Always An Angel, Never A God

Your tablet sat untouched in front of you, the screen dimmed after minutes of inactivity. Fingerprints smeared the glass from where you’d been scrolling through satellite feeds, patrol logs, intercepted comm traffic- anything that might force this disaster of a meeting into something productive.

You had an idea.

Not just an idea, either.

A good one.

The kind that actually fits the evidence instead of the ego contest currently happening around the table.

You knew it was solid because you’d spent the last hour combing through timestamp discrepancies and overlaying patrol routes until your eyes burned. While everyone else argued over each other loud enough to shake the room, you’d been doing the actual work. Cross-referencing blind spots. Comparing heat signatures. Tracking vehicle movement patterns nobody else had even noticed.

The docks weren’t the target.

They were bait.

You knew that with near painful certainty.

But every single time you tried to speak, somebody louder crashed over your voice before it fully existed.

A fist slammed against the table somewhere to your left.

“The timing doesn’t line up-” Sonar argued.

“That’s because you’re assuming they came by water-” Prism interrupted.

“No, you’re missing the point entirely-” Flambae cut in.

The room folded over itself in overlapping voices.

You leaned forward just enough to gather your nerves.

“Actually, if-”

“Look, I’m just saying the docks are a distraction-” Robert insisted.

The words hit like a door slamming in your face.

Your jaw clicked shut hard enough to hurt.

Heat crawled up the back of your neck as your sentence collapsed unfinished in your throat for what felt like the fifth time tonight. You stared down at your tablet instead, pretending to reread information you already had memorized, while the argument kept raging around you without pause. 

You were the youngest person in the room by almost a decade, and sometimes, it felt like everyone could tell. Not because anyone outright said it. But because every time you opened your mouth, the room somehow moved around you instead of toward you. Conversations redirected. Louder voices took priority. Decisions got made while you were still trying to find space to finish a sentence.

Your fingers tightened slightly around the edge of the tablet.

You hated that it still got to you.

Hated that some part of you kept shrinking every time it happened, no matter how many successful missions you’d gone on or how many times your intel turned out to be right. You worked twice as hard as everyone else just to avoid giving them a reason to look at you like a liability. Triple-checking reports. Memorizing patrol routes. Staying later than everyone else after briefings ended.

And still, moments like this made you feel like a baby again instead of a full-fledged Z Team member sitting at the same table as everyone else.

Across the table, you swore you could feel Invisigal notice.

She lounged sideways in her chair like meetings physically offended her existence. One combat boot rested against the table leg while the other tapped lazily against the floor. Her cropped pink jacket hung open over the black shirt beneath it, dark violet hair sticking out in uneven spikes like she’d cut it herself with a knife and boredom.

At first glance, she looked half-asleep, like she would rather literally be anywhere else. But her brown eyes moved constantly.

Invisigal acted detached from almost everything around her, throwing out dry remarks and cynical observations like armor plating, but somehow she still noticed things nobody else did. Who skipped lunch. Who was exhausted. Who was pretending not to shake after missions. Who kept trying to speak and kept getting ignored.

A pen suddenly flicked across the table from her direction. It skidded over scattered papers before striking a coffee mug with a loud, sharp clack that cracked through the room.

A few heads twitched slightly.

Nobody actually stopped talking.

Invisigal let out a long, theatrical sigh like humanity had personally exhausted her. Then, without warning, she planted one boot onto the lower rung of her chair and stood halfway up on it, balanced carelessly like she was about to deliver either a speech or a threat.

“Hey,” she said flatly.

The room barely reacted.

Invisigal’s expression deadened, then her eyes narrowed into something dangerous.

“HEY!”

The second shout hit the room like a stun round, voices stumbling apart mid-sentence.

“You people ever get tired of hearing yourselves talk?” she asked. “Or is this like a competitive hobby?” 

A couple annoyed looks got thrown her way, mainly from Robert and Sonar, but she ignored all of them. Then she jerked her chin toward you. 

“The kid’s been trying to talk for like five minutes.”

The silence stretched long enough that Punch Up finally muttered, “Right. Sorry.”

Your pulse hammered stupidly hard, but this time nobody interrupted.

“The warehouse isn’t the actual meeting point,” you said, forcing your voice steady. “It’s a relay location.”

Sonar and Waterboy tilted their heads in unison.

You reached forward and tapped your tablet awake, bringing up the route map.

“The trucks only stay there an average of eight minutes. But every route loops through the old flood tunnels beneath the financial district.” You zoomed in. “If they were distributing weapons, the warehouse would make sense. But they’re moving people.”

Flambae nodded along as you were speaking, and Prism mimicked him. You kept going.

“The flood tunnels bypass most city surveillance because the sensors were damaged during the blackout two years ago. If we intercept there instead, we cut off every exit point simultaneously.”

“…That’s actually solid,” Malevola admitted.

“Damn.” Flambae murmured.

Across the room, Invisigal smirked like she’d expected this outcome from the beginning.

“Wow,” she deadpanned. “Crazy. It’s almost like listening to people improves meetings.”

