Another (huge) batch of cm_het_drabbles!
Title: Armor
Character/Pairing: JJ, past JJ/Will
Rating: G
Prompt: pearls
Warnings: None
Notes: This is the next in my JJ/Reid series, the last of which was Ideal.
When it's time to take Henry to see Will for the first time in two weeks, JJ puts on her pearls. She stands in front of Spencer's austere bathroom mirror, her hands shaking so badly she can barely fasten the clasp, and hooks them around her neck like a talisman. She didn't throw much into the car when she left - work clothes, pajamas, toothbrush, some things for Henry - but she zipped them into the front pocket.
They were the first thing she packed, and this is the first time she's taken them out. The strand is the perfect length; the tone flatters her skin. They're definitely date pearls, but this, of course, is not a date with anything but potential disaster. But still, she spins them around so the hook lays flat against the back of her neck and takes a deep breath. They look odd with her jeans and t-shirt, but it doesn't matter.
They're armor. They're luck. They're even better than her gun -- make her feel safer, somehow. They were her sister's Junior Prom pearls, and JJ needs all the guardian angels she can muster.
Title: Untitled
Pairing: JJ/Reid
Prompt: your head on my pillow
Rating: R
Warnings: sexuality
Notes: Follows Armor above
They don't go to bed together the first night Henry is away, but they do wake up together.
JJ dozes off and on for an hour and a half, waking herself up with a start when she reaches for her son's small body beside her and finds nothing but a handful of blanket. It's strange how quickly she got used to sharing a bed, and it's even stranger how lonely it feels now to not. After the third time this happens, she flips on the cheap lamp beside her and sits up, her heart and her thoughts and her doubts racing.
Spencer's awake; she can see the weird, greenish glow from under the door and hear the low hum of the television. He doesn't ever seem to sleep, she thinks, and before she can talk herself out of it, she swings her legs over the side of the bed, peels her nightshirt off, and walks stark naked into the living room with her head held high.
He drops the remote; the batteries scatter across the floor, and she says, "I need to feel something, and it needs to be you, and I will feel absolutely ridiculous if you tell me no."
He doesn't. He lets her lead him into his own bedroom, where the sheets smell like both of them now -- his detergent and her shampoo -- and kiss him blind and insane and desperate, and when she says, "It's okay; I'm not going to break. I'm a mother for Christ's sake, not a virgin," he says, "You are to me," and she half-laughs and half-cries and holds on for dear life.
She wakes up to him looking at her, propped up on his elbow with his eyes sleep-hazy and thoughtful. "What?" she asks.
"I'm trying to figure out if I'm having a lucid dream," he says, his voice rough and -- she thinks -- probably halfway serious.
JJ smiles a little, though she isn't sure if she's hopeful or afraid of the exact same thing. "You're not," she assures him, pulling the sheets over her breasts, suddenly self-conscious.
"Your head is on my pillow."
"Mmhmm," she says, not sure where he's going with this. "It has been for like, two weeks, Spence."
"I know. It's just... so is mine."
JJ pulls the sheet higher over herself, realizing that she's got an angry-looking purplish mark just below her collarbone, and asks, "Is that okay?"
"I think so," he says quietly. Then he coughs. "I'm sorry. I didn't even say good morning."
"Good morning," she says, then she cocks an eyebrow. "Your next move is breakfast, if you're hoping this will happen again."
Both of their faces relax instantly, and Spencer turns his hands palms-out and starts cracking his knuckles. "In that case," he says, a smile playing at his lips, "would you like Captain Crunch or Kix?"
JJ throws her head back and laughs, big and hard and loud, and tells him not to worry about it, after all; morning sex will probably suffice.
Title: Memory
Pairing: JJ/Reid
Prompt: I've seen too much
But I can't go back
Back to how it was
Rating: R
Warnings: sexuality
Notes: This follows Untitled above and is the last in my little series. At least for now, haha.
The second time is even better. Daylight filters through the dusty slats of the blinds, and she can watch him - long and pale, almost ghostly, almost surreal if not for the sharpness of his lines - when he moves over her, and she thinks that his body must work like his mind. It remembers hers, the way he remembers her birthday and how she takes her coffee and the day of the week her sister died.
As he splays his palm in the arch of her back and guides her up to meet him, his eyes awed and slightly terrified, she remembers him telling her about cellular memory; how science speculates that the heart can store things, recall them, know, and that's what this must be. His heart must know. His heart must remember. His body has memories of hers, of the way she needs things, angle and pattern and pace, and just before she unravels into a shudder and a gasp, she says please and he knows exactly what she is asking him for. He kisses her like he owns her, like she's safe, like he will never, ever forget this; he kisses her and swallows her sound so that she's inside of him as he's inside of her, and it reminds her of everything she thought she'd forgotten.
When she opens her eyes, he's still and trembling, balanced on his good leg, just watching her. It's okay, she tells him, it's okay, let go, I want to see you, and he is caught between shyness and desire - strange, now, to become suddenly timid when he's so close to the edge, but that's him - for one long, long moment before he finally does, and he is so lovely in that moment that she can feel her entire chest fill; the sensation of memory creating itself.
Afterward, they are silent in the pools of sun that have gathered around their bodies. They lock their fingers together until the tremors are gone, and they breathe, and the world shifts.
When words come, it is JJ who speaks first. Her voice is quiet and contemplative, all of the edges rounded and smooth. "Everything is different now, isn't it?"
"I... I think so, yeah. "
"Okay," JJ whispers, then reaches to gather his head into her chest.
"Okay," Spencer whispers back and lies down against the sound of her breath.
Title: Momentum
Pairing: JJ/Reid, JJ/Will (sort of)
Prompt: And we won't get caught, if we move around, silently
Rating: R
Warnings: sexuality, infidelity, spoilers for The Performer, language
Notes: Oh, hello latent infidelity!kink... nice to see you.
God, his hands are huge. They swallow her up. She feels tiny, like a fine-boned sparrow balancing there, or the umbrella seeds of a dandelion tumbling over and over and over herself. She can't tell her head from her knees, her own lips from his, and this was not how this day was supposed to turn out, not at all, not any of it, and all she can think about is how big he is, how he doesn't look this big until he's right up there in her face, towering over her from underneath (how does that even work?) with his palm curled against her cheek and the thigh of his good leg pressed right between hers, and God, he's big everywhere; she can feel it, and she just wants to swallow him.
