#[ BECAUSE SHE PRETTY MUCH HAD NO REMORSE FOR SEVERELY INJURING HIM ]

[mav3nrick]

Stargazing | Max Verstappen x Reader

Pairing : Max Verstappen x gn!reader

Warning : car crash, physical disability, sadness af, self-sabotage, depression, idiots in love, emotionally unavailable.

Context : Reader was a former race driver. They were Max's teammate. During one race, they had a pretty bad crash that left them badly injured. They choose to flee. After months of disappearance, they were found by the one they would like not to. 

Words : 4k.

PS : English isn’t my mother tongue so please be kind with the mistakes I might have made. 

-------

A tiny mistake.

A fucking mistake.

One I could have avoided if i weren’t too stubborn.

Only if I hadn’t tried to overtake my own teammate. Hear me when I say I was faster than him. I was going to succeed in my attempt to overtake him. He is not at fault. 

Too fucking tight. His front wheel against mine. I spun and hit the wall. 

I was too fast. Everything was too fast. I barely could remember what happened during that moment and even after. A total blackout. My therapist says I am traumatized. I think she is right. I really thought I was going to die at that very moment when my car hit the concrete.

That was a hell of a career ending mistake. 

I am pissed at myself. I am pissed at everyone.

It has been months by now and I couldn’t get over it. Pretty funny, innit ? 

I could have won, for once. I am not a bad driver, don’t ever try to think that. I have a huge ego. Just like all the race drivers here. But the world has only eyes for him. I always agree with them. Maybe even more now that I stayed at home. 

One of my legs got badly hurt. I still don’t know how that happened but the doctors said I might have moved during the crash and my right leg had taken most of the collision’s power. Sometimes it works correctly and sometimes it hurts so much that I can’t even do much without my brace. It made me feel so bad. Everyone pity me and I hate it so much. 

Because I do hold grudges for everything and nothing, I just quit my home place. The formula one’s world wasn’t for me anymore. I left everyone behind, especially my former teammate, Max. I haven’t heard from him for almost a year. We were pretty close. Bickering all day long. but close. 

Well… To be honest, I might have left my social media and changed my phone number. I also moved abroad so none of the race drivers would have found me. No one knows where I am. I grew my hair and my beard. I look like a cheap version of Aaron Taylor-Johnson. One that's in the doldrums. One that’s a shadow of its former self. 

So I needed time away for glitz and glamour and I took it.

At first, it felt so good. My days were filled with medical appointments with different doctors. I met several times with my team principal but nothing, nothing made me change my mind. Horner tried everything for the first couple of weeks. He even sent Max to do the job. He almost won. Who am I if not weak for those pretty ocean eyes ? That was the very moment I decided to quit. Awful, you can say that but it was overwhelming to a point I couldn’t bear it. 

I barely kept track of reality. There were so many things happening. So many feelings drowning me. And their eyes all filled with pity and regret. I couldn’t stand being seen like that. It was so difficult to believe the doctors when they said I might never get the chance to walk normally again. 

My world shattered. 

I cried for so many days that I couldn’t remember when I really stopped. My phone rang a lot at that time. I couldn’t face all their names. My family, my friends, my team, all the pilots… Too much, too much. I needed air to breathe. I needed space to expand my pain and my desillusions. I needed emptiness to scream my remorse. I hated myself for what I had done. I hated my body for not recovering the way it should. I hated that goddamn world.

I choose to live in a country where no one would find me. The kind of places no one knows about. The one that makes your guts feel at home. Close to my former home. My family knows where I am. My closest friends too. It is too dangerous. I trust them but what if they slip and tell my former drivers friends ? 

Although I feel guilty most of the time for my choices, it was an urgent matter to flee. For my own health and sanity, I had no other choice. I truly wish things went differently. I deeply miss everyone, especially Max. We could have become closer and stronger as a team. Only if we had more time and if I was clever than that. Despite him, I miss laughing with Lando and George. Everyone had their own way to deal with things and that was what I loved the most there. I was pretty harsh and impulsive back in the days. As determined as Max was, I would have done anything to be first. And look where it sends me ? 

The night was pretty harsh to me. I keep having insomnias and nightmares. Always reviving the crash. The same old one. My therapist always says it is time to face my past but I can’t help it. I am not that brave anymore. I am now a regular guy who’s living like everyone else. No fame. No expensive life. I have a small flat in a small town in a peaceful countryside. The sea is close to my place. It soothes my mind. I walk a lot on the sand. It feels relaxing. My mind is finally at peace there. When I can’t walk, I read. His face came into my mind a lot and books made me escape my new reality. So I do read a lot these days. My book shelves are about to explode. I might need to buy one more…

I am late for my job. After months, I finally found a new purpose three months ago. I work as a tour guide. I explain historical stuff and make people laugh. It feels right. It feels good. I am no more alone at home. I feel alive again. Whenever my mind isn’t a threat to my own sanity. It is really hard but I try my best. 

The museum I work in is quite small but there are a lot of things to explain during each tour. At last my mind is occupied for over an hour. It is so interesting. At first I doubted a lot but I guess I finally played along. 

Now, I do love my job. Nothing compared to formula one. There is no noise of cars, no screams from fans, no strong smells of rubber. Nothing but peace.

Bitter.

Bitter.

Liar. 

Everything is dull. 

The smile on my face keeps expanding as I enter the museum. I greet my colleagues. I forgot all my problems and my leg is working correctly this time. 

The show must go on.

But,

The hurt doesn't show, but the pain still grows

It's no stranger to you and me.

It has to stop or I won't make it. The day will be so long, so painful and I cannot stand it.

I have to deal with my choice, no matter what.

My phone vibrates but I don’t look at it as people are entering the museum. I greet them with a wide smile plastered on my face. They look at our posters and the products we sell. They ask a few questions like every customer does.

But everything has an ending.

Aren’t you Y/N ? You know that missing pilot ?

My colleagues look at each other. Maybe they watch my reaction carefully. The silence surrounds us and I can’t find anything to say.

Blank.

Everything was blank.

No thoughts, no words.

Nothing, just emptiness.

You must be mistaken.

Ellen, the one that works here for the longest speaks but I barely register what she really said. I shook my head, trying to recollect myself. For a whole year, I have never thought that moment would happen. I was terribly delusional. My chest hurts.

The customers stayed in the museum for a few minutes. The incident is already closed for them. I fear that they will speak later that day. When I won’t be in their sight. When emotions will make them write about meeting me. I can understand. I’ve been MIA for months now and everyone living here hasn’t said a thing. I know for sure as I have read all the theories about my new life. Some hurt more than some feel right, a bit funny. I have read everything the other drivers might have said. I was kinda addicted to pain. It was the only thing my chest would feel and it is still relevant.

*

Few weeks have passed. I have read nothing. Well, Ellen and Marcia did their best to avoid this topic. My therapist helped me to find hobbies to occupy my mind and to protect my wellbeing. I won’t lie, it is really hard because I want to know. I want to see if one of them will find me. If he will find me. This is absurd. I left them but the hope of them coming back before I could lingers on my mind. 

My chest hurts so much again and I am facing the sea with a book in both hands. It is sunset. The night will fall soon enough. Stars start to appear in the sky. The moon is almost invisible there. 

Oh funny, just how I feel most of the time now that I don’t shine anymore. 

But your choice, innit ?

The wind is quite cold as we are in mid-spring. Sand is covering my shoes. I don’t want to move back to my home where it feels empty and sad. I am about to start crying. I can’t get a hold on it anymore. My therapist says I should let it go. That I will feel better. She Is obviously right but I struggle to get past what I've been raised as. A future world champion. A machine that doesn’t feel anything. Yeah, Fate has a pretty bitter humour. 

   — I have never hated you, you know ?

Oh.

I really wish you would hate me.

Wait.

Wait, wait, wait.

That wasn't my thoughts. Was it really him or am I hallucinating ?

No, no, no. 

That cannot happen.

That can't be true.

I don't want it to happen. I am not even ready.

Panic overflows my whole body. My eyes have widened. My heart raced ironically. My respiration stopped without me noticing. I swallow pain. I took all the strength left inside my body and turned towards the voice.

He looks the same. Untouchable and determined. A fierce and sharp look resting on his face. There was a hint of sadness in the back of his blue eyes. I feel bad. This was not what I expected.

    — I …

My mouth opened. The words stay stuck in my throat. I am losing all. Max says nothing as if he was waiting for me to make a move. Honestly I don't think I am able to do that. My mind stops working. He must hate seeing this atrocious version of myself I've become.

     — Y/N.

His voice is firm and soft. Just as he always was back when I was racing. I got a few DFN and Max was always there to make sure I got confident enough to race back almost at his pace. I was never able to be at his race pace. He is Max and no one can be as fast as he is. I was never too far behind him. Always fight with George, Charles and Lewis. Most of the time top 5. The car does a lot but the pilot does too. I loved having a good fight with these guys.

Damn, now I miss it so much.

Max must have understood what was going on in my mind as he had finally moved towards me.

Only the waves breaking on the shore can be heard. None of us speak. I want to cry so bad. Feeling Max this close to me is awful. Pain, just pain. Everywhere. 

His fingers find my chin. He is so close. I can smell his cologne. The same old one. Typical of him. The one that feels home. Yeah, home. My body's at peace for a short moment but I'll print it in my mind before it vanishes. 

     — Y/N, please look at me…

I don't move and I don't need to because his fingers lift my chin up. I can't bear locking my eyes into him. Anxiety rises but I fell for those ocean eyes. 

There is just him. Stupid Max Verstappen. The sounds of peaceful waves. And my wrecked ass who had fallen for him a longtime ago. That was one of the main reasons I fled. I loved racing against him. It made me feel seen by him as more than a teammate. The bond we had was everything but deepened by our positions on the line.

I'm a fucked up mess, feeling angry and depressed

I make bad decisions, I make bad decisions…

His thumb finds my cheek. It is really soft. We had some moments like that back in the days. My eyes finally meet his. I see now an ocean of turmoil. I swallow with difficulty again. It hurts. Everything hurts. I fight against my weak leg. I forgot it for too long. I pull a face. I am really bad at masking now. 

Everything's a nightmare. I don't want him to worry. I don't want him to see that part of my new life. It is already so hard to adjust.

      — Do not overthink my venue. Your mom told me a few times after you left. And… and I thought you needed time. But days passed, weeks passed and I didn't find the courage to come to you. I left you all alone when you needed it the most. I am so sorry.

I let him speak. Nothing he said makes sense at all. How could my mom not tell me ? How could he not come ? How could he have stayed silent ? How could I not hate him for respecting my wishes ? 

        — I have read people speculating about your new life here and I took the chance to finally come to you. I miss you, Y/N. Nothing is that easy. I choose the easy path. You choose it too. I don't blame you so don't put the blame on you. I am begging you, Y/N.

Pain.

Pain.

Pain.

It is so hard to believe a thing he said. I feel much more lonely than before. I prefer the version where he doesn't care than this one. I want the version where everyone stays silent and does not lie to me back. I know they were protecting me but the pain keeps growing. 

Tears are drowning my eyes. My leg is about to give way. Everything is worse than I have ever imagined. Max might have seen it. The sadness on his face is the worst. Hints of guilt are lingering on his eyes. I don't want to feel bad for him. He chose to leave me alone.

But you pushed away everyone too.

Stupid brain.

Stupid.

Stupid.

     — That is too easy to say Max. You have no idea what I've been through this whole year. Don't lecture me. I don't need that. Please. I don't.

My voice was steady at first but at the end of my complaint it went weak. I hate it so much. I feel so vulnerable and I hate it. 

I hate everything right now.

For so long.

      —  I am so sorry, Y/N.

He says this with a heartbreak in his voice. My right leg gives out. My left leg follows. Pathetic as the way he catches me. Both my hands are over his shoulders as I try to stay steady but I obviously fail. The pain grows towards my spine. Worst than ever. 

Tears are running all over my face. I can barely breathe. One of Max's arms goes around my waist. I hate how my body loves it. I hate how it feels right. It is not the moment nor the place. 

     — We… I will bring you home.

He stops what was in his mind at first. I have always loved the « we » that was created behind glitz and glamour. Not anymore.

I can't remember how he carried me on his back to where his car was parked. I didn't take mine as I lived ten minutes by walking from here. Enough for my legs to get fully muscled. I should have taken better care of myself. Everything's terribly random so I can't keep track.

I am like a marionette laying on his back. My head is resting on his shoulder blades. His cologne is soothing my panic attack. I want to remember it forever. I almost fell asleep. I can't remember the last time I slept so well.

      — Y/N ?

Max's voice feels so distant. I have no strength to respond. My eyes are shut. My breath is relaxed. For the first time in years, I feel unwind.

     — Okay, sleep well.

A smile might have painted his face because I can hear it even from where I am landing. Morpheus finally welcomes me into his realm.

                      *

I only woke up the next morning. At first, I touched everything to be sure of where I was. My sheets. I can recognise the smell of it. I exhale deeply. How did I end up here ? Does Max … 

No, I don't want to know if he has left. I am pretty sure he has. My heart tightens and my chest hurts. Nothing holds him here. I have to be realistic. A sour mood is taking me to very well known lands.

My leg still hurts when I try to move. Whatta good day. I am already that bitter. 

Without moving that much, I try to find my brace. I don't even know where I have put it. I hiss as the pain rises. I will have to move despite that.

The door opens and I feel taken aback. Why is he still here ? Why can’t he do as the script in mind wrote ? Despite my sour mood, I really feel happy to see him. For once I am not alone in this. Even if I want to prove that I am not a burden due to my disability. I will push my body to foreign lands where I can get hurt worse. It is stupid but I can't help it. Most of the time I say nothing about the pain. Most of the time no one can see a thing but it never worked with Max. He can read through me. It feels good and bad at the same time. I cannot hide anything from him. 

     — Are you still in pain ? Are you trying to get up ? Do you need anything ?

I stayed silent for a few seconds. It felt forever. I can see it on the Dutch's face. 

    — Yeah… My brace, I don't know where I put it…

It is really hard to finally give in. It is really hard to be vulnerable in front of loved ones. He might not judge me but things would still poison my mind. It is that I fight the most. It is that my therapist is trying to help me deal with it.

Max looks everywhere in my room for me. I am really thankful and at the same time, I feel guilty because I can’t do it on my own.

After a few times, he started to search in my living room and my bathroom. I only got these rooms. I wasn’t able to buy a bigger flat in case I got hurt. My mom's advice and I didn’t get the heart to be preoccupied by a big house. Small is good. I feel like I'm in a cocoon. It’s safer. The only thing I needed and still need.

Max finally came back with my brace. I immediately sit on the edge of my bed. I move my right leg with my hand to prevent it from hurting. I thank Max and take the brace from him. I put it on my leg. He stays silent but close to me. He almost dropped a knee.

His eyes were so soft as if the whole scene was about to break. Mine were so tired.

Both of us feel like walking on eggshells. There were so many things to say and a few times ahead of us. None of us know how to start and I might not want that to happen.

My world is shattering again.

Cracking down. 

Max is entering it again. It feels right. It feels wrong. And I can’t help it.

       — I… I made breakfast.

I blink twice or maybe even more. I nod and try to get up which was difficult for a few seconds. Max takes my hand in his and he holds me steady. 

I follow him to the living room. This is a spacious room, open onto the kitchen. The bright sun rays enter through the windows. It feels warm. No more loneliness. Living is easier on this weird morning.

I walk to the dining table. Silence reigns. None of us dares to speak, not wanting to break this peaceful moment. His simple presence makes me wonder about the things I've left behind. Past guilt and present relief. He makes everything easier to deal with. How does he still not hate me ? I still can’t believe it. I still can get past that. No sense is making in my mind and I feel stuck on that thought. An endless circle. A poisoning prison. 

       — You think too much, Y/N.

His voice is still so soft. Too soft for my heart to bear it. Too soft for my mind to realise what’s going on. It feels like a living dream. I might wake up later that day and realise that I’ve imagined everything. I don’t want my heart to break. Not again.

         — This is what I’ve become, Max.

My own voice is painful. Almost a whisper, wishing no one will hear it but that is trusting reality enough. My brain is constantly lying to me. How could I be sure of things before me ? Another huge point that I am working with my therapist. Yeah, got a lot to work on. I might stay her patient for a decade or more.

         — Doesn’t mean you’ll stay that way forever.

I sneer, my head down to the plate he gave me seconds ago - How lovely of him. Same old Max. I never was more than fourth in the world championship and here he is saying this. That might be true. That might be false. I am in no state of mind to agree or disagree. I don’t fully understand.