A few groans answered her.

She sat back down.

The discussion shifted after that. Focused. Productive. The Z Team started building around your idea instead of shouting over each other, and you tried not to stare too hard at the screen in front of you while warmth settled strangely in your chest.

The meeting finally unraveled nearly forty minutes later. Voices slowly peeled apart into smaller conversations as the Z Team pushed themselves away from the table in waves. Invisigal and Robert argued over vehicle assignments near the far wall while Flambae tried unsuccessfully to fix the coffee machine by hitting it.

You stayed where you were.

Seated near the end of the table with your tablet still in front of you, fingers moving uselessly across the screen as you pretended to organize files that were already organized. Opening folders. Closing them again. Scrolling without reading.

Mostly just giving yourself a reason not to stand up yet.

Because your brain kept circling back to the same moment over and over again no matter how hard you tried to focus on anything else.

Invisigal was chronically unimpressed with humanity as a species, but she also kept showing up.

The first week you joined the Z Team, she’d silently appeared beside you in the hallway after a disastrous training session and dropped a candy bar onto your paperwork without explanation before vanishing around the corner.

The third week, you skipped dinner without realizing it. You were buried in mission reports at one of the long after most people had gone home, eyes burning from staring at surveillance footage for hours straight.

At some point, a plastic container slid silently into your peripheral vision.

You looked up, and Invisigal was already halfway down the hallway.

“There’s actual vegetables in that,” she called without turning around. “Try not to look so betrayed.”

During your first field mission with the team, Robert handed out comm assignments too quickly and forgot to pair you with anybody. You noticed immediately.

And somehow that made it worse when you realized nobody else seemed to notice at all.

Not intentionally, nobody was being cruel. They were just experienced enough to fall into old habits automatically, and you were still new enough to slip through the cracks between them.

Before you could awkwardly point it out, Invisigal’s voice crackled through your earpiece. 

“Kid’s with me.” 

You were still staring blankly at your tablet when movement stopped beside your chair.

Invisigal leaned against the table, one hand in her jacket pocket.

“You alive over there?” she asked.

Her voice was lighter now without the edge she’d used earlier to shut everyone up.

You looked up too quickly. “Yeah.”

“Hm.”

Her eyes narrowed just slightly, not suspicious exactly- more like she was trying to see through the walls you kept instinctively building around yourself.

“You do that thing where you disappear into your own skull when you’re overthinking.”

Your brow furrowed immediately.

“I do not.”

“You absolutely do.”

Heat crept faintly into your face before you looked back down at your tablet again, fingers hovering awkwardly over the screen without actually touching it. The corner of Invisigal’s mouth twitched upward slightly, not quite a smile but close enough to count. 

A second passed, then she reached out and patted your shoulder twice.

“There you go again,” she said. “Relax, kid. You did good.”

You looked at her standing there with her tired eyes and sarcastic mouth and battered combat boots and realized, with startling clarity, that somewhere along the line your brain had started placing her in the shape of something dangerously close to family. 

An older sister.

The kind who acted annoyed while helping you anyway. The kind who complained the entire time she was covering your back but never once considered not doing it. The kind who noticed when you went quiet.

You stared at her for half a second too long. And Invisigal noticed immediately.

Her eyes narrowed with instant suspicion while one eyebrow lifted sharply upward.

“…Why are you looking at me like that?”

“No reason.”

“That’s a lie.”

“It’s not.”

“It absolutely is.”

She squinted harder.

Then pointed at you accusingly.

“You’re about to say something emotionally devastating, aren’t you?”

Despite yourself, a laugh escaped your throat. Beside you, Invisigal stared another second longer before groaning quietly like she’d just developed a migraine.

“Oh no. That confirms it.”

“You’re impossible.”

“Correct. But deflecting isn’t gonna save you now.”

You shook your head, smiling despite yourself.

“Good,” she said quietly.

You frowned. “Good what?”

“You smiled.” She shrugged one shoulder. “You don’t do that enough.”

Then, before you could respond, Invisigal suddenly drew in a sharp breath. Her shoulders lifted slightly with the inhale, and she vanished.

Even after seeing her ability countless times during training exercises and missions, it still made something instinctive in your brain recoil every single time. Your eyes kept trying to find a shape that no longer existed. Your mind kept insisting a person couldn’t simply stop being visible that completely.

A second later, her voice drifted through the room from somewhere behind you.

“Don’t let the others bulldoze you next meeting either, by the way.”

Invisible fingers flicked the side of your head lightly. You jerked in surprise, one hand immediately flying toward the spot.

Behind you, Invisigal snorted.

“You’ve got good instincts, kid.”

Something in your chest tightened painfully at the praise. Not because she said it loudly, not because she made a big deal out of it. The opposite, actually. Invisigal said it like it was obvious.

Like your instincts being good was already an established fact in her head.

You wanted her to keep looking at you like that.

Invisigal looked at you like you were capable of handling yourself. Like your words had weight. Like you weren’t just some nervous extra standing at the edge of a team far bigger and louder than you. Like you belonged here.