He tastes like the cinnamon toast he made, propped up on one crutch in her kitchen fifteen minutes ago; that and something else she can't place, something darker and strong like coffee, and she just wants him in, and she doesn't care how. And maybe that's the shovel-to-the-head talking, or maybe it's the coming-home-injured-to-an-empty-house-and-a-cranky-baby talking, or it could even be the brandy-in-the-tea talking, but whatever it is, she's listening. All of her. Her blood and her pulse and her hips, all of her throbbing right along to the pounding in her skull, that thump-a-thump-a-thump that is an ache and a want and a need, all at the same time.
And he's big enough to hold all of it, to sink down in, to fill her up and make it better and be there, and he always has been. He's been there -- no one else. Him. Clarity comes all at once, like another blow out of nowhere, and just when she's ready to slide sideways out of his lap and yank him down on top of her like a blanket or a shield or... something, tell him yes yes yes yes yes, he stops.
He fucking stops.
"JJ..." He tries to untangle them, to be gentle and righteous and determined, but she can tell that he is struggling with himself like an animal in a trap.
"Do not," she all but growls. "Do not, or so help me God I will shoot you where you sit. You don't take me here and then not finish."
"Will..."
"Doesn't know and isn't here and hasn't been here. I get my skull shoveled in and you limp in here with a busted-up leg to make me toast, and where is he? Who the fuck knows? Certainly not me. Not Henry. If he walks in, let him." Now it's definitely something else talking; something way down deep, dredged up from the well of her soul and tossed out unceremoniously into the light of day; something crawly and wounded and neglected, something that makes her flinch away from herself.
But not him.
No.
He isn't flinching.
He's still here, his big hands worrying the underwire of her bra, his breath - hard and jagged-edged and nervous and turned all the way up and all the way on - against her hair, his narrow body solid under her, the first thing that's felt good in days.
She makes claws of her fingers and holds on, and she feels him pause. His thoughts have energy and momentum and mass; they buzz around her body like electricity. Inside of his brilliant head, he is everywhere at once; inside of his heart, he's just here with her. Finally. Finally finally finally. But he says, "You hit your head. You're not thinking clearly, I think you should..."
"Shut up," she mutters. "I have a bump on my head, not a goddamn aneurysm. I know what this is. I know what this means. Don't fucking should at me." She doesn't like the shake in her voice, the desperation she hears. Maybe she did get a bigger whack than she thought. Maybe this isn't even real. Maybe this is all a dream, and when she wakes up, she'll still be lying in the weeds of some old, run-down house with a screwdriver poised at her throat.
If that's the case, then she can do whatever the hell she wants, right? And if that's not the case, well, she's just going to have to be quiet so she doesn't wake her son.
Spencer is silent, stuck in suspended animation, his body pulsing quietly to the same beat as her own. He doesn't answer. He doesn't have to. For once, she knows something that he doesn't. She knows that when this is over, everything is going to be different, and she won't be the only one coming home to an empty house.
"Just shut up," she says again, even though he hasn't spoken. "Shut up and undress me. And watch your knee."
He does.
Title: The Landscape
Pairing: Elle/Reid, or Elle & Reid
Prompt: I'm not alright, I'm broken inside, broken inside
And all I go through, it leads me to you, it leads me to you
Rating: PG13
Warnings: language, intense situation, spoilers for The Fisher King I & II
Even before she opened her eyes, Elle knew that nothing was ever going to be the same again.
The pain was all-consuming, a persistent and ubiquitous throb through her body, closing in mercilessly around the edges of her consciousness, but that wasn't it. The pain would pass. It always did, fading into the background of her existence and becoming just another part of her landscape. The gaping wound in her chest wasn't the problem -- at least, not the heart of it.
The problem was following orders, coming home from her job, laying down on her own couch in her own home, and waking up here. The problem was trusting someone else to make the right call, then almost dying because of it. The problem was being left alone afterward to decide what the fuck to do next.
She grit her teeth and slit her eyes at the light and the echo and the blip blip blip of something tethered to her body, and that's when she saw the shadow at the end of the bed. It took a long time to process -- everything did; she was medicated and in agony in spite of it; she hadn't had a fully-present thought in days, and what she had managed to glean from the strange nonmedical silence in her room was filtered through a haze on her brain -- but when she finally did, she realized it was a person. Still on some sort of auto-pilot, she made a move for her weapon before being chastised by a searing pain down her left side, and that made her eyes both water and fly open wide at the exact same time.
As she blinked back the moisture, she watched the person-shadow come into focus and move closer, and that's when she saw that it was Reid. The words she wanted to say -- something along the lines of Jesus Fucking Christ -- got mashed together somewhere between her brain and her mouth, and all she managed was a strange twist of her lips before he was pulling a chair up beside her and planting himself in it, leaning close enough for her to smell him. Coffee and hand sanitizer. He had clearly been here awhile.
"Elle," he said, his voice anxious. "It's okay; don't talk. Hey. Hi. Hello." His hands fluttered over her like he wanted to touch her, but he didn't, instead settling them down on the edge of the bed and working the stiff-feeling sheet between his fingers.
She wasn't sure if her muscles were fully cooperative just yet, but she arranged her face into what she hoped was recognizable as a smile. It must have been, because he returned it, small and tentative but relieved. "Hi," he said again, his fingers rumpling the sheet even further. His hand rested only an inch from hers, and Elle stared down at it, debating whether she could get her own close enough. There was an IV stuck in it, but the line probably had enough give.
The clock on the wall across from them glowed 3:06. Elle could see through the slats in the hospital's version of curtains that it was dark. On the chair across the room, Reid's go-bag -- opened, messy, pawed-through and used -- was tottering dangerously close to the edge. His face, clearer now as her eyes readjusted to the sensation of sight, was drawn and exhausted. It was 3 o'clock in the morning, and he was here, and nobody else was. He was here. He hadn't slept, hadn't left, hadn't done anything but be here, and whether it was one night or eleven she couldn't be sure, but it didn't matter at all.
