behind you, as well as the pressure on your middle.
A little panicked, you turn your head around slowly. As you feared, Dean has an arm around you, his chest pressed against your back. He too was fast asleep, mouth slightly open and his grip on you firm. You turn to look at the other bed, but you find it empty. Sam had probably gone out for his morning run, and you let yourself panic for a second.
The little grunt that Dean lets out when you try to move and the way his arm tightens on your waist make you feel a little dizzy. You slowly, very slowly, slide down the bed. It is a miracle that Dean doesn't wake up, he must be really exhausted for his instincts not to alert him of the movement. The puppy also stays asleep, and you quietly scurry to the bathroom. You wash your face with cold water when you notice how flushed your cheeks are. You aren’t a high schooler, you can handle a little cuddling with a close friend.
But Dean was more than that, wasn’t him?
You brush your teeth, cursing yourself for forgetting to bring a clean set of clothes so you could shower. You mentally prepare to walk outside for them, repeating to yourself that Dean was asleep the whole time, he probably didn’t even notice what happened. It was fine, you were fine.
(It had been years since someone had held you like that, it wasn’t fine.)
You step out of the bathroom in the hope that Dean would still be asleep, but you’re not that lucky. Instead, you are met with two sleepy boys staring at you from the bed. Both the doberman and Dean were now sitting on the mattress, Dean with messy hair and half-lidded eyes, the dog with a strikingly similar drowsy demeanor. They turn to you when they hear the sound of the bathroom door opening, and at the exact same time, they tilt their heads to the side in confusion.
You stand there, staring at the big bad dog and big bad hunter in front of you, who are now soft and sleepy and pouty (at least Dean was) while they stare back with questioning looks. Almost as if wondering why’d you leave the bed, but that was probably wishful thinking. Like this, the resemblance between them was uncanny.
“Good morning?” You ask tentatively when Dean doesn’t say anything.
The pup seems to finally snap out of it at the sound of your voice, and he jumps off the bed to say hi to you. He wags his tail and presses his head to your hand until you give him a good deal of head scratches before he is moving to where the food and water bowls are on the floor.
You turn to Dean after that, and he looks a little more awake at least. His eyes are squinting and his eyebrows are furrowed, as if he is trying to remember something.
“Did the dog sleep with us in the bed?” You ignore the way his voice was even deeper after waking up.
You giggle, nodding. “Yeah, he got up at some point in the night. I don’t know how we managed to all fit.”
Dean chuckles at that while he rubs a hand over his face, and you beg that he doesn’t remember anything else.
“Did he sleep next to me? I swear I could feel something pressing against me through the night, but then I woke up and he was laying down pretty far away from me.”
That makes you freeze for a second, but you just shake your head nonchalantly.
“Nah, he slept right when you found him all night. Maybe it was a Succubus” You joke casually while you move to grab a clean set of clothes. You had never been happier to see Sam than when he walks into the motel room right at that moment. Your eyes meet for a second, and you take in his post-running state at the same time he notices the clothes and the toiletry bag in your arms before the two of you both rush towards the bathroom.
“Not fair! I am all gross and sweaty.” Sam complains when you get there first.
You giggle, closing and locking the door behind you without saying anything.
“I could swear I was hugging something.”
You had finally solved the case two days later. As it turned out, the creature that was kidnapping people in town was a skinwalker. The reason why you hadn’t figured it out yet is because this one, instead of feeding on people’s hearts and leaving the bodies there for you to find, was actually dragging people from their homes and “storing” them in some abandoned house outside of town. You are able to discover all of this because your new friend, as you discovered that same day, was actually the pet of one of the people kidnapped. The scar over his eye had been made by the skinwalker the night it attacked his owner, and the puppy was able to track the scent of it once Sam, Dean, and you had found some fur in the house of one of the victims.
Once you entered the abandoned house, you had found most of the victims still alive, all tied up in chains and waiting to have their hearts eaten out. Apparently, as the skinwalker told you and the brothers in his best attempt at a villain monologue, he had been exiled from his pack and forced to become an outcast. Having lived all his life in a pack, he could barely fend for himself alone. He had gone hungry, almost starving to death. That was why now, in an almost feral state, he was making sure to have enough food stashed.
As weird as this was, it was good news. You were able to kill the skinwalker and free all of the survivors. It was always nice when you were able to save more people than you had expected. In between the freed people there was the doberman’s owner– some guy in his forties with long, wavy black hair and a whole tattoo sleeve. Yeah, it fits. You watch as the guy and the dog meet again, how it was so clear that they loved each other, and even if you’re happy for them, you can’t help the way your heart aches at the knowledge that you would have to say goodbye to the pup.
The doberman runs towards you after he finishes saying hello to his owner, and Sam quickly explains to the guy the dog’s stay with you while you kneel in front of the doberman and whisper your farewell. The puppy licks your cheek again and it almost makes your eyes water. The owner thanks you for taking care of Billie Joe –of course the dude named the dog after Green Day– and they both leave.
You stare at their figures as they walk away in silence for a moment, not being able to help the pout that forms in your face. Sam goes to talk with some more of the surviving victims, while Dean stays by your side.
“You know, maybe dogs aren’t that bad. Even if that one could barely stand me.”
You chuckle softly, It’s subtle –Dean wouldn’t make it obvious– but you know he’s trying to lift your spirits. You shake your head, turning to look into his eyes.
It always shocked you how beautiful Dean could look even after a hunt, when he was covered in dirt and all bloody.
Then again, you always had a thing for hot guys covered in blood.
“I think you two were just too much alike.” You tease, bumping his shoulder with yours.
He laughs, but it’s softer than usual– quieter, less guarded. His usual edge is missing, replaced by something warmer, more open.
“Maybe.” He shrugs, looking at the ground before his gaze returns to you, taking in the way your smudged eyeliner made your eyes pop out, the way your black hair looked almost blue under the street lights, how gentle your smile was even with your sharp teeth and spiky jewelry. “You seemed to like him, though. A lot.”
A long silence follows the comment as you two stare at each other. The tension, simmering under the surface for weeks now, threatens to boil over. The memory of Dean’s arm around you while sleeping comes back to your mind, and you decide that if there was anyone you could trust with the key to the box in your chest, it was him.
“Yeah, I did.” You admit, barely louder than a whisper. “I never could resist a good train wreck.”
The next thing you register is the feeling of Dean’s lips over yours, and for a moment you wonder if this is why poets write. Because the sensations that travel all through your body as you wrap your arms around Dean’s neck and his hands wrap around your waist, the taste of his tongue, and the smell that clings to him are all so otherworldly and hauntingly magical that you feel compelled to delve into the entire English language to find the perfect words to describe it, but you just know that nothing will ever be able to convey what it was like to be held in Dean Winchester’s arms.
“Does this mean I can convince you of adopting a dog now?”
“Don’t even think about it.”
“What about a cat?”
“No. And there is no amount of kissing that can change my mind.”
“What about a raven? Or a spider!”
“God, what did I get myself into.”
NOTES: I am not completely satisfied with this so I might revisit it some day. Still, I hope you enjoyed it.
description: you grew up alongside the winchester boys, usually stuck babysitting them while your dads were off hunting. sam was sweet, dean was a menace, and somehow you survived both. years later, bobby calls you in to help with a case...and dean winchester is still just as much trouble as you remember.
pairing: dean winchester x hunter!reader (fem!reader)
tags: dean winchester x you, no y/n, childhood friends to lovers, shared history, childhood crush, sexual tension, bickering as a love language, backseat of the impala, hunter family lore, "our dads thought we'd get married", fluff and smut, season 1-3 vibes, comfort fic, bobby singer saw this coming YEARS ago
TW: NSFW (18+) minors do not interact!!, PiV, unprotected, drinking
WC: 5.0k
A/N: requested by my love @bitterestwillow i hope you enjoyyyy:)))
reblogs are a writer's best friend<3
please! let me know if you want more supernatural fics, i lowkey am obsessed with writing sam and dean...dean gives like au eddie vibes
also, ofc i had to use a wendigo episode picture of dean, like COME ON
Bobby’s kitchen smelled like coffee grounds, motor oil, and something burnt that Dean had sworn twenty minutes ago was “still edible.” It wasn’t.
Sam sat at the table with a lore book spread open in front of him while Dean leaned back in his chair, boots hooked on another seat, flipping a knife through his fingers.
“So let me get this straight,” Dean said slowly. “This thing can mimic voices, disappear, and apparently rip a guy’s jaw clean off?”
“Not apparently,” Sam muttered, eyes scanning the page. “It did.”
Dean grimaced. “Awesome. Love that.”
Bobby shuffled past them, carrying another stack of books. “You two done bitchin’ or you wanna actually solve the case?”
Dean pointed his knife toward him. “I’m solving. Aggressively.”
“Yeah, well, aggressive ain’t helping when none of us know what the hell this thing is.” Bobby dropped the books onto the table with a heavy thud, sending dust puffing into the air. “Closest thing I found was some old Men of Letters mention from the seventies.”
Sam frowned. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Dean sighed dramatically. “Great. So we’re screwed.”
Bobby rolled his eyes. “Not entirely. I called somebody.”
Dean perked up a little. “Oh yeah? Who?”
“Lafontaine.”
Dean blinked, and Sam’s eyebrows lifted slightly in recognition.
And immediately, Dean barked out a laugh. “No way. Old man Lafontaine’s still alive?”
Bobby gave him a look. “Barely.”
“Man,” Dean chuckled, sitting forward now, “that guy used to scare the hell outta me.”
“Yeah,” Sam said dryly, “because you tried stealing his truck when you were twelve.”
“I was borrowing it.”
“You drove it into a ditch.”
Dean pointed at Sam. “Allegedly.”
Bobby snorted. “Well, he knows more about weird occult crap than anybody I trust. Said he’d send over everything he had.”
Dean nodded. “Alright. Cool.”
“Wait,” Dean said slowly. “Did he say he was comin’ himself?”
Before Bobby could answer, there was a knock at the door, three sharp taps. Bobby jerked his chin toward Dean. “Get that.”
Dean stood, stretching as he crossed the room. “If this guy’s still wearing those creepy snake skin boots, I’m leavin’.”
He swung the door open casually and froze. You stood on the porch with a duffel bag slung over your shoulder and a folder tucked under your arm. Older, definitely. But not by much.
Still wearing that same unimpressed expression you used to give him when he mouthed off as a teenager. Your eyes flicked over him once, then twice. And your mouth slowly pulled into a smirk.
“Well,” you said. “If it isn’t the pain in my ass.”
Dean stared, like actually stared. Because there was just absolutely no way. No friggin’ way.
The girl who used to force him and Sam to brush their teeth before bed while your dads were out hunting was standing on Bobby Singer’s porch looking like that. Behind him, Sam nearly choked trying not to laugh.
Dean finally found his voice. “Ain’t no way.”
You tilted your head. “That bad, huh?”
Dean looked you up and down again, almost offended by the universe itself.
“No,” he said immediately. “No, it’s— What the hell happened to you?”
You scoffed, brushing past him into the house. “Puberty. You should try it.”
Sam outright laughed this time.
Dean turned slowly toward his brother. “Did you know?”
Sam lifted both hands innocently. “I had a suspicion.”
Bobby already looked deeply entertained by the entire thing. “Good. Everybody’s here. Sit down.”
You dropped your duffel beside the table before pulling out a thick journal absolutely covered in sticky notes, while Dean couldn’t stop staring.
“What?” you asked flatly.
Dean blinked. “You’re—”
“Careful.”
He narrowed his eyes slightly. “Still bossy.”
“And you’re still annoying.” You opened the journal. “Nice to see nothing’s changed.”
Dean let out a breathy laugh through his nose. God, you sounded exactly the same. Which was somehow worse.
“You know,” you continued while flipping pages, “most people say hello before staring at somebody like they just rose from the dead.”
Dean leaned against the table. “I’m processing.”
“Slowly, apparently.”
Sam looked between the two of you with growing amusement. “Wow. This is exactly how I remember you guys.”
Dean pointed at you without looking away. “She used to bully me.”
You gasped theatrically. “I kept you alive.”
“You handcuffed me to a motel bed one time!”
“You tried to follow our dads on a vamp nest run!”
“I was thirteen!”
“And stupid!”
Dean looked at Bobby incredulously. “See? This. This is what I dealt with.”
You looked over finally, eyes glittering with amusement now. “Funny. I remember you following me around like a lost puppy.”
Dean barked out a laugh. “Please.”
“You cried when I left for a hunt once.”
Sam covered his mouth immediately.
Dean whipped around. “I did not.”
“You absolutely did,” Sam said.
“I was like nine!”
You grinned for the first time fully, and Dean honestly forgot what Bobby had even been saying before you walked in. Because this was not the awkward pigtailed girl who used to shove him away from cursed objects and yell at him to wear a jacket. This was—
“Well?” you asked, catching him staring again.
Dean cleared his throat immediately. “You got info on the monster, or you just come here to psychologically torture me?”
Your smile sharpened. “Oh, Dean,” you said. “Why not both?”
You flipped open the journal, all business now. “Okay,” you said, pushing a page toward Sam. “Your victims weren’t dealing with a ghost.”
Sam adjusted in his chair immediately, scanning the symbols scribbled across the paper. “Then what is it?”
“A Veskar.”
Dean frowned. “A what now?”
You pointed toward one of the sketches. “Old parasitic entity. Mostly Eastern European folklore. They attach themselves to abandoned places, feed on paranoia, fear, isolation— all the fun stuff.”
“Okay,” Dean said slowly. “And the jaw-ripping thing?”
“They hunt through sound mimicry. Lure prey deeper in, disorient them, then attack.”
Dean grimaced. “Still hate that.”
“They’re rare,” you continued. “Mostly because hunters usually die before figuring out what they are.”
“Comforting,” Sam muttered.
You ignored him.
“The important thing is they can’t fully manifest unless they anchor themselves to something physical.”
Bobby nodded slightly from the kitchen counter like he already knew where you were going.
“So what’s the anchor?” he asked.
You tapped the page. “Silver.”
Dean blinked. “Silver?”
“Not pure silver. Melted-down religious objects usually. Crosses, rosaries, grave ornaments. They create nests with it.” You looked at Sam. “The abandoned church near the mill?”
Sam nodded. “Yeah.”
“That’s your spot.”
Dean leaned forward now, focused despite himself. “So what kills it?”
You hesitated for half a second.
“Fire works temporarily. Silver blades can wound it.” Then your expression flattened. “Decapitation’s the only permanent kill.”
Dean snorted softly. “Of course it is.”
“You asked.”
Sam flipped another page in the journal. “These symbols…”
“Containment marks,” you answered. “If we can pin it long enough, it can’t phase.”
Bobby pointed toward Dean with a beer bottle. “Hear that? Means you actually gotta use your brain tomorrow.”
Dean scoffed. “I always use my brain.”
You and Sam both looked at him.
Dean frowned. “Rude.”