Like, somehow, she’d already decided there was a place for you beside her.

The realization hit hard enough to make you stare blankly at the table for a second. You wanted to impress her. 

The same way younger siblings wanted older siblings to think they were cool. Competent. Worth bragging about when talking to other people. You wanted to walk into meetings and have Invisigal lean back in her chair with that smug little told you so smirk curling at the corner of her mouth because of something you figured out before everyone else did. The kind of expression that said she’d been right about you from the beginning. You could practically picture it- her boots kicked up against the table leg, arms crossed loosely over her chest, eyes sliding toward the rest of the team like she was waiting for them to finally catch up.

You wanted her to glance around the room with poorly-hidden satisfaction, like she’d known all along you were smarter than people gave you credit for. Like every dismissive comment, every interruption, every moment someone overlooked you only made her more stubbornly certain that they were wrong.

And God, you wanted to survive missions cleanly enough that she stopped drifting subtly toward your side during firefights.

Stopped unconsciously placing herself between you and open doorways.

Stopped lingering half a step behind whenever the hallway ahead looked too dark or too quiet.

You’d noticed it weeks ago. The way she always seemed to appear at your flank the second things got dangerous, moving with casual precision like she wasn’t doing anything unusual at all. Like she wasn’t quietly preparing herself to intercept whatever came at you first.

You just wanted her to feel like she didn’t have to anymore.

You wanted her to watch you hold your own against collapsing buildings, screaming civilians, ricocheting gunfire, and whatever impossible horror the city decided to unleash that week- and look relieved instead of worried afterward.

You wanted to see the tension leave her shoulders.

Wanted her to stop checking whether you were hurt before checking herself.

And somehow, worst of all, you wanted her sarcastic approval like it was a measurable resource your body had decided it needed to survive.

Every offhand “nice work, kid.”

Every quick grin she tried to hide behind sarcasm.

Every casual shove against your shoulder after a mission.

Every absentminded moment where she chose the seat beside you without thinking about it.

That was the problem.

Because Invisigal wasn’t easy to impress.

She treated almost everything with the same detached amusement or bone-deep sarcasm, like the world had simply run out of new ways to surprise her years ago. Explosions. Supervillains. Building collapses. Near death experiences. Team arguments loud enough to shake the briefing room walls.

None of it ever seemed to rattle her for long.

She’d brush ash off her jacket after a firefight with the same energy someone else might use to complain about bad traffic. You’d seen her walk out of a collapsing parking structure with blood running down one arm and still crack a joke before medical even reached her.

How were you supposed to impress someone like that?

Someone who could literally vanish whenever she wanted?

She felt larger than life in a way you weren’t sure you ever would. 

Because your power- your power wasn’t flashy. No invisibility, no super strength, no crackling energy blasts ripping through concrete walls. You couldn’t fly above the skyline with your cape snapping dramatically behind you. Couldn’t punch through armored vehicles or dodge sniper fire like your nervous system existed several seconds ahead of reality.

Nobody looked at you and immediately thought superhero.

Your ability worked quietly.

You saw patterns, literally.

The moment your focus locked onto something, the world stopped feeling random. Your brain began processing movement, behavior, architecture, timing, probability, and spatial relationships at speeds that bordered on inhuman. Fast enough that ordinary people sometimes stared at you afterward like you’d cheated somehow.

You could watch pedestrians moving through an intersection and instinctively know who was about to collide, who was armed, who was nervous, who was lying, who was watching exits instead of storefronts. You’d look at a room and somehow know which object someone would reach for in a panic. You could memorize building layouts after one glance. You noticed weaknesses in security routes, blind spots in surveillance systems, inconsistencies in witness testimony, structural stress fractures in walls, escape patterns, timing windows.

Conversations unfolded like branching diagrams in your head. Tiny facial twitches. Delayed responses. Eye movement. Breathing patterns. Weight shifts.

Once, during a bank robbery, you identified the exact support column a panicking gunman was most likely to shoot through based purely on his angle, stance, and tunnel vision under stress. You warned the Z Team before it happened, which was enough to save a civilian who would’ve died otherwise. 

.

Another time, you tracked a serial arsonist across six city blocks because you noticed the burn patterns subtly favored buildings with older copper piping and east-facing maintenance access.

When your power fully engaged, connections stopped feeling abstract. They became instinctive. Immediate. Like invisible threads suddenly stretched between objects, people, movements, and decisions.

The Z Team joked that you had “conspiracy board vision.”

Invisigal once upgraded that description to “creepy little Rain Man Batman” after you correctly predicted where a getaway driver would reroute during a hostage situation. You’d laughed way harder at Invisigal’s nickname than you probably should have.

Mostly because she’d sounded so annoyingly impressed when she said it.

Your gaze drifted slowly back toward the tactical map still glowing across your tablet screen, pale blue lines cutting through the darkness of the display like exposed veins beneath skin.

The flood tunnels.

The relay routes.