She wanted to throw herself at him and weep. That, of course, was close to impossible in her current situation, so instead she swallowed thickly -- her throat burned; there must have been a tube down it at some point -- and wet her mouth in preparation for speech. He was watching her closely enough that he figured out what she was doing, and he made a move to quiet her again, a low shhhhh. Elle rolled her eyes and tried anyway. "Just..." The word felt like glass in her throat. She swallowed again and regrouped, lowering down into a whisper. "Just hold my hand," she managed, stretching out her fingers toward his.
He complied, turning his palm upward and sliding his hand beneath hers, careful not to disturb anything that was connected to her. She felt his warmth against her skin, and it was the only thing that felt real or right or normal in her entire body, and maybe nothing was ever going to be real or right or normal again, so she figured she'd better savor it while it lasted.
Elle closed her eyes and did, whispering thank you, Reid; I love you before letting the stroke of his fingers along her wrist and the pull of morphine in her veins lull her back to sleep.
(He waited until he was sure she couldn't hear before he said it back.)
Title: Purr
Pairing: Elle/Reid
Prompt: run my fingers through your hair
Rating: PG
Warnings: vague innuendo?
Spencer is not a fan of the uninvited touch. He isn't a handshake sort of man, nor a clap-on-the-back one, and certainly not a bear-hugger. Even as a child, he was selective about his lap-sitting and hand-holding, preternaturally wary of unsolicited affection. It's always felt false, somehow, like people hiding behind masks of demonstrative warmth, trying to force unearned trust by coming into his space.
This isn't, however, the reason he shrinks back from Elle's fingers one Tuesday morning when she strolls past his desk and runs them through his hair, characteristically casual and off-the-cuff with her flirtation. He trusts her with his life nearly every single day; he certainly trusts the intentions of her touch. No. This is different, and she knows it, because she stops short right behind him and raises her eyebrows when he looks up at her to see why she's there.
"Something wrong, Dr. Reid?" she asks. There's something mischievous in her eyes, a funny little glint like light on water, and and it makes him suddenly want to crawl under his desk and hide.
He doesn't, of course, because that's unprofessional and socially unacceptable, so he just says, "No. You startled me, that's all."
"Is it?" It isn't a question; it's a call to his bluff, and he knows it. He doesn't even bother to answer. "You know..." Elle reaches out for his hair again, and he ducks, but she catches him, getting right down to the scalp and taking a good handful, scratching her nails a bit as she lets go. "I think I've found your spot." She's smiling, because she's right, and she knows it.
"You haven't found any spot," he says, sputtering slightly and feeling very, very trapped. "I just... it's a new haircut."
"No, it's not," Garcia says blithely, breezing past his desk with a pile of files in her hand. "It's a spot. Mine's my shoulders, by the way," she says, winking as she disappears through the door.
Elle grins, drawing her nails up the back of his neck and into his hairline. He flinches reflexively at the reaction it causes, hot and prickly and aroused, shooting straight through him like a current. He simultaneously pulls away from it and reaches into it, and before he can figure out how that even happens, JJ's popping her head up from over the paper she's reading and watching, a smile curving her mouth prettily. "He likes it," she observes. "He's like a little kitten, isn't he?" She laughs and goes back to the funnies.
Elle meows and makes her fingers into claws, then scratches them over the top of his head before she tugs at his collar playfully and continues on her way.
Reid shakes his head to get the feeling of her fingers off of him so he can concentrate, and it mostly works until he comes back from lunch and finds a note on his desk: That was half a minute. Give me an hour and I'll really make you purr.
Title: Sincere
Pairing: Rossi/Prentiss
Prompt: my heart in your hands
Rating: PG13
Warnings: implied sexuality, language
"Just... don't fuck this up, Rossi," Emily sighed, straightening her skirt and fighting with the button. Her hands still didn't feel quite steady. "You will never -- and I mean never -- be with another woman like me." The button slipped through her fingers and took a chip out of the side of her nail, and she swore.
"I know," he said, fastening his buckle and stepping closer. He took her injured finger into his mouth and sucked, tasting blood, and closed her button with his free hand. "There's no other woman quite like you, Emily. Of that I'm fairly certain." There was a light edge to his tone, almost teasing, but when she met his eyes, there was nothing there but sincerity.
At least, she hoped that was what it was. With more failed relationships between them than she cared to count, she couldn't be entirely sure if he -- or herself, for that matter -- had just gotten so good at faking it that it was nearly impossible to tell anymore. She turned to face the mirror and adjust her hair, clamping the clip between her teeth, and her own expression nearly knocked her back on her ass. "Shit," she muttered. Behind her, Rossi raised his eyebrows, but she didn't explain.
Maybe he wasn't sincere, but she fucking was. The look on her face was one she hadn't seen in a long, long time. She took a deep breath and smoothed her hair, trying to put some steel back into her eyes. Her heart was in his hands now; she was going to need all the strength she could muster.
Title: Hot Girl #2
Pairing: Reid/Garcia, Reid/Lila
Prompt: airport
Rating: PG13
Warning: language & innuendo
Spencer didn't know what to do when he stepped off the plane in back at Virginia three days earlier than he had originally planned. Vacation wasn't really his thing -- he did so much traveling for work that it hardly felt relaxing -- and the whole situation had turned out about eighteen different kinds of awful. He should have known it would.
He couldn't take his luggage on the Metro; he'd used most of the cash in his checking account to change his ticket and couldn't take a cab, and he was stranded in the middle of the night on a Thursday. Sighing, he dropped into a hard plastic seat and rubbed at his forehead.
He was just debating the merits of using his duffel bag as a pillow and calling it a night when his phone buzzed in his pocket. His face fell even further when he saw who it was. He did not want to explain why he couldn't make it to Quantico in an hour, but he couldn't not answer, either.
"Hey, Garcia."
"Ooooooh," she responded, her voice crackling with static. "Boy Genius took a cranky pill. What can I do to make it better, baby?"
"I'm fine. What's up?"
"A little birdie told me that you might be back in the neighborhood around 1:12am. Are you or are you not in Dulles as we speak?"