Without knowing it, tears are running down my face. My new job is far away from my mind. Maybe I have to work today. Maybe I don’t. I can’t help but let the pressure escape my whole body. It shivers.

        — I am so sorry you had to fight this on your own. 

        — You kept apologizing since yesterday.

I sneer again and so does Max. An unbelievable laugh but it seems to be a true one.

      — True. But someone has to.

The determination in his eyes makes my body shiver in a way it has forgotten. My cheeks heat, turning in a pinkish color. This warmth, I forgot how it feels. Strangely before I left, he was the only one able to make me feel positive emotions. Guess that friendship has always been super strong for some reasons. But truth to be told, I have never wanted that. Even if I have ever wanted more, this is the only thing I can get and I get by.

The silence extends. None of us dares to speak and I slowly eat my breakfast, specially made by Max. I will need to find a way to repay him for that. Only if I meet him again…

— I am about to leave, Y/N. Will we meet again ?

— Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe, Max, maybe we will…

After that we finished eating. He helped me do the dishes. One last look, as our so many stolen glances, Max left.

Heavy hearts, broken silences, disturbed souls.

All left alone in that goddamned world.

[oph3liatlou]

— TAKE CARE OF ME

pairing(s) - concerned!joel miller x injured!female reader

word count - 798

warnings - mentions of gore, swearing, mentions of undressing.

proofread? - yes

note from author - darlin’ 😩

summary - you get injured on patrol, coming home to your boyfriend - he’s angry and concerned.

You come home from patrol while your boyfriend Joel, sits reading a book about wood carving. Something Ellie had bought him for his birthday. He hears the door and gets up to greet you.

“Hey darlin’, how did-“ But he stopped, mid sentence seeing a tear in your jacket and some blood dripping. His face darkened. “Who the hell hurt you?”

You closed the door with a shake of your head. “I’m fine, really it’s-“ You winced. “It’s not that bad.”

“Don’t bullshit me. I know when yer hurt. What happened?” He grabs your jacket with a firm grasp and starts to undo the buttons so he can examine you.

You protested against him. “It’s really not that bad, Joel. I promise-“ But when he removed your jacket, you both saw the shirt soaked with blood.

He froze as he saw your crimson stained shirt. The sight of your blood made it difficult to keep him calm. “What the hell happened?” His tone was a bit desperate and fearful.

You sighed as Joel moved you to the couch. “Maria and I got cornered by some hunters, we took them out but -“ You paused looking at him, you knew he was mad that you got hurt. “Really - it’s not that bad, I’ve had worse…”

“I don’t care if you’ve had worse. Yer still hurt an-“ He stopped himself before he finished his sentence. He realized how angry he was. “What'd Maria do? She hurt?” He asked.

“She’s fine, maybe a few bruises from being in close quarters. I’m sure she’s with Tommy.”

He sighed again, but this time it was a sigh of relief - he knew Tommy was going to have the same reaction to Maria, as Joel had to you. “Just lemme take a look…”

You removed your shirt and tried not to wince at the pain of moving. He started to stop the bleeding and clean out the wound. He wasn’t being very gentle, more so because he was frustrated and worried about you.

You gritted your teeth at the pain and the sting of him cleaning your bullet graze. “Fuck- do you think you can be more gentle?” You were in pain from the wound so, it affected your patience.

He grumbled at your comment but continued with his task. He was careful about not being too rough but, he was obviously annoyed too. “Sorry darlin’.” He mumbled, his tone showing some remorse. It took him several minutes to treat your wound before finally, bandaging it. He moved his hand to feel your forehead. “You’ve gota’ fever.”

You nodded and grumbled gently, holding the side that was now bandaged - still in your bra. You shivered now. The fever was probably just a sign of fighting off the shock. It was too early to have an infection. “It’s fine…”

“No, it’s not.” He looked at you, seeming more worried than annoyed now. “You’ve gotta fever, you were jus’ shot - you need rest.” He protested.

“I wish you took this good care of yourself when you got hurt.” You retorted as you stood to go upstairs and lie down.

His eyebrows furrowed slightly as he helped you up the stairs and into your shared bedroom. That was a low-blow, but it was true. When he was in his most dire situations and got hurt, he didn’t let anyone worry about him. He simply patched himself up and went on without a complaint. “Yeah, I know yer right.”

You let out a soft chuckle as you laid down. “Are you just agreeing with me because I was shot?”

“Pretty much.” He said with a smirk. He sat on the edge of the bed and started to brush your hair back. “Can I ask you somethin'?” He seemed slightly worried now.

You nodded gently, furrowing your eyebrows at his question. “Yeah Joel, of course.”

He took a deep breath. “Promise me,” he spoke softly and paused for a moment. “Promise me that you’ll do yer absolute best to stay safe…”

Your expression softened and you moved to caress his cheek gently - even though you were pained when you moved. “I’ll be careful if you’re careful.” You agreed softly.

A small smile spread across Joel’s face. “You’ve gotta’ deal darlin’.” He placed his forehead against yours for a moment before kissing your forehead. “Get some rest. You’ve been throu' alot today.”

You returned a smile to him before shifting down in the bed - slowly, as if not to cause more pain to yourself. “Goodnight…” You mumbled, as tiredness took over your body. You knew you needed your sleep for recovery.

As you fell asleep, Joel wondered - if you’d ever realize how much he wanted you to take care of him, too.

[anika-ann]

A Cup of Truth (S.R)

Type: One-shot, a bit of coffee shop AU

Pairing: Steve Rogers x fem!reader    Word Count: 3000

Summary: Your favourite pretty blond comes in every day to get a cup of good ol’ joe. You flirt on occasion; mostly you, because your suit of armour – which people boringly call an apron – and his smiles give you confidence.

When the band of dumb goons picks your damn workplace to attack, your confidence flies out of the window. Well. Good thing that the resident Avenger heroes save the day including the one in his all-American star-spangled glory.

Prompt: “You can’t mask that ass. I’d know it anywhere.” (Bold in the text)

Warnings: hostage situation, violence, non-consensual drug use/injected, hospitals, slightly crack-ish humour (?) and some fluff

A/N: For marvelcapsicle’s challenge. Thank you for letting me participate, darling, may you gain more and more sweet followers in the future ♥

⊱⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊰

Here’s a thing: Steve Rogers had a lot of fight in him. Before or after injected with the serum, no matter his shirt size, no matter if he could swing his fists effectively or not, he would punch bullies in their face.

When it came to people close to his heart, that rule amplified tenfold. No one touched the people he cared for. And while he would not necessarily call all of them friends, he would go rabid should any harm come their way.

To be fair, the list of ‘his people’ who were still alive wasn’t long; he could almost count them on the fingers of one hand. Tony. Natasha. Clint. Thor. Bruce. Probably Fury. Really, his circle was a bit monotonous, people who could protect themselves just fine at most times, but simultaneously with high-risk job of being the first defence line for the world’s greatest threats.

And then there was you.

You, with your inviting smile whenever he appeared at your counter at the café he had discovered during his endless walks.

You, handing him a drink different to his usual ‘boring’ cup of joe once a week, because that was the deal you had offered and Steve, caught in his curiosity about today’s world and your adorable challenging expression, agreed.

You, with your pretty eyes, irises twinkling at his attempts at flirting, no matter how awkward and out-of-time they sounded, graciously returning the favour… if he was reading the situation right.

You, always grinning wide when discovering a doodle he had left on his napkin, taking it with you back to the counter.

You, blissfully unaware of his double life, genuine in your demeanour, dealing with plain old Steve Rogers, and perfectly safe; at least as safe as one could be on Manhattan.

You in a headlock, as five rogue SHIELD agents decided to crash into the café you worked at of all the damn places, choosing it with deadly precision and nearly driving the poor Captain America into a cardiac arrest.

Not that you had any idea your life mattered to the proclaimed Star-Spangled Man more than anyone else’s. You were the exception to the rule; you were the precious outsider Steve caught feelings for, the one that was not supposed to learn about his other persona for at least a while longer and sure as hell was not supposed to get herself in a mess like this one.

Steve stood frozen as Natasha had two men at gunpoint, Clint fighting another, the last one having been already knocked down by Steve himself. The only injured people were the few customers, scarce at the hour, and the employees; some bruises and insignificant bleeding wounds between all of them.

The worst problem still remained; Perez had his arm around your neck, visibly squeezing your windpipe at least partly if the colour of your face – one stained in tears and Steve could kill at the moment, kill with no remorse – was anything to go by.

He gripped his shield tighter, staring the man down with his jaw clenched and his heart beating its way out of his chest, the syringe at your carotid scaring him more than the reduced airflow to your lungs.

“It’s over, Perez! Let her- let the woman go,” Steve howled, knees slightly bend in posture allowing him to spring forward at any second, to throw his weapon, to punch the living daylight of the bastard that not only betrayed SHIELD, but put his hands on you.

Big, big mistake. He really shouldn’t have done that.

“I like her exactly where she is, Cap,” Perez snarled, a wicked smile on his bloody lips, only his eyes giving away a fraction of his fear. “Move and she gets a ticket straight to hell.”

Perez was outnumbered and he knew it; even if he managed to escape, they would find him easily with Tony Stark’s system of surveillance. Yet, he tightened his grip and with you involuntarily acting like a human shield for him, he started backing away, gaze flickering between the three present Avengers.

Natasha’s right arm twitched as if she wanted to shoot him on spot – but she didn’t want to risk leaving the other two without the threat of immediate death for even a second.

And then several things happened at once; Clint knocked his opponent down with the construction of his bow; Perez who saw it lost his nerve and swiftly slammed the needle into your neck, piercing your skin easily, as easily as Steve’s panicked shout ripped from his throat.

The next second, an arrow was sticking from Perez’ shoulder as he jerked back with a cry of pain and Clint put another arrow through his hand, adding one to his thigh for a good measure. Two gunshots sounded in the background, Natasha’s aim as unmistakable as ever.

Perez fell to the ground with a scream, not even reaching for the gun in his holster before Steve was there to knock him out with a brutal hit straight to his face with his vibranium shield. The crack sounding at the impact was like music to Steve’s ears, the blood spurting from Perez’ nose a pleasant visual.

Yet, it didn’t feel half as satisfactory as Steve hoped as you had stumbled and toppled over your own feet. He barely managed to slow down your fall, gloved palm shooting up under the spot between your shoulder blades, his other hand holding your shoulder. He supported your enfeebled weight as you practically lied over the unconscious man.

Steve didn’t bother paying attention to his surroundings, knowing that the noise around him was Romanoff and Barton apprehending the remaining thugs. Instead, his gaze scanned you head to toe, focusing on your face and neck when he couldn’t find any other injury.

You were pale, eyes misted, unfocused, skin worryingly cold to his touch.

“Hey-- hey! Can you hear me?” Steve demanded urgently, lightly patting your cheek.

At that, your pupils zeroed on him, wide with disbelief, and to his immense shock, a lazy smile spread on your lips.

“Steve?” you breathed out his name and blood crystalized in his veins, his heart, already panicking, speeding up. How did you know his name? Perhaps the drug, the whatever liquid in the syringe was taking effect and you were turning delirious? Shit, they needed a doctor-- “You’re the pretty blond. Steve. My flirty Steve… my hero. Everyone’s hero.”

Steve’s horror escalated with each word. Good news: you were still breathing and apparently quite lucid, even if your speech was more of a mumble. Bad news: his secret identity just blew up.

Luckily, he considered the good news much more important; and lucid he would like to keep you, so he shot Natasha and Clint a meaningful glare, wordlessly asking them to call help. He wasn’t sure whether it registered because both of the spies were staring at him wide-eyed as the woman in his arms just outed him like the café’s regular… one that flirted with her, no less.

Steve cleared his throat, focusing on his mission – to keep you talking. There was no much point in denying it, was it?

“Eh... yeah, it’s me. How-how did you know? I wear a mask-“

“Muscly… real muscly… and that ass,” you muttered and Steve nearly choked on his spit, certain that he just turned red all over, including the area you pointed out.

Wait, did that mean that you had been checking him out?

So not important right now.

“Oh, uhm- how are you feeling? We have to-“

“You can’t mask that ass. I’d know it anywhere,” you continued babbling as if you hadn’t heard him and Steve gulped, feeling his teammates, who still hadn’t called a doctor, what the actual hell- watching you with interest. ”…could bounce a penny off it… no, that ain’t right, a quarter off of it, that’s it… Dream of it sometimes… biting-“

Clint coughed loudly to cover his laughter, finally springing into action after that uncomfortable remark that gave Steve quite a visual he wasn’t sure how he felt about just yet.

“Alright, as amusing as this is, we should get her some medical attention…”

Steve only took his eyes off of you for a moment, shooting Barton a look that screamed ‘You think?!’

“I want to touch it… please lemme touch it—just once,” you pleaded quietly, swaying even in your practically horizontal position, straining your neck to catch a glimpse of the object of your interest. “The best I’ve even seen-“

“I think it’s ethanol she got injected with…” Natasha announced, sniffing the syringe with disgust in her voice. “High concentration.”

And Steve felt like he just got hit by Thor’s hammer… in his head. Seriously?

“…alcohol?” he asked, dumbstruck and utterly relieved, the heavy weight in his stomach lifting a bit. “You think she’s merely… drunk?”

“Well, alcohol straight to the bloodstream is seriously nasty on its own, S-“

“Alcohol nasty, yesss. And this really hurts,” your voice interrupted Natasha and Steve’s heart clenched uncomfortably when the surprised grimace appeared on your face, your eyes indeed clouding in pain, looking up at him, doe-eyed, so vulnerable and trusting.

“Hey, no sad Steeb! Your eyes pretty too. Little pictures you draw… so suuuper cute. I like your hair. You came in the day, wind blew, so messy-- like bed hair, wanna try top that-- I betcha I can do better-“

“Sounds drunk enough to you?” Natasha hummed casually and Steve didn’t even have to look at her to know she was smirking, while he was both fretting over your state and blushing to the roots of his hair because of your blunt compliments and unfiltered fantasies.

You turned your head slowly to Nat as she spoke, a crooked grin curling up your lips. “Hey, you’re pretty too-“

Much to Steve’s annoyance, the Russian spy had the audacity to chuckle and wink at you.

“Why thank you-“

“But prefer blonds,” you babbled again, lowering your voice conspiratorially. “He’s real nice. His biceps are like… huge. Bigger than my head-- ow, my head… spi-spinning- I think-? Whoa— oh… “

Steve called out your name in panic as you went limp in his arms, your body pliant, folding like a house of cards.

“I like her,” Clint noted as he jogged to Steve’s side, kneeling to take your pulse on the unharmed carotid with a furrow to his brows. “The medics are on their way, she’ll hold on until then.”

Steve sighed in relief when Clint nodded in affirmation again, feeling your heart still beating.

Steve’s grip on your tightened, hand sliding behind your head to cradle it gently rather than letting it dangle in such unnatural angle. He manoeuvred it so your cheek rested against his chest, his newly free hand sneaking under your knees so he could lift you with ease as he stood up.

“Nice, Rogers. Keep going like this, squads with weights, and you’ll keep that exceptional ass of yours in shape,” Natasha teased him, but when he turned to glare at her, she gave him a soft smile and beckoned towards your nearly motionless body. “She’ll be okay. Let’s go get her some help.”

⊱⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊰

Your head was pounding. The right side of your neck was itchy as hell and felt extremely stiff. The beeping sounding in your ears was a thing from nightmares, echoing in your aching skull.

You felt like shit and honestly, you could cry when you tried to open your eyes and the sharp light hit them, making you swiftly close them again.

A realization slowly crept at you that there was a presence of an intrusive smell too, making you want to puke— or was that just the brutal hangover? Because you felt unbelievably hungover on top of everything. The world seemed to be spinning even behind your closed eyelids and you couldn’t but groan, deciding to only curse the universe mentally since your throat resembled a Sahara Desert.

“Oh, hey gorgeous,” a female voice greeted you from your left and you snapped your eyes open with a startle, staring with shock at the beautiful redhead sitting by your bedside.

For few long seconds, you wondered if you died and went to heaven, because there was a non-descript angelic-like creature watching over you.  You quickly brushed that thought aside, because there was no way Heaven looked like a hospital room and provided you with such shitty sensations attacking your poor body.

So you asked the only logical question, ignoring the dryness of your mouth which soon cause you to cough.

“…who are you?”

A plastic cup with a heavenly cold liquid landed in front of you, the straw sticking from it directed to your lips as the stunning woman frowned discontentedly.