The maintenance corridors threading beneath the financial district, the smugglers moving people.

Your eyes traced the highlighted warehouse from tonight’s raid, then followed the surrounding tunnel branches outward. Instantly, your mind started building movement paths faster than you could consciously articulate them.

If the warehouse was compromised, the nearest routes became liabilities. Too obvious, too exposed: meaning they’d relocate deeper first before resurfacing elsewhere. Except the deeper eastbound tunnel access bottlenecked near the river overflow junction-

Your eyes flicked sharply to another route.

There.

Three separate street exits, heavy nighttime foot traffic above ground, enough ambient noise to hide transport movement.

Your pulse kicked slightly harder. The realization settled into your chest with the sharp, dangerous clarity of a puzzle piece finally snapping into place.

The others would probably wait until tomorrow morning to move, the kind of plan people were supposed to make. But if your read on the routes was correct, the smugglers were likely already relocating after the warehouse got exposed tonight. Criminal groups adapted fast when operations got compromised.

You stood before your common sense could fully catch up and stop you, the legs of your chair scraping harshly against the floor in the otherwise quiet briefing room. Your tablet was already in your hands before the decision fully felt real.

You slid it beneath your arm and started toward the exit with quick, controlled steps, forcing yourself not to move fast enough to attract attention.

Your mind was racing far ahead of your body now.

The east maintenance sector entrance sat three blocks from the financial district perimeter. Locked officially, but the municipal access panel had outdated security hardware you already knew how to bypass. From there, the lower drainage corridor connected directly to the secondary junction network beneath Blackwater Avenue.

Close quarters amplified your power in ways people didn’t fully understand. Most teammates thought you were just “good at noticing stuff,” but underground environments turned your ability into something almost surgical.

Tunnels restricted movement.

Restricted options.

Which meant patterns emerged faster.

And if you brought back hard proof tonight…

Not theories.

Not projections.

Not another carefully explained possibility everyone politely nodded at before talking over you anyway.

Evidence.

Photos.

Routes.

Hostages.

Confirmed movement.

Maybe the team would finally stop treating your conclusions like educated guesses.

Maybe they’d stop speaking over you during briefings like your input was optional background noise.

It had been months since then and was a big surprise when Rossi announced he’d rented out a cabin an hour outside the city for the long weekend. Attendance was required and fun would be had. On top of that, all food and drinks would be provided, so it really was a win all the way around. Days were filled with various activities, the team splitting off depending on what everyone wanted to do, but there was a lot of lounging by the lake, swimming, disappearing off into the woods for a hike for everyone to return together for dinner. The barbeque was always utilized, racks of ribs, cobs of corn, various types of burgers, fresh fruit, grilled skewers of vegetables with cold beers to wash it all down with while the sun set on the horizon.

Currently, everyone was circled around the fire pit in the backyard telling silly stories, laughing and enjoying each other’s company. You were on a double seater almost loveseat with Tara, a blanket tossed over your bare legs that were conveniently draped over the other woman’s lap. The team knew you were close, but it was only Emily that actually knew you were dating and that had only been because she was your boss. Though the secret wouldn’t have lasted long anyway, you’d shared a wall at one of the hotels on a case recently and things hadn’t exactly been quiet. A lecture didn’t come, but a hell of a lot of playful teasing did, including a very sly grin from Emily when you and Tara offered to bunk together this weekend.

Tara wasn’t doing it on purpose, her fingers absentmindedly tracing patterns on your legs under the blanket, barely moving, ghosting over your skin. Her attention was turned to her other side, eyes on Luke as he took his turn at telling a ghost story. Your leg involuntarily twitched in her lap as you shifted slightly in an attempt to rub your thighs together. You attempted to play it off as stretching out a stuff muscle but Tara had already caught you, her hand stilling, wrapping around your calf and squeezing tightly without so much as a glance in your direction. You let out a soft sigh, reaching into the cooler beside you to grab a fresh beer in an attempt to distract yourself.

By the time Luke had finished his story, Rossi was calling it a night and heading inside, JJ not far behind him. Luke tossed another log on the fire and this time you actually did stretch your body out, slipping from underneath the blanket.

“Oh not you too!” Emily protested and you laughed.

“I’m just going to the bathroom, relax.”

Disappearing into the cabin you let out a little shiver, pulling Tara’s stolen flannel tighter around your body, though maybe the chill would help you calm down. The scent of her perfume on the shirt certainly wasn’t helping but it wasn’t as bad as having her hands on you beside the burning of the fire. You grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen, taking a couple of minutes to yourself as you wandered down the hallway to the bathroom. After freshening up you dried your hands on one of the fluffy towels before unlocking the door, your attention on your phone as you typed out a reply to a couple of texts, you didn’t even notice Tara rounding into the hallway.

“Jeeze!” You jumped, letting out a quiet giggle as you shoved your phone back into your pocket, “told you I’d be right back.”