You started organizing papers across the table. “Alright. Sam and I can work the lore angle tonight, narrow down nesting habits. Dean—”
Dean immediately pointed at himself. “Why do I feel like I’m getting the dumb task?”
“Because you usually do.”
Bobby barked out another laugh, and Dean looked personally betrayed. “Bobby, you hearing this disrespect?”
“Deserved.”
You continued without missing a beat. “You and Bobby hit the church at dawn. Look for silver deposits, religious artifacts, signs of nesting.”
Dean crossed his arms. “And what’re you doing?”
“Making sure you don’t accidentally get yourselves killed.”
“Aw,” Dean said mockingly. “You still care about me.”
You rolled your eyes so hard it was practically affectionate. “Please. I care about Sam more.”
Dean placed a hand dramatically over his heart. “That’s evil.”
Bobby moved around the kitchen, already pulling mugs down from the cabinets. “You stayin’ here tonight?”
You looked up. “If that’s okay.”
Bobby stared at you as if the question itself offended him. “Kid,” he said softly, “you always got a place here.”
The room quieted for just a second. Dean noticed the tiny shift in your expression immediately, the way your shoulders loosened a little, how your face softened in a way he hadn’t seen yet tonight.
“Thanks, Uncle Bobby.”
There it was. Uncle Bobby.
Dean remembered hearing it a thousand times growing up. Usually, right before Bobby patched up your scraped knees or yelled at all three of you for roughhousing near weapons. Bobby grunted like he was pretending the affection embarrassed him.
“You eat yet?”
“Gas station peanuts count?”
“No.”
“Then no.”
“Jesus,” Bobby muttered, already moving toward the fridge. “Hunters are hopeless.”
You smiled faintly. Dean watched as Bobby checked your shoulder for injuries, absentmindedly. The way he automatically grabbed your favorite whiskey from the cabinet without asking, like muscle memory. It did something weird to Dean’s chest.
Before he could think too hard about it, you stood and walked toward the liquor cabinet yourself.
“You still keep the good stuff hidden?” you asked.
“From Dean? Damn right.”
“Seriously?” Dean called from the living room.
You grabbed the bottle with a victorious hum anyway and poured yourself a glass, then another smaller one. You slid it across the counter toward Bobby, and his face softened immediately.
“Well,” he muttered. “Ain’t you sweet.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
Dean watched you lean back against the counter, whiskey glass in hand, talking quietly with Bobby while Sam reread the lore. And honestly? It was screwing with him a little. Because in his head, you were still sixteen years old, yelling at him for teaching Sam curse words.
Not…Not this. Not grown up. Not pretty enough to make him forget what conversation he was in halfway through.
You caught him staring again from across the room, your eyebrow lifting slowly. Dean immediately looked away and grabbed a beer while Sam smirked into his book. Dean kicked his chair hard enough to make him glare.
“Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinkin’ it loud.”
A couple of hours later, Bobby finally shoved himself up from his chair with a groan loud enough to rival the pipes in the house.
“I’m too old for this crap,” he muttered, pointing a finger between the three of you. “Don’t stay up all night bein’ idiots.”
“No promises,” Dean said immediately.
“Especially you.”
Dean grinned.
Bobby paused beside you on his way out, squeezing your shoulder once. “Night, kid.”
Your expression softened again. “Night, Uncle Bobby.”
Then he disappeared down the hall, bedroom door creaking shut a few seconds later. The TV played quietly in the background. Some old western Bobby definitely fell asleep watching earlier. You swirled the whiskey in your glass lazily before taking another sip.
“So,” Sam said carefully, leaning back in his chair. “How’s your dad?”
You snorted softly. “Still alive somehow. Complains about his knees every five minutes now.”
Dean grinned into his beer. “Good. Means karma’s finally hitting him.”
“You say that like your dad wasn’t just as bad.”
Dean pointed at you. “My father never made us run five miles because we ‘looked energetic.’”
You nearly choked laughing. “Yes, he did.”
“That was one time.”
Sam deadpanned from beside him. “It was not one time.”
You laughed harder at that, head tipping back slightly, and Dean found himself staring again before he could stop it. God, that laugh was exactly the same. Maybe a little lower now. But still the same laugh that used to echo through crappy motel rooms while the four of you survived off takeout and stolen cable.
“You know,” Sam said, smiling faintly, “those were actually some of the most normal parts of our childhood.”
You looked at him softer then. “Yeah?”
Sam nodded. “Seriously. Whenever your dad and ours hunted together…” He shrugged lightly. “It felt normal.”
Dean scoffed. “Speak for yourself. She ran that house like a tiny dictator.”
You gasped. “Excuse me? I kept you both alive.”
“You made schedules.”
“You needed schedules!”
Dean pointed accusingly. “You grounded me once!”
“You snuck out to steal a Playboy from the motel lobby.”
“I was curious!”
“You were fifteen!”
Sam laughed quietly into his drink. Dean turned toward him immediately. “Don’t act innocent. You were her favorite.”
Sam smirked. “Because I listened.”
“Because you were adorable,” you corrected.
Dean looked horrified. “I was adorable.”
“No,” you said instantly. “You were a menace.”
Sam outright snorted. You pointed toward Dean with your whiskey glass. “You wanna know what he used to do?”
Dean narrowed his eyes immediately. “No.”
“He would wait until I fell asleep—”
“Okay, no—”
“—and then put fake spiders in my shoes because he thought that was good pay-back for grounding him.”
Sam burst out laughing while Dean defended himself immediately. “IT WAS FUNNY.”
“You are literally evil.”
Dean grinned shamelessly. “Yeah, and then you chased me around a motel parking lot with a tire iron.”
Your mouth twitched. “Deserved.”
Sam shook his head fondly. “You guys were insane together.”
That made you laugh quietly into your drink. “God,” you muttered. “Our dads used to hate leaving us alone together.”
Dean barked a laugh. “No, they didn’t. They thought it was hilarious.”
You groaned immediately. “Don’t remind me.”
Sam looked between you both curiously. “Wait… are you talking about the marriage thing?”
Dean immediately covered his face with one hand. “Oh, my God.”
You looked equally mortified. “Absolutely not.”
Sam started laughing before either of you could stop him.
Dean pointed at him. “You are enjoying this way too much.”
“I forgot about that!” Sam wheezed.
“Because it was traumatic,” you muttered.
Dean groaned dramatically. “Every damn time we got in trouble—”
You pointed at him, already laughing. “‘One day you two are gonna get married and terrorize some poor town together.’”
Dean dropped his head against the back of the chair. “I can literally hear Bobby saying it.”
“And my dad!” you laughed. “‘Look at ‘em. Already acting like an old married couple.’”
Sam was losing it now. Dean shook his head hard. “No, because they were insane. We were constantly trying to kill each other.”
“Exactly,” you said.
“You broke my nose once.”
“You deserved it.”
“You bent my butterfly knife!”
“You called me bossy!”
“You are bossy!”
You both stopped at the exact same time. Silence.
Then Sam quietly muttered into his drink, “Yeah. You’re definitely getting married.”
Dean grabbed a pretzel off the table and launched it at his forehead immediately, which made Sam laugh harder. And you were smiling at Dean in that same old way you used to when you were kids. All sharp edges and challenges, like every fight between you, had always secretly been fun.
Dean stared for half a second too long again. Your smile faded into something smaller, slightly leaning towards curious. And Dean suddenly became very interested in his beer bottle.
Sam eventually stood with a long stretch, groaning as his back cracked.
“Alright,” he muttered. “I’m done reliving Dean’s humiliating childhood stories for one night.”
Dean pointed at him immediately. “You were there too, jackass.”
“Yeah, but nobody handcuffed me to a motel sink because I ‘chewed too loud.’”
You looked entirely unapologetic. “You did chew too loud.”
Sam laughed, shaking his head as he grabbed his book. “Night, you two.”
“Night, Sammy.”
“Goodnight.”
Then he disappeared down the hallway, leaving the living room oddly quiet. The TV murmured softly in the background while rain tapped lightly against the junkyard windows outside. You took another sip of whiskey, and Dean watched your fingers turn the glass slowly against your knee.
“Y’know,” he said after a minute, voice quieter now, “I always figured you’d get out.”
Your eyes flicked toward him. “Hunting?”
Dean nodded. “You used to talk about it all the time.” He shrugged lightly. “College. Apartment somewhere. Normal life.”
You smiled faintly at that. “Yeah.”
“What happened?”
You looked down into your drink for a second before answering. “The same thing that happened to you, probably.”
Dean didn’t say anything, so you leaned back deeper into the couch cushions.
“The hunter lifestyle never really leaves you,” you said softly. “Even when you try to walk away from it.”
Dean’s jaw tightened slightly, because yeah. He knew exactly what you meant.
You continued after a beat. “I tried once.”
Dean looked over fully now. “Really?”
“Mhm.”
“What, like… serious tried?”
You nodded slowly. “Couple years.” A tiny laugh left you. “Waitressed in Nebraska.”
Dean blinked. “Nebraska?”
“Don’t laugh.”
“I’m trying not to.”
“You are failing.”
Dean grinned a little into his beer bottle.
You shook your head. “I had an apartment. Plants.” You looked genuinely offended by the memory. “Dean, I kept killing every damn one.”
He laughed softly.
“Couldn’t sleep right,” you admitted after a second. “Every noise sounded wrong. Every town felt temporary.” Your eyes lifted toward him again. “Eventually I heard about a hunt nearby and…”
“You went.”
“Yeah.”
Dean nodded once like he understood perfectly, probably because he did.
“You?” you asked. “You ever really try?”
Dean stared at the label peeling off his beer bottle. “Once or twice.”
Lisa flickered through his head for half a second before he shoved it away. You must’ve seen something on his face because your expression softened slightly.
“That bad, huh?”
Dean huffed a quiet laugh. “Something like that.” Then Dean glanced sideways at you, something mischievous slowly creeping into his expression.
“Oh, my God.”
You immediately narrowed your eyes. “What?”
“Do you remember—”
“No.”
“I haven’t even said anything yet.”
“I know that look. The answer’s still no.”
Dean laughed, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “The Impala.”
You physically groaned. “Oh, come on.”
Dean grinned wider immediately. “You remember.”
“I wish I didn’t.”
“You absolutely do.”
You covered your face briefly with one hand. “We were teenagers.”
“Yeah,” Dean said. “Teenagers makin’ excellent decisions.”
You pointed at him. “Your father was twenty feet away.”
“At a bar.”
“Nearby.”
Dean shrugged. “Still counts.”
You laughed despite yourself, shaking your head. God, Dean remembered that night vividly. Rainstorm outside. The backseat of the Impala. You whisper-yelling at him to stop laughing because someone would hear.
Dean smirked into his drink. “You kissed me first.”
Your jaw dropped immediately. “I absolutely did not.”
“You absolutely did.”
“You flirted with me for like six straight months!”
“Worked, didn’t it?”
You rolled your eyes hard, but you were smiling now. Dean noticed, and then noticed how close you were sitting suddenly. At some point during the conversation, you’d both drifted toward the middle cushion without realizing it, to where your knees were almost touching.
Dean’s gaze dropped briefly to your mouth before he could stop himself, and your smile faded just slightly when you caught it. But neither of you looked away.
“You know,” you said softly, “you were kind of an ass back then.”
Dean snorted. “Back then?”
You laughed under your breath, then Dean leaned a little closer.
“So were you.”
“Oh, absolutely.”
“You drove me insane.”
“You drove me insane first.”
Dean’s eyes flicked between yours. God, there it was again. That same tension you used to dance around when you were younger, before life got messy and bloody and complicated. Only now, neither of you was sixteen anymore. Neither of you was pretending not to notice it.
“You still do,” Dean admitted quietly.
Your breath caught a little, just enough for him to notice. And then, you kissed him. Quick at first, like maybe you were testing if it was a bad idea. Dean answered immediately, one hand coming up to your jaw instinctively as he kissed you back harder.
And wow. Yeah. He remembered this, too. The whiskey on your tongue. The way you grabbed his flannel like you were annoyed about wanting him. You pulled back barely an inch, laughing softly against his mouth.
“This is such a bad idea.”
Dean grinned, forehead resting against yours. “Probably.” Then he kissed you again anyway.
He shifted you onto his lap in one quick and eager motion, his hands gripping your hips as your mouths moved together in a slow, heated kiss that had been building for the last twenty minutes. His tongue slid against yours, tasting like whiskey and cheap mint mouthwash. Every time you rocked against him, you felt how hard he already was beneath his jeans.
Dean pulled back just enough to breathe against your lips, green eyes dark with want. His thumb brushed your bottom lip, voice rough and low.
“Been thinking about this since you got here,” he murmured. “Hell, been thinking about it for years.”
Your breath hitched, because of course, the thought had slipped your mind once or twice. The frantic making out, hands under clothes, the way he’d groaned your name like a prayer when you ground down on him. You’d been interrupted by Sam before anything more could happen.
Dean’s lips curved into that cocky smirk, but his eyes were soft. “We’ve got unfinished business, sweetheart. Don’t y’think?”
You didn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”
He kissed you hard once more, then lifted you off his lap like you weighed nothing. You grabbed jackets and slipped out the back door quietly. Bobby was upstairs snoring, and Sam was out cold in some dusty guest room a few doors down.
The cool night air hit your flushed skin as Dean opened the back door of the Impala and guided you inside. The second the door shut, it was like a dam broke.
Dean pulled you into his lap again, hands sliding under your shirt to cup your breasts as he kissed you deep and filthy. “Been dying to get you back in this car,” he growled against your neck, teeth grazing your pulse point. “Gonna make you feel so good, baby.”
You moaned as he tugged your shirt off, his mouth latching onto one nipple while his hand worked the other. He was rough but attentive, sucking and biting just hard enough to make you arch into him. Your fingers tangled in his hair, tugging the way you knew he liked.
“Dean… please.”
“Look at you,” he breathed, eyes raking over your face. “So fucking perfect. Always have been.”
He lay you back across the wide leather seat, hovering over you. “Been dreaming about this for years,” he growled against your neck, kissing and biting his way down your body. He yanked your jeans and panties down in one rough motion, tossing them aside.
Dean settled between your thighs, pushing your legs wide. He looked up at you with that wicked smirk. “Gonna take my time with you first.”
He didn’t wait. His mouth descended on you, hot and hungry. The first slow lick from your entrance to your clit made your back arch. Dean groaned at your taste, like he’d finally gotten something he’d been craving forever.
“Shit, you taste even better than I imagined,” he muttered, then dove back in.
His tongue worked you expertly; long, flat licks followed by tight circles around your clit. He sucked the sensitive bundle of nerves into his mouth, humming in satisfaction when your hips jerked. Two thick fingers pushed inside you, curling and stroking that perfect spot while his mouth devoured you. The wet, obscene sounds of him eating you out filled the car.
You moaned loudly, one hand fisting his short hair, the other gripping the edge of the seat. Dean’s free hand pressed down on your lower stomach, holding you in place as he fucked you with his fingers and sucked on your clit.