“Oh, you don’t remember?” she asked, seemingly hurt. “My heart is breaking! You told me I was pretty.”

You blinked slowly, finally adjusting to the light, finally able to talk without pain (that much pain, that was) and your head started pounding some more, embarrassment filling every fibre of your being.

What the- oh god, you had really got drunk, hadn’t you, and now you had a total blackout on what you had been up to in your questionable state.

“Eeeer… I did? I mean, you are… but-“

“But you prefer blonds, yeah, I know,” the mysterious woman finished your sentence to her liking and your eyes went wide. How did she- and who was she again, sitting in your hospital room like that? Had you really got so smashed that you didn’t remember her when you should have? When had you met? Shit, your mind was so foggy… “And you think Steve’s a bit prettier. And his ass is the best you’ve ever seen, so I get it…”

“The hell?!” you squealed in utter horror, sitting up straight as the words registered, a flash of blue, red and white flickering in the back of your mind, followed by a sharp stung in your temples. A nauseatingly strong pain resembling an intense cramp – only like ten times worse – shot up your neck as you moved so quickly, ripping a startled yelp from your throat.

A hazy image of the café you worked at blended into a picture Steve’s beautiful eyes – did this woman know your regular, your handsome flirty blond regular? –, sensation of gentle hands cradling your jaw, a sting in your neck—

“You need to be careful with how much you move. Your neck took quite a hit, they had to perform a surgery on you, you got a transfusion. They worried about your brain too. They’ve been monitoring you for four days now and this is the first time you’re awake,” your stranger explained patiently, voice full of compassion.

Your hand involuntarily rose to massage the incriminated place, still unsure of what the woman was talking about, the images in your brain confusing the hell out of you. You still had no idea who she was, but her face was starting to feel a bit familiar – you assumed that whatever had happened, she had been there too, possibly helping you.

And there was something in her green eyes, cautious yet somewhat calming, making it easy to trust her for some inexplicable reason.

“Steve’s gonna be pissed at me for missing it,” she added and grinned. “I made him leave to take care of himself before he could actually start taking roots in here. He’s been worried too. A lot.”

The amount of question marks in your head just doubled, but at the same time, your heart fluttered. Steve had visited you? Often, apparently? That was really, really sweet of him. The thought of him guarding you – and didn’t he have a physique of a bodyguard, once mentioning he was in private security when asked –, brought a dreamy smile to your face.

Perhaps it wasn’t only about flirting for him either…?

“Keep looking so lovestruck and I might forgive him that he hasn’t mention you before. Though I guess I can’t blame him, wanting to keep— anyway. I’m Natasha. Nice to meet you,” she extended her hand towards you at last and you automatically accepted it, telling her your name in return.

Even though that was probably beside the point seeing as she had been found at your bedside in a hospital.

“Hi, Natasha. Nice to meet you too… I think.”

The redhead burst out into a quiet laughter at your hesitance. “Fair enough. After Steve comes back and explains what exactly happened – because it’s not quite my place to tell you –, call me back for the good details. It’s fun to make him blush.”

Despite just only having met this woman, you decided that you kinda liked her and nodded in acceptance of her offer. Steve might be sweet – perhaps even sweet on you it seemed – but some harmless teasing could never hurt. Not when it apparently had something to do with his glorious ass.

⊱⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊰

Here’s a thing: Steve Rogers had a lot of fight in him. Before injected with the serum or after, no matter his shirt size, no matter if he could swing his fists effectively or not, he would fight for what mattered.

His teammates and friends certainly fell into the category. The somewhat relationship he had been trying to build with you was right there with them, definitely worth fighting for.

So, after revealing his identity – an action which become inevitable at that point, really – he had a delicate confession to make and a bold question to ask in an almost shy voice. He still asked it, because he would be damned if he gave up on you.

You said yes, your confession about certain harboured feelings matching his.

You said yes, you would like to go out with him very much, because you liked him too.

And no, it wasn’t just because he owned the best backside you had ever seen. Steve Rogers was, according to you, quite memorable and worth fighting for in general too.

(Steve, over time, might have developed a bit of a love-hate relationship with the fact you were getting along with Natasha so well. It was good news and bad news at the same time, seeing as it often resulted in the two of you teaming up against him. Once again, the good news won him over… because he simply loved how easily you fit into his world and how surprisingly well he fit into yours.)

⊱⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊰

S.R. masterlist

⊱⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊰

Thank you for reading :-*

It’s once a again a bit different from my usual writing; it’s short (like wtf me? short?) and it’s with a quote that is hard to do justice to... so I hope you liked it at leats a bit. Feedback always appreciated :-*

[erin-bo-berin]

My Heroine

MASTERLIST

This fic was inspired by the song My Heroine by The Maine which you can listen to here, if you’d like. The song I’ve come to realize sounds like it can have multiple interpretations, but I was inspired to use the whole “reader is Spencer’s drug of choice” plot. Not gonna lie it was rough writing about his prison trauma cause I consider it to be one of his biggest traumas, but I kinda wanted this to be a journey from his avoidance of it to his eventual acceptance, all while sex is his “heroin” or the reader is the “heroine” in his story. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy. Happy reading!

Spencer Reid/Reader

Rating: M (smut)

Word Count: 4,460

I’m feeling pretty dirty baby

Forgive my sins

I get the feeling you can save me honey,

My heroine

The silver gleam from the sharp blade caught his eye as it hit the light. In any other circumstances, the sharpness of it might actually be considered  beautiful.

This was anything but beautiful.

This was horrifying.

The metal was so closely pressed to skin that even a small flinch could draw blood.

“Never ever mess with a man’s stash on the inside. When you do,” the man paused for a second—a millisecond—before the knife sliced across the skin, ripping the hostage’s throat open.

He struggled against the person holding him, his momentary shock and need to help his friend making him fight the grip of the big man, even more.

“People get hurt,” the first guy said, backing away.

The second man let go of him, his friend falling to the floor, choking on his own blood. While they made their departure from the laundry room, he ran to his injured friend’s side, grabbing a towel to hold against the wound.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” he repeated, kneeling over the only friendly face he’d known in the last weeks.

If he repeated it enough, he’d be okay. He had to be. 

“Guard!” he yelled.

His hands cradled his friend’s face as he lay gasping and wheezing, the fear in his eyes matching his own. 

In all the years, throughout all the things he saw that most normal people didn’t, he’d never been as terrified as he was right now. His heart raced from the fear and he was breathing heavy as he screamed as loud as he could.

“HELP! HELLLLP!”

Spencer shot up in bed, breathing hard.

His face was sweaty, his entire body was sweaty, in fact. His t-shirt clung to his skin.

He kicked off the covers, sitting on the side of his bed, running his hands through his hair. He tried in vain to calm his pounding heart and slow his breathing.

The nightmares hadn’t stopped. If anything, they’d gotten worse.

A rare burst of anger caused him to shove the object that was sitting on his nightstand, off of it with extreme force.

He glared at the journal on the floor where it had landed haphazardly. He didn’t want to write in it like his therapist suggested. It didn’t help him then and it wasn’t going to help him now.

He rubbed his eyes, trying desperately to erase all the images that constantly played behind his eyes, regardless if he was asleep or awake.

It was the middle of the night, but he knew what he needed. He grabbed his phone off the charger and sent a quick text.

I need a distraction.

The recipient would understand, he knew. It was only 1 am and they were known to be a night owl anyway. 

He grabbed a pair of pants to change into and pulled them on in place of his pajama pants. All he had to grab were his car keys and his phone and he was out the door.

-

It’d only been six months since Spencer had been released from prison in which he spent three long, grueling months in.

He had been framed.

That was the first thing he remembered thinking, even under the influence of heroin and cocaine, in which the unsub had drugged him with. He had been sitting in a prison cell in Mexico, but deep down he knew he hadn’t done anything, even if his mind was scrambled and tried desperately to convince himself otherwise.

Fucking Cat Adams. If she hadn’t been such a psychopath, he might’ve admired her intelligence and skills to pull off something so elaborate, but alas, she was.

Her and her female partner Lindsey Vaughn had been watching him, waiting to strike. All because Spencer had arrested Cat and outsmarted her. It’s where she belonged after all. She’d been a

hit woman, operating in the shadows of the dark web that even experts in the area couldn’t even fathom.

She, along with four other assassins had been working for years before any law enforcement even knew of their existence. Spencer and the rest of his fellow Behavioral Analysis team had been the only ones to get close enough to them. Close enough in fact, to take them all down, every last one.

Cat Adams though, had been the hardest one. She was one to play mind games and she hated to lose. Which she had against him; he’d outsmarted her and she was the one who’d landed in a prison cell.

Of course, being the kind of person she was, she wasn’t going to take that lying down. So, she returned the favor.

He had been determined to help his mother—Diana Reid—who’d been suffering from paranoid schizophrenia all his life, but now had been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. He was smart, he was sure he could help her, fix her maybe.

There’d been a plethora of drug trials, medicine combinations, diet changes, but nothing helped. So without his teammates—who happened to be the closest friends he had—knowledge, he had been crossing the Mexico border numerous times to get medicine for his mother, one that was definitely not FDA approved.

It was one of these trips that Lindsey—and technically Cat too—had struck. 

She’d dosed him with a spray of scopolamine, pumped him full of cocaine and heroin and murdered the woman he’d been meeting to get the vials of medicine from.

It was bad, really bad. He was the prime suspect in the murder and that is how he ended up in Millburn Correctional Facility pending trial for three months.

Thankfully, the BAU had worked their asses off to clear his name, but in the time spent in prison he had experienced some pretty awful things.

If that hadn’t been bad enough, Cat had orchestrated another evil plan. Lindsey had managed to kidnap his mother.

Less than 12 hours after being released from jail, he was back in another one to face Cat again and play her games. 

She had been executed for her crimes and the additional charges she faced for framing him and kidnapping his mother. He wasn’t the least bit remorseful; if anything, he was glad he’d never have to deal with her again. He dealt with her in his mind enough as is.

Spencer didn’t deal with emotions very well, so it was no surprise to himself that he didn’t stop to process his trauma.

Instead, he found other outlets.

He’d known Y/N for several years but had done an awful job of keeping in touch as the years passed. He’d recently reconnected with her before his arrest and then he’d pulled away again.

He felt bad for never telling her until after the fact, but he’d been embarrassed enough. 

She was a good friend, one who had said she would do anything to help him if and when he needed it.

That’s how the arrangement began. It’d happened once, by accident, but it had helped him forget everything when he needed it the most.

Which is why at 1 a.m. he was headed over to her house, just to forget everything for a while.

Your hips, my hands, you swing and you dance

Yeah, I’m feeling pretty lonely baby 

Just let me in

Just let me in

The door to her apartment opened to reveal her barefoot and in a long, oversized t-shirt.

“Hey,” she greeted him.

He didn’t waste time with the greetings, he kicked the door closed with his foot and grabbed her face, kissing her.

Within minutes he had her pressed up against her door, hands roaming under her shirt as he kissed her hungrily.

He wanted to forget.

Needed to forget.

She moaned into the kiss. Lucky for him, she got horny easily. She was always ready to go at it whenever. Maybe it had something to do with him, although he didn’t know. He never really took the time to dwell on it.

His fingers stroked her bare stomach as his tongue moved against hers. Her hands clutched the bottom of his shirt, pulling away long enough to help him yank it over his head. Her shirt followed suit.

For a while, they stayed there, top halves pressed against one another as their lips moved together in a complicated, yet simple dance. 

They made out for a while, while Spencer forced his brain to empty and focus on her. It finally worked as he felt his crotch tighten, his need for her now more than just something to get him through the night.

She led him back to her bedroom and within minutes was kneeling in front of him, pulling his cock out of his pants.

“You gonna be a good little girl and suck my cock?” he mumbled, looking down at her with lidded eyes.

Normally, he would never fathom talking like this. But something had changed within him in the last six months. He was rougher around the edges, he quite literally didn’t give a fuck anymore. Which proved to be true since he quite literally had a fuck buddy—something the old Spencer wouldn’t even consider.

He cared about her, but like him, she didn’t want anything serious, so he never felt too bad taking advantage of her this way. Weren’t they both using each other anyway?

“Your wish is my command,” she purred, making his cock throb even more.

The moment her mouth touched him, his eyes closed in pure bliss, the feeling chasing the nightmares away.

His hand threaded in her hair, guiding her head as her tongue glided and mouth hollowed out, sucking him like her favorite popsicle. She was amazing at this, he definitely had to give her that.

“Y/N, fuck,” he groaned, his hips bucking up towards her mouth.

Her tongue was his gateway to an anxiety free mind—at least for the time being.

He pushed her away after a few minutes. He wasn’t going to last if she kept that up much longer.

With surprising agility, he’d had her from her knees to bent over the end of the bed in seconds.

Their sessions were far from romantic love making—the type of intimacy he knew she deserved—but more animalistic and frenzied. 

He knew he was selfish and instead of letting her have what she deserved from a man, he held tight to her like she was his lifeline.

In a way, she had become his lifeline. Things got worse the longer he tried to stay away from her. That’s why he always returned.

Her moans and the slap of their bodies were the only sounds heard in the room as he thrust deep into her. Even as fucked up as he was, he had to be an idiot to not admit that sex with her was incredible. She was incredible.

“Spencer, oh my god, fuck.”

Her words came out in a strangled moan as he’d switched up the movements of his hips. Instead of the fast and harsh thrusts, they turned into slow and deeper ones. He may only be her fuck buddy, but he was still gonna be damn sure she got her pleasure out of it too.

His fingers dug into her hips as he tried to erase the images of his earlier nightmare with every thrust. Usually, it worked. Tonight though, he was struggling.

Instead of disappearing, the memories kept flashing through his head like a silent movie on repeat.

The helplessness everyone felt in that prison.

The fear he felt.

The images of a group of white men who pointed a knife in his face his first full night in prison.

Two, sneering and sadistically joyful faces hovering over him as they beat him to a pulp, smothering his face with a rag.

His desperate decision in doing something so awful that it hurt more men than he intended it to.

The constant paranoia.

The fear he had become a monster.

Every single moment inside he’d spent that he had to make choices he’d never fathomed he’d have to—only to survive.

Delgado.

“Switch it up,” he muttered, pulling out of her, turning her around.

His jaw was tense, his body was rigid. All he wanted was one orgasm to erase his nightmare.

Her eyes narrowed, sensing his tension but knowing better than to comment on it.

“Let me take care of you,” she whispered.

She pushed him towards the head of the bed, ordering him to sit against it. He did as he was told, focusing all of his attention on her again.

When she climbed into his lap to straddle him, his breathing had become ragged and he was glad that the stirrings of his arousal were coming back—his sexual attraction to her luring him back in again.

She sank down on him and he exhaled sharply, groaning lowly. The feeling of her tight around him was always like drinking water after being utterly parched.

“You like that?” she purred, her hands resting against his chest, “You like when I take care of you?”

“Very much so,” he growled.

He thread his hand into the back of her hair, pulling her face towards his. He kissed her roughly, his lower half meeting the speed she’d set since she was now the one in charge. Her pelvis grinded against his, giving her even more pleasure, he was sure.

As much as he did this for his benefit, he also had a small sense of pride in knowing he could make her moan and writhe like he did. His hands cupped her breasts, massaging them and she threw her head back with a loud moan. 

He could practically fall apart at that sight alone, but he managed to resist.

His lips attached to her throat, sucking harshly, sure to leave a mark. Their moves were frantic as she gripped the headboard and he bucked relentlessly into her.

They both spiraled into ecstasy, not that far apart from one another.

Sweaty and out of breath, she moved off of him, gathering her clothes and tossing his own to him.

“Want something to eat before you go?”

She asked it so nonchalantly it was as if he hadn’t just spent about half an hour buried to the hilt in her.

“No, thanks though.”

He wasn’t one to stay long after the deed, even though a part of him felt like an ass for it. Y/N didn’t deserve that. But if it ever bothered her, she never let on.

She nodded, watching him as he finished pulling his shirt over his head.

“I’m around, if you need me.”

Spencer gave a nod and headed to the door, grabbing his car keys on his way out.

You’re my heroine, but you’re suicide 

If I let you in you’ll crawl inside 

You save my skin

But you can’t wait to sink in 

My heroine

In a way, Y/N had become his drug.

Whenever things got too hard, he went to her. But lately, it was like every time he fucked her, it only left him needing more.

His PTSD was getting worse, the sex was only distracting him for so long, but he was stubborn. He wasn’t going to give her up anytime soon.

The PTSD was also affecting his work and he knew it.