“Yeah, but I needed a fresh drink.” She shrugged, one hand pulling you closer to her by the beltloop in your shorts while the other slid up your cheek, wrapping around the back of your neck, “and I wanted an excuse to do this.” She murmured; her breath hot on your lips before they met yours.

You let out a moan into the kiss, your hands quickly wrapping around her shoulders, pulling her even tighter to you while she maneuvered you so your back hit the wall and you let out a little squeak. Tara took advantage, her tongue slipping into your parted lips, swooping through your mouth and dancing with your own. She softly dominated the kiss, putting all of the pent up tension you’d both been holding back all day into it, lips moving with grace in a familiar dance. The hand on your hip curved around your body, squeezing at your ass through your shorts and you let out a soft groan, your body arching into hers. Chuckling, she pulled away from your lips, kissing at the bare skin of your neck and you shivered, goosebumps popping up on your skin.

“So sensitive.”

“You started it.” You muttered back, your eyes fluttering shut as her teeth grazed against your neck, your hands clawing at the fabric of her shirt as she propped a knee between your legs.

“Oh come on!” Emily’s voice suddenly broke through your fantasy and Tara pulled herself out of the crook of your neck, a smirk on her lips, “that’s not a new drink! Or the bathroom.” She shot you a playful glare as she opened her bedroom door, “I swear if I hear even a peep tonight I’m telling the whole team.”

“Sorry Emily.” Tara laughed, her hand running down your arm to link with yours, tugging you in the direction of your shared bedroom. Emily rolled her eyes, disappearing into her room, the door clicking shut behind her before you retired into your own.

In the privacy of your room your hands reached out for Tara again, pulling her back to you, your hands slipping under the hem of her hoodie. She laughed softly, her arms wrapping around you as her lips met yours again. She nipped at your lower lip, her hands sliding the flannel off your arms, letting it drop to the floor and you whined quietly, tugging at her sweater.

“Patience…” She murmured.

“You’ve been teasing all day.” You grumbled back, though a smile broke out on your lips as she pulled the hoodie over her head, her hands nudging at your hips and she laughed.

“Yeah? How so?” She raised a brow as you shifted back up to the headboard and she was able to crawl onto the bed.

“Have you seen yourself in a bikini? Or how about all those lingering glances and little touches? Tease.”

“You heard Prentiss.” She said with a shrug, shifting onto the bed beside you, slipping under the covers, “it’s quiet hours.”

“Please.” You pouted, a hand reaching out to brush her hair back behind her ear.

“You sure you can? You almost woke up the entire floor in San Diego.”

“Well maybe that’s just because you fuck me so good I can’t help it.” With a grin you surged toward her, pulling her down on top of you in a kiss and she couldn’t resist but to slide her tongue into your mouth.

One hand braced her on the bed while the other snuck under your tank top, groping at your chest and you softly moaned, Tara silencing it with her mouth, swallowing your breath down. Her finger and thumb rolled your nipple between them, pinching down harder with each rotation, your back arching off the bed toward her. She repeated the action on the other side, earning a tiny whine from you into the kiss, your hips rocking up toward her when she settled a leg between yours.

“You like that?” She asked quietly, lips barely leaving yours, “like it when I play with your pretty tits?”

“Mmhmm.” You nodded, doing your best not to make a noise.

“Thought you might.”

Her leg surged up between yours, thigh rubbing right against your clothed cunt and your breath caught in your throat, your hands clutching at her body.

“Tara… please..”

Her fingers pinched harshly at your nipple and the gasp caught in your throat, your head dropping back into the pillows. Tara kissed at the side of your jaw, trailing down your neck, teeth nipping at your skin as they went, by the time she’d settled in the crook of your neck her hand was sneaking downwards, fingers toying with the waistband of your shorts. She snapped the elastic against your body to test you, to see if you’d follow the rules before her hand finally slunk underneath them, a quiet gasp leaving your lips when her fingers found your clit.

Her lips returned to yours as her fingers began to lazily rub at your clit, lips curving up into a grin as your body slowly started to rock up towards her in a steady rhythm. Your arms wound around her, one hand tangling into her hair as your heart rate began to pick up. It was just enough to rile you up, barely above a level of teasing but Tara’s hands and lips were on you, so you weren’t about to complain, you knew she’d reward you soon enough. Your breath was hot on her neck, the quietest of whimpers sent straight into her ear and she grinned, placing a gentle kiss on your skin as her hand sunk lower, fingers swiping through your folds. A hitched breath left your throat as she gathered your juices, moving back up to rub at your clit again, this time harder and faster before sinking back down.

“You really are pent up.” She murmured, “this wet and I’ve barely touched you.”

“Please…” you whispered.

“You’ve been so good.” She replied, kissing the underside of your jaw.

Tara’s fingers nudged at your pussy, swirling your juices around before two of them slowly sunk in and you bit back a moan. She knew you so perfectly, just when and how to fuck you, exactly what would bring you the ultimate pleasure and you were eternally grateful for it. She pumped her fingers slowly at first, letting you get used to the stretch while the heel of her hand brushed on your swollen clit. Your breathing picked up, hands clenching at the fabric of her shirt as your pussy started to flutter. The pleasure was building up, coil tightening in your stomach as your heart beat heavy in your chest. Tara’s lips brushed at your neck when she spoke, her voice barely above a whisper,

“That’s my good girl.” Her fingers curled, pressing into the sensitive spot, and you let out a breathy gasp, “pussy always feels so good. Can you hear how wet you are?”