“Dean—fuck—right there—”
He doubled down, sucking harder, fingers pumping faster. Your thighs started trembling around his head. He looked up at you, eyes locked on yours as he worked you closer and closer to the edge.
“Such attitude, now you’re begging me to please you. Are you close, sweetheart?”
You nodded eagerly, desperately pushing his head down to chase his touch.
He grinned against your center and mufflily ordered, “Come for me, then.”
The orgasm hit you hard. Your back bowed off the seat as you cried out his name, thighs clamping around his head. Dean didn’t stop, licking you through every wave until you were shaking and oversensitive.
Only then did he pull back, lips shiny with your arousal, wearing a proud, filthy grin. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and crawled up your body, kissing you deeply so you could taste yourself on his tongue.
“You’re so fucking hot when you come for me,” he murmured, grinding his hard cock against your thigh. “But I’m nowhere near done with you.”
He shoved his jeans down with urgency, then flipped you onto your hands and knees, positioning himself behind you. One hand gripped your hip, the other slid up your back and fisted your hair, pulling just enough to make you gasp.
He pushed into you in one deep thrust, bottoming out with a groan. “Fuck, so tight… perfect little pussy.”
Dean set a hard, steady rhythm, hips snapping against your ass, and the car rocked with every thrust. He leaned over you, biting your shoulder as he fucked you deeper.
“You like that? Been waiting years to bend you over in this car and fuck you raw,” he growled, voice low and dirty. “Tell me how good it feels, baby.”
“So good—Dean, harder—”
He gave you what you wanted, pounding into you with deep, powerful strokes while his hand reached around to rub your clit. The mix of rough and attentive was dizzying. Every time you moaned his name, he rewarded you with a particularly deep thrust or a filthy compliment.
When you got close again, he pulled you up so your back was against his chest, one arm wrapped around your waist, the other still working your clit. He kissed your neck, teeth grazing your skin.
“Come for me again. Wanna feel you squeezing my cock this time.”
You shattered around him, clenching hard as your second orgasm crashed over you. Dean followed right after with a deep, guttural groan, burying himself to the hilt as he came.
He stayed inside you for a long moment, both of you catching your breath. Then he pulled out gently and pulled you into his arms. He grabbed the blanket from the trunk and wrapped it around both of you, shifting so you were curled up against his chest in the backseat.
Dean’s hand stroked slowly up and down your bare back, pressing soft kisses to your forehead, your temple, and your hair. The rough, kinky side was gone, replaced by the gentle, protective Dean only you and Sam ever saw.
“You okay?” he asked softly, voice warm. “Didn’t go too hard?”
“I’m perfect,” you whispered, nuzzling into his neck. “That was, uh… worth the wait.”
He chuckled, the sound vibrating through his chest. “Damn right it was.”
The smell of coffee was what did it; strong, burnt, unmistakably Bobby Singer coffee. Dean stirred first with a groan, face buried somewhere warm and familiar. You. His arm was heavy around your waist beneath an old quilt Bobby had thrown over the two of you sometime during the night.
At some point after the… backseat incident, you’d stumbled inside half asleep, laughing quietly and stealing blankets from Bobby’s linen closet before collapsing together onto the couch.
Dean vaguely remembered you threatening to kick him if he snored. Now, morning light filtered weakly through the junkyard windows, washing the room gold. Dean blinked sleepily, then immediately tensed.
Because Bobby was standing over the couch, holding a coffee mug and looking deeply unimpressed. “Well,” Bobby said flatly. “Ain’t this cute?”
You made a sleepy noise beside Dean, face still buried against his chest.
Dean squeezed his eyes shut briefly. “Oh no.”
Your eyebrows furrowed as you slowly woke up. “What?”
Then Bobby’s voice registered, and your eyes flew open. “Oh, my God.”
Dean started laughing immediately as you jerked upright so fast the blanket tangled around your legs.
Bobby looked between the two of you. “Seriously?” he asked. “On my couch?”
“Not on the couch,” you defended instantly, hair a complete mess.
Bobby looked between the two of you, then outside to the Impala, then back at Dean. “Well, as long as it ain't on my furniture…”
Dean was still half laughing, arm thrown over his face now.
You pointed accusingly at Bobby. “You knew this was gonna happen eventually.”
Bobby snorted. “Yeah. Didn’t mean I wanted visual confirmation.”
Dean sat up slowly, rubbing his face. “Morning to you, too, sunshine.”
Bobby narrowed his eyes at him. “Boy, I practically watched this girl grow up. You think I enjoy waking up and finding Winchester draped all over her?”
Dean grinned shamelessly. “Draped?”
“Dean,” you hissed, mortified.
He looked over at you and nearly lost it again because your face was bright red while you tried unsuccessfully to fix your hair.
“You’re laughin’ way too hard for somebody who started this,” you muttered.
Dean pointed at himself. “Me?”
“You kissed me back!”
“You kissed me first!”
Bobby made a gagging noise. “Alright, enough. I don’t need the damn play-by-play.”
You groaned, dropping your face into your hands. “This is humiliating.”
“Actually,” Dean said, stretching lazily against the couch cushions, “this is probably the best morning I’ve had in months.”
You looked over at him despite yourself. And unfortunately…unfortunately Dean looked very good in the morning. Sleepy voice. Flannel half open. That stupid smug grin.
You rolled your eyes immediately to save yourself. “Shut up.”
Bobby shook his head, muttering something about “kids” despite the two of you being fully grown adults. Then he pointed toward the kitchen with his coffee mug.
“Get up. Case ain’t gonna solve itself.”
Dean groaned dramatically, and you threw the blanket off both of you and stood first, stretching your arms above your head. Dean watched the motion automatically, and Bobby caught him.
“Boy,” Bobby warned.
Dean straightened immediately. “I’m respectful.”
“Bull.”
You snorted loudly while walking toward the kitchen. Dean followed close behind without even thinking about it, and Bobby watched the two of you go with the exhausted expression of a man who had seen this coming for about twenty years.
Once Smitten, Twice Shy (Adrian Chase x Fem!Reader) Chapter 1
Fic based on this: ask - thank you anon! 🕷️ 🕸️word count: 4.3k
tags: autistic reader, Adrian being Adrian, fluff, eventual smut, shy reader, forensic entomologist reader, awkward crushes.
⭒𓆑⭒𓆣⭒𓆨⭒⭒𓆑⭒𓆣⭒𓆨⭒
"We have a new addition to aid us with the butterfly threat. Pinched by A.R.G.U.S away from her research project on butterflies at The Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History." Murn introduced you.
An expert in phengaris rebeli or mountain Alcon blue, a parasitic butterfly now with your current thesis, with the incursion of an alien parasitic butterfly hell-bent on taking over humans, A.R.G.U.S. took notice of your paper which described a new form you’d observed.
After delivering it to your peers, everyone mocked the research and said a parasitic butterfly who inhabits humans would be impossible.
Despite the insane level of detail you’d provided as a forensic entomologist expert and finding one in the morgue on a case.
Now you were a laughing stock, only kept at the Smithsonian due to tenure.
Unknowingly you had uncovered a major government conspiracy and subsequently were shipped off to an old rental video store in Evergreen, Washington as Earth’s last defence against these creatures.
This was a bit of a downgrade from your regular lab and office, but at least the annoying gossips of the other professors and so-called experts in the field questioning the clear-cut data you’d provided weren’t here.
There was a group of people awaiting you to give their names, you tried to focus in and remember each one, not think upon the fascinating wasps nest outside in the awning.
Yellowjackets, paper wasps, and bald-faced hornets were common, active from spring to fall, with high aggression in late summer, early fall.
But those wasps outside were smaller, clearly bootanomyia dorsalis or parasitic wasps, identified as a new species last year on the East and West coasts. Tiny and impacting the native oak gall wasps, their parasitic nature paralleled the butterflies you were researching.
"And so you're a scientist?" The blonde asked, you truthfully hadn’t been paying attention to their names.
The wasp nest was preoccupying you, if this new parasitic species was connected to the alien butterflies or pure coincidence? An interesting hypothesis, what kind of lab equipment were you given access to here?
But wait, she’d asked you a direct question and now her expression narrowed somehow even more.
"I'm something of a forensic entomologist myself." You said quietly, trying to break the ice with a silly meme.
Maybe that would help connect with this group? You weren’t great at interacting, being incredibly shy coupled with being autistic didn’t exactly ingratiate you with most people.
Instead everyone stared at you like an alien. Either they didn’t hear what you said or hadn’t watched Spider-Man.
All except for a man dressed in a strange military outfit in black, white and teal. He was currently gasping for air, wheezing in laughter like you were a world class stand up comedian. Clearly the only man of culture in the room, he introduced himself as Adrian.
And then proceeded to quote every Spider-man movie meme under the sun to you, until another lady, who reminded you was Adebayo interrupted.
"Sorry, but what's that actually mean?" Adebayo asked. She seemed kind, with a bright smile that put you at ease.
"I'm a forensic entomologist, I basically study bugs to help solve crimes. Mostly from the bug cycles found within decomposing cadavers." You described clinically.
Everyone grimaced at that, looking disgusted, the usual reaction you found people had. That is except for Adrian again, who right lit up.
"Holy fucking shit. That's the coolest sentence I think I've ever heard!" Adrian leapt from his chair and dashed over. He slightly reminded you of a dog, maybe a poodle, with how his curly hair bounced.
Now he was right up into your personal bubble, not getting your polite step back. But then he thankfully noticed your discomfort, pausing to push his glasses up his nose.
"You might be the first person to have said that to me." You said quietly, readjusting your own glasses. "Usually people seem to find it gross."
“No way, it’s awesome! I love bugs and solving crimes with them? Hell yeah.” Adrian raised his hand up towards you for some reason. “High five?” He asked after a minute of you staring towards your desk, wanting to go set up.
“Um, no thank you.” You shook your head and walked off.
“Alrighty then!” Adrian didn’t seem deterred in the slightest by your cold attitude.
In fact, the others later began to take notice that he seemed to enjoy it. And being around you whenever he could. A lot.
“She seems cool!” He turned to the burly man in a shiny helmet who sat next to him. “Doesn’t she P?”
“Who, the dead-body bug lady?” ‘P’ replied with a roll of the eyes.
“Don’t be a dick Chris.” The blonde told him off.
P was short for Chris?
“Don’t listen to him, I’m keen to see what you can add to our research.” She said over her shoulder to you.
Nodding you sheepishly asked for her name again.
“Emilia, but you can call me Harcourt.” Harcourt offered with a slight raise of an eyebrow.
You made a mental note to try and focus whenever Harcout said something to not incur the wrath of her sharp gaze.
“I’m John, nice to meet you.” Your deskmate, John, introduced himself.
“Where’s the lab?” You asked him, looking around the VHS store.
All you could see were copies of Flubber and cobwebs, which was great, you wanted to know what kind of spiders were weaving them, and that was a cool movie. But where would you conduct your research?
“You’re looking at it.” He chuckled, motioning to the tiny desk next to his own.
“But I need equipment.”
“Don’t we all...” Was the only reply you got.
That ended the lackluster tour of Operation Butterfly’s base, so much for secret underground government funding. Why were you abandoning your lush cushy museum office with air conditioning and tenure again?
Oh right the world was going to end if you didn’t help.
The next few weeks went by with you all trying to get a handle on the alien invasion, you were mostly shielded from the more violent side of things by arriving after the action.
When they were all out on missions, you would spend all your time researching and letting them know any weak points you could identify or discover where the hive might be moving.
Heading out into the field, you were given the pleasant task of doing an autopsy on a butterfly victim. Actually two of them, shot by Adrian or as you now knew his other identity Vigilante.
"Excuse me, I need to calculate the PMI." You said, trying to get past Adrian to perform a proper autopsy of the corpses. He was standing in the way whistling along to an Aqua song.
"I can go to the store and buy you some stuff if it's that time of the month! I'm a feminist and it doesn't bother me in the slightest." He said, red visor gleaming in the sunlight.
"Not PMS, PMI. Post-mortem Interval. How long the insects have been in and around the body, laying their eggs." You explained, unzipping your kit bag.
"Oh woops! My bad." Adrian laughed loudly.
"But thank you for offering..." You added quietly, his grin widening even further somehow you could tell under the mask.
That always made the corners of his eye crinkle, you’d observed. It was nice, he was quite handsome.
“Anytime! I’m a feminist and not at all uncomfortable talking about that stuff. So if you ever need anything I’m there.”
Nodding at that nice gesture, you bent down and got your kit out to start working. As you did so, Adrian squatted down, watching you intently. His hands were cupping his jaw line as you used a bone saw to cut into the body.
“The butterfly implanted itself here, some parasitic tendrils are still apparent in the nerves. I'll need to extract those.” You pointed a flashlight at the chest cavity and noted everything into your recorder. “Cyroablation would be the easiest method. Keep it all intact. Ask Murn for requisition of liquid nitrogen.”
“Oooh sounds like fun! Can I watch when you do that?” Adrian asked, bouncing up and down giddily.
When you nodded he pumped the air like he'd scored a football touchdown. While the rest of the crew looked over at you two like it was the creepiest thing on earth.
This was a common theme, Adrian hanging about when you worked at your desk. If there wasn't a mission to go to, he'd wheel over and check out what you were doing. Or give you something new to do.
“Is this a rare bug?” Adrian asked for the tenth time, handing you over a dead beetle. “I found it under the couch in the back room here!”
You thumbed it over mostly to humor him, covered in hairs and brown shell. “Paracotalpa ursina, also known as the little-bear scarab beetle or simply little bear. See the hairs? It’s a common native beetle.” Putting the bug under your microscope, you showed off the little fuzzy hairs across the shell.
“So cool, you’re like a real life Pokedex!” Adrian beamed down at you, lingering around as you worked at your lab desk.
“Um, thank you.” You said eventually, wondering if he’d leave or not. Instead Adrian stayed sitting down on a nearby stool, watching what you were doing in a curious reverence.
“It’s true, you just know all the latin names like that!” He insisted.
“The binomial nomenclature is interesting if you’re into etymology. But those who can’t distinguish between etymology and entomology really bug me in ways I cannot put into words.” You tried out your long-winded nerdy joke.
At first feeling silly for saying it until the gears ran their course in Adrian’s head and he was in stitches beside you.
When he gained back the powers of speech, wiping a stray tear under his glasses, Adrian told you, “you’re so funny! I love when you crack jokes. How come you don’t do it more often?”
You thought that was rather obvious but answered as he earnestly awaited a reply, “Well...I’m shy.”
“Really?” His green eyes magnified somehow even more behind his 70s styled frames in shock.
Was he making fun of you right now? But no, his surprise seemed to be genuine. You always did have trouble telling though.
“Yes.” You said simply, turning back to your work.
“Ohhh!” It was as though he’d solved a great mystery of the universe, “That’s why you’re so cute and quiet all the time.”
“Cute?” You were seriously confused. How did that apply to you?