It’d been six months since his release from prison, but he’d only been reinstated for three months. He worked his ass off to get his position back and he wasn’t about to let his emotions get the best of him.

He was currently trying to focus on the geo profile in front of him, but his vision kept blurring. He rubbed his eye, trying hard to block out everything else but this case.

He was becoming increasingly irritable as well.

It had only been a week since his last visit to Y/N, but he was craving her and her distractions so much. His nightmares hadn’t ceased, he was hardly sleeping and his teammates weren’t oblivious.

They knew he was having a hard time readjusting.

Spencer doubted they knew just how bad it really was though.

The map blurred in front of his eyes again, the sight being replaced with moving pictures, his memories being played before his eyes.

Like the time he was so desperate to survive, he poisoned drugs that he was supposed to move, instead of getting involved with the situation.

He ended up causing several men to get incredibly sick—his guilt over that still haunted him at night.

Prison was an incredibly dangerous place and he had been too good of a person to survive as long as he had.

For a while he’d had two friends; Delgado and Shaw.

One was murdered in front of him.

The other turned out to be using him. Shaw ran the entire prison population. He called the shots and people listened to him. But Spencer wanted no part of that.

Making an enemy of Shaw had been deadly. In fact, it came close to being deadly. Spencer could’ve easily lost his life behind bars.

It had been months since he had been locked up, but the sense of helplessness he felt still haunted him to this day. It smothered him like the sweltering heat on a hot, summer day.

He rubbed his palms into his eyes. He felt like he couldn’t breathe while at the same time his heart rate accelerated. His sense of fight or flight was being triggered and he couldn’t stop the sense of dread that was engulfing his senses.

“Spence, you okay?”

“Yeah, I just need some fresh air,” he answered, brushing past a worried JJ.

The moment he exited the crowded police station and the cool air hit his face, he felt fractionally better, but the anxiety still gripped him.

He gripped his tie, yanking at it and loosening it, so he could breathe. The feel of it around his neck had been making him feel like he was suffocating more so than he already had been.

His therapist had told him panic attacks were normal with PTSD, but he hadn’t had them much. This was an exception apparently.

He leaned against the brick of the building and tried to focus on his breathing to bring his heart rate down. After all he’d endured, he wasn’t about to let a damn panic attack take him down.

His eyes were closed as he tried to calm down, so he didn’t hear Luke approaching.

“Reid.”

He opened his eyes, seeing his teammate Luke Alvez, standing next to him. 

He wondered how he currently looked through Luke’s eyes. A mess, probably. 

Luke didn’t beat around the bush, either.

“Your PTSD has gotten worse, hasn’t it?” he asked, gently.

Spencer shrugged.

“Spencer, if you need to take some time—”

“I don’t need to take time off because I’m fine,” he snapped.

Luke flinched as if Spencer had physically hit him. If anything, he knew that his outburst was just further proof at how not okay he was.

“I need to get back to work,” he mumbled, moving around Luke to head back inside.

He wasn’t sure of anything much lately, but one thing he knew for sure was when they got back from the current case, he was heading straight to Y/N’s apartment.

I feel a little withdrawal baby,

Come pick me up

Took a hit from your level

Now I just can’t get enough 

Your taste, my touch

A little bit of love and a whole lot of lust 

He was back at her door, knocking.

She opened the door, dressed in another oversized t-shirt—due to the late hour of night—and greeted him with a wordless nod. Somehow, he thought she knew that he was having a bad time today.

He looked like shit, that he knew. His hair was a mess of tangled curls, his eyes were bloodshot and deep, dark bags shined brightly under his face, darker than his normal appearance. His cheekbones were more prominent lately as well since he wasn’t eating much, nor was he sleeping well either.

“How do you want me?” she asked.

Her tone was dull and to the point and threw him off guard for a moment. She’d never made it about her, ever. But now, looking at her, he could see her unhappiness. Whether he caused it or not, he was unsure.

This arrangement of theirs had been only to help him forget. Too quickly, it had become like an addiction for him. She was like his drug. He needed her to forget. But maybe, at the same time, she was tired of trying to help him when he couldn’t even help himself.

He promised himself that this would be the last time. Once more and he’d let her go. He’d let her be free of him. She’d be happier anyways.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said.

He tried to be gentle as he pulled her towards him. As he kissed her, he felt her body melt into his. Maybe he had been imagining her mood earlier.

He tried to focus on getting hard, not on all the horrors that constantly swirled in his mind.

His lips moved swiftly with hers in a kiss that was anything but romantic or gentle. It was lust driven and filled with his own desperate need to be distracted.

She knew exactly what to do to get him in the mood, that’s for sure. 

Her teeth tugged at his lower lip gently, her tongue almost the complete opposite of their current actions. It was gentle and hesitant as it met his before continuing its dance with his own.

He pulled her closer, his hand tangled in her hair as he kissed her more roughly, pushing her against the arm of her couch.

In the blink of an eye, he had her turned around and bent over the arm, his hand gliding over the silk material of her underwear. He felt a small swell of pride hearing her moan as he touched her. It also went a long way in helping his own arousal which was now throbbing in his pants.

He was already unbuttoning his pants as he kissed her neck, his hips pressing into hers. The more he got into it, the more he actually felt that he wanted this—that he wanted her.

With one smooth movement, he had her underwear pulled down to her thighs and he entered her with a groan.

But he couldn’t focus. 

Somehow, without him realizing it, the memories had slipped through a crack in his mind.

Instead of being there with Y/N, he was back in that cell.

The countless hours sitting in a cell, trying to remember something he never did.

The desperation, the helplessness in that place.

Familiar faces he dealt with sped across his mind.

Malcolm, Shaw, Delgado, Wilkins. Frazier, Duerson, the two men who gave him a beating meant for Delgado.

The fear he felt in those final days when he had no one to trust, when he had to stab himself in the leg to get into solitary confinement, just to stay alive.

The horrible memories were flashing in his head at the speed of lightning.

“Ow! Spencer, you’re hurting me.”

Spencer snapped back to the present, realizing his fingers were creating bruises on Y/N’s hips from his too tight grip.

“This isn’t working,” he said in way of an apology, pulling out of her.

He was already going soft anyway, the previous arousal now completely gone and replaced by his racing thoughts and memories.

“It’s fine,” she muttered, pulling down her t-shirt and pulling up her underwear.

He had just zipped up his suit pants—he’d come straight from the jet—when she spoke again.

“Actually, no. It’s not okay.”

Spencer blinked in surprise at her harsh tone. He didn’t think he’d ever heard her raise her voice.

“I’m sick of this Spencer! I know we started this a while ago for...reasons,” she flapped her hand in midair as if demonstrating all the unsaid things between them.

“But I can’t do it anymore. I care about you Spencer. Honestly right now I don’t know if it’s as more than a friend or just as a friend but that’s another can of worms to open another time. You can’t keep doing this! You can’t keep coming to me and fucking me to try and rid your demons. You’ve been through a hell of a lot and you didn’t deserve any of it, but I’m not going to stand her and watch my friend destroy himself because he refuses to get the help he so desperately needs.”

Spencer stood, frozen in place, mouth agape. It was then he saw tears shining in her eyes.

“We have a lot to sort out between us, eventually, but you need to help yourself first,” she whispered, as if feeling defeated by her previous outburst.

He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what he could say.

“I know facing everything, processing it all is a scary feeling, Spencer. Even if you tried reaching out to a friend to talk through it, that would be a big step. I just...I just want you to get better.”

A single tear slid down her cheek and he did the worst possible thing to do.

He fled her apartment like the coward he was.

•

He didn’t go home. 

Instead, he walked around the city as the daylight receded and the sun slipped behind the horizon, saying goodnight to the world until the next day.

He spent a lot of time thinking.

He ended up dashing into a busy diner he came across as the night sky opened up and rain began falling in sheets.

He sat in his booth, absentmindedly sipping on the cup of coffee he’d ordered and watched the rain fall in the darkness outside.

In an ironic way, the weather outside was similar to the turmoil he felt inside. 

Just like the completely blackened sky outside, he felt just as dark and empty. The storm was similar to the storm of emotions, memories, traumas he continually tried to squash, all in the wrong ways.

He knew ignoring his problems wouldn’t make them go away; he also knew using sex as a distraction was the worst possible thing to do as well, yet he’d continued to do it and he’d hurt more than just himself in the process.

He’d hurt his friends, who’d only wanted to help, but pushed them away. He’d hurt Y/N, who didn’t deserve to be treated like a plaything, yet he kept coming back, making things worse.

By the time he’d finished his coffee, he decided what he wanted to do. What he knew he needed to do.

I’m feeling pretty lonely baby,

So just let me in

Just let me in 

He’d ran through the pouring rain. He didn’t even bother to try to take any transportation. The rain felt like it was washing him clean from the horrors of the last year.

He was back at her door, but this time, for a different reason. 

He was soaking wet and felt a lot like a dog with his tail between his legs, but he refused to chicken out once again. So, he knocked.

She answered, this time in actual pajamas rather than the attire she was in hours before.

Maybe it was the expression he wore or something she saw in his face because she didn’t immediately slam the door in his face—something he knew he deserved. She stood patiently, almost questioningly, waiting for him to speak first.

He took a deep breath before speaking the words he should’ve uttered months ago.

“I’m ready to talk. I’m ready to get the help I need.”

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[elyvorg]

Remember that analysis post of mine debunking the ridiculous myth perpetrated in this fandom that Kaito never apologises, in which I discuss how he actually apologises way more than he should? Well, while thinking about and writing that post, I also got curious. What’s the cold, hard data on that? What if I just straight-up counted every single instance of each character apologising throughout the main story of DRV3, in order to be able to indisputably prove at a glance that Kaito is actually one of the most apologetic characters in this game?

…I wasn’t willing to go so far as to play through the entire game again just for the purpose of counting every time a character apologised, mind you. But several months ago, I began watching yet another V3 Let’s Play – and since I was already committed to watching said LP all the way through, I figured I could count all the apologies as it went along and collect that data with minimal extra effort on my part. So here’s the full dataset, at last!

There we go. It is objective and indisputable that Kaito apologises the third-most out of any character in this game, behind only the incredibly insecure Gonta and the still-rather-insecure-and-has-the-most-lines Shuichi. And pretty close behind them, at that!

I noticed a bunch of interesting things while doing this, though, so I can’t resist the chance to break this down and talk about it in some more detail.

Data collection criteria

For the sake of Scientific Thoroughness, I should explain my exact criteria for counting these. Every way of phrasing an apology, be it “sorry”, “my apologies”, “my bad”, etc, was counted. I also decided to count statements along the lines of "I need to apologise for this", because that itself is essentially already expressing the apology, too.

If a character apologises multiple times for the same thing, each of those times counts separately. This isn’t a measure of how many individual things each character apologises for, but rather of how inclined they are to apologise. Even if multiple apologies are grouped together, such as “Sorry… I’m so sorry…” or “sorry, my bad”, those still count as two, because that’s essentially a double-strength apology.

I did not count optional dialogue that was mutually exclusive with other optional dialogue. Which is to say, I didn’t count any FTEs, since you can’t get all of them in a single playthrough, and as much as I might like to insist that Kaito’s and Maki’s FTEs with Shuichi should definitely be considered canon, I’m trying to be unbiased here. I also didn’t count any FTE invitation dialogue, even though you technically can get all of the first parts of those (the lines before you actually make the choice to invite someone) in a single playthrough, mostly because it’d have taken forever to go through them for absolutely everyone.

However, I did count optional dialogue in those bits where you’re free to talk to everyone in the room before advancing the plot by talking to a specific person, because that can all be assumed to be canon. The bonus item scenes also count, because they should be assumed to be canon, too. There may have been some apologies that I missed here, because the LP I was watching occasionally missed these bits of dialogue, and while I tried to check myself for these missed bits, I may have overlooked a few. But if so, it was definitely only a few and not enough to significantly affect the overall picture of the data.

I only counted Shuichi’s and Kaede’s apologies when they were spoken out loud. It’d be unfair to count their inner-monologue apologies as well when we have no idea how much any other character might also be apologising in their head.

The pregame characters’ apologies were not counted, because they are not the same people. I would have counted Tsumugi’s and Rantaro’s apologies prior to the “reset” if they’d had any, since they are already themselves from the very beginning.

Obviously there’s still a lot of inherent bias here towards the characters who get more screentime and more lines, such as especially Shuichi. There isn’t much I can do about that, short of counting the exact number of dialogue boxes that every single character has throughout the whole game and using that to normalise things. As you can imagine, I don’t want to do that. (Though, on the extreme off-chance that someone does somehow happen to have data for that lying around somewhere that they can access with minimal effort, I’d love for them to send it my way.)

Characters who totally never do anything wrong

I was not at all surprised to see that Kiyo and Angie never apologise for anything at all, sincere or not, warranted or not. Psh, what do you mean they might have done something wrong, of course they never do anything wrong ever.

Miu almost ended up on the zero-apologies list, too. Interestingly, the four times she does apologise in canon dialogue are all during the Virtual World trip. Three of them happen when people are frustrated that she isn’t telling them stuff about the Virtual World sooner, and one is for being about to murder Kokichi in the flashback to that. Since she never apologises at all the entire rest of the time, this is a neat sign that she actually does feel pretty guilty about deceiving everyone and plotting to get them all killed.

In another effort to be as objective as possible, I also counted every apology regardless of how sincere it was. However, in Kokichi’s case, I did keep a track of how many of his apologies were actually sincere, out of curiosity. (Other characters may have a few insincere ones here and there, but it only felt worth my time keeping track of that with Kokichi, because he’s obviously the biggest offender for this.) I included this information on Kokichi’s bar of the graph, because I feel that the implication otherwise given of him being the fifth most apologetic character in this game is deeply misleading. If you discount all of Kokichi’s screamingly insincere apologies, suddenly his apology count is just unremarkable background noise on par with most of the others.

It is notable – and also very unsurprising to me – that Kokichi’s five actual sincere apologies are all for things that, according to Kaito’s principles on this, he doesn’t really need to be apologising for at all. They are all within chapters 1 to 3. He never sincerely apologises for any of the many things he actually does wrong that really do warrant being apologised for, because Kokichi is totally never in the wrong about anything, you guys, and he definitely doesn’t ever murder anyone.

Three of those five sincere apologies happen when he’s hit his head during investigation 3 and is dazed and disoriented. Apparently Kokichi needs to be literally injured in order to be made to feel like anything is his fault for more than a brief moment. …That said, that evidently only works for accidental slip-ups that aren’t really his fault at all. Kokichi’s totally-never-in-the-wrong-about-anything defence mechanisms work full time to protect him from ever having to acknowledge and feel remorse for any of his many very real and deliberate misdeeds, even when he’s painfully poisoned and dying.

Kaede

Kaede’s apology count is very notably high for someone who was only alive for one chapter. If she’d stayed alive for longer, she’d almost certainly have rivalled Shuichi for total apologies. (So, technically, Kaito is probably only the fourth most apologetic character in this game. Still, though.)

You might assume that Kaede’s high count here is because of the murder she does, but actually only like two or three of them are related to that. Most of her apologies are evenly spread throughout the entire chapter. Some of it’s just general politeness, but an awful lot of it comes from her being too inclined to feel bad over not being as good a leader as she wishes she was, when she really hasn’t done anything wrong at all. Kaito is right to try and encourage her not to apologise when things aren’t her fault! She of all people needs to hear that!

Chapter-by-chapter

The majority of the rest of the characters aren’t that interesting to talk about. For the most part their low counts are basically just, like, background noise politeness, a vague measure of how polite that character is and nothing more. Very little of those counts has anything to do with how insecure that character is, or any actual things they do wrong that genuinely warrant apologising.

But for the other three of our most-apologetic characters, since they’re alive for several chapters, it’s kind of interesting to look at how their counts fluctuate from chapter to chapter. So here’s another graph, to help me break their huge counts down a bit more.

Shuichi

Despite him obviously having the most lines, I was pretty surprised that Shuichi ended up with the highest apology count overall. I wasn’t even expecting him to top Kaito’s count, let alone Gonta’s.

This conclusion did, however, seem a lot more likely once I’d made it through chapter 1 and seen just how much he apologised during that time. Geez, is that one hell of a headstart for even Gonta and Kaito to catch up to. My surprise over this was probably because, when I think about Shuichi, I usually think about the post-Kaede protagonist-Shuichi (perhaps especially because I usually think about him in a Kaito-centric context, whoops). So it’s easy to forget just how incredibly insecure – and also apologetic – he was in the very beginning.