“Mmhmm…” you nodded back, doing your best to keep your lips pressed together. The cabin was quiet, the air still, though very heated within the confines of your room, the wet sounds from your cunt echoing through the air with each thrust of Tara’s fingers.

“Shame I couldn’t get you naked, you always look so beautiful on display for me, stuffed full with my cock.” Her fingers began to pick up their speed, your cunt pulsing heavily around them, spasming when she would randomly crook them right where you wanted. “Guess I’ll have to fuck you nice and good when we get home, hmm? Have your pretty pussy dripping with cum?”

“Oh.. god…” You whimpered, your hips jolting up off the bed, grinding onto her hand as you buried your face into her shoulder, “feels so good.”

“I know baby.” She grinned, her fingers thrusting deeper into your warmth, “I can tell by how fucking soaked you are.” Her fingers twisted, curling suddenly to press forcefully into your g-spot and you cried out.

“Fuck!”

In an instant her hand stilled completely, fingers simply resting inside your cunt and you dropped back into the pillows with a pout as she raised a brow at you.

“What did I say?”

“Please!” You whispered, tears nearly forming in your eyes at just how close you’d been to reaching your peak, “please keep going. I’ll be quiet! Promise. They won’t even know your fingers are in me. Please. I promise.”

“You break that promise and instead of rewarding you when we get home you’re getting punished, alright baby?”

“Yes.” You nodded furiously, “please. Need you.”

A quiet gasp escaped your lips as Tara’s hand moved, rubbing your pulsing nub while her fingers began to pump inside your pussy again.

“That’s it.” She purred, ducking down to kiss you, swallowing your moans as you surged higher and higher. Her tongue slipped into your mouth while you whined, your hips rocking up to meet her hand with each thrust. She shifted her weight so her free hand could slide under your shirt, pinching at your nipples again, rolling them between her fingers in time with the way she fucked you. She could feel you squirming, feel the groans and moans coming from the back of your throat as her fingers curled again and again, juices beginning to leak down her wrist.

“Oh god…” you broke the kiss with a whispered gasp, “don’t stop… please…”

“Go on baby.” She husked, kissing her way across your jaw, nipping at your earlobe, “come for me.”

Tara’s lips continued their way down your neck, sucking and licking at your sensitive skin as her fingers crooked inside your dripping pussy again and you felt yourself begin to shudder underneath her. Heat broke through your skin and your thighs trembled, nearly attempting to close around her hand. You buried yourself into the crook of her neck and she let out a quiet hiss when your teeth sunk into her skin to muffle your moans as you came.

Her hand slowed, fingers sliding in and out of you with less urgency as you rode out your orgasm, her lips leaving gentle kisses on your body. With a puff of a breath you dropped back into the pillows, your eyes fluttering open to look up, finding her smiling down at you.

“Sorry.” You muttered, glancing toward her shoulder and she chuckled, leaning down to press a kiss to your lips.

“You kept quiet.” Her fingers finally slipped out of you and you couldn’t help but whine, pulling another grin from her, “just wait til we get home, alright?” Before you could answer her you caught her wrist in your hand, pulling her slicked fingers to your mouth and sucking them between your lips, your tongue swirling around them until they were clean. “Good girl.” She praised with a grin.

“Don’t suppose we could leave early?” You asked with a pout and she laughed again.

“Not without a decent excuse.” She dropped onto the bed beside you, pulling you to her, “just one more night, then I’ll fuck you so good you won’t be able to do anything but scream.”

“Promise?” You asked as you stifled a yawn, burrowing into her chest.

“Baby the neighbours won’t be able to look at us for weeks.”

________________

She couldn’t help but smile when she’d catch you in moments of still very much being in teacher mode, as if you were talking to tiny humans instead of actual conversations. She’d once overheard you in the kitchen when a pot was boiling over say something along the lines of “oh come on now Mr. milk, that is not very smiley face sticker behaviour of you.” She chuckled but didn’t say anything, she found it endearing and adorable, not something to tease you about. It was just something that made her love you more, made her softer around you, able to finally embrace that side of herself knowing that you loved it as well.

Once the two of you moved in together it was pretty frequent that you’d pack lunches for the both of you to take to work. Tara hadn’t thought much of it, she usually bought lunch or they were on the jet by the time noon hit anyways, but you always brought your own, and made sure your classroom was stocked with extra snacks for kids who got hungry. So it just made sense for you to make double what you were making and pass the bag off to her with a gentle kiss on the way out the door. It started out as just food, though sometimes things were cut into cute shapes, sandwiches without crusts, little animal or frog skewers in the smaller pieces of fruit to use instead of forks.