“Yeah like a kitty cat. All skittish and cold appearing but deep down sweet. Maybe a little bit evil. That explains it!” Adrian ignored your question, rushing off to find another bug for you to identify for him.
With a shrug, you decided he just meant it in an offhanded way and went about your afternoon as per usual. Dissecting the alien butterfly recovered from the previous encounter with them that the gang got for you to check out.
When Adrian returned, head cocking as you explained that the red-cross shield bug or elasmostethus cruciatus was a kind of stink bug which was why an unpleasant aroma was in his palm, you couldn’t help but think he looked funny.
“What is it?” He asked, nose bunched up as he got some hand sanitizer out while you giggled. Kneeling down, he checked out the alien you’d expertly bisected in half.
“You’re loud and cute all the time just like a dog.” You explained, giving his curly head a small pat. “Good boy!”
Adrian gulped heavily at that, leaning into your touch. “I’m your…huh?” For once he was lost for words.
“Because you said I was shy like a cat, I think you’re loud like a dog. Personality wise.” You took your hand away to focus back on the microscope, unaware of how much he was blushing right now.
“R-right. Duh…um see ya!” Adrian laughed, running off again. This time you didn’t see him until the end of the day. Unbeknownst to you, he was too busy asking Chris for advice on girls.
“Thank you for the lift.” You said, getting out of the Sebring for another day of research.
“Of course, gotta make sure my favorite forensic entomologist gets to work safe and sound!” Adrian grinned as always.
This seemed to become a pattern, Adrian offered you a lift because your place was ‘on the way’, even though you looked his address up on Google Maps and it added an extra twenty minutes to his commute.
You’d walk together to get a regular coffee order from Jitters cafe in the mornings now. He knew yours off by heart and got the barista to remake it if they got it wrong. Something you could never do with your shyness and anxiety.
In fact whenever someone acted out of turn with you, Adrian was suddenly there letting them know it bothered you on your behalf.
He had even picked up on the sensory issues you had despite not telling him and informed the crew.
He reminded you when it was time to eat by leaving a small post-it note at your desk with a well-drawn cartoon very hungry caterpillar and lunch? :) written underneath.
Despite you wanting to get the same thing every day, that suited Adrian just fine, who also ordered the same thing. He didn’t seem to mind that you never said much, doing 90% of the talking.
While others tried to pry you out of your shell, Adrian picked the shell up and listened to the sounds of the ocean, content to let you be shy with him.
It was super refreshing and really nice.
For the first time in a long time, you had made a friend who enjoyed being with you for you.
“Check out this one. Turns out maggots are polly pocket sized!” Adrian showed you another meme, this one of some maggots sitting in a polly pocket house display.
“So cute.” You smiled at the screen, Adrian nodding.
“Yeah, really cute...” Adrian agreed, dreamily gazing right at you.
Driving you home each night, because the bus wasn’t safe, although you reminded him that the statistics of driving accidents weren’t much better.
“Not when you’re in the car with me! I’m an incredibly safe driver.” He’d argue with a big pout. “Besides, any weird guy could mess with you on public transport.” Adrian insisted, opening the door for you at your apartment complex.
“Why would a guy want to ‘mess’ with me? I’m nothing special to look at.” You stated the obvious but Adrian gasped like what you said was sacrilegious.
“You’re special! I think so, I’m always looking at you…” Adrian tried to flirt with you, but it went way over your head.
“Well thanks for saying so. But still it costs you gas money to drive me around right?” You fished through your purse but Adrian refused to take any cash, shaking his head stubbornly.
“Did you want to have some hot cocoa upstairs then?” You offered instead and Adrian froze.
“Um sure…” He agreed with a heavy gulp. But you didn’t notice the shift in his attitude on the way upstairs.
“You invite guys up often or?” Adrian wondered aloud, looking tense about something.
“Not really. You’re the first in a long time.” You shrugged, you didn’t have many friends.
Heading to the kitchen, you were blissfully unaware of his small fist pumping and anxious butt dance or the insane pep talk he was currently giving himself.
“Oh my god Adrian Jr., this is it! P told me that if a girl invites me upstairs it means time for some sexy action…” Adrian informed his crotch, dancing away to the beat of Once bitten, twice shy by Great White playing in his mind.
“You got the rhythm, you got the speed…mama's little baby likes it short and sweet…” Humming aloud, his hands went down unbuckle.
This was so awesome, he had the biggest crush on you but wasn’t sure if it was obvious to you or not.
The gang all said it was obvious. But you didn't really pick up on social cues much. Something John said Adrian shared in common with you.
Man, John was hilarious!
Where did he even get his material from?
“I said my, my, my, I'm once bitten twice, shy babe…” Unzipping his jeans, Adrian was so ready to show you how much he’d been thinking about this moment.
“My, my, my, I'm once bitten twice shy baby…” You were so cute, so smart, so funny, so shy…he wanted to kiss you. See if you'd blush.
“My, my, my, I'm once bitten twice shy baby…”
And do other stuff…like bonding things.
The last time he bonded over a threesome with Peacemaker and a lady from the bar he'd messed up. Adrian said your name the whole time, whispering it, eyes shut imagining the other woman was you.
But it was cut short when she told Adrian to fuck off and kicked him in the balls.
Turns out that thinking about other people during sex wasn't a cool thing to do and made people really mad! Who knew?
“Do you like jet-puffed or rocky mountain marshmallows?” You called out from the kitchen, picking up two steaming mugs.
One said warning! ⚠️ I will talk about bugs 🪲 and another was entomological diva 🐛.
Upon realising you actually meant going upstairs for a drink and not sex, Adrian found himself with his pants down to his ankles, a hopeful boner that wouldn't go away and you about to walk right in.
Record scratching, yep this is me. Bet you're wondering how I got into this mess. The meme entered Adrian's mind and lightning fast he wrenched his pants back up, fumbled with his belt just in time.
You were none the wiser thankfully walking into the living room.
“Either is fine!” Adrian's voice cracked. He was sitting on your couch, bright red, a throw pillow over his lap.
“Are you sweating?” You asked, putting down the mugs. “I can put the air conditioner on.”
“Uh yeah, that might be good. I'm feeling kinda hot haha.” Adrian laughed wildly, picking up the mug and immediately burning his tongue on it.
After you came back to sit down the two of you sipped on your cocoa and Adrian stared around your living room. Everything was bug related, it was super adorable. Books lined the walls along with your impressive set of degrees and honors, golden plaques that looked fancy, a series of jarred insects and pinning.
Also a ton of bug type pokemon plushies and merch, beedrills, Illumise, butterfree, a massive metapod and many more lined a nice glass cabinet.
But what really gave him pause was the insanely beautiful art on your wall of insects.
“Wow, nice art! These are so cool, where did you buy them from?” Adrian pointed at the framed watercolours on the wall.
“Oh, I painted those. I like dabbling in naturalist art, insects and botany mostly. Sometimes birds as well.” You said casually, showing him your art desk and some sketchbooks for current projects.
“Dabbling? You’re like a pro…” Adrian gawked, flipping through every page. He couldn't believe how talented you were.
“Incredible! Fantastic! He complimented every single work, making you a little bashful.
“I like to go for scientific accuracy with them, observational studies for my work. The framed ones are my favourites though." You found yourself chatting away about them, shyness slipping for a moment until Adrian stared right up at you.
Then you fell silent again, his gaze seemed to have a strange effect on your heartbeat lately.
“Oh my god no way!” Adrian shouted when he got to a page near the end of your sketchbook.
“Wonderful, I freaking love this owl! A saw-whet, I listen to them all the time at work!” He explained, licking his lips excitedly to regale you with the video recording of their hooting off his phone.
Seeing how much he loved your painting made you feel a sense of pride wash over you. “You can have it.” You said quietly.
“Huh? Are you sure? How much, I’ll buy it off you. I believe in paying artists their worth.” Adrian got out his wallet and this time you shook your head stubbornly.
“Let’s call it even for you giving me a lift all the time this past month. Also I can tell you appreciate it and will give my painting a good home. ” You told him with a small, rare smile that made him go bright red.
“Thank you, I will, I so so will! I’ll get one of those fancy gilded frames like the art museums have!” Adrian nodded, holding up the watercolour when you got it into some mountboard like it was solid gold.
“Goodnight!” Adrian said, giving you a great big hug. “Thanks again for my painting Frida Kahlo!”
“Goodnight.” You squeaked, returning the hug, unused to being touched that way. “And you're welcome.”
Watching him wave all the way until he got in the elevator, you smiled.
What a funny guy. Adrian was pretty handsome and sweet actually. If you were to have a boyfriend, you'd like it to be someone like him. But that was a silly fantasy, Adrian wasn't interested in you.
If he was then he would have told you so by now.
The next morning Adrian got into the office and decided to do some digging. He wanted to know when he could give you a birthday present and really it was Murn's fault really for leaving their files in a cabinet with such a pickable lock.
When he found your file, tracing a gloved finger over your pretty photo, Adrian saw that it was birthday next week!
How lucky was that?
But you didn't seem as hyped as he was about it, saying that you didn't want a big celebration or anything. So Adrian agreed to keep your day low key but told the gang and organized a small gathering in the break room.
“Happy birthday!” Adrian grinned, handing you a lovely teal box with a big white bow.
“Oh, thank you. That’s really kind, but you didn’t have to,” You began but Adrian cut you off, too excited.
“I know you didn’t want a big party or anything special but this is a gift for you because you’re really special to uh well you know…the team and stuff!” Adrian chickened out at the last second, unable to tell you how he really felt.
It was difficult when you stared up at him like that. You were too cute and his dumb brain would shut off.
You frowned slightly at that, “It says it's only from you on the card though.” Holding out the card, it read;
Happy birthday to my favorite forensic entomologist! 🐞
I hope this gift helps you continue with your amazing work.
Best wishes,
Adrian
“Uh well yeah I guess this one is just from me.” Adrian admitted, uncharacteristically shy.
“We got you a gift card for the local bookstore.” Adebayo explained, pointing at the smaller envelope on the table.
“Thanks! That's kind of you guys.” You were excited to spend it, already having a few new titles around moths in mind.
Then you set your attention back on the big gift from Adrian. “I wonder what this one is?”
Curiously, you untied the ribbon and carefully unwrapped the nice paper to keep for something. Inside it was a large wooden box with the unmistakable golden owl logo of Schmincke.
Opening it, you were faced with a full 140 watercolour set with ceramic half-pans, fine brushes all in a fancy gold rimmed case.
“These are way too much, this brand is usually…” You knew it was at least worth a couple grand, this was also the high-end grade of paint pigments.
They were beautiful and the gesture was incredibly nice, but it wasn’t practical.
“Don’t worry about that!” Adrian said quickly. “Do you like them? Can you use them?” He flashed you a toothy grin but you were still worried about the hefty price tag.
Adrian often complained about money to you, he didn’t earn much as a bus boy.
“I do, but I can’t accept a gift this expensive. You should return the case and get your money back Adrian.” You said, trying to be considerate but Adrian’s face fell.
“No, they’re a present! Seriously, keep them, make more amazing art.” Adrian argued firmly.
“I can’t.” You gently pushed the case towards him.
“You can.” Adrian pushed it back.
“No really…” You pushed it forward again.
“Yes really!” Adrian nudged it right back towards you.
This went on for a while until Adebayo interjected with a gentle pat on his shoulder, “Adrian, maybe just take them back.”
He stared down at the wooden box for a short while before eventually replying, “fine.”
Picking the wooden box up, Adrian slung it under his arm with a sigh. “It was stupid anyway.” Before he left, you saw that tears were glistening behind his wire-frames.
“What’s wrong?” You called after him, stumped as to why he could be crying like that. “Adrian?”
Trying to run after him was no use, he was so much faster than you were and was already sprinting well out of reach.
When you slumped back into your chair, staring at the dwindling birthday candles on the big cake Adrian had ordered you. It was in the shape of the very hungry caterpillar, made by a popular custom cake decorator in Evergreen.
Another expensive purchase. That was strange.
Looking up from the cake you were met with two sets of serious eyes staring back down at you.
“Girl, we need to have a chat.” Harcourt said solemnly.
“Like yesterday, it appears.” Adebayo added just as severely.
“About what?” You asked, completely in the dark.
They both rested a hand on your shoulder with a deep sigh.
When Damian saw you for the first time, he genuinely thought you were interesting.
Ever since he fell in love, you became his muse, his sketchbooks now filled with drawings of your chains, your eyes lined with kohl and the light that reflects off your chains.
If your eyeliner is uneven, and you complain about it, Damian without hesitation fixes it. Fingers smudging the uneven parts with precise touches, face serious and concentrated at the task. You blink at him with surprise. “It was crooked. I corrected it. Stop staring.”
He brings you little trinkets from his outings. Themed earrings, patches, stickers, anything that matches your style and makes him think of you.
Not one to listen to metal or grunge, but when he misses you, your favorite songs find their way to his headphones. He'll never admit he likes listening to Nirvana, but you find him humming Something In The Way, for both yours and Bruce's amusement.
Your confident persona and your lifestyle inspire him. Every type of art gets his attention, and you're a walking & talking masterpiece.
Someone tries to comment on your clothes? Damian appears behind them like he was summoned by the disrespect.
p.2 of 'it's getting hot in here?' where Jonathan and Martha for Clark's and reader's safety always try to interrupt any moments the two have alone together. in the room together, interupting with excuses every two seconds. Clarks supposed to go over to readers, no Jonathan needs help with something. They want to 'study', Clark's door is removed so the 'hinges can be oiled'. They want to see a movie together, let's do a family thing
ahhh i absolutely love this haha hope you enjoy it!
It’s Getting Hot in Here (Again)
Smallville Clark x Reader — Part 2
part one
REQUESTS ARE OPEN
summary: After clark almost set you on fire, you two can’t catch a break — no matter how innocent or romantic their moments get, Jonathan and Martha always find a reason to interrupt. Fluff!!!
word count: 1.4K
It had been a week since The Incident.
That’s what the Kents had started calling it — capital T, capital I — spoken in the same grim tone they might use for “meteor shower” or “barn fire.”
And ever since, Clark and you had officially entered what could only be described as supervised dating probation.
—————
It started small.
You’d be sitting together on the couch, shoulders brushing, watching a movie in the Kent living room, when Martha would just happen to wander through every ten minutes.
“Need any snacks?” She’d ask, already carrying a tray of them.
“No thanks, Mrs. Kent,” you’d answer sweetly.
Five minutes later…
“Popcorn? Water? Fresh air?”
Then Martha would poke her head in, smiling too wide. “Everything okay, kids? Temperature’s good? Not too warm, right?”
You and Clark would exchange a look. “We’re fine,” you’d both say in unison.
Martha would nod thoughtfully. “Good. I just, you know… don’t want the curtains catching fire.”
Clark groaned so loudly it startled the dog. “They’re acting like I’m one passionate glance away from an extinction-level threat.” Clark whispered. You giggled.