Shuichi apologises exactly as horribly much as Kaede during chapter 1. Again, this is partly politeness, but also far too much of him having an inclination to feel bad over things that aren’t his fault because of how insecure he is. Kaede and Shuichi basically spend most of chapter 1 constantly apologising to each other for existing, and it’s heartbreaking. Every time I had to add another of theirs to my spreadsheet, I was all, “No! Stop it!”

What I find really fascinating about Shuichi’s count, though, is that he pretty much loses this bad habit entirely after Kaede’s death. Despite him still kind of moping around and struggling to know what to do until Kaito steps in to help, it seems like Shuichi’s resolve to carry on Kaede’s wish and believe in himself more really had already had a tangible positive effect on his confidence!

This also means that Kaito never has any reason to give Shuichi advice telling him not to apologise if he hasn’t done anything wrong, which he absolutely would have done if he’d spent more time with Shuichi in chapter 1 when he was apologising so much. As I mentioned in my original post about this topic, this fact is important.

Shuichi’s counts in chapters 2 and 3 are especially low. This is what background noise politeness from a character tends to look like – and it also pretty clearly proves that his and Kaede’s huge apology counts in chapter 1 are down to way more than them just being generally polite people who are getting the most screentime.

It might look like Shuichi gradually gets more insecure again as the killing game goes on, but that’s not actually quite why his count goes up again like that. Instead, it’s that, when something particular does go wrong, Shuichi still feels inclined to apologise for it a lot more than most people would. Turns out, most of his excess apologies in chapters 4 and 5 are spurred by very specific incidents involving Kaito.

Literally five of Shuichi’s apologies in chapter 4 are over the cell phone incident with Kaito during the investigation. That genuinely did warrant an apology – he should have thought to warn Kaito that he’d be logged out beforehand so he wouldn’t be so startled – but even then, apologising that many times was still rather excessive. Shuichi evidently felt really bad about startling his friend like that in the first place. But it also doesn’t help that Kaito reacted more strongly to it than he should have done, for reasons rooted in his own issues that Shuichi was completely oblivious to, which is probably a lot of why Shuichi felt he had to keep apologising.

Three of Shuichi’s apologies in chapter 5 are over the awkward situation between him and Kaito, albeit directed at Maki and not Kaito. This is despite Shuichi himself asserting that he doesn’t believe he should apologise for his actions in trial 4. Even then, he’s still feeling insecure enough about the whole thing that some unintentional apologies slip out of him anyway, not precisely about Gonta’s trial, but about not being able to fix the rift between him and Kaito. He seems to feel like that’s meant to be his responsibility, when he should be able to realise himself that it isn’t. The real responsibility to fix this is on Kaito. Once again, it’s Kaito’s issues – and Kaito not talking about his issues – that causes Shuichi to apologise for something more than he ought to.

Another three of Shuichi’s apologies in chapter 5 are over lying to his friends at the end of the trial in a desperate attempt to protect Kaito. (…Well, technically all of these apologies are part of the lie and therefore not really him apologising for lying – but his inner monologue confirms that he really is sorry for lying, which is almost certainly why he ends up fake-apologising so much within the lie. More on this principle in a bit when I talk about all of Kaito’s apologies in trial 5.) Again, this is another thing that does genuinely warrant an apology, but probably not three times? And while this one isn’t related to Kaito’s issues, it is still because of Kaito that Shuichi needed to try and lie to everyone in the first place.

(One more of Shuichi’s apologies at the end of chapter 5 is for Kaito’s death, because in his grief he’s hurting enough to have slipped back into feeling like everything is his fault. At least this is just the one, and Maki manages to talk him out of blaming himself any more than that.)

Without these specific incidents that he’s still a bit too inclined to feel bad about, Shuichi’s count would be three in chapter 4 and five in chapter 5. So, basically just background noise politeness again. Maybe he’s being slightly more generally insecure in chapter 5 than usual, perhaps due to Kaito not quite being there for him, and/or the whole despair thing. But he’s no longer constantly apologising for existing to nearly as much of an extent as he was in chapter 1.

Delightfully, in chapter 6, with Kaito’s death spurring Shuichi’s determination into overdrive, Shuichi’s count goes right back down to insignificant background noise politeness. Nothing at all happens to make him feel like he needs to apologise way too much.

This is exactly how I hoped it would end! He is being a hero and none of his actions here are anything for him to make himself feel bad about. Kaito would be proud.

Gonta

Gonta’s background-noise politeness in the earlier chapters is noticeably higher than everyone else’s, because there’s also quite a bit of insecurity and apologising-for-existing going on with him. But it’s still not, like, super high on its own. It might not even be quite as bad as Kaede, even accounting for him getting way fewer lines than her?

His somewhat higher count in chapter 2 could be because of the Insect Meet and Greet, but it could also be because the way Ryoma’s body was discovered made Gonta feel especially strongly that he should have been able to prevent Ryoma’s death.

But then, of course, there’s chapter 4. As you’d imagine, almost all of those are in the trial, and almost all towards the end of it. Poor Gonta. It also doesn’t help that there’s two Gontas in the room for the trial conclusion, and naturally I included Alter Ego Gonta’s apologies in Gonta’s count, too.

Kaito

For the first two chapters, when he doesn’t have any sidekicks and therefore no expectations to live up to as their hero, and/or when he’s not struggling with weakness and worrying that he’s failing those expectations, Kaito’s apology level is just unremarkable background noise like most other characters.

(Well, one of them is actually not background noise and is a meaningful, warranted apology for punching Shuichi at the end of trial 1. But because he correctly doesn’t apologise for this any more than he needs to, it kinda blends in with the background noise.)

Then chapter 3 happens, and, predictably, his count shoots way up. All but one of Kaito’s apologies in this chapter are over being sick due to his phobia. (And if I’d been counting the free time invitation dialogues, there would be another four added on here, again for being too sick to hang out with Shuichi.)

Of his five in chapter 4, one is genuinely warranted (for laughing at Maki’s katana story), and two are over being physically sick, goddammit, Kaito. The other two in this chapter are for letting Kokichi’s taunts get to him, which is also not quite a thing he should be apologising for. Kaito can’t help it if his emotions react in a certain way to Kokichi making him out to be worthless. He can control how he responds to it, but not how he feels over it.

Then there’s chapter 5, which somehow manages to even eclipse Kaito’s chapter 3 count – but most of this is about the trial. Only three of his apologies in this chapter are from the Daily Life. (Naturally, two of them are still over being sick. No, Kaito, stop it.)

Literally half of Kaito’s fourteen apologies in the trial boil down to being sorry for tricking and deceiving his friends. This is something that warrants an apology, according to Kaito’s principles, even though he’s doing this deliberately for the purpose of hopefully saving everyone. He is still choosing to hurt them as part of that, and that hurt deserves to be apologised for.

What’s interesting about most of Kaito’s apologies for this, though, is that they’re technically insincere. He’s apologising for tricking everybody while he’s still tricking them, which sure makes it sound like he doesn’t mean it. This even applies to the majority of these apologies that happen during the bits where he’s speaking in his own voice. Because “Exisal Kaito” is a fake and overexaggerated version of himself that he wants everyone to conclude was really just Kokichi pretending to be him, anything he says during those moments is never going to come across as genuine.

But obviously, there’s not a shred of doubt that Kaito really is sorry for tricking everyone the entire time he’s doing this. It says a lot that during those bits where he’s being himself, Kaito just so happens to have a particularly high density of apologies-per-line. He feels awful for being this insincere and deceptive towards his friends, and he really wishes he could just communicate to them how genuinely sorry he is for all of this. But because he can’t, the next best thing to try and scratch that itch is to just apologise anyway even though he needs them to assume it’s all fake.

Kaito even apologises a couple of times as Exisal Kokichi for lying to them! This is absolutely categorically not something Kokichi wrote into his script, because Kokichi never apologised for lying, not even in a blatantly-insincere-sounding way. Kaito’s desperate desire to express how awful he felt about this was just so strong that it even accidentally slipped into a couple of his ad-libs as Kokichi.

However, while Kaito apologises so many times for this, it’s not because he’s blaming himself a bit too excessively much for his wrongdoing like Shuichi was still liable to do at this point in the story. The only reason Kaito apologises this much for tricking everyone is due to how insincere he was forced to sound almost every time. He kept apologising again and again because each insincere apology never felt like enough, and he desperately needed them to know that he meant it.

When Kaito reveals himself at the end of the trial, he pretty much immediately apologises again for tricking them – once, and that’s it. This time, they know he means it, and that’s all he needs. He’s not going to wallow in his bad feelings any more than that.

This is also the case for the other genuine wrongdoings he goes on to apologise for in the conclusion. Kaito gives a double-sized but still concise apology to Shuichi for lashing out in trial 4 like he’d needed to give this whole time, and then one single apology to his friends for lying to them about his illness. He gets those apologies out like he should, but once he’s done so, he doesn’t linger on them and mope any more than he needs to.

Which is good! Look at Kaito finally following his own advice again and being emotionally healthy about this!

…Except for the part where he then goes on to apologise twice for dying on them. That one is still not his fault.

[mcdannomoment]

finale feelings

Okay, I have a ton of feelings about the finale, and now that I’ve had some time to think them through, I’ll write them. Please be kind, I’ve seen the series once only, I’m really tired, and I’m sure this was all said before.

Okay firstly let’s just put aside Catherine as a character in and of herself… that whole thing made no sense. Catherine never showed an inkling of having the sort of skills to decode anything, much less being one of only two people in the world who could decode a thing. That was silly and just an excuse to get her back on Steve’s radar. Not to mention that Catherine just never showed much interest in Steve. I’ll come back to Catherine later as she stands as an external prop for Steve’s character, but I think we can just leave it here that Catherine’s character, for herself, made 0 sense.

Let’s focus on Steve.

Steve broke my heart this episode. The worst part is that I don’t think what he did was actually OOC. Steve has a pretty long and uncomfortable history of putting his own needs over Danny’s, starting from when he first met him and forced him to be his partner. I get where Steve was coming from, but this whole army commander take what I need for the mission attitude is the whole problem. Consulting Danny even as a courtesy never entered Steve’s mind.

(more below cut)

Steve just does this with Danny continually throughout the series, like leaving him with a letter to run off chasing Shelburne. Again, he doesn’t bother even consulting Danny as a courtesy before he leaves. He has an objective, Danny doesn’t fit that objective except to keep his seat warm in 5-0. He honestly just never gives Danny even basic autonomy, from things like choosing his lunch for him right through to putting him in situations he’s not comfortable with. Sometimes Steve pushing Danny is definitely a good thing since Danny does get paralyzed by fear (the incident where Steve pushed Danny into jumping across the building gap springs to mind; if they hadn’t have done that they would have died) but sometimes it’s just more of Steve has an objective to achieve, and Danny is a means to achieve that objective (the skydiving incident).

I don’t mean to slam Steve’s character, and I’ve known quite a lot of people like this! They’re good people, they just need a lot more emotional development. Between the two of them I think Danny’s a lot more emotionally mature and empathetic, and they’re quite good for each other in many ways. But Steve is very selfish, in the sense that his focus is always on himself. What he wants, what his objective is, how the things around him make him feel. With where Steve’s head is at, I don’t think he fully and completely understands Danny as an individual human being with his own needs. Hell, he even bullies Danny into including him in his retirement plan and abandoning said retirement plan.

With Steve’s focus always within his own head, and the people around him established as tools he can use to achieve his own ends, I can really start to understand Steve’s severe control issues in season 10 in particular. His mother dying was what sealed his fate, really. I think it was really the first time a person close to Steve fully used their own initiative and choice to go against what Steve said, and Steve trying to force his mother to do what he wanted and become a controllable force in his self-directed life ended up getting her killed. And that screwed him up badly. I don’t think he fully processed his role in his mother’s death properly. He ends up dumping Danny, who is really the love of his life, saying he needs time for himself, that he’d spent a decade saving everyone else. In reality I think Steve is just spiralling from loss of control. He tries to regain some control by cutting out the more unpredictable variables: the other people in his life.

Then Danny gets kidnapped and tortured. This is obviously devastating for Steve, because Danny really is the love of his life. And Steve kind of loses it, but he loses it in a very interesting way. Steve gives up all control to Daiyu Mei. He doesn’t even entertain not letting her control the situation. Danny’s been in danger before, but Steve has never given up control so completely like this before.

Steve’s really broken by this. And it’s the hardest he’s ever taken Danny getting hurt. Because I think he’s less broken by Danny getting hurt as much as it is leftover trauma from his mother’s death and spiralling loss of control.

He winds up leaving Danny when Danny can hardly move and must have only just been released from the hospital, and isn’t that a dick move. He claims he’s going to “find himself” but I think he’s just running away from people in order to regain a sense of control. He can’t control other people. He couldn’t control Danny being taken or his mother making the choices she did in Mexico. If he’s alone, he can gain full control over the situation.

And Danny? Well, Steve sort of has him trapped. Danny can’t leave - he has a son, it’s implied Steve gave him his dog to look after and possibly his house, and while he’s injured Danny can’t go and get himself into dangerous situations that Steve feels the need to save him from. Danny sort of becomes an ornament in Steve’s home ready to welcome him when he comes back. Steve’s been on record several times being pretty aggressive about Danny staying in Hawaii, but he’s never shown remorse for leaving himself, and he doesn’t here.

I hate to characterise Danny as Steve’s “wife” but that’s the dynamic I get from them. You see it so often in married couples, particularly married couples where the husband has to travel for work, whether that’s military, mining, corporate, trucking, what have you. The husband has his goal, his life, and he sees his wife as someone to support that and make it happen. This is exactly what happened in my own family, as I had a travelling father. His need to fulfil himself drove him away again and again, and my mother, trapped where she was by children and the obligations her husband abandoned her to deal with, was left to clean up his mess. It’s what happens when the husband is selfish in the way Steve is - the emotionally more mature wife has to clean up the parts of his life he won’t deal with. In Steve’s case Danny is left with a bullet hole, a dog, a house full of ghosts, and a lot of mourning friends. Not to mention the kids Steve abandons. And there must be more too. Steve leaves a week after Danny is shot. That really doesn’t leave much time for Steve to get his affairs in order. I think he left Danny to clean up his emotional mess.

Minus the bullet hole, I’ve seen my mother go through very similar things. And it can destroy your sense of self. You end up living for the ghost of your husband as he pursues what he perceives as his destiny. It’s a really shitty thing but it’s so common. Every family I know with a travelling husband ended up like this.

Back to Catherine. As established Catherine as her own character makes no sense at all. But Catherine’s role in the finale as an extension of Steve’s character does make some sense. Steve is running away from his stable family, the love of his life, his role as a parent to Nahele, Grace, and Charlie - he’s running from all the progress he has made, because he is afraid of losing control the way he did when he lost his mother, and when Danny was taken from him. Catherine is safe. She’s Steve’s easy emotional release and fuck buddy. She’s familiar. And she’s basically Steve’s mother. A flaky CIA agent who always picks the job over Steve is far more familiar and therefore comforting to him than a stable family life with Danny. In his panic Steve runs from all the progress he has made back to Catherine.

It actually reminds me a lot of a wonderful fic I read, the love that you gave by Teeelsie. I never thought I’d read a cheating fic, let alone a McDanno cheating fic, because McDanno is my all time OTP, but this fic was highly recommended and wow, did it nail it. The fic is more about Steve’s internalised homophobia, but I think the way it relates to the show is in how Steve panics and goes back to the familiar. Back to Catherine. It’s a common thing just in life. It’s also extremely common for these travelling husbands that I think characterise Steve to be cheating on their wives, too. Now I’m just pretending Catherine wasn’t there, because it makes no sense for her to be there (jfc, she wasn’t a codebreaker and how did she know he would be on the plane anyway, and was she just sitting in transit in Honolulu waiting for Steve to get on the plane like a stalker) but I think there’s an element of “emotional cheating” to what Steve’s going through when he runs away from the emotional risk that is staying with Danny at the end.

So basically I don’t think Steve running off was OOC. I think it was very in character. What was so frustrating was that the story clearly isn’t over. Running away will not solve Steve’s many issues, and he really does need Danny - and Danny needs him. Steve desperately needs to learn to stop being so selfish and see Danny and the others as full and complete human beings with their own complex needs. It’s tough because Steve pushing Danny was very good for Danny in many respects, so I want to see them learn to thread that line where Danny doesn’t get treated like an emotional doormat, but he also isn’t allowed to just retreat to the safety of familiarity all the time either - he needs a little McGarrett magic in his life!