“Awe, did your mom pack your lunch.” Luke teased with a smug grin one day and Tara simply snorted.

“Nah, you should know this by now, it was your mom.”

It was almost too easy to tease him back, and besides, he walked right into that one and he knew it.

That was when the rumours started that maybe Tara had a secret kid at home that no one knew about, hence why everything was kid accessible. The rumour lasted approximately ten weeks until she was invited out for post work drinks and she said she had somewhere important to be.

“I’m betting girl.” Spencer muttered and Luke laughed.

“Nah, I’ve seen dinosaurs in her lunches.”

“Girls can like dinosaurs too.” Garcia cut in with a huff and Tara raised a brow in their direction.

“This started out with me thinking you were trying to figure out my sexuality but you lost me at dinosaurs.”

“They think you have a kid.” Emily cut in dryly, already knowing the truth and Tara barked out a laugh.

“No, absolutely not. I have to get home because it’s my anniversary.” She shouldered her bag, “with my future wife, because I know you’ll spend another two months speculating that next.”

It was shortly after your wedding that the notes started. You and Tara had thoroughly enjoyed your three week honeymoon off in Italy. Nothing but time for each other, so much wine and more pasta than you could even imagine. While the transition back into work was relatively smooth for yourself, Tara found herself instantly thrown back into the world of darkness and back to back very jarring cases. You knew she was a little off when she came home absolutely defeated, forgoing dinner for a large glass of bourbon and latched onto you like a koala bear for as long as she possibly could before Monday rolled around. She accepted her lunch with a soft smile and a kiss, pausing to steal another one before you sent her on her way.

When she pulled her lunch out a yellow post it fell out of the bag, her brow furrowed when she went to pick it up, wondering if it was a work note she’d gotten stuck in there by accident or the label from someone else’s lunch in the fridge. Instead she found your writing scrawled across the front,

‘I love you so much, you are my sunshine.’ A large sun drawn in the corner with a huge smile and a pair of sunglasses. A couple of sparkly cloud stickers on it as well. She felt her shoulders drop as her entire body relaxed, releasing the tension of being back at work again and the small smile stayed on her cheeks for the rest of the day.

The next day she opened her lunch to find a slightly crushed chocolate chip muffin among her items, a pink post it with ‘You’re my stud muffin.’ Scrawled across it with a winky face and a print of your lipstick on the paper. She laughed silently, shaking her head at the way she could hear it in your voice. Opening the drawer of her desk she added the note to the little basket she had put the first one in, smiling softly down at them.

Two days later and she found an extra container of candy in her lunch, the post it note blocking the label, ‘You are one hot tamale.’ With a wink. She didn’t need to move the note to know what the candies were, but she still slipped it into the small growing pile in her desk drawer.

‘I know it’s cheesy, but I think you’re grate!’ Stuck to the outside of a cheese string. She audible laughed at this one, earning a raised brow from Spencer, but he didn’t say anything.

‘A list of cute things:

-you

-also you

-hey look, you!

-wait, wait, wait

-you!

-you’re cute’

‘Olive you’ with a drawing of two martini glasses complete with extra toothpicks of olives. (and a note on the back ‘seriously, don’t forget about drinks with the Tanners on Thursday’)

‘You are the sugar and spice of my life’

The notes weren’t every day, obviously if a case took her out of town for a week she wasn’t bringing that many packed lunches in one go. And she could tell that you usually did them the day after rough days, days when she needed a little uplifting, that you knew you would make her smile, if not laugh. Some of them were funny, some punny, and some just utterly adorable. It didn’t matter the theme, she saved every single one of them in her desk drawer, not quite able to part with them. And each day that you left a note, she would come with an even warmer smile than she left with, holding you a second longer when she greeted you, murmuring a soft I love you into your skin as she kissed you hello.

‘There is night so we can appreciate day, sorrow so we can appreciate joy, evil so we can appreciate well, you so I can appreciate love’

She felt the warmth blooming through her chest at that one, a little boost of how important she was to you on a day she was doubting herself.

‘The sound of your laughter is food for my spirit.’

‘I love you more than anything in the entire world. You are my rock, my sun, my moon and stars. You are the most snuggly teddy bear I’ve ever had in my bed, and without a doubt my absolute favourite. Can’t wait to see you, because that’s my favourite time of the day.’

It had been a rough couple of days and she almost felt tears building up in her eyes at that one. She quickly tucked it into her desk drawer and shook the feeling off, she had a reputation to uphold at the office after all. However the moment she was home she was sure to make you know just how much she loved you and how much she really did adore the lunch notes, even if you’d never actually talked about them. It was silent cues you took from each other about them, the way she had a little more pep in her step when she got home after you’d sent her one. And that was all you ever needed.

It was a few days later when Luke was looking over something for a case at her desk, Emily across at Spencer’s desk, eyes looking up at the white board trying to figure something out, Garcia perched on the edge of the desk. Luke let out a huff, recapping the highlighter in his hand before tossing it into the trash.

“Tara, you got a highlighter?”