————
Clark’s room smelled faintly like laundry detergent and aftershave. You were sitting cross-legged on his bed, “studying,” which really meant tracing your finger over his arm while he tried to pretend he was focusing on his notes.
He smiled, that shy, slow one that made his ears go pink and leaned closer. You were kissing, Clark’s tongue almost about to touch yours when-
SCREECH.
The door literally came off its hinges.
You both froze. Jonathan stood there holding a screwdriver like it was a badge of honor.
“Just—uh—needed to oil the hinges,” he said gruffly. “Don’t mind me.”
“Dad!?” Clark exclaimed, still halfway leaned over you.
“Carry on, son.”
“Dad you can’t be serious…it doesn’t even squeak.” Clark’s shoulders slumped.
“Clark don’t argue with me, I know how and when to oil the hinges of the doors in my house.” Jonathan argued.
Clark stared in disbelief.
A beat.
“Actually don’t carry on. I need help oiling these.” Jonathan speaks.
You leaned your face onto Clark’s arm an amused smile on your face. “Guess we’re an open-door policy kind of couple now.”
Clark groaned. Getting up. “They think I’m gonna set you alight with my teenage hormones.” Clark spoke.
I tilted my head “well…” my voice high pitched.
“That was one time!” Clark defended walking after his dad.
—————
Later that day, Clark had plans to come over to your house for dinner. You’d actually cooked. Pasta, salad, the whole thing. You’d set the table, even lit candles — but then the phone rang.
“Hey,” Clark’s voice came through, sounding sheepish. “So… my dad says he, uh, needs help with something in the barn.”
You frowned. “Right now? At six o’clock?”
“Apparently the tractor’s… unstable or something.” Clark sighs rubbing his temple.
You stifled a laugh. “Clark you’re kidding!” You sigh looking at all your hard work laid out on the table.
“I’m sorry,” he said, sounding genuinely mournful. “He won’t even tell me what I’m fixing.”
You sighed. “He’s doing this on purpose.”
There was a pause. Then, in the background, you could clearly hear Jonathan yell, “Don’t make me come drag you out, son!”
Clark groaned. “Yeah. Definitely on purpose…I’m really sorry y/n.”
“It’s fine…” it wasn’t. You hung up, muttering something about farm chores ruining romance.
Exactly ten minutes later, in the middle of you pouting at the table, there was a whoosh and your kitchen curtains fluttered. Clark appeared in a blur, cheeks pink, hair ruffled.
He superspeed-sat, grabbed a fork, and devoured a plate of pasta in fifteen seconds flat. You blinked.
He grinned, a little sheepish. “Didn’t want it to go to waste.”
You laughed, leaned over, and wiped a spot of tomato sauce from his lip. “You liked it?” You asked.
“Best pasta I’ve ever had.” He says. He kissed you quick, just a flash of warmth, before disappearing again in a gust of wind.
You smiled to yourself.
—————
By the weekend, the sabotage had reached new levels.
You’d planned to go see a movie together in town, you even had tickets. You showed up at the Kent house all excited, wearing his blue jacket you’d ’forgotten’ to give back. Clark was halfway down the stairs, grinning, when Martha called from the kitchen.
“Clark! Change of plans!”
He froze mid-step. “…What kind of plans?”
“Family night!” she said brightly. “I made lasagna!”
Jonathan added, “We rented The Sound of Music!” Holding up the movie.
You blinked. “The three-hour version?”
“Extended cut!” Martha said proudly.
Clark looked at you helplessly. “They’re never gonna let us leave.”
You squeezed his hand, smiling despite yourself. “Guess it’s a good thing I like your parents.”
Jonathan overheard that, of course. “We like you too, sweetheart! Especially when you’re not burnt…”
Clark groaned, face in his hands. I smiled.
“it’s movie night. Family tradition.” Martha smiled.
Clark, deadpan “Since when?” Not once in his life had this happened.
“Since now,” Jonathan said, sitting down between you.
You mouthed help to Clark. He mouthed I’m so sorry back.
At least Martha made good popcorn.
—————
That night, after surviving the world’s longest family movie, you finally managed to steal five minutes alone on the porch. The air was cool and still, the fields bathed in moonlight.
Clark leaned against the railing beside you, hands tucked in his jacket pockets. “You know,” he murmured, “we’ve been alone for five seconds now, do you think they’ve declared a national emergency yet?” He asked sarcastically.
You smiled, bumping his shoulder. “You know they only mean well, right?”
He sighed, glancing back toward the glowing farmhouse windows. “Yeah. But if they follow us to prom, I’m moving to the Fortress of Solitude.”
You laughed, softly. “I’ll bring a parka.”
He smiled that boyish, heart-twisting kind of smile and brushed your hand with his.
You leaned your head on his shoulder, and for the first time all week, nobody interrupted.
For exactly twenty seconds.
Then the screen door creaked open.
“Clark!” Jonathan’s voice. “Horses stables need cleaning I think-“
Clark groaned into his hands. “I swear to God—”
You laughed so hard.
—————
It took planning. Stealth. Timing.
And maybe a fake “extra credit study session” note taped to the fridge for good measure.
After weeks of interrupted moments and Jonathan suddenly needing help moving hay bales, Martha asking for “just one more photo for the family album,” and the tragic “hinges need oiling” excuse that resulted in Clark’s door being removed entirely…. the two of you finally managed to find a loophole.
“Your parents aren’t gonna show up in the loft with cookies again, right?” you asked, climbing the steps, notebook in hand, teasing him.
Clark gave a little grin, that half-nervous, half-mischievous one. “I told them I’d be doing tractor maintenance. Pretty sure that’s the one thing that guarantees privacy.”
“Because they’re scared of grease stains?”
“Because Dad knows I actually hate tractor maintenance.”
You laughed, shaking your head. “So? Are you scary when you’re grumpy?” You teased.
Clark shot you a look which only made you laugh more.
“You’ve really thought this through.” You smirk
“I’ve had time to think it through,” he said, almost groaning. “Weeks, actually. Weeks of—” he moved closer, voice lowering “getting interrupted every time I even look at you for too long.”
“Poor guy,” you said, mock pity in your tone. “Deprived of eye contact.”
“Oh, it’s way worse than that,” he murmured, eyes softening before he finally leaned in.
It started slow, that nervous, shy sort of kiss that turned into something more when you smiled against him. He sighed a little, pressing closer, one hand in your hair, the other braced against the wooden beam behind you. There was that familiar warmth radiating off him, the kind of warmth that made your pulse flutter.
Then —
“MOOO!”
You both jumped.
Clark blinked, glanced toward the barn door, and groaned when he saw a cow staring directly at you through the slats, chewing and looking deeply unimpressed.
“She’s staring,” you whispered trying not to laugh.
“She lives here,” Clark said helplessly.
“Yeah, well, she’s judging.” You look back up at Clark.
Clark looked at the cow, looked back at you, and sighed. “This is the most Smallville thing that’s ever happened to me.”
You bit your lip, trying not to laugh, and that only made him grin harder. “Fine,” he said, dropping his forehead to yours with a low chuckle. “If I can’t escape my parents, I’ll take the livestock.”
“Really?” you teased. “She looks like she’s about to call the Kents.”
“Don’t give her ideas,” he murmured, kissing you again, the laugh still in his chest.
A/N;- This was supposed to be longer and better but I've been so busy bro. I can't find the time to write anything😭😭
Chris rubbed his forehead. None of this made any sense. "So you're telling me you've bagged a ten out of ten hottie, with a degree in forensic science, who knows about your... activities and she still stays with you? Completely her choice?"
Adrian nodded, a grin on his face. "Yeah!"
Chris laughed, even throwing his head back to highlight the absurdity of all this. "Get outta here, man."
Adrian's smile faltered, and his expression was replaced with a much more stern one. "She'll be here any minute. You can see for yourself."
"She'll be what?" Chris mirrored Adrian's sternness.
"I invited her over. I wanted her to meet my best friend."
Chris was about to lecture Adrian on how this was a top secret mission in a top secret base. That if any of this information got out to the public, they would all for sure be killed, but also that there would be outrage and chaos. Adrian was really testing his patience recently. Not that Chris had much to begin with anyway.
But, upon hearing a knock at the door, Adrian bounced on his feet and rushed over to it. "That'll be her."
"Don't you dare answer that," Harcourt stormed over, firmly placing her arm across the door. "Who's out there?"
Adrian looked Harcourt up and down. "My girlfriend. Chill out."
Economos spun in his chair. "You invited your girlfriend over whilst we're prepping for a special-ops mission?"
"You've got a girlfriend?" Harcourt raised an eyebrow.
Adrian waved his hands around, theatrically. "Yes! I do. And she's standing right out there. So if you don't mind--"
"I do mind actually," Harcourt attempted to block more of the door but Adrian was already pulling it open.
"We all mind!" Chris stepped in and raised his hand. "This is so--" Chris cut himself off, as his eyes landed on you. Adrian really wasn't lying about you being a ten. "Oh, hey. How are you doing?" He ran a hand through his hair.
Adrian beamed, standing beside you. He only ever looked this happy when he was brutally butchering someone. The realization made Chris scratch his head. Here you were, one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen, next to Adrian Chase, some busboy who kills criminals in his spare time. And enjoyed it. A sociopath. He was a sociopath. Yet, he was a dating Aphrodite herself.
There could've only been one reason.
"How much is his mom paying you?"
Your brows furrowed. "Paying me? Like money?"
"Yeah." Everyone in the room looked at you, eager to know the answer.
You just laughed, an enchanting sound. "Nothing. Why would she be paying me?"
Leota stepped forward with her arms outstretched. "Let the girl introduce herself first. Damn!" She eyed Chris, and then turned to you, a massive smile lighting up her face. "Hey, I'm Lee! It's so lovely to meet you. Adrian talks about you all the time."
"No, I don't," he replied quickly. "I mean, I talk about her sometimes but, like, not all the time, Ads. Come on," Adrian forced a laugh. "I talk about her as much as I talk about you guys."
"It's all the time," Economos confirmed, deadpan.
"Well, it's nice to see you all," you gave an awkward wave. "Sorry for interrupting your world saving mission."
"Don't worry about it," Leota dismissively waved a hand.
"No, let's worry about it," Harcourt spoke up. "Adrian, what were you thinking?"
Chris shook his head. "He wasn't thinking at all. He never is."
"I'll take her for a moment, whilst you guys figure this out," Leota grabbed your arm and began to pull you to the other side of the room. "I heard you like ABBA!"
Chris watched as you went past. He noted your body shape and wondered if you and Adrian needed a third. After ogling at his colleague's girlfriend, Chris turned back to Adrian. "So how did you two meet?"
His eyes lit up and his grin widened. "I'm so glad you asked. She was a regular at my work, but I didn't really notice her at first. Then, one day, she smiled at me and, like, my whole world changed. We got talking, and yeah. Turns out she only ever showed up when I was working. She knew my entire schedule. She even knew where I lived."
Harcourt choked. "She stalked you?"
"Yeah!" Adrian nodded, and judging by the expression plastered on his face, he didn't mind being stalked at all.
"Dude, what the fuck?" Chris blurted out. "I thought you killed criminals."
At this, he looked wounded. "I'm not gonna kill her! She even once broke into my house and took some items as mementos. How cute is that?"
"Y'know what, maybe you're made for each other."
Adrian smiled, placing a hand over his heart. "Thanks, man. That really means a lot."
Chris turned away from Adrian. He observed you for a moment, at the opposite end of the room, deep in conversation with Leota. God, you were fine, Chris thought. But a stalker? Could he handle that? Maybe it'd be worth it.
"You know what really bothers me though," Adrian droned on. "I wasn't even her first. Her ex-boyfriend, who wasn't actually her boyfriend - she was just convinced he was, when he didn't even know she existed - well, he sort of ended up having a girlfriend that wasn't her. She still gets upset about it sometimes. And so do I! Like, the audacity of him to hurt my girlfriend! I've been trying to find a reason to kill him for weeks."
Silence.
"So she stalks a man who doesn't know she exists," Harcourt began. "creates some fantasy about dating him, and when she finds out that he's got a life that doesn't involve her - because he doesn't know she exists - it's his fault?"
"Yeah," Adrian nodded, his expression completely deadpan. Of course he thought this was normal.
Chris raised an eyebrow. "No offense, dude, but your girlfriend's delusional."
"Yeah, I know," Adrian looked between Harcourt and Chris. "What's that got to do with anything?"
۩ — MASTERLIST , ۩ — INFO POST , ۩ — PREVIOUS CHAPTER
⸻🕌
I heard someone running through the South corridors before I even reached them.
Jason.
He was always too loud when he was worried. Too human.
But I could not scold him now.
The trail before us—
White flowers. Fallen one by one.
My heart fell with them.
“Flowers?” I whispered, my throat tightening. “Where does this corridor go?”
He answered, but I barely heard him. The sound of my own pulse was louder than his voice.
The air was heavy, like the walls themselves were holding their breath. I lifted my skirt and ran, the silks tangling around my legs, my slippers slipping on the petals. I did not stop. Not even when my lungs burned.
“Please… please…” I begged to no one.
To the gods, maybe.
To fate, if it would still listen to me.
When I saw her—
My maid, my girl, lying on the ground like a discarded prayer—something inside me shattered cleanly, without sound.
The blood had already soaked through the fabric near her ribs. I tried to press my hands,to stop the blood from pooling around her,I used my clothes,my hands my desesperation,but—her body was curled in pain.
And the gate behind her—the one that looked like a cage—mocked me.
She had followed me into this palace. She had trusted me with her life.
And now she lay dying for it,beacuse of my selfishness.
Jason’s boots scraped the stones behind me, but I barely heard him. His shadow fell over us, and I remembered every cruel word I’d thrown at him.
Every moment I’d tried to wound him just to keep him at a distance.
He had called me a hawk, and I had called him a dog.
But none of that mattered now.
“Look at me!” I cried at the maid, shaking her shoulder. Her eyes fluttered, but she was slipping fast. “Look at me, please!”
The poison had already begun its cruel work.
Her breath came shallow, her skin cold and damp,my hands shaked trying to keep her alive.
My throat closed, and my heart screamed, Not her. Anyone but her.
Jason knelt beside us, reaching for her wrist, and I slapped his hand away.
“You don’t touch her!” I snapped, even as my hands trembled.
He froze—like a man struck.
She was my sun. My secret keeper. The one who brushed my hair when my crown grew too heavy.
And now—
Now she was fading before my eyes,and all because of me.
“Your Majesty, please,” Jason’s voice came pleading, almost reverent. “Let me help you. I’ll clean her wound, but you must send for the apothecary.”
I could barely see him through my tears.
All I saw was red—her blood staining my silks, my hands, my life.
“She won’t…” My voice broke. “She won’t—”
“She won’t survive if we don’t find the antidote. And you are the Sultana,” he pressed, eyes fierce but kind. “They’ll move faster for you.”
There it was. The cruel truth of power.