But after what Danny told Steve when they were stuck in the building collapse, it’s going to be hard for them after this. Danny doesn’t have to look at Steve and imagine him leaving him any longer. Danny now has the memory of it.

tl;dr Steve is a whacked out, certifiable control freak.

[carewyncromwell]

“I finished crying in the instant that you left, And I can't remember where or when or how, And I banished every memory you and I had ever made! But when you touch me like this, and you hold me like that, I just have to admit that it's all coming back to me... When I touch you like this, and I hold you like that, It's so hard to believe, but it's all coming back to me... It's all coming back -- it's all coming back to me now... There were moments of gold And there were flashes of light -- There were things I'd never do again, But then they'd always seemed right...”

~“It’s All Coming Back to Me,” by Celine Dion

x~x~x~x

AUGH, my heart! I blame this 100% on @mira-shard sending me that ship ask for my book-smart, people-dumb spaceman Jacob Cromwell and his boy best friend Duncan and reminding me how friggin’ much I adore these two. They hurt my heart so much and yet I love them with all of my heart and soul. ;~;

This is set toward the end of Carewyn’s sixth year, right after that certain Redacted event. This is also the first time these two have seen each other since Duncan died...and yeah, as you can expect, their reunion was pretty damn feelsy.

Jacob Cromwell had been working hard on his own almost all of that school year to reach the Sunken Vault before Rakepick, but after finding out that R was still actively targeting Carewyn by sending members like the Wizard in White after her, he became all the more determined to try to force them away from the Hogwarts grounds. Unfortunately for Jacob, R was one step ahead of him. Using the blood they’d managed to collect after badly injuring Jacob the previous year, they had Blaise Cromwell use Polyjuice Potion to masquerade as his nephew and sneak into the school so as to have access to his niece Carewyn, who R’s leader (Jacob and Carewyn’s cold-hearted maternal grandfather Charles Cromwell) ultimately wanted among their ranks as well.

While masquerading as Jacob, Blaise learned Carewyn was still planning on chasing after the Vaults, with the blessing of Mad-Eye Moody, who was currently investigating R himself, and after putting on a weak act of discouraging her, he “accepted her help” and subtly encouraged her to not tell her friends anything else about the Vaults, supposedly for “their safety,” but truthfully because Blaise didn’t want Carewyn to have ties anywhere outside of their family and organization. Blaise did suss out, however, that there were a few people in Carewyn’s circle of associates who were reluctant to leave the Cursed Vaults alone and “stay out of R’s business,” including Ben Copper, who Blaise in particular felt a searing distaste for, given that he was not only a “filthy Mudblood,” but he also was one of Carewyn’s first friends who was incredibly overprotective of her. After Blaise discussed the matter with his father Charles, it was decided that R should “deal” with Ben Copper the same way R had dealt with Duncan Ashe -- namely, to make an example out of him, which would not only scare Carewyn into line, but also take out a potential threat to their overall plan to isolate their target so they’d have no one else to fall back on.

Just as they had whenever Blaise infiltrated the school, R purposefully led Jacob away from the grounds, this time with the Wizard in White as a decoy. Since the Wizard had recently threatened Carewyn’s life, Jacob immediately charged after him with a vengeance, determined to hunt him down and kill him so that he’d never touch “his Pip” again. Unfortunately after several weeks of doggedly pursuing the Wizard in White all across London, he escaped, and Jacob in utter frustration was forced to return to Hogwarts and continue trying to access the Sunken Vault, even if he knew no way to do so without both of the Coral Keys that unlocked the outer and inner doors. It was only when Jacob returned to Scotland that he learned Rakepick had returned to Hogwarts the day he first left and had killed someone in the Forbidden Forest -- and it was a few days later, late at night, that Jacob was confronted by a familiar voice in the Lakehouse that was his hiding place. 

“So you are here, then.”

Jacob’s heart stopped. Whipping out his white Aspen wand, the ex-Ravenclaw whirled around so violently that he nearly knocked over the overturned boat on the floor behind him.

Hovering over him was a translucent shape of a seventeen-year old wizard. He wore Hogwarts robes, but due to the bluish-gray tint of his form, the uniform’s house colors weren’t identifiable. Not that Jacob would’ve needed to try to guess what house he’d been in -- he already knew the young man was in Slytherin. Jacob had gone to talk to him in their very first year all because he was a Slytherin and could answer that random question Jacob had had about the Slytherin commonroom...

Jacob’s almond-shaped blue eyes went very wide, losing almost all of their light, as his face blanched.

“...Ashe...?”

His voice left his lips in such a hushed whisper, it was like the breath had passed his lips without any diction whatsoever.

Duncan crossed his arms moodily. “Long time no see, Jacob. I’m curious -- did your sister just not tell you I was still around, or did you actively decide I wasn’t worth a visit?”

Jacob’s blue eyes flooded with pain as he shakily lowered his wand arm.

“Ashe...” he whispered again feebly.

The facial reaction didn’t move Duncan -- instead he plowed on.

“I mean, Hell, apparently Madame Pince even managed to catch sight of you before I did. Suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, though...you always did run to books for all your answers, rather than use any common sense -- ”

Jacob did not know what Duncan was talking about, but in that moment, he had trouble articulating that on top of everything else he was feeling. It felt like his heart had swollen up in his chest and was slamming up against his ribs, throbbing with pulsing pain as he clumsily tucked his wand back into his robes.

“Ashe...” he tried again, but it was no use. His throat was so tight, it was like it was being squeezed...

“Then again,” laughed Duncan humorlessly, “‘common sense’ was never exactly common for you, was it? Nor was tact, patience, humility, sensitivity, or even a shred of self-control -- ”

“Ashe -- ”

“I mean, if I’d abandoned the precious little sister who I’d never bloody shut up about for seven years,” said Duncan in a very harsh, cutting voice, “I probably wouldn’t have immediately abandoned her again and only bothered checking in with her after finding out that someone might want to kill her because of me! You kept saying to me, ‘I gotta protect Pip,’ ‘I’ve gotta take care of Carewyn’ -- well, where the Hell were you, Jacob? Where were you this last month!? Where were you after she broke you out of that Vault!? Where were you, when I had to pick up your slack?! Just like I always do -- just like I’ve always done, ever since you waltzed your way into my -- !?”

“Ashe!”

The surname came out oddly choked. Duncan looked Jacob in the face fully for the first time, and immediately faltered.

The ex-Ravenclaw had hunched in on himself in the face of Duncan’s tirade. His hollowed-out blue eyes were very weak and rippling with moisture that he fiercely fought back. Although his shoulders hadn’t crumpled, they were shaking, as were his hands as they clutched at the sleeves of his elegant scarlet dress robes. His...very familiar scarlet dress robes...

Something twitched in Duncan’s expression.

“Ashe...you...” Jacob gave a very painful-looking swallow. “...You’re here.”

Duncan tried to glower at him. “Well spotted.”

He hated how much Jacob was shaking, and how it looked like he was fighting back tears. Jacob didn’t respond to Duncan’s sarcasm -- he appeared unable to.

“You’ve...been here all this time...all these years...you stayed behind?”

His voice was very quiet. He clutched at the sleeves of his dress robes.

“I thought you’d gone on!” Jacob burst out, his voice very strained. “I thought -- you’d left...”

“Well, clearly I didn’t!” Duncan shot back, more defensively that he’d intended. He didn’t like seeing Jacob like this -- didn’t like seeing him so upset -- didn’t like how...his voice echoed with something like remorse...longing...

Jacob’s hands shook more as he squeezed his arms in a vice grip, staring at Duncan as if he were a faded photograph he hadn’t seen in years and wished to carve into his memory before it became too damaged to salvage.

“When I was in the Portrait, I spent days and weeks wishing I could have just one more minute with you -- maybe fifteen, or thirty, just -- enough time to tell you every little thing I never did before...”

Jacob seemed unable to finish. He broke off, his head falling so that his eyes fell into shadow.

“...But -- but knowing you are here -- that you’re here like this...after I couldn’t save you, after R targeted us -- ”

Duncan flinched. The pain and self-hatred in Jacob’s eyes -- it looked just like the kind he’d seen in another pair of blue almond-shaped eyes not too long ago, in response to her having lost her best friend. At the time Duncan had briefly wondered if Jacob had reacted as badly to his death as Carewyn did Rowan Khanna’s, but had pushed off the thought. It was something he couldn’t believe -- didn’t want to believe.

“Ashe...” Jacob murmured. His voice had become rather level and absent, as it always was when he was thinking, even though the clenched hands on his arms were still shaking terribly, “Ashe, I’ve been such a fool...I don’t know how I never saw it before...how much I cared, how much I wanted you -- wanted us to...be an ‘us’...to swoop in and just...take you home to Pip and Mum, and...be a family together -- to break curses and travel the world and get into fights and then kiss and make up and get into trouble and then out of it again and laugh a lot and do stupid stuff and change the world and...maybe, I dunno, adopt some kids down the road or something -- I’d probably be a pretty lousy father, and we could’ve completely fallen apart, and the whole thing could’ve ended up being a mistake, but...thinking on it, all those years...all I could come back to over and over again was hating not knowing -- not knowing if we could’ve been happy together, if...well, even if we were a disaster, at least we still could’ve been something -- had something -- ”

Duncan felt a familiar burning sensation in the back of eyes, and it made him lash out.

“GET BENT, JACOB CROMWELL!”

Jacob’s head shot up, taken aback. Duncan held up a clenched fist as if he longed to punch Jacob right in the face.

“I’m mad at you!” shouted Duncan. “I’m allowed to be mad at you! After every mistake you made, for every bloody mistake you’re still making and will no doubt make for the rest of your sodding life, I should be mad at you! You never bloody learn and you always dash headlong into situations without using that brilliant brain of yours to think twice! And yet you...”

Duncan’s eyes were filling up with tears.

“You...you’re making it bloody impossible! I want to yell at you! I want to hate you! I want to know you never cared and I was a fool for ever wasting my time on you, because otherwise my whole reason for staying behind -- ”

The thought hurt Duncan too much, and he furiously shoved the end of that sentence away.

“I want to resent you for the rest of my undead days, and yet there you go, looking like that and rambling on like an idiot and...and...”

A tear leaked out the side of his eye. Despite the anger in his expression, Duncan was shaking too now. His other hand tentatively rose, hovering just shy of Jacob’s pale face as if he longed to touch it.

“...and...making me fall for you all over again,” choked Duncan, his voice very low and muffled in the back of his throat.

Jacob looked like he too was fighting back the urge to try to touch Duncan as he stared up into his light-less eyes. Like the rest of him, there was a tint of ghostly blueish-gray to them, even though they’d been such a warm, bright brown in life.

“Ashe...”

“Jacob, for the love of -- stop saying my name like that! I told you I’m mad at you!”

Even as he said it, Duncan’s transparent fingers grazed Jacob’s face, making Jacob shiver slightly at the cold as it passed through his skin.

“...Why?” said Duncan softly.

“What?”

“My robes,” Duncan clarified. “You kept them.”

Jacob’s eyes pulsed with emotion, both pained and almost offended.

“Well, of course I kept them,” he retorted hotly. “You gave them to me. Did you assume I’d just stick them in the back of my closet?”

“Sort of,” said Duncan a bit awkwardly.

Jacob’s face actually flickered with some righteous anger. “Because you wanted to believe I didn’t care?”

“Don’t turn this around on me!” Duncan shot back defensively. “What was I supposed to think, after you disappeared without a trace -- after all of the things I heard about you doing R’s dirty work -- ?”

“You KNEW R forced me to join them!” shouted Jacob. “You KNEW what they had over me -- what they almost did to Pip! You KNEW I would never, ever abandon Pip and Mum by my own choice -- ”

“I KNOW!” Duncan said fiercely.

The transparent hand that had been beside Jacob’s face clasped weakly at the air beside his hair, as if he longed to grab hold of it.

“...I know...” he said in a more hushed, strained voice.

Jacob’s blue eyes were still blazing with mild frustration.

“Ashe, I wore these robes for you, the night I went to the Portrait Vault,” he said lowly.

Duncan was startled.

“I wanted you with me, when I broke the last two Vaults’ curses -- when I saved Olivia...”

Jacob’s gaze betrayed a strange, almost beastly glint -- like vengeance, but much darker and more hostile.

“I wanted you with me when I demolished R and everything they’ve ever wanted and chased after. I still do. I want to make every last one of them pay for everything they took from me -- everyone they took from me.”

Duncan stared at Jacob, his expression strained with disbelief and something oddly touched.

“Jacob...”

He once again looked like he wanted to touch Jacob’s face, to trail his fingers through his dark curls. His light-less eyes fell away from Jacob’s and came down to rest on his lips instead.

“...You know I can’t help you do much of anything, like this.”

Jacob’s expression turned a bit more serious. “There is one thing you can do for me -- make sure Pip doesn’t leave the castle again. I heard Rakepick killed someone in the Forbidden Forest -- I can’t let her do the same to -- ”

“You can’t shield Carewyn from R, Jacob,” said Duncan very sharply.

“I can and I will,” spat Jacob fiercely.

Duncan’s lips came together very tightly.

“Do you know who that person was?” the ghost said very lowly. “The one Rakepick killed?”

Jacob’s expression lost some of its anger, seeing how oddly grave Duncan’s expression had become.

“Her name was Rowan Khanna,” said Duncan. “Sixth year Slytherin, supposedly in the running to be Hogwarts Head Girl. ...She’s also your sister’s best friend.”

Jacob’s eyes went very, very wide in horror.

“...No...”

His head fell. His eyes stared down at the floor, but didn’t seem to see it -- his mind was racing, unable to keep up with the horror of this news.

“Carewyn was lured out to the Forest after finding a Quill addressed to you in your old room,” Duncan told him sharply. “Three of her friends followed her and tried to protect her when Rakepick confronted her there.” Duncan’s voice lowered significantly as he added, “....She’d been sent with orders from R to kill one of your sister’s friends -- to send a message.”

Jacob once again clutched at his own arms, his flurry of thoughts darting across his eyes as he stared at the floor.

“They played me,” he whispered. “They knew I wanted to protect Pip -- so they sent the Wizard in White to attack her at the Lakeshore, so I’d fear him going after her...so I’d chase after him to try to stop him, even if it meant leaving Pip alone...”

His head shot up, and his eyes were narrowed in urgency and confusion.

“You said there was a message for me, in my room? Pip found my room?”

“A few years ago, I believe,” said Duncan. “I reckon it would’ve been a logical place to look, if she wanted to figure out what the hell you were up to, before you vanished...if she could even have found anything, in that absolute mess you always worked out of -- ”

“But why would there have been a message for me there?” said Jacob, his eyebrows knitting together. “I haven’t gone in there since I was expelled...”

Duncan frowned. “Well, R might’ve heard about you going into the Library...”

“But that’s just it!” said Jacob. “I didn’t! I haven’t entered the school since I left! It’s not exactly easy to break into Hogwarts -- and if I did and got caught, then where would I be, in protecting Pip and stopping R? I can’t let them get into the Sunken Vault first!”

Duncan suddenly looked almost as troubled as Jacob.

“...So...you haven’t entered Hogwarts at all? But...then why did Pince and Filch see you inside?”

A thought struck his mind.

“...Jacob...when was the last time you spoke to your sister? Not just saw her, I mean, really spoke to her.”

Jacob frowned deeply. “Last year, in Knockturn Alley. Though we didn’t really have much time to talk then, either...”

Duncan’s eyes narrowed in anxiety. “Jacob...Carewyn told her friends that you ‘don’t tell her much, whenever you meet.’ That doesn’t sound like something that someone would say after only seeing her brother once in an entire school year. It sounds like someone who’s been meeting him regularly.”

Jacob stiffened visibly. His eyebrows furrowed over his eyes as they wandered over the walls and floor.

“Something’s not right,” he said lowly.

He turned on his heel, whipping out his white wand as he went.

“I need to find out what’s going on. Ashe...while I’m gone, please -- ”

“Jacob, stop.”

Duncan swept right through Jacob, making the smaller man shudder. The ghost hovered over Jacob, his translucent robes flapping silently on either side of him.

“Before you go running off  without thinking again,” said Duncan sardonically, “talk to your sister.”

Jacob looked hesitant and slightly ashamed.

“I need to protect her -- ”

“No, you need to be there for her,” Duncan cut him off fiercely. “She’s just lost the first real friend she ever made in her life -- someone she cares about like few others. There’s only one person in this entire world who might know what that’s like...”

Duncan swallowed back the lump in his throat.

“...If you...truly cared, when I died, Jacob...then you’re the only person who might know what she needs, right now.”

Jacob closed his eyes and turned away, unable to reply. His fist clenched over the Aspen wand at his side.