Spencer's heart sank down to his feet. "What are you talking about?"
"You can't hide from Garci, sweet cheeks. If I wanted to, I could've rerouted your plane right back to L.A. Which is not Las Vegas, for the record. Which makes you a big fat liar with a big fat secret. Now before you start sputtering and stuttering about privacy invasion and inter-team profiling -- as cute as that is -- just tell me if you need a ride."
Spencer's shoulder slumped in defeat. There was no point in arguing. She knew. They all probably knew by now. He took a deep breath. "Yes, actually. I do. I emptied my checking account to get back here -- which you probably already know -- and I have no way to get home. So yes. I do need a ride."
"I don't poke around in your pockets, lover. Just your luggage. Which, by the way, will be falling off your lap in three... two..."
Spencer's head shot up and he looked towards the lobby doors just in time to see Garcia snap her phone shut and grin at him. He managed to catch his bag before it tumbled to the floor at his feet, and she plucked it off of his knees and set it on the chair beside him.
"What the hell!?" He wasn't sure whether to be furious or grateful -- he honestly didn't have the energy for either -- so he just settled for something in between.
True to form, it didn't phase Garcia at all. She settled herself into the chair on his other side and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek before he could pull away. "I'm sorry," she said, though she didn't sound it in the least. "I was just worried about you. It's not like you to take time off."
"That's fantastic," he said, his voice acidic. "The fact that I have a life is worrisome."
"No," Garcia corrected, chucking him under the chin. "The fact that you have a life with less than a month's notice when nobody else does is worrisome. I thought your mom might be sick or something, but I didn't want to pry, so..."
He balked. "You didn't want to pry?"
"Not... directly," she answered, almost sheepishly now. "But then I saw where you were really going, and that worried me even more, because..."
"Because what? Because an attractive woman couldn't possibly be interested in me, right? Congratulations, Garcia. Good work. Correct as usual."
"No, actually," she said, returning his tone without missing a beat. "Because there happens to be a fairly attractive woman who is a bit interested in you who doesn't like competition from rich chicks in bikinis. Lucky for you, Hot Girl #2 is willing to forgive your bitchiness and conclusion-jumping and buy you a coffee anyway. What do you say, Doctor?"
What could he say to that? By the time he had gathered his wits enough to look up at her, all of the ire -- and color, probably -- had drained from his face, and his heart had started hammering strangely, and some of the bitterness of Lila's rejection had already started to fade. He couldn't really find the words he needed, so he just nodded at her instead.
"Good," Garcia said, getting to her feet and hauling his bag onto her shoulder. She bent in under the pretense of helping him up, but she stopped with her lips at his ear and whispered, "You're a thousand times prettier on your worst day than she is on her best, and I hear she's a lousy lay anyway. At least, according to the Star."
Their eyes met, and she winked, and he let her lead him out into the parking lot to stare up at the sky.
Title: Lush
Pairing: Reid/Sarah Danlin
Prompt: come home
Rating: R
Warnings: language, sexuality, potential spoilers for Jones
Notes: I wanted to take this somewhere else, but... I think I need longer than a drabble ;)
"You didn't come here looking for pussy, did you, Dr. Spencer Reid?"
The question takes him off guard, makes him shift uncomfortably on the already-uncomfortable bar stool, makes his face feel hot. The answer, predictably, is a stammer. "N-- no. No. That isn't... no. No. I didn't."
The woman beside him hasn't broken her gaze since she sat down. She is unnervingly cool, dark-haired, lovely. But it's a dangerous sort of lovely. A wounded sort. He wouldn't have to be a genius to figure that one out, though he supposes the profiler part helps. He can't put his finger on the tell, precisely, but he is certain that she is a body of water with treacherous depths, as smooth as glass on the surface. She's right about why he's here -- or, rather, why he isn't -- but he's starting to think that he could be convinced. He's already engaged in more self-destructive behavior than this here in Louisiana, so why not?
"You're blinking at me," she says. "Human beings blink more frequently when they're aroused. Do I make you nervous? Or do you just like it when I talk dirty?"
Spencer takes a heavy swallow of his drink and lets it burn all the way down before he realizes that she is waiting for an answer, those unfathomable eyes fixed on him like he's the most interesting thing in the room. The truth is both, and that's what he tells her, because he cannot stand the idea of lying to her and isn't sure why. "Both."
Sarah -- that's her name, Sarah; Biblical and unremarkable, nothing like the woman who bears it -- smiles at him then, but it's a strange smile. She is weighing him against something inside of her, a memory or a fantasy or some notion of how this night was going to go, and he is suddenly terribly sure that he is going to come up short. "I knew it," she finally says, her voice barely above a whisper. She leans in close so he can't miss a thing, and there is no alcohol on her breath. Her next words are right against his ear, her lips brushing. "I could do things to you that you only dream about." Her teeth scrape him when she backs away, just enough to make him lean towards her. "But I won't."
Spencer looks down and realizes that he has been gripping his glass almost hard enough to shatter it, but he can't make himself let go. Nor can he look her in the face when he asks, "Why not?"
"You don't want to come home with me, babydoll. I don't think I could ever let you leave." It's a joke. A flirtation. But there is nothing frivolous about the look she gives him; it's as heavy as ripe fruit, succulent and lush and so, so sad. And he believes her.
He takes another sip of his drink and closes his eyes, imagines himself tangled and bound and twisted and helpless for her, thinks it's probably a lot like the heady, sensual thrust of Dilaudid through his body, thinks he might not mind so much if she kept him. He feels her then, the world still dark; her finger slips into his sleeve and draws a line down his vein -- the one he favors; the one Hankel found for him -- as slow and steady as a kiss. "Listen to me very carefully, Doctor. You are nothing like the other people in this place. You don't belong here. And if I could trust myself not to eat you alive, I would take you home right now and make you scream for me all night long. But I can't."
He opens his eyes as she draws his hand towards her and sucks one of his fingers between her scarlet lips. Her mouth is hot. Her teeth are sharp. She leaves a lipstick print like a ring around him. "You be good," she says. "And stay safe. It's a dangerous world for pretty boys these days, I hear."
She turns on her heel and walks away, and it takes over an hour and two more drinks before he can stand up without embarrassing himself.