“Yeah, top right.” She gestured to the drawer and turned back to Spencer as the two of them went through the geographical profile. A small chuckle broke out from behind them that she didn’t think anything of, probably some snarky remark from Penelope until she heard the shuffle of paper and Luke’s voice.

“The most snuggly teddy bear I’ve ever had in my bed… this is pure sap.”

“Oh, but she’s got puns too, look at this one.” Emily’s laughter was what broke Tara out of her trance when she finally turned around to see the three of them with the large array of colourful post it notes spread across her desk.

“Oh come on! That is not a highlighter!”

“Yeah, but it’s way more entertaining.” Luke replied with a smirk, reading off another one of the very sappy ones.

“I think it’s endearing.” Spencer, who had left her to join in on the fun chimed in, smiling brightly in her direction, “couples that continually do little things to keep each other’s spirits up are found to be much happier and have much more successful relationships.”

“Aweee, pookie bear.” Luke teased, “that your new code name?”

“I will shoot you right now.” Tara shot him the coldest glare.

“Does she come up with these on her own?” Penelope asked with a smile, “cause they are good!”

“I don’t know.” Tara replied with a shrug, “I’ve never asked her.”

“Are these what you’ve been smiling at in your lunch all the time?” Emily asked with a wild grin, holding up the stud muffin one and Tara let out a huff, rolling her eyes.

“Can we just stop this? Maybe focus on the task at hand?”

“Whatever you want pookie.” Luke made a kissy face in her direction and she hucked a white board marker at him.

It wasn’t that she was particularly embarrassed by it, but she was a little irked by them seeing all of them. Sure, they were all from you and they didn’t technically see how soft she got with you, but the façade was ruined. As much of a bad ass that she was in the field, she knew that nickname wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon and almost instantly started planning her revenge against Luke. Garcia would help her, she knew that.

A couple of days later she was smiling at a pink post it;

‘You are the sun on a cold day, the crunchiest leaf on my walk to work, the first snowflake of the season to catch on my tongue, the first daisy to bloom come springtime. You are the light of my life. You are the small things that make every and each day the absolute best that it can, you are the only thing that can brighten me up no matter what. I love you.’

She pulled open her desk drawer to add it to the basket and her hand stalled in its tracks when she found the basket empty. She groaned, pinching at the bridge of her nose as disappointment surged through her. Despite her best efforts the team had insisted on going through every single note you’d left for her, she must’ve forgotten to put them back into the drawer before leaving for the day, the cleaners probably thought the pile was garbage. Letting out a soft sigh, she placed the new note into the basket, figuring it wouldn’t hurt to start over now.

*

You were in the kitchen when you heard the door open, Tara calling out to you while she clunked around a little more than usual in the entry way.

“Hey!”

“Hey! Hope you’re in the mood for lasagna!” You called back, wiping your hands on a dish towel before padding your way over to the entry way to greet her.

“Baby you really don’t have to slave way over a hot stove for me after you’ve finished a full day of work.”

“Babe, please. I picked up a frozen lasagna and garlic bread on the way home, the oven did all the work.” You laughed, cupping her face in your hands as you popped up on your toes to kiss her softly. When you pulled back you noticed the black frame under her arm, “what’s that? Did you get some kind of award you failed to mention?”

“No.” She laughed, nudging her go bag off her shoulder to its spot on the entry way bench, “the team may have found the collection of post its stashed in my desk.”

Your head tilted in that adorable way that she loved so much, “the lunch notes?”

“Yeah.”

“You kept those?” You practically melted, a happy and somehow dreamy pout on your lips as you gazed up at her with wide eyes and she couldn’t help but fall even more in love with you, her hand stroking your cheek before she leant in to leave a kiss on the tip of your nose.

“Are you kidding me? As if I could ever throw them away! They were the second best part of my day.”

“Second?” You eyed her suspiciously for a moment before a grin broke out on your lips.

“Well the first is always coming home to you.”

“You fuckin’ teddy bear.”

“Yeah, and now the entire team knows it.” She rolled her eyes, “I guess after approximately one hour and forty two minutes of teasing they got scheming, but my money’s on this being Garcia’s idea.” She turned the frame on the table so you could actually see it, “she’s a bit of a sap and thought the notes were super cute, figured they’d be nice to have all together in one place we could actually admire instead of stashed away in my desk drawer.”

“Oh I knew I liked her.” Your fingers reached out, ghosting over the side of the frame, “this is so cute, and so thoughtful.”

“You like it?”

“I love it.” You leant into her side, humming happily when she kissed your temple.

“Where do you think we should put it?”

“Hmm.” You tugged your lip into your mouth, glancing around, “the wall behind the couch is particularly bare.” You turned to her with a warm smile and a gleam in your eye, “then maybe… we should have your team over for drinks next weekend? It’s practically a crime that I’ve only met Emily so far.”

“I’d love that.” Tara smiled brightly at you, cupping your cheek as she leant down to place a tender kiss on your lips, “and I love you.”

“Not as much as I love you.”  

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