“...Does she hate me?” he asked at last, very lowly. “Does she blame me...for what happened?”

Duncan’s eyes softened slightly. “You know she doesn’t.”

This didn’t seem to comfort Jacob, though. If anything, it made him more upset -- like he thought she should blame him.

Duncan exhaled heavily. “Jacob, please -- I know you want to protect Carewyn, and I know there’s not much time to stop R from reaching the Sunken Vault...but...”

A strange wry smile pricked at the corner of his lips.

“...if there’s one thing your sister has taught me...it’s how much knowing that someone cares -- that you’re not alone -- can mean.”

Jacob’s posture straightened slightly.

“She’s shouldered a lot by herself since you left, Jacob,” said Duncan. “Her friends are trying to help her with it now...but I think the help she really needs is yours.”

Jacob was silent for another long moment. Then he turned just enough to look at Duncan over his shoulder -- his lips had curled up in a crooked, sad smile.

“...You really did look after my Pip for me.”

Duncan gave a loud huff and crossed his arms. “It’s not like I could’ve not picked up your slack.”

His expression betrayed a bit more seriousness as he added, “...She’s a fine lass, Jacob.”

Jacob’s eyes squinted almost fondly. “She is.”

The smile then slid off his face.

“If Pip wants to see me, just...tell her to go out toward the Lake after dark and shoot up red sparks. I’ll come running right out to her. ...Will you tell her that, for me?”

Duncan nodded. “Of course.”

“Thank you. And Ashe?”

“Yeah?”

Jacob swallowed.

“You know how I feel about you...right?”

Duncan’s expression turned rather snarky. “Of course I do. You kept me around so you’d have someone to show off to.”

Jacob immediately looked irritated, and Duncan quickly added in exasperation, “Oh, come on, you know I know! Just...”

His transparent cheeks darkened with a dark blue flush as he glanced away out the side of his eye.

“Just...say it anyway.”

Jacob’s expression cleared, slowly breaking out into a bright grin that made him look years younger.

“...I love you.”

Duncan closed his eyes, inhaling and exhaling slowly through his nose.

“I have for a while,” Jacob pressed on, “dunno really how long, but...”

“All right, that’ll do,” Duncan said under his breath brusquely, despite the dark flush still clinging to his face. “I love you too -- so don’t go off and get yourself killed too, all right?”

With this, Duncan swept right past Jacob, brushing through his hair as he disappeared through the Lakehouse’s wall and back toward the school.

[zabrak-show]

could you write something set when Maul captures the Ghost crew to get Ezra and Kanan to give him the holocron, and he and the reader are oddly drawn to each other?

The Holocrons of Fate | Reader x Maul

A/N: This was another request from quite some time ago. Sorry, it took so long anon! I hope you enjoy this nonetheless and thank you so much for requesting something from me <3 

Word Count: 2.1k

Warnings: Angst, Flirting between reader and Maul, Maul being aggressive (no more than the actual episode, but eh tagging it as a warning anyway), this does not completely follow the actual episode since i had to add the reader character and took some other liberties with it.

You were seated at your station in the cockpit when you saw a distress signal coming in from somewhere. You had just recently joined the crew of the Ghost to help intercept signals and keep an eye out for the goings-on of any enemies to the rebellion. Your rocky past had led you to have many connections in the galaxy to help you keep your finger on the pulse of much of the empire as well as several crime rings.

“I’m picking up a distress call from a ship, a Sphyrna class corvette.” You alerted Hera, who was at the helm of the ship in the pilot’s seat as usual. 

“I saw that too. Let’s apprehend.” She said as her eyes narrowed and turned the ship towards the distress call.

As the Ghost closed in on the Sphyrna class corvette hammerhead ship, Hera called out to them on the comms.

“Hello, come in. We are here in response to the distress call.” She commanded into the comms and waited for a response. Nothing came back so she tried again.

“We are responding to your distress call. Please let us know how we can help you.” There was another long moment of silence and Hera was about to try again until a small cough and hoarse voice came through the speakers.

“Oh, bless you for coming. I thought I was a goner.” the voice sounded elderly and weak, but continued.

“The pirates took everything from us and left us all for dead. I am badly injured and the lone survivor. They destroyed the ship’s drive so I can’t fly it. Please, may I board your ship? You can drop me off at your earliest convenience. I won’t be any trouble.” Hera thought for a moment, pondering the question and whether or not it was a good idea to let a stranger board. She looked around at you all for advice.

“It is not a good idea. Sounds like a trap to me.” Zeb stated gruffly crossing his arms. Chopper beeped in agreement with Zeb. 

“They sound pretty beat up and aren’t we meant to help those in need when we can?” you chimed in. You weren’t sure why, but you were drawn to the voice and felt a desperate need to help them.

“I agree.” Sabine cut in. “We should always help people if we can. If it is a trap then we are more than capable of fighting them off.” She instinctually put her hand on her blaster.

Hera pursed her lips as she thought it all over and then turned on the comm again.

“Permission to board granted. Bring no weapons and we will be dropping you off as soon as we find somewhere to get you medical treatment.” Hera demanded of the stranger over the comms.

“Oh yes. Yes, of course, thank you. Thank you ever...ever... so much.” the voice seemed understandably happy about Hera’s decision, but the way they trailed off towards the end came off a little unhinged, almost sinister in a sense.

Hera docked to the hammerhead and you all went down to the airlock to welcome in the stranger and make sure nothing nefarious was going to occur. The door hissed open and a hooded figure stood in the shadows and mist of the airlock.

The air filled with the scent of ozone, blaster fire, and strikingly, cinnamon. You stepped closer trying to see the figure. Chopper wheeled closer and made a hesitant remark as the figure slowly walked forward. Zeb and Sabine drew their weapons proactively.

“Present yourself with your hands up, stranger,” Hera instructed the mysterious cloaked figure.

“But of course.” The stranger’s voice spilled out like poisoned wine as they stepped into the Ghost’s hallway, their hood still hiding their face from everyone. In a flash, you and the rest of your team were flung up into the ceiling of the airlock hallway. The force of it alone took the air from your lungs in a sudden gasp and you could not make sense of what was happening. You looked down at the stranger whose bright red arms were visible as they outstretched up towards all of you stuck to the ceiling.

“Maul.” Hera breathed out just loud enough for you to hear. You had not run into the famed old Sith Lord before but had heard many stories through the crew and he was well known amongst many of the crime rings you had acquainted yourself with through the years. You felt a little ashamed for being kind of excited to meet him. Of course, mostly you were angered and scared about the current situation, and even that sliver of excitement was quickly replaced by shame for feeling such a silly thing. Everyone’s weapons were ripped from their hands and holsters down to Maul.

A couple of tour guide droids wheeled into the ship around Maul and collected the weapons. He lowered his hand and you all came crashing down onto the floor. Everyone grunted in pain and even Chopper squealed in anger. Your mouth filled with the taste of blood as you picked your head up off the harsh metal floor plates. You slowly crawled up, your head was ringing and your body felt broken. Before you could even get your bearings you were forced back down onto your knees and your hands bound.

With the help of the tour guide droids, he led all of you out of the airlock hallway and into the control room.

“Now that I have your undivided attention, I will be needing the holocrons you possess along with my apprentice Ezra. Where is the Jedi and my apprentice?” He paced the room, his voice now haunting and powerful, not weak like he first presented himself moments ago. Everyone was silent and trying not to look at each other or Maul. Curiosity got the best of you and you accidentally locked eyes with the vibrant yellow eyes of the former Sith Lord. His focus narrowed in on you and you felt his power needle its way through to your brain for a moment until Zeb spoke out and distracted him.

“We don’t have the holocrons and we don’t even know where Kanan and Ezra are,” he said matter of factly. Maul’s gaze instantly broke with yours to turn towards Zeb.

“Such a pity. And I had wanted to spare all of your lives.” Maul said in a menacing nonchalant style. As some form of luck, seemingly pretty bad at this moment, the comms buzzed and Ezra’s voice sparked through along with a holo of him and Kanan,

“Hera, am I glad to see you’re alright.”

“Kanan..” Hera started to warn them of your guest, but Kanan rushed ahead with his attempt at warning her about an inquisitor. It didn’t take long for them to realize it was not an inquisitor, but instead Maul.

“What do you want?” Kanan angrily inquired Maul.

“The Sith Holocron that our apprentice and I acquired on Malachor.”

“We don't have it.”

“How unfortunate, because if that's true, - then your friends have no future.” Maul threatened the Jedi as he ignited his red light saber.

“Okay, we have it. Just not with us.” Ezra offered in a panic.

“We'll give it to you, as long as our friends remain safe.” Kanan attempting his diplomacy.

“Agreed. Good. Oh, and one more thing, your Jedi Holocron, give that to me as well.” Maul demanded in his sly gruff voice. You had to hand it to him, he did not try to hide his intentions. Hera pleaded her protestations but, ultimately Kanan agreed. The comms were disconnected and Maul asked for a tour of the ship. Everyone avoided the request and looked at the floor.

“I...I um, I can do it.” the words spilled out of your mouth before you could even render what you were doing. Your crew all looked over at you with huge eyes and mouthing NO, but it was too late. You felt confident you could distract him this way. Your team was strong and whip-smart, if they could just have a small moment to themselves without Maul you knew, you just knew they could come up with a plan. 

“Is that so?” Maul was suddenly leaning into your face, his aura unexpectedly enticing you, you could feel his body heat. Your face grew hot and you looked down to avoid his diabolic eyes.

He grabbed your arm in a surprisingly gentle yet powerful way as he pulled you up to your feet and undid your binds. Your balance was off from the trauma of being flung upwards and back down again and everything else in-between. You felt yourself falter in step and try as you might you fell right into the arms of the former Sith Lord. He caught you with ease with a confused look on his face, but you were too embarrassed to fully look at him. He pushed you off himself and made a small hrmph noise as he did.

“After you,” he gestured with an outstretched hand leading out of the control room. The droids stayed back to hold the rest of the crew captive as you stepped into the hallway, the doors hissed shut behind you causing you to jump slightly. You were now all alone with the crimson Zabrak, and you could feel his dangerous energy emanating off of him. When you looked into his fiery golden eyes you could also sense a great deal of remorse. He caught you staring at him and furrowed his brow.

“Well, I guess I will show myself around then.” He said as he pushed past you and made his way down the hall. You regain your senses and quickly follow behind him to catch up.

“Let me help you.” you grabbed his arm to turn him around and try to slow him down.

“And what is it exactly you think you can help me with? I do not require the services of a spy,” he remarked with the furrow in his brow deepening.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Everyone can use a spy on their side,” you say in an attempt to negotiate for yourself still holding onto his arm.

“We shall see.” He simply stated not acknowledging the gentle grip of your hand on his sturdy arm. You wished you could keep it there longer, he was so warm and on the cold ship, it felt like a blessing, even though you knew better.

“So this is more than just a ship,” He said as you both walked along the halls and he saw your room on the left and paused to peer in.

“Yes, we live here.” he entered your room and looked around at your tidy and trim room. You had never felt the need for many possessions especially when you were so often confined to small living quarters. The only indication of it being inhabited was a painting of the starry sky framed like a window on your wall. He gently touched the frame and you saw a deep sadness overtake his golden eyes.

“It’s..just a painting I made to make it feel like I had a window in here,” you explained looking at him with a questioning concern painting your face.

“How quaint,” he remarked as he walked out and continued to inspect everyone else’s rooms. He stopped at Kanan’s and breathed in deep. 

“A dull and dour chamber. These are the quarters of a Jedi. - Show me where he keeps the Holocron.” He instructed you.

“I...I am not sure where he keeps it.” you stammered out.

“Hmm.. and here I thought the spy would be of such great use to me.” He pointed out as he peered into your mind with the Force, completely exposing you to him. His gloved hand outstretched in front of your face as he extracted the info from you like needles grabbing threads of your brain and pulling a stitch tight. You had no power over him and fell completely submissive to him, just wanting this uncomfortable sensation to go away. He began to laugh maniacally as he tugged at your mind and finally released you, now with a much more serious look on his face. He opened Kanan’s dresser drawer and pulled out the Jedi Holocron. You felt so defeated and also, oddly sympathetic to his plight whatever it may be.

“You have served me well, spy.” He stepped towards you and put his gloved hand on your face in a curiously tender caress.

“We have more in common than you may think.” he finished as he motioned for you to walk out of the room and put his arm around your shoulders in a show of dominance and security that you could feel yourself melting into. You felt yourself questioning your allegiance to the Ghost crew, a primal urge ripped at you to follow this tortured Zabrak wherever he may go.

He looked at you and smiled, laughing lightly. “Who says I would let you follow me, spy?”

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.--.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

thank you for reading <3 I hope I did this story justice, it gave me a lot of imposter syndrome because I feel like I don’t know as much about the Rebels series, but it was fun to research it more. xoxo

taglist: (message me if you’d like to be added or if I forgot you)

@brilliantbutbatty

@maulieber

@botherbother-blog

@emissarydecksetter

@wolfpack-arts-industries99

@a-dorin

[jasontoddiefor]

Hello! I was reading the « fic rec » question and i would be reeeeaaaallly glad to have a look at what you liked! Anything Anakin-related, and preferably AU or fix it (the nile ain’t just a river yada yada...) Thaaaaaanks

Anakin fix-its? You’ve come to the right place. These are all the stories in my bookmarks tagged as “fix it”! There are more but I do not have the patience to search for all of them rn. Not all of these are as Jedi positive as I like my fanfic, but they’re all 10/10 reads regardless.

Title: The Giver Summary: Anakin had pretty much adjusted to life at the Jedi temple. He went to class, he trained with his master, and he had begun to have strange dreams. A friendly figure would meet him at night when he closed his eyes and went to sleep. As they build up their friendship, Anakin begins to slowly confide in them, telling him about his worries, hopes, and dreams. They offer guidance and wisdom, watching Anakin grow to be a Jedi Knight, and trying to figure out where everything went wrong. Sometimes, the answers that you're looking for aren't ahead of you, they're behind. Link:https://archiveofourown.org/works/22790647

Title: If you could love the flame Summary: And Anakin knows suddenly and irrevocably that they will always be this: his two royals, his two diplomats, his two myths come to life Link:https://archiveofourown.org/works/25100827

Title: Sabbatical Summary: Anakin decides to leave the Jedi as a child, and Obi-Wan goes with him. When Palpatine sends Dooku to find them, things don't go as planned. Link:https://archiveofourown.org/works/22801789

Title: where the light won’t find you Summary: Or maybe Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka do turn to the Dark Side after Mortis. And maybe they accidentally save the galaxy anyways? (But that doesn't mean they still don't cause a headache for the rest of the galaxy.) Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24460300

Title: Family is more than Blood Summary:Two souls go into a sandstorm to change their fates. They find each other instead.Or the slightly cracky AU where a bounty hunter is the one that gives the Chosen One a proper family. Link:https://archiveofourown.org/works/24469039

Title: Twin Sons Summary: “He…” Anakin took a breath, trying to force his heart to stop hammering into his ribs, and he looked back at the man kneeling behind him, trying to apologize with his eyes, “he’s like me, sir. He’s like me, he’s a slave! His Master made him do this, his Master caused him…don’t hurt him. Not when we have him here, not when…not when we can free him.” - On Slavery, Freedom, and bringing Balance to the Force. Link:https://archiveofourown.org/works/24449365

Title: Aay’han Summary: Obi-Wan Kenobi sees what the Jedi Temple is doing to his Padawan, and he acts.This affects the galaxy in ways he never could have imagined. Link:https://archiveofourown.org/works/24280987

Title: if only i knew Summary:Newly knighted Obi-Wan Kenobi and his padawan, Anakin Skywalker, have been sent to Ryloth on a simple diplomatic envoy. While there, an unsettling incident causes Obi-Wan to look at Anakin in a new light and re-evaluate...everything.The Galaxy will never be the same.aka: "come for the obikin, stay for the tzai and deep emotional discussions that dismantle every single misunderstanding in the prequels." Link:https://archiveofourown.org/works/24353887

Title:  Ib'tuur Jatne Tuur Ash'ad Kyr'amur Summary: No one knows what the Council is hiding, but the effects ripple throughout the galaxy. Anakin knows he is loved. Former slaves are freed. A long-lost Master and his Padawan are returned to the Temple. No one understands how Obi-Wan Kenobi does these things, but they are grateful for it anyway. Link:https://archiveofourown.org/works/23581780

Coruscanti Regency The thing is, when Anakin figures it out, is that it all obviously has been there, if he’d only cared to look for it.And, admittedly, he is angry. Mostly at himself, which isn’t something that happens very often, so it’s an especially harrowing realization.All these years, he thinks, I’ve been so blind. I was so busy ignoring everything I didn’t want to think about and blaming everyone else for things not under their control that I didn’t stop to look at the bigger picture.He sighs and leans back in his chair to gaze at the ceiling.If only, he laments, true remorse coloring his thoughts, I had started watching period holodramas earlier.OR, how Plo Koon watching and subsequently introducing Ahsoka to Star Wars’ version of Downton Abbey changes Anakin's life path like nothing else could.