People only ran when I commanded it.
Even when I was breaking.
My gaze met his, and for the first time, I saw no mockery.
Only fear. And something that looked like… faith.
''If she dies, Jason, I swear to the gods, to Lord Ares, I will kill you,with my bare hands.”
The words came out like a vow, and I meant every syllable.
He only nodded, holding her like she was made of glass.
I ran.
When I burst through the infirmary doors, the physicians stared at me as if I had brought war into their midst.
“Prepare the antidote for Oleander,” I ordered, breathless.
“Now. And bring the medic who tends the soldiers—he will know what to do.”
They obeyed without hesitation.
For the first time in years, I saw fear in their eyes, not mine.
My hands were still trembling. My heart felt like it was made of stone and fire at once.
How could I explain the kind of terror that comes when you realize someone you took for granted might die for you?
How could I ever forgive myself?
By the time I reached Jason’s chambers, my pulse had not slowed. The guards opened the door at once, and I stepped in, my stomach twisting.
The room smelled of blood, water, and panic.
Jason was bent over her, his sleeves rolled, hands red up to the wrists, whispering things I could not hear.
He was trying to keep her alive with words alone.
Her face was pale. Her lips were dry.
The fever had taken her, and she trembled even in unconsciousness.
“Move,” I said quietly, and he did.
I knelt beside her, my silks pooling around her like spilled ink.
I pressed my fingers to her neck and felt the faintest pulse.
“She’s burning,” I whispered. My voice cracked on the word. “Please, gods… please.” I begged with my eyes burning.
Jason’s eyes were wide—almost frightened to see me like this.
When the physicians arrived, I didn’t move. I stayed kneeling, watching as they brought the tinctures, the bitter-smelling powders.
When they pressed the antidote to her lips, I prayed again. Not as a queen.
Not even as a woman.
Just as someone who could not bear to lose her.
When Damian entered, the world tilted again.
Jason straightened at once, and I—
I did not.
I couldn’t.
My eyes were swollen, my voice gone, my heart split open and raw.
I only looked at him, my husband, and for the first time since our vows, I saw the same fear I carried reflected in his eyes.
He spoke to Jason. Quietly. Orders, questions, the language of power.
But I barely heard them.
I was still holding her hand.
The chamber had gone quiet,I hated the quiet.
Only the crackle of the oil lamps, and the faint, shallow breaths of the girl on the bed.
The antidote was working—or at least, that’s what the apothecary murmured before bowing and leaving us alone. Jason followed soon after, the door closing softly behind him,I could swear i saw him crying.
And then, only Damian remained.
He stood near the window, half-lit by the moon. The silver light caught on his rings and the edge of his jaw, but his face was unreadable. Always unreadable.
I was still kneeling beside the bed, my hands clenched in my lap. I couldn’t stop shaking,tears rivering down my cheeks.
The blood on my dress had dried to a dark crust.
“She’ll live,” he said at last, his voice too calm.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My throat ached, my eyes burned.
I thought if I opened my mouth, I would scream.
When he finally turned toward me, I saw it—
A trace of something human.
Worry, maybe. Or weariness that matched my own.
“Stand up,” he said softly. “You’re trembling.”
I laughed. It came out broken.
“You command me even when I’m on my knees for someone’s life.”
He didn’t reply. Instead, he took a step closer. Then he kenlt besides me.
The distance between us felt dangerous, almost electric.
“You shouldn’t have come running,” he said, quieter now. “You could have been the target.”
“Should I have let her die alone?” My voice cracked. “Should I have sent someone else to hold her hand?”
He looked away first. His hands flexed at his sides.
“She is your maid,” he said. “Not your blood.”
That was the moment I broke.
The tears I’d held back through the chase, through the orders, through the prayers—fell all at once.
Quiet at first, then harder, until I couldn’t breathe.
He moved before I could turn away, crossing the space and catching my wrists.
His palms were rough, warm, real.
“Don’t,” I whispered. “Don’t touch me.”
“Then stop shaking,” he murmured, his tone low, almost raw. “You’ll faint before you finish arguing.”
I should have pushed him off. I wanted to.
But my body betrayed me, leaning forward, my forehead pressing against his shoulder, I sobbed like a little kid.
He didn’t hold me the way a man holds his wife.
He held me like someone holding a blade—carefully, aware it could cut him.
I felt his breath near my temple.
“You said you’d kill Jason if she died.”
“And I meant it.”
His lips curved faintly, humorless.
“You frighten everyone, even when you’re crying.”
I pulled back enough to glare at him, but my tears only blurred everything.
“I don’t need your comfort.”
“I didn’t offer it,” he said. “I just didn’t want to watch you fall.”
There was a pause. The kind that feels longer than it should.
He reached up and, without asking, brushed a tear from my cheek with his thumb.
Slowly. Gently. Like he was testing how far he could go.
“Why her?” I whispered, my voice barely there. “Why not me?”
He exhaled, something sharp in the sound. “Because whoever sent that poison knows your death would start a war.”
“Would that be such a tragedy?”
His eyes darkened. “Don’t tempt me to answer that honestly.”
I looked up at him, our faces too close now.
For a second, I saw not the Sultan, not the man who made me his out of duty—but the one who feared losing me more than he dared admit.
Then he stepped back. The air between us broke like glass.
“You need to rest,” he said, turning toward the door.
“And you need to stop pretending you don’t care,” I whispered after him.
He froze.
Didn’t turn.
Didn’t answer.
Only left.
The door shut behind him, and the silence he left was worse than any noise.
A/N: Uhh...hi...SORRY FOR THE WAIT OMG I DID NOT GESTION MY TIME CORRECTLY SORRYSORRYSORRY. I HOPE THE CHAPTER IS GOOD ENOUGH FOR Y'ALL TO FORGET HOW I MADE Y'ALL WAIT A WHOLE MONTH....AGAIN I'M SORRY MY BAD MY BAD. GO READ ''𝓦𝓱𝓮𝓷 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝔀𝓪𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓶𝓮𝓮𝓽𝓼 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓼𝓪𝓷𝓭'' BY @gothamwing FOR AN ALTERNATIVE POINT AND STORYYYY!!!!! HER WRITING IT'S GENUINELY AMAZING!!!!
🔖 𓂃⋆.˚:: @simpingmyassoff @shootingstargirl2001 , @dreamerwhofell , @gothamwing , @amiratheangel , @virtaideen , @asterwriter221 , @1234ilikecowsthanyoumore , @supahnohvaa , @vivian-555 , @piatosniathenie , @sonyboos , @tikitsune , @honeydrzzldpeaches , @specklesreid , @gojoswaterbottle , @xxdiaqiaoxx , @vivian-555 , @rough-rogue , @d4wnl1ght-x-l , @senatorpadmeamidala, @dhazefawn , @chiizuluvr , @kermits-bitch , @strawbrysapphic , @thejokersfavouritecrowbar , @anotherbook-obsessedhoe , @crutoyu , @adeptusxia0 , @morganblues , @xxdiaqiaoxx , @niccocia , @awakenedevildays ,@rebeccawinters , @pu5ssyfairy , @misdollie , @maymaymarch , @tigerf-cker , @neenieweenie , @@crissy09yesso , @hostilityghost , @xxjesshuxx , @girlblogger-04 , @astrlape , @voldemortstolemyshampoo , @caramelised-onions , @iluvoaldmen , @mysh-lynnn , @sunlightsunset , @a-night-2-remember , @justtwotired , @dolcespoir , @corvoqueen , @cupid73 , @shawtybae3 , @neenieweenie (if you want to be added comment down below!!) (needs to be updated)
𝒜rc I: 𝕻ride
𐔌 ⋮ ۩ — 𝕮hapter I ; The Lion’s Den
𐔌 ⋮ ۩ — 𝕮hapter II ; A Cage of Silk
𐔌 ⋮ ۩ — 𝕮hapter III ; Chains in Silk
𐔌 ⋮ ۩ — 𝕮hapter IV ; A Crown of Chains
𝒜rc II:𝕾tate 𝕺f 𝕲race
𐔌 ⋮ ۩ — 𝕮hapter V ; Sultana
𐔌 ⋮ ۩ — 𝕮hapter VI ; Embers Before the Ball
𐔌 ⋮ ۩ — 𝕮hapter VII ; The Strike
𐔌 ⋮ ۩ — 𝕮hapter VIII ; Paranoia
𐔌 ⋮ ۩ — 𝕮hapter IX ; Caged birds
𐔌 ⋮ ۩ — 𝕮hapter X ; Flowers
𝒜rc III: 𝕱ractures
𐔌 ⋮ ۩ — 𝕮hapter XI ; Fractures
𐔌 ⋮ ۩ — 𝕮hapter XII ; Numbness
really loving your adrian fic! this last chapter was especially fun to read 🫶🏽 I was wondering, if you’re still taking requests, if we could get some jealous adrian? 👀 I’m a sucker for the good ol’ jealousy trope
requests are still open!! jealousy trope my beloved
He was watching you from across the bar. He had gotten up to get drinks for the entirety of the 11th Street Kids. But now he was just staring. Lip curled. Brow furrowed. You would know that look anywhere.
He was jealous.
It wasn't exactly a rare occurrence with Adrian. Once he cared about someone, they were his, end of sentence. No sharing. Not even any talk that you might be closer to someone else was allowed. Or else he would pout. Start explaining that you were closer to him in every way. Lie about some activity you had done that was equal. Put his arm around you and hold you close for the rest of the night.
That last part wasn't so bad.
Your night out with the 11th Street Kids was going great, too. Until Adebyo just had to mention the movie you went to with her. The popcorn you shared. And as she went on about the guy on his phone the whole time that you threw popcorn at, you felt Adrian's arm curl around your shoulders.
Then Chris asked him to get more drinks. And of course he went, because Peacemaker was asking.
And there, at the bar, he started to brew. Steep in his jealousy till it crawled along his skin. Flared hot and boiling in his stomach. He nearly forgot about the drinks entirely. Too caught up in the way Adebyo put her hand on your arm, and you laughed right along with her.
He was a greater friend to you than Ads....Wasn't he?
Drinks procured and set out at the group's table, Adrian tapped you on the shoulder until you turned to look up at him.
"Can I talk to you?" he asked, none too quietly.
Everyone discreetly turned to see what was up.
"Uh, yeah." You stood from the table and took his hand. "We'll be right back."
Adrian pulled you through the bar and through the back door. Out into the deserted alley that smelled like dissipating cigarette smoke and garbage. Despite the smell, the pavement was freshly wet with rain. And the orange light from the streetlamp seemed to glow in the shallow puddles.
You turned to Adrian with a smile, prepared to ask what was wrong, but he beat you to it.
He backed you up against the harsh brick of the bar, crowded your space with his mouth hovering over your neck, and hands pinning your wrists to the wall.
"I'm your best friend," he stated against your collarbone. Then added weakly: "Right?"
"Y-Yes," you replied easily, "Adrian, what's this about?'
He didn't answer. "You don't do with Ads what we do...Right?"
One hand let go of your wrist to squeeze possessively at your breast. Your back arched, chest pressed to his as you gasped softly. Right. The little bonding sessions you did with Adrian every once and a while. That was a lie. Every once and a while had turned to nearly every day as of late. He said it was because you were best friends, second behind Peacemaker. And he wanted to have sex with you to bond. To get closer.
To be closer than anyone.
"Of course I don't. Just you. Only you," you answered softly, threading your fingers into his curls.
"I need to prove it," he whined, already sucking at your pulse point. "Can I fuck you? Please let me fuck you. I can...Come inside. And I'd be dripping out of you all night. Fuck. That would show them. That you're my best friend. God, please, please, please."
How were you supposed to say no to that?
adrian taglist (if you would like to be added, please comment or message me or send in an ask!): @maple-m0th @vwv-watching-boy @whimsicalforestfairy @geekyginger @dahling-dahlia @obsessiveslug @quietbluetune @caught-the-feels @rattymess @brianna-merlim @orionshead @windyrainyday @boogalishous @sumoattack-gooddog @matchaenthusiast1111 @teascorner @herejustforbuckybarnes @marlboropremiumblack @sageyxbabey @lenaexplorestheinternet @malar-region @prettyprincessfailure @starr60 @joewaimo @cheddarpopcornlover @morstuavitamea-a @kissesofstars @marrowfrog @fucking-avocados09 @vigilanteenjoyer @na-is-salty @notvicodin @jenojen127 @boogiemansbitch @honeybbqblogs @flameonjohnny
READ THE THRILLING ADVENTURES OF FAST BOY AND SLOW GIRL!!!
A/N - Pov: you quietly come back after a week long hiatus just to ignore all your requests and post something nobody asked for: My first Wally fic!! Hope u enjoy⚡❤️ Dividers: animatedglittergraphics-n-more
You never really used your powers for much until you decided to try and join the Justice league straight out of high school because you thought it would be a good way to delay having to go to college or enter the dreaded job market.
The interview went pretty well, Martian Manhunter was curt but patient and afterwards he gave you the little JL card, telling you they'd call you if they needed you.
That was a week ago and now you're sitting at the park eating ice-cream, wondering if you should stop procrastinating and start job searching. The idea making you stare with dread into your cup of melted dessert.
You suddenly felt a rush of wind and in the blink of an eye a very colourful man in spandex stands in front of you with frantic eyes.
“You’re the girl that can slow time?"
It takes you a good second to respond, his eyes only getting wider as he waits.
“…Well it's not technically slowing time. It's more like-"
He grabs the bench on either side of you.
“But you can?"
You just nod and he zips your little cup out of your hand and onto the bench next to you before yoinking you into his arms and speeding away. You barely have time to register anything before you're in an office building with maybe a dozen tied up hostages in front of you and a ticking bomb.
“Stop it!"
The speedster shouts and you drop down to touch the bomb, slowing the counter down at 7.01 seconds. You can hear and see the Flash from the corner of your eye, zipping all the hostages away. You wonder where he's taking them and how populated the area outside the building is.
An earpiece is pushed into your ear at lightning speed and you only get to cringe at the feeling for a second before a deep voice calls your name and says,
“I'm need you to follow my instructions and disable the bomb."
You look down at the device, it's got two tubes on either side filled with lime green liquid that does not help your nerves. The counter clicks down to 7.00.
“….Okay."
Everything is moving even faster than normal and it's very disorienting but you literally signed up for this so you have to try your best.
“How many wires are there and what colours are they?"
You list off the wires and their colours to the disembodied voice in your ear, vaguely hearing the speedster's tapping foot from behind you. You're sure he didn't mean to seem so impatient but it was a little distracting.
“Cut the blue and yellow wire."
“…I don't have a-"
A gust of wind and then there's a pair of wire cutters in your hand. You go to cut both the yellow and blue wires but then stop.
“Should I…cut them at the same time or-"
The flash lets out a little sound of frustration and the man in the earpiece just says, “Yes." so you snip both.
There's a long stretch of silence where nothing happens, even the speedster is still.
“…Should I…speed it up again?"
“Yes."