Character/Pairing: JJ, past JJ/Will
Rating: G
Prompt: pearls
Warnings: None
Notes: This is the next in my JJ/Reid series, the last of which was Ideal.
When it's time to take Henry to see Will for the first time in two weeks, JJ puts on her pearls. She stands in front of Spencer's austere bathroom mirror, her hands shaking so badly she can barely fasten the clasp, and hooks them around her neck like a talisman. She didn't throw much into the car when she left - work clothes, pajamas, toothbrush, some things for Henry - but she zipped them into the front pocket.
They were the first thing she packed, and this is the first time she's taken them out. The strand is the perfect length; the tone flatters her skin. They're definitely date pearls, but this, of course, is not a date with anything but potential disaster. But still, she spins them around so the hook lays flat against the back of her neck and takes a deep breath. They look odd with her jeans and t-shirt, but it doesn't matter.
They're armor. They're luck. They're even better than her gun -- make her feel safer, somehow. They were her sister's Junior Prom pearls, and JJ needs all the guardian angels she can muster.
Title: Untitled
Pairing: JJ/Reid
Prompt: your head on my pillow
Rating: R
Warnings: sexuality
Notes: Follows Armor above
They don't go to bed together the first night Henry is away, but they do wake up together.
JJ dozes off and on for an hour and a half, waking herself up with a start when she reaches for her son's small body beside her and finds nothing but a handful of blanket. It's strange how quickly she got used to sharing a bed, and it's even stranger how lonely it feels now to not. After the third time this happens, she flips on the cheap lamp beside her and sits up, her heart and her thoughts and her doubts racing.
Spencer's awake; she can see the weird, greenish glow from under the door and hear the low hum of the television. He doesn't ever seem to sleep, she thinks, and before she can talk herself out of it, she swings her legs over the side of the bed, peels her nightshirt off, and walks stark naked into the living room with her head held high.
He drops the remote; the batteries scatter across the floor, and she says, "I need to feel something, and it needs to be you, and I will feel absolutely ridiculous if you tell me no."
He doesn't. He lets her lead him into his own bedroom, where the sheets smell like both of them now -- his detergent and her shampoo -- and kiss him blind and insane and desperate, and when she says, "It's okay; I'm not going to break. I'm a mother for Christ's sake, not a virgin," he says, "You are to me," and she half-laughs and half-cries and holds on for dear life.
She wakes up to him looking at her, propped up on his elbow with his eyes sleep-hazy and thoughtful. "What?" she asks.
"I'm trying to figure out if I'm having a lucid dream," he says, his voice rough and -- she thinks -- probably halfway serious.
JJ smiles a little, though she isn't sure if she's hopeful or afraid of the exact same thing. "You're not," she assures him, pulling the sheets over her breasts, suddenly self-conscious.
"Your head is on my pillow."
"Mmhmm," she says, not sure where he's going with this. "It has been for like, two weeks, Spence."
"I know. It's just... so is mine."
JJ pulls the sheet higher over herself, realizing that she's got an angry-looking purplish mark just below her collarbone, and asks, "Is that okay?"
"I think so," he says quietly. Then he coughs. "I'm sorry. I didn't even say good morning."
"Good morning," she says, then she cocks an eyebrow. "Your next move is breakfast, if you're hoping this will happen again."
Both of their faces relax instantly, and Spencer turns his hands palms-out and starts cracking his knuckles. "In that case," he says, a smile playing at his lips, "would you like Captain Crunch or Kix?"
JJ throws her head back and laughs, big and hard and loud, and tells him not to worry about it, after all; morning sex will probably suffice.
Title: Memory
Pairing: JJ/Reid
Prompt: I've seen too much
But I can't go back
Back to how it was
Rating: R
Warnings: sexuality
Notes: This follows Untitled above and is the last in my little series. At least for now, haha.
The second time is even better. Daylight filters through the dusty slats of the blinds, and she can watch him - long and pale, almost ghostly, almost surreal if not for the sharpness of his lines - when he moves over her, and she thinks that his body must work like his mind. It remembers hers, the way he remembers her birthday and how she takes her coffee and the day of the week her sister died.
As he splays his palm in the arch of her back and guides her up to meet him, his eyes awed and slightly terrified, she remembers him telling her about cellular memory; how science speculates that the heart can store things, recall them, know, and that's what this must be. His heart must know. His heart must remember. His body has memories of hers, of the way she needs things, angle and pattern and pace, and just before she unravels into a shudder and a gasp, she says please and he knows exactly what she is asking him for. He kisses her like he owns her, like she's safe, like he will never, ever forget this; he kisses her and swallows her sound so that she's inside of him as he's inside of her, and it reminds her of everything she thought she'd forgotten.
When she opens her eyes, he's still and trembling, balanced on his good leg, just watching her. It's okay, she tells him, it's okay, let go, I want to see you, and he is caught between shyness and desire - strange, now, to become suddenly timid when he's so close to the edge, but that's him - for one long, long moment before he finally does, and he is so lovely in that moment that she can feel her entire chest fill; the sensation of memory creating itself.
Afterward, they are silent in the pools of sun that have gathered around their bodies. They lock their fingers together until the tremors are gone, and they breathe, and the world shifts.
When words come, it is JJ who speaks first. Her voice is quiet and contemplative, all of the edges rounded and smooth. "Everything is different now, isn't it?"
"I... I think so, yeah. "
"Okay," JJ whispers, then reaches to gather his head into her chest.
"Okay," Spencer whispers back and lies down against the sound of her breath.
Title: Momentum
Pairing: JJ/Reid, JJ/Will (sort of)
Prompt: And we won't get caught, if we move around, silently
Rating: R
Warnings: sexuality, infidelity, spoilers for The Performer, language
Notes: Oh, hello latent infidelity!kink... nice to see you.
God, his hands are huge. They swallow her up. She feels tiny, like a fine-boned sparrow balancing there, or the umbrella seeds of a dandelion tumbling over and over and over herself. She can't tell her head from her knees, her own lips from his, and this was not how this day was supposed to turn out, not at all, not any of it, and all she can think about is how big he is, how he doesn't look this big until he's right up there in her face, towering over her from underneath (how does that even work?) with his palm curled against her cheek and the thigh of his good leg pressed right between hers, and God, he's big everywhere; she can feel it, and she just wants to swallow him.