You let go of the deadly device and sit back. It's quiet for a moment before that distinctive beep sounds and the counter goes down to 6. You jump towards it, slowing it down again but the voice reassures you,
“The bomb will still count down but it won't go off."
“But what if it does?"
There's a panicked crack in your voice and a moment of silence follows as both men seem to realise that you're a civilian with no training who's been thrusted into a very tense life or death situation.
“Flash, get her out of the building. The job is done."
You don't have time to voice your concerns before you're in the speedster's arms as he stands on the roof of an apartment complex looking over what you assume is the building you were just in. Your heartbeat jumps when you realise you're in the middle of a city.
You count down in your head, clutching the man holding you as you reach one…and nothing happens. You peak your eyes open and let out a relieved sigh, your heartbeat going much faster than you're used to. The man holding you squeezes your arm and smiles a comforting smile.
“See, you did great especially for your first save. Sometimes you just gotta trust Bats."
He watches your eyes widen.
“That was Batman?!"
He blinks at your sudden loudness and bursts into laughter. You only then get a good look at him and actually register how close you are to this stranger. The way his strong arms hold you up to his chest with no problem. The way his chest falls and rises with his laugh, so lively and energetic.
He seems to notice your staring when his laugh subsides and now you're both just kind of staring at each other.
A sigh comes from the earpiece.
“Wally. The bomb."
The Flash, Wally, is knocked out of his staring and clears his throat.
“Hold on."
He tells you before speeding you away again. You open your eyes and you're in front of the bench where this all started. He sets you down and your legs feel wobbly for a second but his hand on your waist keeps you steady.
“Uh, thanks for the help. Sorry about your ice-cream."
You pick up your cup of melted ice-cream with a frown and place it in the bin next to the bench.
“That's ok, it usually melts before I get to eat it anyway."
He huffs as if that's endearing somehow and scratches the back of his neck, taking the earpiece you offer him. His eyes widen and his whole face brightens up.
“Oh, I know a place where they sell ice-cream that doesn't melt! They infusing the milk with polyphenols extracted from strawberries and it makes the ice-cream hold it’s shape for like hours. I could take you there…sometime?"
You nod, trying to keep eye contact.
“…I'd like that."
He jumps, hand going to his ear and his cheeks suddenly look redder.
“Right, well uh, I gotta go…retrieve a bomb so…see you around."
You give him a little wave before he speeds off, leaving you at your quiet park bench. You smile to yourself.
Wally…what a ridiculous name.
He texted you later that very day— saying he got your number from Martian manhunter— and arranged a date that weekend, telling you to meet him exactly where you met last time.
So you waited at your bench, trying not to fret over your outfit or hair or-
A gust of wind blew through the trees and you look up to find a tall redhead looking down at you with a big smile. You blink up at him and he clears his throat.
“Uh, sorry I'm late."
You shake your head, getting up from your seat.
“You're not late, I'm just early."
He huffs in amusement and rocks himself on his heels.
“Are you ready?"
You nod and he turns around to bend down. You take your time getting onto his back, your arms around his neck and as his hands go under your thighs so you don't fall.
You clutch onto him and soon find yourself in an alley. He lets your feet touch the pavement and you regain your composure a little. He picks a leaf from your hair as you wonder how you haven't puked yet.
“You look great by the way."
"Thanks. You look…“
You struggle to find the words. He's gorgeous, freckled cheeks, green eyes and a head of short red curls. You notice his growing smile and clear your throat.
“Aren't you worried about the whole secret identity thing?"
He shrugs, leading you out the alley and into the semi-crowded streets.
“Nah, it's only fair since I know your identity."
You struggle a little to try and match his pace as you walk side by side towards where you assume the ice-cream shop is.
“Well, I'm not an actual superhero. I don't have a secret identity."
He looks at you with a scrunched brow.
“You literally saved the day. You're totally a superhero, you just don't have a hero name and a costume yet. That's all."
You don't know what to say to that so you don't say anything at all as he walks you into the ice-cream shop. He groans when he sees the line of people waiting to be served but you sigh in relief because it means you have plenty time to choose a flavour.
While looking at all the flavours, he leans down a little to say quietly.
“What about Snail-girl?"
You turn to him with an incredulous expression and he tries to stifle his laughter.
“Shut up."
He snorts and you knock him with your shoulder, trying to cover up your own laugh.
When you finally get to your seat, Wally’s prattling on about flavour combos and chemical reactions. He does a good job of filling in the empty space you leave.
“-and it was a good thing too otherwise I wouldn’t have been in that lab to recreate The Flash Incident.”
“I thought you got struck by lightning?”
“No, I did but I also had to recreate the exact chemical reaction that my uncle Barry made when he had his Flash Incident.”
“You got struck by lightning…on purpose?”
He nods his head with a proud expression.
“Mhm, for science.”
You chuckle, taking a scoop of your not-melted ice-cream.
“I was cursed by a magical sloth.”
There’s a pause and you look up, almost choking on your ice-cream when you see his face. He huffs and rolls his eyes.
“Okay, how did it actually happen?”
You shake your head, “I’m telling the truth.”
“No you’re not. You’re laughing.”
He points an accusatory wooden spoon at you and you try defend yourself.
“That’s because you’re a making me laugh!”
“Where is this sloth then? Why did it curse you? How did it do that?”
“I don’t know! It was magic!”
After about an hour and a few more cups of ice-cream— you were still finishing your first by the time he finished his fifth— he still didn’t believe your story but just said he’d let you, “Keep your secrets.”
Afterwards, you took a walk down the pier, chatting about anything and everything. You noticed him deliberately trying to slow down his pace for you, his hands fidgeting in his pockets. He stumbled on his words a little when you slipped your hand into his, glancing over at your hopeful expression.
He laces his fingers with yours and carries on with what he was saying, fidgeting every now and then with your fingers in a display so strangely intimate it makes you blush.
You make it to the end of the pier by the time the sun is setting behind the waves and he shuffles closer, smoothly putting a hand around your shoulders as you both lean against the railing, watching the sky turn pink. You bite back a smile, leaning closer so your head rests in the crook of his neck.
“…I had a great time.”
He rubs his hand down your arm, “Yeah, me too… You know what they say, opposites attract.”
He laughs awkwardly then curses himself under his breath. You huff a laugh and turn to face him, still close enough to feel his body heat. Leaning a little closer, you place your hand on his arm, looking him in his bright eyes.
“This is…moving a little faster than I'm used to." You both chuckle a little at the inherent humour in this entire situation before Wally leans back a little, looking more serious.
He won’t lie, he’s a little smitten and it’s only gotten worse as the date went on. It feels like someone finally gets what it's like having to live in a world that just can't accommodate your pace. He noticed the way the cashier got frustrated when you took a little too long counting your cash or how people would push past you with a huff when you were walking too slow for them.
Every time he glanced at his watch, he’d frown a little because for the first time in his entire life, Wally wished the world would just slow down a little.
And if the world wouldn’t do it, then he would, he’d accommodate for you. His hand slides comfortingly down your arm as he says softly,
"We can slow it down."
His heart jumps at the little smile you give him in return. You lean in even closer, placing his other hand on your waist and snaking your hand up his chest.
You shake your head a little, “I like it."
Then you pull him into a kiss. A kiss that is somehow both fast and slow, soft but feverish, gentle but bold, a perfect blend of what you both are.
And that was that. To be honest, everyone thought the relationship was cute but no one actually thought it would last long. Yeah, it's a funny bit and all but you're just so different, there's no way it'll work out in the end. Then the years go on and you're still happily together and everyone's just kind of confused but happy for you anyway.
They just don't really get how good you are for each other.
You help him slow down when he needs to. Teaching him to saviour the good stuff and enjoy the quiet moments a little more. Patience is difficult but he slowly finds that it's a blessing to be able to stop and smell the roses sometimes. He says that time moving slow isn't that bad when it's with you and you think that's the most romantic thing in the world.
He also helps you get more energetic and proactive. He convinced you to start running which ends up with you jogging and him running literal circles around you while giving you encouraging words. You used to take so long to get out of bed and get ready for the day but now his excited yapping and good morning kisses have you up in no time.
You're both uniquely equipped to understand each others frustrations with a world that doesn't move at your pace and it makes for a beautiful relationship.
Summary - Your attempt at diplomacy with the neighboring nation's prince quickly goes awry.
A/N - tw: Animal death and bad old timey lingo. Happy Halloween! In celebration of me hitting 2k, I give you my longest one chapter fic so far, all 5k words. (That's impressive for me, okay) Dividers: cursedcarmine & zclhs. Art: 02png.
You stare out at the billowing sails floating on the horizon, listening to the seabirds call out to each other like the traders down in the distant market place.
“This man! This Demon!”
The calm is broken by your father’s angered shouting and you sigh, leaving the balcony ledge and stepping back into the palace with heavy but high shoulders. You give the maids a guilty nod, urging them to leave the situation to you and you take your father's hand as he rants on.
“He refuses to negotiate! Refuses to even be civil in his writings!”
“Yes, well, mother was always the better diplomat.” Your unhelpful comment does nothing to calm your father. He throws the crumpled letter onto his desk.
“I go out of my way to extend our precious shores to him and he treats it like an insult! He only wants submission not ally ship, there is no diplomacy with Ra’s al Ghul!”
You walk him up the many stairs to his bedchamber while he fumes, passing by palace attendants who give you knowing glances and apologetic looks. These…negotiations with the nearby mountain nation of Nanda Parbat where not going well it seemed.
Your father wanted to strengthen the trade between your two countries by offering better protections along the trade route which is often crawling with raiders and thieves. The al Ghul royalty was not open to the idea of using their own men to protect what they saw as another nations trade route.
“If you would let me help, Pa-”
“Don’t waist your time as I have, daughter.” You knew he didn’t mean to sound so dismissive but it certainly felt that way, which only made your resolve stronger.
On your walk back to your own chambers you whisper to a passing attendant.
“Bring me my scribe, please.”
You fussed and troubled over the letter for hours before you finally put your stylus down, stretched your stiff fingers and handed the letter over to you scribe, stressing to them the importance of the letter and the necessity of it being translated and delivered with the utmost care.
“Prince of the mountains,
Perhaps be this young naivety but I yearn for tensions between our nations to still and seek appraisal from your throne.
My intention with this letter is to pass over our father's long lasting conflict to extend a friendly, though hesitant, hand of ally ship.
I am aware you keep your city quite guarded in the magnificent surrounding mountains and that opening trade at all was no small request but I believe that strengthening the trade route between our two great nations will only be a benefit to all.
As I am sure you know, our shores boast many goods from far off lands and I intend to share said wonders with your peoples.
I leave this humble proposition at your feet and patiently await your response.
Princess of the seas."
Maybe there was a tad too much flattery but you’d rather the Grandson of the Demon’s Head think you’re a suck up than think you ungracious. It only took a single fortnight to receive a response in a deep green envelope with a golden wax crest. You opened it as soon as it arrived with cautious optimism.
“Princess of the seas,
Your desire for my appraisal is an understanding yearning however your subterfuge of my father and your own only reflects the fragility of your character and your father's utter incompetence in not only his rule but parentage as well.
Your disrespect of both our fathers will be generously assumed to be a product of your self admitted naivety and not a declaration of war.
My nation has already opened enough of our borders to allow trade from your and other nations, a practice that I am wholly against, and we have no plans to further any existing relations or extend any of our men for your benefit.
I deem it necessary to remind you that trading with us is a gift to you and one that can easily be revoked. If you are so ready to forget that then you may keep your precious shores to yourself.
I wish you better knowledge and a swifter hand.
Prince of the mountains.”
You were infuriated to say the least. You got up from your chair and paced around the room, now having some understanding of why your father would get so worked up by mere letters. You penned your response and sent it out within the hour, ignoring your scribes nervous glances as she translated the letter.
“Prince of the barren hills,
I feared, for a moment, that my scribe had done my attempt at diplomacy so poorly that a supposedly well read scholar such as yourself could possibly misinterpret my efforts so horribly.
After thorough investigation, I can conclude that my scribe has done right by me and it is in fact your own boorish self-righteousness that could have possibly penned such a response.
I speak many languages but I must confess that the dialect of yours in specific I find tediously convoluted and vainly self-important. I find it has none of the delicate prose or poetic charm many of your sister dialects share. I say this to generously suggest that I or your scribe have perhaps misinterpreted your intentions.
Do not fret, forgiveness is a virtue my great father has passed down upon me and I bare no ill will. I will repeat that my intention is only to strengthen our trade ties, offering very valuable goods from our proud ports to your nations grand peaks.
We have made efforts to secure a safe route in our own land and I do not see why it would be so difficult for you to do the same through the treacherous and bandit filled mountains you’ve chosen to call home. Especially for a trade route which, might I remind the good prince, is used by both our peoples.
Please accept a gift to show my utter compliance and respect. I do hope it will stay fresh on the long, arduous journey.
Princess of the seas."
It did not. Damian gagged as he unwrapped the rotting fish from it's packaging. His sharp gaze turned back towards your letter, inked in the steady hand of your scribe.
The fish was quickly whisked away by an attendant as he scrunched the pretty blue envelope in his fist, throwing it into the fire. He watched the silver wax seal melt, turning a burnt black. He then sat down to pen his reply, his blood boiling at a similar temperature.
“Princess of spoil,
Your gift is well received.
You may find my dialect difficult but I find yours very simple. That is to say, I do understand your fervent desire for our assistance in securing a safer route. Your kingdom's men are not known for their bravery or skill and obviously cannot be trusted with the task themselves.
I also understand that your men might find our mountains very dangerous and difficult to traverse where no man from Nanda Parbat would struggle or fret. Be this the case, I will not be extending our soldiers to protect any of your sea-legged people, if they fare better on boats then perhaps they should stay on them.
I hope you understand that your transgressions will not be taken lightly, and that if you were a man, I would have initiated a duel for such offenses as you have shown. However, due to my grandfather’s guiding hand and my mother’s wise teachings, I will extend forgiveness and even offer a gift of my own.
Merciful Prince of the mountains.”
Just then the decorated box beside you makes a scuttling sound and you jump away from your desk, calling for an attendant. The attendant takes one look at the little box, hearing the scratching and scraping from inside, and calls for a knight instead.
The knight opens the box with very little dramatics and a little black scorpion scuttles out and onto the floor. You and the maid scream, both clutching at the knight, who looks quite scared himself despite the spear in his hands.
You’ve fought men twice your size but none of them had a fabled venom so deadly it could incapacitate a horse. An assassination attempt is quiet the escalation from gifting him a dead fish, but what else should you have expected from The Demon Prince?
“Prince of cowardice,
If you think my supposed insolence so dire as to make an attempt on my life, be a man and do it yourself.
There is a grove of wood with a large rock formation that lies near our famed trade route. I will be there on the next full moon and if you are not then I will take that as a forfeit of your honour and a show of great weakness.
May the better fighter win.