He tastes like the cinnamon toast he made, propped up on one crutch in her kitchen fifteen minutes ago; that and something else she can't place, something darker and strong like coffee, and she just wants him in, and she doesn't care how. And maybe that's the shovel-to-the-head talking, or maybe it's the coming-home-injured-to-an-empty-house-and-a-cranky-baby talking, or it could even be the brandy-in-the-tea talking, but whatever it is, she's listening. All of her. Her blood and her pulse and her hips, all of her throbbing right along to the pounding in her skull, that thump-a-thump-a-thump that is an ache and a want and a need, all at the same time.
And he's big enough to hold all of it, to sink down in, to fill her up and make it better and be there, and he always has been. He's been there -- no one else. Him. Clarity comes all at once, like another blow out of nowhere, and just when she's ready to slide sideways out of his lap and yank him down on top of her like a blanket or a shield or... something, tell him yes yes yes yes yes, he stops.
He fucking stops.
"JJ..." He tries to untangle them, to be gentle and righteous and determined, but she can tell that he is struggling with himself like an animal in a trap.
"Do not," she all but growls. "Do not, or so help me God I will shoot you where you sit. You don't take me here and then not finish."
"Will..."
"Doesn't know and isn't here and hasn't been here. I get my skull shoveled in and you limp in here with a busted-up leg to make me toast, and where is he? Who the fuck knows? Certainly not me. Not Henry. If he walks in, let him." Now it's definitely something else talking; something way down deep, dredged up from the well of her soul and tossed out unceremoniously into the light of day; something crawly and wounded and neglected, something that makes her flinch away from herself.
But not him.
No.
He isn't flinching.
He's still here, his big hands worrying the underwire of her bra, his breath - hard and jagged-edged and nervous and turned all the way up and all the way on - against her hair, his narrow body solid under her, the first thing that's felt good in days.
She makes claws of her fingers and holds on, and she feels him pause. His thoughts have energy and momentum and mass; they buzz around her body like electricity. Inside of his brilliant head, he is everywhere at once; inside of his heart, he's just here with her. Finally. Finally finally finally. But he says, "You hit your head. You're not thinking clearly, I think you should..."
"Shut up," she mutters. "I have a bump on my head, not a goddamn aneurysm. I know what this is. I know what this means. Don't fucking should at me." She doesn't like the shake in her voice, the desperation she hears. Maybe she did get a bigger whack than she thought. Maybe this isn't even real. Maybe this is all a dream, and when she wakes up, she'll still be lying in the weeds of some old, run-down house with a screwdriver poised at her throat.
If that's the case, then she can do whatever the hell she wants, right? And if that's not the case, well, she's just going to have to be quiet so she doesn't wake her son.
Spencer is silent, stuck in suspended animation, his body pulsing quietly to the same beat as her own. He doesn't answer. He doesn't have to. For once, she knows something that he doesn't. She knows that when this is over, everything is going to be different, and she won't be the only one coming home to an empty house.
"Just shut up," she says again, even though he hasn't spoken. "Shut up and undress me. And watch your knee."
He does.
Title: The Landscape
Pairing: Elle/Reid, or Elle & Reid
Prompt: I'm not alright, I'm broken inside, broken inside
And all I go through, it leads me to you, it leads me to you
Rating: PG13
Warnings: language, intense situation, spoilers for The Fisher King I & II
Even before she opened her eyes, Elle knew that nothing was ever going to be the same again.
The pain was all-consuming, a persistent and ubiquitous throb through her body, closing in mercilessly around the edges of her consciousness, but that wasn't it. The pain would pass. It always did, fading into the background of her existence and becoming just another part of her landscape. The gaping wound in her chest wasn't the problem -- at least, not the heart of it.
The problem was following orders, coming home from her job, laying down on her own couch in her own home, and waking up here. The problem was trusting someone else to make the right call, then almost dying because of it. The problem was being left alone afterward to decide what the fuck to do next.
She grit her teeth and slit her eyes at the light and the echo and the blip blip blip of something tethered to her body, and that's when she saw the shadow at the end of the bed. It took a long time to process -- everything did; she was medicated and in agony in spite of it; she hadn't had a fully-present thought in days, and what she had managed to glean from the strange nonmedical silence in her room was filtered through a haze on her brain -- but when she finally did, she realized it was a person. Still on some sort of auto-pilot, she made a move for her weapon before being chastised by a searing pain down her left side, and that made her eyes both water and fly open wide at the exact same time.
As she blinked back the moisture, she watched the person-shadow come into focus and move closer, and that's when she saw that it was Reid. The words she wanted to say -- something along the lines of Jesus Fucking Christ -- got mashed together somewhere between her brain and her mouth, and all she managed was a strange twist of her lips before he was pulling a chair up beside her and planting himself in it, leaning close enough for her to smell him. Coffee and hand sanitizer. He had clearly been here awhile.
"Elle," he said, his voice anxious. "It's okay; don't talk. Hey. Hi. Hello." His hands fluttered over her like he wanted to touch her, but he didn't, instead settling them down on the edge of the bed and working the stiff-feeling sheet between his fingers.
She wasn't sure if her muscles were fully cooperative just yet, but she arranged her face into what she hoped was recognizable as a smile. It must have been, because he returned it, small and tentative but relieved. "Hi," he said again, his fingers rumpling the sheet even further. His hand rested only an inch from hers, and Elle stared down at it, debating whether she could get her own close enough. There was an IV stuck in it, but the line probably had enough give.
The clock on the wall across from them glowed 3:06. Elle could see through the slats in the hospital's version of curtains that it was dark. On the chair across the room, Reid's go-bag -- opened, messy, pawed-through and used -- was tottering dangerously close to the edge. His face, clearer now as her eyes readjusted to the sensation of sight, was drawn and exhausted. It was 3 o'clock in the morning, and he was here, and nobody else was. He was here. He hadn't slept, hadn't left, hadn't done anything but be here, and whether it was one night or eleven she couldn't be sure, but it didn't matter at all.