Princess of the seas”
The full moon was only a fortnight away and the letter would reach him only a few days before that. In that time you trained, planned and tried to find a good enough lie to tell your father.
“You spoil her too much.”
He chides playfully as you tie the end of the braid you've just finished in your horses beautiful mane. She chuffs and kicks the dirt when she sees him.
“You would know about such things.”
You chide back and he chuckles. He pats the steed on her nose, pulling out a few clumps of sugar which she laps up immediately. After a while you clear your throat and decide to just ask the question outright.
“Pa, I’ve been meaning to ask for your permission to go on an expedition of sorts.”
He looks to you curiously,
“Where to?”
“Just along the shoreline, not far. Only a few days trip.”
Half a lie half a truth. His bushy eyebrows scrunch,
“A few days. My girl, that-”
“I can handle that. I’ve done it before. We are in a time of unprecedented peace. I know how to avoid being seen…and she’ll be with me.”
You nod towards your steed trying to lighten the mood a little, your father hums.
“You do not leave our borders. If you see trouble you ride in the opposite direction.”
You nod, feeling a little guilty about lying to your good father but this is for your honour. Now that he's set his sights on you, who knows what else The Demon Prince is willing to do to get rid of you, he might even target your father or your people.
The farewell party he threw was quiet dramatic but you appreciated the opportunity to get as much good food in your stomach as possible before you set off on your journey.
The next few days are punctuated by the mundane routine of travel, sharing meals with your horse while having very one sided conversations, updating your map of the land as you pass and avoiding any signs of human life.
The setting sun shines beautifully on your steed's pitch black mane as she clops down the slight decline towards the evident circular rock fixture you mentioned in your letter.
You pull on her reigns to slow her stride, pulling out one of your slim daggers, meant for throwing at a distance. You take your horse into the middle of the rock fixture, circling for a few minutes until it's clear no one is there.
You wait, shoulders tense and eyes constantly roaming from the surrounding hills to the nearby wood where the sun has started disappearing behind the trees.
You grip your knife when you hear a horse's stride and out of the forest gallops a magnificent stallion with your enemy saddled on top of it.
You'd seen Nanda Parbatan horses before, brought by merchants and traders but this one is truly one worthy of someone called The Demon Prince. Standing tall, the massive horse stomps nearer, it's large hooves picking up grass and dirt.
The rider is also very regal, you must admit, his presence demands attention. He wears little armour, just like you and his eyes train on the knife in your hand.
“You don't intend to kill me with that, do you?"
He sneers in his native language. You circle each other and you, after ensuring he wasn't going to attack you, put your dagger back in it's holder, responding in your own tongue.
“I intend to beat you fairly. In a duel.”
“To the death?"
You unsaddle your horse, drawing your sword.
“We shall see."
He chuffs and steps off his horse, unsheathing his own sword and then dropping it on the ground.
“If we both dueled with blades, you would be dead in mere moments. I would rather not have come all this way for such a sad battle."
Your glare hardens. You drop your sword, getting in a fighting stance, glaring at his amused expression.
You're far from stupid, you know he is the better fighter but that doesn't mean you can't beat him. Your biggest advantage is clearly how much he underestimates you and you have to use that to it's fullest. You deliberately hold the incorrect posture, shifting your feet, clearly showing him where your strike will be.
He charges before you can, tackling you and quickly putting you in a headlock. You try not to panic or struggle too much in his grip, trying to give him the impression that you can't get out of his hold. His arm constricts your airways as he hisses,
“You are just as arrogant as my grandfather predicted. I will bring him your head."
“At least I will fight my opponent with honour while you would rather have them killed by the venom of another creature like a coward."
“Wha-"
You unexpectedly elbow him right in the nose, scrambling up to your feet as you watch him clutch his face with great satisfaction. Then you hear him chuckle and your satisfaction turns to confusion.
“Grandfather was wrong, you are far more foolish than he said. I didn't send the scorpion to kill you, you fool. It's venom could not kill a child."
“Lies!"
You charge at him, angered at the way he laughs in your face. He swiftly stands and strikes you in the stomach before you can react. Your side makes painful contact with the ground as you clutch your constricting stomach. He stands above you with mirth.
“I should leave you here for the utter disrespect you've displayed. Let the wolves find you."
You catch motion behind him and before you can even call out a warning, an arrow sings through the air and pierces the thick hide of your horse, right where her heart is. She cries and bucks, crumbling to the ground.
You scream, scrambling up to futilely try and calm your beloved mare. You look towards the prince with rage but his shocked expression is all you need to know that he didn't plan this.
Another arrow wizes past and you only narrowly avoid it.
“Raiders!"
He shouts, saddling his horse and holding his hand out to you. You only hesitate a second before taking it, straddling his horse as it sprints towards the tree line.
You turn back to watch your mare on the ground and you let yourself wonder if you could circle back and get to her in time bef-
You only have milliseconds to register the arrow speeding towards you before you scream in agony. The small arrow head lodges itself into your back, just deep enough to stick and you cling tighter to the prince's back.
You feel the stallion sprint even faster for the treeline but it's still so far away. You grip the throwing knife at your side and turn to search for an archer among the group of bandits. You give your hardest throw and though it painfully digs the arrow further into your flesh, the slim blade catches the archer’s hand allowing you to make it into the treeline with no further arrow fire.
You struggle to stay attached to the prince’s back as the horse jostles heavily, trying to manoeuvre around forest bush and trees to escape.
You tried to stay conscious, you really did but you would've fallen off the horse if it wasn't for your enemy's tight grip on your arms.
You're vaguely aware of being yanked from the horse, carried and placed down awkwardly before feeling the searing pain of having an arrow ripped from your back as a hand covers your scream. You struggle, gripping at his arms but he only holds you tighter and hisses at you to be quiet.
He lets you go, pushing your shoulders to the ground and lifting your layers of clothes to show your back. You breath deeply as soothing water is poured onto the bleeding wound, looking around at the dark cave he's brought you into.
You hear the echoes of various sounds; shuffling around, clinking, jostling, before feeling him smear a burning substance on your open wound. You grunt, suddenly sitting up as you remember the person who's supposedly treating you is not an ally but an enemy.
“What is that?"
You hiss, looking towards the garish bowl of green paste he's summoned from thin air.
“You are in no position to question me."
Your glare at each other until he looks back to his bowl, picking up more of the medicine on his fingers to apply it to your skin. You turn forward, tensing at the burn but still holding the back of your shirt up for him to work.
You glance towards where his stallion lays against the cave wall. Out of breath but still magnificent. You think of your own steed and the arrow that pierced her, deep but not deep enough to kill. She will bleed out if you don't do something.
While trying to think of a plan, you slowly come to the realisation that you won't be able to save her in time, not with raiders still looking for you. Even if you could, she would never make the journey back home with a wound that deep. You let a few tears trickle down your face, silent at first but then interrupted by a wet inhale you couldn't keep down.
Unfortunately, the prince hears and smacks his lips.
“Children in Nanda Parbat can endure more than this."
You don't know why you dignified him with a response but you did, murmuring,
“I raised her since she was a foul."
You can feel the him falter in his movements for just a moment. You have no idea if he even knows the significance of one's horse to your people, that they are treated as not just animals but as friends. He doesn't say anything else and the only sounds in the cave are your occasional sniffs and his horse shuffling around.
After the medicine dries into a hard paste he pulls your shirt down and packs his supplies away, only leaving his water flask out.
He stands, pulling two daggers from his pants and for a terrified moment you realise how vulnerable you are, injured and alone with no escape.
But then you hear him walk further away to the mouth of the cave.
“Sleep off your wound, our duel is not over."
It's said with guile and you can only stare at his retreating back in confusion. You glance from him to his stallion. Is he testing you? Seeing if you'd be so dishonourable as to steal his horse and make your escape so he can justify killing you or perhaps a future invasion?
You sigh, making the cumbersome effort to stand and trying to stretch without hurting yourself. You look around and start collecting little sticks from around the cave to make a fire with the flint in your pocket.
The prince is gone for awhile and as you lay next to the fire you wonder if this is a show of trust or a test of your honesty. If the medicine is truly medicine or if it's meant to kill you slower. Just as you were wondering if he'd even intended on coming back, you hear footsteps outside the cave.
You jump to your feet, pulling out another blade and stepping in front of the prince's horse. You rest from your fighting stance when the figure comes into the light of the fire.
Prince Damian stands in front of you, your riding gear in one hand and your bloody sword in the other.
“They’re dead. She rests."
He drops the items, walking over to his horse and sitting down. You take your sword, bathed in the blood of both your horse and her enemies. Sitting on the opposite side of the cave, you clean the sword and begin checking your gear.
In one of the pockets you pull out a long braid of hair, the very one you braided into your horses mane. You look towards the prince, who pretends to sleep, reclined on his steed. You watch him, his face lit by the warm glow of the fire. He looks almost handsome when not spouting foul words and sneering at you. Almost.
Taking a lock out of the braid, you plat the strands into a smaller loop and tie it around your wrist, placing the rest in one of your gear pockets for safe keeping.
Usually, a horse's body, just like a loved one’s, is cremated so that their whole being can truly be at peace. You cannot do this for your companion but at least you know she did not suffer for long and her body will be taken by nature soon enough so that she can rest peacefully. At least, that's what you try to comfort yourself with as you fall asleep that night.
The next morning you woke up to the sound of clinking riding gear and horse chuffs. You get up, cringing at the soreness from sleeping on the cave floor, and step outside into the creeping sun.
Damian adjusts the riding gear on his stallion, saddled with both your provisions and his.
“I was going to leave you."
He says without looking away from adjusting his reigns and surprisingly, you don't believe him.
You walk up as he saddles his steed and silently saddle it after him, clutching the fabric of his shirt for balance as you sit behind him. He gently guides his horse and then you're off, riding in the direction of your home.
The journey is a very quiet one, even more so than when it was just you and your horse. You only speak up to point him in a better direction than the one he's going, a short-cut or to avoid more populated areas. He silently takes the advice, you imagine with much humiliation on his part and the thought cheers you up a little.
On the second day, you disappear into the forest again for shelter during the night. He abruptly stops the steed and you look around to try and see the reason.
"Do you still have any of those tiny pathetic knives."
You glare at him, your eyes following his, catching the movement in a nearby bush. A rabbit, a big one too. You slowly take one of your knives out.
"Can't do it yourself?"
He huffs at the comment, "You need the victory more than I-."
You throw the knife over his shoulder with far more force than necessary and the animal stops moving. You let him prepare the meal while you get the fire going and look for any wild fruit in the bushes around you. The meal is bland but well cooked and you both sit in silence as you eat. You look towards the stallion munching on grass nearby.
"What's his name?"
He looks up at you for a long moment, glancing towards the horse.
"Titus."
You nod, strange name for a horse. The silence continues until you eventually let one more question out. You've been riding in the direction of your home with no word on your duel or what will happen when you get there.
"What are you planning on telling your grandfather?"
"That you begged for mercy and I offered it to you in exchange for never asking a favour from me or my nation again."
You want to spit out your food and pull him into the fire but all you can do is sit there and glare, ignoring the urge to scratch at your wound.
Your conversations went like that for the next few days, short and curt, airing on the side of hostile but never tipping over. Although, swords were nearly drawn when you fell asleep leaning against his back while on the move and he pulled on his reigns, deliberately making his horse buck up, almost knocking you off if you hadn't grabbed his shirt in time.
You shoved his back hard in retaliation but he just snickered.
When you finally ride up to the gates of your city, you don't feel as accomplished or comforted as you were expecting. The closer and closer you've gotten, the more you're reminded of your beloved steed. You recognise the land you used to ride with her, you see the way people pamper their own horses as you pass by them on the road and it reminds you of how your father would do the same to her.
"You can stop here."
You shuffled to get off the horse but the prince doesn't slow the steed.
"Don't you wish to show me your kingdom, with all its grand, magnificent ports you speak so highly of?"
You glare at the back of his head but don't stop him as he rides into the city, striding along with the other merchants and traders who begin to notice the face of their prince. Many citizens recognise you as well and you imagine it's a strange sight to see, their princess on the back of another's horse especially when that other is the prince of Nanda Parbat.
More and more people make a path for you, towards the castle gates where you can already see your father, bursting down the grand stairs of the palace. Word must have spread quickly.
Your steaming father makes his way down the very long entrance to his palace, followed by his always nervous advisers.
"What is the meaning of this?"
Damian halts his horse and you jump off, bringing your hands up to placate your father.
“Pa, listen. There were raiders and he saved my life. That is all."
Your father looks between you and Prince Damian, rage still prominent like he didn't believe that this prince could possibly do something selfless in his life. He then looks to the prince's massive horse and seems to only then notice the absence of yours and your riding gear piled on top of the his horse.
He gives you a questioning look and you shake your head. He softens and brings you into a hug, one you immediately reciprocate with a shaky breath. The prince watches this show of parental affection in curiosity.
“Let him go free, Pa, please."
You feel him sigh and he releases you, his gaze turning heated again when he locks eyes with the prince.
“For your service to my daughter, you will not be harmed inside my walls but I cannot ensure you safe passage back to your home."
“I don't need it."
He says, monotone as always. He glances at you, "...but perhaps some do. I will consider bringing your concerns to my grandfather."
You can only frown at such a backhanded show of goodwill that only he could manage.
Your father grunts, turning around to head back into the palace, guiding you with a protective but gentle hand on your shoulder.
You follow him but can't resist looking back, meeting the prince's eyes, maybe for the final time, before he turns and guides his horse out of the palace grounds.
The next few days are spent trying to calm your father once he learned of the wound on your back and dealing with overbearing maids fretting over your health. You definitely wouldn't be allowed out of the palace walls for a while.
A few days pass when you receive a familiar green enveloped letter, handed to you by a curious looking attendant.
“Princess of the seas,
I must express great disappointment that our duel could not play out as it should have and I hope you are not as cowardly as to pass on the chance of a second duel in the future.
You will be very pleased to know that when I relayed the events of our expedition to my grandfather and mother, they did not seem opposed to the proposition of thinning the number of raiders and bandits that litter our grand mountains.
Regarding your fallen companion, I can attest to the loss of a beloved friend even if they are of animal kind, the grief is as if they were a brother. I doubt any steed would be a sufficient replacement for your own but please accept this fine mare as a show of goodwill. She will serve you well.
I expect your next letter to be one expressing your desire for a second duel and your gratefulness in my attempts to humour your trade requests.
Prince of the mountains."
You couldn't even finish the letter as a horrific chill moves up your spine. He gifted you a horse. The foolish man, of course he would do something so immensely ignorant.
You race down the stairs of the palace and out to the stable where a magnificent, huge mare is being handed to your very confused stable hands.
You hear your name being yelled from inside the palace, your father's distinct anger.
And he has a right to be angry, from his perspective, and from the perspective of the many citizens who watched this mare be walked into your palace by the Nanda Parbatan kingsmen, you've just been given a very extravagant marriage proposal from the grandson of The Demon’s Head.