She wanted to throw herself at him and weep. That, of course, was close to impossible in her current situation, so instead she swallowed thickly -- her throat burned; there must have been a tube down it at some point -- and wet her mouth in preparation for speech. He was watching her closely enough that he figured out what she was doing, and he made a move to quiet her again, a low shhhhh. Elle rolled her eyes and tried anyway. "Just..." The word felt like glass in her throat. She swallowed again and regrouped, lowering down into a whisper. "Just hold my hand," she managed, stretching out her fingers toward his.
He complied, turning his palm upward and sliding his hand beneath hers, careful not to disturb anything that was connected to her. She felt his warmth against her skin, and it was the only thing that felt real or right or normal in her entire body, and maybe nothing was ever going to be real or right or normal again, so she figured she'd better savor it while it lasted.
Elle closed her eyes and did, whispering thank you, Reid; I love you before letting the stroke of his fingers along her wrist and the pull of morphine in her veins lull her back to sleep.
(He waited until he was sure she couldn't hear before he said it back.)
Title: Purr
Pairing: Elle/Reid
Prompt: run my fingers through your hair
Rating: PG
Warnings: vague innuendo?
Spencer is not a fan of the uninvited touch. He isn't a handshake sort of man, nor a clap-on-the-back one, and certainly not a bear-hugger. Even as a child, he was selective about his lap-sitting and hand-holding, preternaturally wary of unsolicited affection. It's always felt false, somehow, like people hiding behind masks of demonstrative warmth, trying to force unearned trust by coming into his space.
This isn't, however, the reason he shrinks back from Elle's fingers one Tuesday morning when she strolls past his desk and runs them through his hair, characteristically casual and off-the-cuff with her flirtation. He trusts her with his life nearly every single day; he certainly trusts the intentions of her touch. No. This is different, and she knows it, because she stops short right behind him and raises her eyebrows when he looks up at her to see why she's there.
"Something wrong, Dr. Reid?" she asks. There's something mischievous in her eyes, a funny little glint like light on water, and and it makes him suddenly want to crawl under his desk and hide.
He doesn't, of course, because that's unprofessional and socially unacceptable, so he just says, "No. You startled me, that's all."
"Is it?" It isn't a question; it's a call to his bluff, and he knows it. He doesn't even bother to answer. "You know..." Elle reaches out for his hair again, and he ducks, but she catches him, getting right down to the scalp and taking a good handful, scratching her nails a bit as she lets go. "I think I've found your spot." She's smiling, because she's right, and she knows it.
"You haven't found any spot," he says, sputtering slightly and feeling very, very trapped. "I just... it's a new haircut."
"No, it's not," Garcia says blithely, breezing past his desk with a pile of files in her hand. "It's a spot. Mine's my shoulders, by the way," she says, winking as she disappears through the door.
Elle grins, drawing her nails up the back of his neck and into his hairline. He flinches reflexively at the reaction it causes, hot and prickly and aroused, shooting straight through him like a current. He simultaneously pulls away from it and reaches into it, and before he can figure out how that even happens, JJ's popping her head up from over the paper she's reading and watching, a smile curving her mouth prettily. "He likes it," she observes. "He's like a little kitten, isn't he?" She laughs and goes back to the funnies.
Elle meows and makes her fingers into claws, then scratches them over the top of his head before she tugs at his collar playfully and continues on her way.
Reid shakes his head to get the feeling of her fingers off of him so he can concentrate, and it mostly works until he comes back from lunch and finds a note on his desk: That was half a minute. Give me an hour and I'll really make you purr.
Title: Sincere
Pairing: Rossi/Prentiss
Prompt: my heart in your hands
Rating: PG13
Warnings: implied sexuality, language
"Just... don't fuck this up, Rossi," Emily sighed, straightening her skirt and fighting with the button. Her hands still didn't feel quite steady. "You will never -- and I mean never -- be with another woman like me." The button slipped through her fingers and took a chip out of the side of her nail, and she swore.
"I know," he said, fastening his buckle and stepping closer. He took her injured finger into his mouth and sucked, tasting blood, and closed her button with his free hand. "There's no other woman quite like you, Emily. Of that I'm fairly certain." There was a light edge to his tone, almost teasing, but when she met his eyes, there was nothing there but sincerity.
At least, she hoped that was what it was. With more failed relationships between them than she cared to count, she couldn't be entirely sure if he -- or herself, for that matter -- had just gotten so good at faking it that it was nearly impossible to tell anymore. She turned to face the mirror and adjust her hair, clamping the clip between her teeth, and her own expression nearly knocked her back on her ass. "Shit," she muttered. Behind her, Rossi raised his eyebrows, but she didn't explain.
Maybe he wasn't sincere, but she fucking was. The look on her face was one she hadn't seen in a long, long time. She took a deep breath and smoothed her hair, trying to put some steel back into her eyes. Her heart was in his hands now; she was going to need all the strength she could muster.
Title: Hot Girl #2
Pairing: Reid/Garcia, Reid/Lila
Prompt: airport
Rating: PG13
Warning: language & innuendo
Spencer didn't know what to do when he stepped off the plane in back at Virginia three days earlier than he had originally planned. Vacation wasn't really his thing -- he did so much traveling for work that it hardly felt relaxing -- and the whole situation had turned out about eighteen different kinds of awful. He should have known it would.
He couldn't take his luggage on the Metro; he'd used most of the cash in his checking account to change his ticket and couldn't take a cab, and he was stranded in the middle of the night on a Thursday. Sighing, he dropped into a hard plastic seat and rubbed at his forehead.
He was just debating the merits of using his duffel bag as a pillow and calling it a night when his phone buzzed in his pocket. His face fell even further when he saw who it was. He did not want to explain why he couldn't make it to Quantico in an hour, but he couldn't not answer, either.
"Hey, Garcia."
"Ooooooh," she responded, her voice crackling with static. "Boy Genius took a cranky pill. What can I do to make it better, baby?"
"I'm fine. What's up?"
"A little birdie told me that you might be back in the neighborhood around 1:12am. Are you or are you not in Dulles as we speak?"
Spencer's heart sank down to his feet. "What are you talking about?"
"You can't hide from Garci, sweet cheeks. If I wanted to, I could've rerouted your plane right back to L.A. Which is not Las Vegas, for the record. Which makes you a big fat liar with a big fat secret. Now before you start sputtering and stuttering about privacy invasion and inter-team profiling -- as cute as that is -- just tell me if you need a ride."
Spencer's shoulder slumped in defeat. There was no point in arguing. She knew. They all probably knew by now. He took a deep breath. "Yes, actually. I do. I emptied my checking account to get back here -- which you probably already know -- and I have no way to get home. So yes. I do need a ride."
"I don't poke around in your pockets, lover. Just your luggage. Which, by the way, will be falling off your lap in three... two..."
Spencer's head shot up and he looked towards the lobby doors just in time to see Garcia snap her phone shut and grin at him. He managed to catch his bag before it tumbled to the floor at his feet, and she plucked it off of his knees and set it on the chair beside him.
"What the hell!?" He wasn't sure whether to be furious or grateful -- he honestly didn't have the energy for either -- so he just settled for something in between.
True to form, it didn't phase Garcia at all. She settled herself into the chair on his other side and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek before he could pull away. "I'm sorry," she said, though she didn't sound it in the least. "I was just worried about you. It's not like you to take time off."
"That's fantastic," he said, his voice acidic. "The fact that I have a life is worrisome."
"No," Garcia corrected, chucking him under the chin. "The fact that you have a life with less than a month's notice when nobody else does is worrisome. I thought your mom might be sick or something, but I didn't want to pry, so..."
He balked. "You didn't want to pry?"
"Not... directly," she answered, almost sheepishly now. "But then I saw where you were really going, and that worried me even more, because..."
"Because what? Because an attractive woman couldn't possibly be interested in me, right? Congratulations, Garcia. Good work. Correct as usual."
"No, actually," she said, returning his tone without missing a beat. "Because there happens to be a fairly attractive woman who is a bit interested in you who doesn't like competition from rich chicks in bikinis. Lucky for you, Hot Girl #2 is willing to forgive your bitchiness and conclusion-jumping and buy you a coffee anyway. What do you say, Doctor?"
What could he say to that? By the time he had gathered his wits enough to look up at her, all of the ire -- and color, probably -- had drained from his face, and his heart had started hammering strangely, and some of the bitterness of Lila's rejection had already started to fade. He couldn't really find the words he needed, so he just nodded at her instead.
"Good," Garcia said, getting to her feet and hauling his bag onto her shoulder. She bent in under the pretense of helping him up, but she stopped with her lips at his ear and whispered, "You're a thousand times prettier on your worst day than she is on her best, and I hear she's a lousy lay anyway. At least, according to the Star."
Their eyes met, and she winked, and he let her lead him out into the parking lot to stare up at the sky.
Title: Lush
Pairing: Reid/Sarah Danlin
Prompt: come home
Rating: R
Warnings: language, sexuality, potential spoilers for Jones
Notes: I wanted to take this somewhere else, but... I think I need longer than a drabble ;)
"You didn't come here looking for pussy, did you, Dr. Spencer Reid?"
The question takes him off guard, makes him shift uncomfortably on the already-uncomfortable bar stool, makes his face feel hot. The answer, predictably, is a stammer. "N-- no. No. That isn't... no. No. I didn't."
The woman beside him hasn't broken her gaze since she sat down. She is unnervingly cool, dark-haired, lovely. But it's a dangerous sort of lovely. A wounded sort. He wouldn't have to be a genius to figure that one out, though he supposes the profiler part helps. He can't put his finger on the tell, precisely, but he is certain that she is a body of water with treacherous depths, as smooth as glass on the surface. She's right about why he's here -- or, rather, why he isn't -- but he's starting to think that he could be convinced. He's already engaged in more self-destructive behavior than this here in Louisiana, so why not?
"You're blinking at me," she says. "Human beings blink more frequently when they're aroused. Do I make you nervous? Or do you just like it when I talk dirty?"
Spencer takes a heavy swallow of his drink and lets it burn all the way down before he realizes that she is waiting for an answer, those unfathomable eyes fixed on him like he's the most interesting thing in the room. The truth is both, and that's what he tells her, because he cannot stand the idea of lying to her and isn't sure why. "Both."
Sarah -- that's her name, Sarah; Biblical and unremarkable, nothing like the woman who bears it -- smiles at him then, but it's a strange smile. She is weighing him against something inside of her, a memory or a fantasy or some notion of how this night was going to go, and he is suddenly terribly sure that he is going to come up short. "I knew it," she finally says, her voice barely above a whisper. She leans in close so he can't miss a thing, and there is no alcohol on her breath. Her next words are right against his ear, her lips brushing. "I could do things to you that you only dream about." Her teeth scrape him when she backs away, just enough to make him lean towards her. "But I won't."
Spencer looks down and realizes that he has been gripping his glass almost hard enough to shatter it, but he can't make himself let go. Nor can he look her in the face when he asks, "Why not?"
"You don't want to come home with me, babydoll. I don't think I could ever let you leave." It's a joke. A flirtation. But there is nothing frivolous about the look she gives him; it's as heavy as ripe fruit, succulent and lush and so, so sad. And he believes her.
He takes another sip of his drink and closes his eyes, imagines himself tangled and bound and twisted and helpless for her, thinks it's probably a lot like the heady, sensual thrust of Dilaudid through his body, thinks he might not mind so much if she kept him. He feels her then, the world still dark; her finger slips into his sleeve and draws a line down his vein -- the one he favors; the one Hankel found for him -- as slow and steady as a kiss. "Listen to me very carefully, Doctor. You are nothing like the other people in this place. You don't belong here. And if I could trust myself not to eat you alive, I would take you home right now and make you scream for me all night long. But I can't."
He opens his eyes as she draws his hand towards her and sucks one of his fingers between her scarlet lips. Her mouth is hot. Her teeth are sharp. She leaves a lipstick print like a ring around him. "You be good," she says. "And stay safe. It's a dangerous world for pretty boys these days, I hear."
She turns on her heel and walks away, and it takes over an hour and two more drinks before he can stand up without embarrassing himself.