Reading Into Things When Ahsoka first meets the Supreme Chancellor, she gets a sense of his less than wholesome interest in her Master. Her intuition will go a long way.

Simple Steps Galaxy changing events don't just suddenly occur. They are the result of a series of small steps.

like someone bereft and lied to Anakin has a weird feeling in his stomach as he walks away from the Chancellor’s office.Who would have thought that Chancellor Palpatine would be a student of the Sith? Only to know how to keep the Republic safe from them, of course. All those priceless artifacts and holocrons that he’s collected to keep safe, hidden in his private rooms.It’s a good thing that he isn’t Force-sensitive, Anakin thinks with a small laugh, because the energy coming from all those things would have driven the poor man mad in a day. He only spent maybe twenty minutes in the room, just long enough to look at the piece the Chancellor thought might be of use to him, and his head was still spinning.

Deliver Us Jango Fett cannot save all his clones, but he can save five. He can save five, if he's willing to entrust them to the Jedi. Not just any Jedi, though. One who has already defied their Code for a child. One who knows Mandalorian culture. It is worth it, to save five innocent lives. He had no way of knowing it would change the galaxy and throw the proverbial spanner in one Sith Lord's plans.

we are all just trying to be holy  There was something warm and gentle in Depa’s voice, the way there always was, the way that was starting to sound like home to Anakin, though it would be awhile now before he recognized it. “Let me tell you a secret, my young Padawan: every Jedi has attachments.” He blinked up at her, eyes wide and confused. “Even Master Windu?” She laughed, nodding. “Even Master Windu.” -- An AU where Depa Billaba takes Anakin Skywalker as her Padawan, Obi Wan Kenobi interferes just a little bit, and Mace Windu is very, very tired.

The Price of a Name Anakin isn't quite sure how to deal with the clones he now commands, especially given that they refuse any attempts to individualize themselves. The quest to help the clones is going to go further than Anakin ever imagined.

Pebble in a River He woke up. And everything changed, but of course, that's what life does. It changes. There are so many options, so many things that seem right. And yet each of those things also feels wrong. Failure isn't an option, not again. But there is no outline for success, and he's hardly the only one in the game. He's tired, and exhausted, and so very lonely. But force help him, he's going to save as many people as he can. Really, Force, he needs the help.

Entirely of the Light With Palpatine unveiled as Sidious, Anakin manages to defeat him but ends up severely injured. As he recovers, Obi-Wan finds himself helping Padmé raise her and Anakin's children while he struggles with his feelings for both Anakin and Padmé.

Aggressive Negotiations  Everything about Skywalker was unorthodox. Even his parenting skills. A war meeting was the last place Rex expected to find a pair of toddlers, but there they were. But Rex is an officer, and a professional, and he will absolutely hold a child's hand if they ask. He's not a monster.

I had a vision! Mace Windu gets thrown back in time right to the point where Anakin is first presented to the Council. He remembers the horrors of the Clone Wars and he will do everything to change the oncoming future. "I had a vision" is becoming his most used phrase, he earns himself a Padawan with a penchant for trouble and Qui-Gon lives. All is going well, isn't it? No, there's still a republic to save, an army to deal with and most certainly a timeline to unfuck. Based on the tumblr posts by suzukiblu.

The Same Hope You will come to me sooner or later, Chosen One.Maybe once, when he was in the middle of a war that seemed like it would never end, a secret relationship dividing him between two of the people he loved most, juggling the guilt of failing his padawan. Maybe the Anakin back then had felt beholden to destiny, had had no choices, had felt like he would never have any choices.But the Anakin of now is a different person, because of his choices.He chose to leave the Order. He chose a new start.He chose acceptance, and understanding, and sometimes even forgiveness.He chose Obi-Wan. Always Obi-Wan.[[ The story of how we got here and everything that happens after. ]]

A Mind Always Free "Observe. Learn what you can. Keep everything secret. Don't be emotionless, but don't allow your emotions to show. And most importantly, take what you can get when you can get it, but let it go when it is taken away from you," Shmi Skywalker said softly, caressing the face of her son.(Anakin remembers what's like to be a slave and the Galaxy is better for it.)

Home  Time travel fix-it story with a bit of a twist. After his death, Obi-Wan wakes up on Tatooine, in the body of his padawan self. But instead of trying to prevent Anakin from Falling, he decides to change the future by stopping Qui-Gon from ever meeting the little Ani. If Anakin lives like a civilian, away from the Temple and Palpatine, the world will be a better place... right?A story in which Obi-Wan learns that Anakin Skywalker will always be his home--and his ultimate weakness--regardless of his attempts to do the right thing and stay away.

You Shall Become (Me) The Guardian of the Sith Temple doesn’t particularly care for the new breed of Sith, for all that they’ve been around for 1,000 years. But they’re the only Sith the Guardian knows about. Until one day…Alternately, "How to accidentally join the Sith without really trying."

Elements The words “Yes, Master,” come out of Anakin’s mouth so naturally that Obi-Wan suspects they were his first words. The realization comes to him so suddenly: his Padawan still has the mindset of a slave. When he decides to fix that, everything changes.

The Chosen Anakin is found by Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan when he's a newborn. It changes things.

The Sun and the Ocean Five things that happened when the twins were born early.hint: threesomes happen and assholes die.

A Time For A Yes, a Time For A Hell No The Council comes to him with a stupid, asinine plan that will only work if Anakin is in on it. Only to tell them that Anakin isn't going to be in on it.That's the moment Obi-wan decides he's had enough.[Prequel to my story "Go on, Go! Walk out that door" or 'The Scene' that started it all]

Magic Blankets C-3PO accidentally saves the galaxy by teaching a young Ani Skywalker how to crochet.Or in which the power of love and crafts solve a lot of problems and the Jedi Creche is about two inches away from kidnapping Anakin at any given moment.

[dyaz-stories]

#36 -- “Hey–it’s okay. I’m here; I’m safe. And fine–see? Everything’s alright now.”

100 Prompts of Fluff (Part 1)

Heyyy, first prompt! I’m going to assume this is for InuKag as there is no ship mentioned! So this is set during the early manga, probably right before the Spider episode / the first new moon. I tweaked the sentence a little so it’d work better with my idea, and I hope you’ll enjoy it anon! (I’m going to tag @mustardyellowsunshine in this one because I think I remember her saying she liked early manga stories ^-^)

Inuyasha was having a shitty day. Not that it was anything new, because it had been a shitty week, shitty month, shitty year, shitty fucking life. Today had to be something special, though, because Kagome was back in her world.

Wait, that sounded wrong. That wasn’t the direct reason why today sucked. Course not. He didn’t care that she was gone. If he’d been able to get the Jewel without her around, she could have stayed there fucking forever for all he cared, with her bright blue eyes, and her kind smile, and her lovely smell, and her adorable laugh and—

Point was, she could stay there. No need to expand on that. He did not care.

In fact, the reason he’d left the village today was to try and find a way to hunt shards on his own. He should have thought about it and tried it earlier, obviously. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t, but it had to be a completely inconsequential reason. Her last departure, which had left him alone with Shippo, had been the last straw for him.

He had left the village early the next morning, following a rumor about a Jewel Shard, leaving the kid with Kaede. It had given him a weird, unpleasant feeling, and made him wonder if it was the right thing for him to do.

Him. Feeling remorse.

Getting the Jewel was fucking overdue. If he was a full demon, he would never have to feel like that again. Demons had emotions, sure, but not the bad ones. Not the ones that can hurt you. Not pain, not guilt. Not hope. Not love…

Anyway, it had been a stupid waste of time. He’d spent three days there, meaning Kagome had to be back and she was probably the one waiting for him for once — ha! —, and he hadn’t found anything. He had taken down a couple of pretty strong demons, and then, in frustration, had cleaned out most of the forest, but he hadn’t been able to find anything. The most frustrating part was that that didn’t even mean there was no shard there. He just couldn’t tell.

He’d thought his nose would help. Well, turned out his nose couldn’t pick on something that was buried inside someone. Who’d have thought.

Sesshomaru might have said something about how he totally could have, and Inuyasha let out an annoyed hiss at the thought, his ears flattening against his skull.

Fucking full demons. He’d show them.

He entered the village in the afternoon. The villagers were on edge, but they generally were around him. He had set the place on fire and injured several of their grandparents, so he could understand it, and he didn’t care anyway. That was his relationship with humans, always had been. He had no regrets. Those people weren’t saints either, and if his scars didn’t fade so quickly, he would have had some nasty proofs of it.

He knew from the second he entered that Kagome was at Kaede’s place, and it strangely soothed him. Probably because it was the first thing that went well since she’d left.

When he arrived, he found her sitting in front of the house, head hanging low. For once, Shippo wasn’t jumping all over the place trying to get her attention, but instead had his head on her thigh, like a dog attempting to comfort his owner. Inuyasha couldn’t help but frowning at the sight. What was it this time? Was it that— maths thing that was giving her trouble? Did he need to go and slice some people into pieces? He wouldn’t mind doing that. Might make her more efficient.

“Keh, ya better be ready ‘cause we’re leaving this place as—”

“Where were you?”

He blinked. He’d expected her to get all annoyed at him for telling her what to do. Not that quiet, worried voice.

He wasn’t sure he liked that much better.

“Ah, Inuyasha,” Kaede said, walking out of her hut, “I take it ye didn’t run into the monks then?”

He frowned at the question, but he didn’t get any time to process it.

“Kaede said there were warrior monks in the area, purifying demons,” Kagome said, voice trembling slightly. “And since she said you’d just disappeared, we thought you might have—”

Inuyasha looked at her attentively.

He didn’t understand. He didn’t understand why she’d looked so sad when he had arrived, he didn’t understand why she was shaking. He understood even less when her expression suddenly changed to one of anger.

“You jerk!”

With that, she stood up and stomped towards the well, while Inuyasha replied with a half-hearted “The hell wrong with ya, wench?”.

“Aren’t you going to go after her?” Shippo asked, looking at him like he was the stupidest person on the planet.

“Ha? It ain’t my fault that she’s—”

“Kagome really worried for ye, Inuyasha,” Kaede said in that gentle yet judgmental tone that all old people seemed to master. “Ye should warn us, next time ye decide to leave.”

He scoffed. Worried? Why would she be worried? They were vaguely partners, forced to work together due to the circumstances. Nothing more, so no reasons for her to worry. If he wasn’t there, she’d probably find another way to go after the Jewel. Wouldn’t change anything in her life. Still, he didn’t want to waste any more time in the Jewel shards hunt, so with a growl, he followed after her. Shippo and Kaede exchanged a meaningful glance

He landed in front of her, in the middle of the forest, and he really, really thought he was going to hear the ‘sit’ word, but it never came. Instead, she folded her arms, glaring at him like she wanted to pierce a hole through his skin with only her eyes.

“What’s wrong with ya?”

“With me? You’re the one who just— We thought you were—”

Shit. Shit. Those were tears. She wasn’t crying yet, but she was close enough, and he could not handle that.

“W-well it’s— It’s okay. ‘m here. ‘m safe. ‘m fine—see?”

He extended his arms as if to prove it to her, and Kagome took a deep breath, studying him. Clearly, he wasn’t injured. Well— he’d healed, but he wasn’t going to mention that. He was already worried enough that she was going to explode or something.

“Ya good now?”

She glowered at him, and he tensed, but finally her angry frown broke into a smile. The type of smile that warmed his insides and, when it was directed at him, made him feel like he was— like he was actually a person. Not a nuisance, not someone to get rid of, not a target for a murder.

Someone who people could care for.

“You’re an idiot,” she said, turning around to walk back towards the village.

“You’re the idiot,” he replied automatically, following after her and easily getting ahead of her. ”Thinking some weak monks could get rid of me. I’m not like ya weak humans, ’s gonna take a lot more than that.”

Kagome scoffed, and Inuyasha slowed down his pace, which was naturally faster than her, to walk by her side. His haori’s sleeve brushed against that of her school uniform. Not too close just yet, but not as far away as they were yesterday.

“So what were you doing?” she asked.

He shrugged it off. His previous concerns, about wanting to travel without her, seemed stupid now that she was there, by his side.

“Doesn’t matter, I won’t need it.”

Everything was going to be alright now.

[headoverjojo]

I recently just read a fic with Trish dying and turning into a ghost. So far the author hasn't finished it but how do you think the bruno gang would react if diavolo killed her like he planned and they found about it much later on.

Hi there, darling! :3 Aaaaaa aaaanggssttt!! I hope to have satisfied your wish, my dear!!

Bruno’s gang reaction to find out that Diavolo killed Trish, like planned, but they find about it much later on

(Under the cut for length!)

Everything seemed to have gone as it should. Bruno found out about the Boss’ real intentions and managed to drag Trish away, both severely injured, Bruno barely alive. When Giorno, dragging the others too, came in their aid, Bruno really thought they had made it, that the Boss would have left Trish alone, at least for the meantime, to retreat and reorganize.

Bruno was wrong. No one noticed King Crimson sliding behind them. Diavolo carefully and smartly used his gift to skip and it was so subtle that no one noticed it. One second he was near Trish, the second after he was retreating, a smug smile on his face.

When Bruno gently put Trish inside Coco Jumbo, he, as the others, didn’t notice that her heart wasn’t beating anymore.

Bruno Bucciarati

When he found out about it, Bruno felt devastated. It was his fault, he knew it was his fault… if only he managed to protect her better. If only he had noticed that the Boss wasn’t retreating, if only, if only… he tortured himself over and over again, thinking about what he could have do to prevent the disgrace. Even if he didn’t know Trish since long as he knew his boys, Bruno had grown fond on her. She was just a girl, a young girl who didn’t have anything to do with his dark world: he just wanted to keep her safe and allow her to live the life she wanted. He thought that safeness, for her, would have been with the Boss; he was wrong. He should have known, he told himself again and again, he should have known, he should have suspected something and not blindly go on with the mission… it was his fault. Trish, an innocent, died because of him.

Bruno would need time to recover from it. The mission, before its tragic ending, had been exhausting both physically and mentally, and her death had been the last blow. He’s more uncertain about his decision, now, as they have lead to Trish’s death; he doesn’t know if he would be a good Capo, as he wasn’t able to protect a girl from his own father. His team is always near him, not to let him sink down: just time and their presence would help him to finally emerge from this deep gloominess with a new determination to take down the Boss. This time for Trish too.

Leone Abbacchio

Abbacchio hadn’t a real opinion on Trish, as he was more interested in fulfilling the mission than about Trish as person. When he saw her entering San Giorgio Maggiore with Bruno, he felt relieved: they did it, the mission had been a success! But it all crumbled down when he saw Bruno heavily wounded, as Trish, and heard about the Boss’ real intentions. This drew a line for him: he was an ex corrupted policemen, yes, he considered himself the scum of society, yes, he was a gangster, yes, but what the Boss did was over it. It was disgusting, it was cruel and unnatural and Abbacchio couldn’t stand it. He decided to follow Bruno on the boat mainly ‘cause at the time his life was voted to fight at Bruno’s side, yes, but a small part of him wanted also to punish the Boss for what he had tried to do. Just that the Boss already did it, when no one was watching. Abbacchio was angry, angry with himself, first, and with the others too. Why no one noticed anything?! How the hell could the Boss come so near to kill his daughter under their noses?! He hated it, he hated it with all his heart. He always was against kids in the organization or somehow involved in it, so, in his heart, he wished for Trish a life far from mafia, a normal life. Now she wouldn’t ever had this chance. They haven’t protect her, in the end: the mission was a failure.

Abbacchio wouldn’t need as much time as Bruno to recover, so he’d mostly try to drag his leader out of the mourn he’s in. They can’t lose him, not him too, they need a guide, Bruno is their Capo and has to control his emotions and go on! Especially now that they’re on the run and are trying to find out the Boss’ real identity. They all have to endure the pain and go on if they don’t want to be killed! They have to do it, for Trish too. They have to fight for Trish too!

Guido Mista

As Abbacchio, Mista hadn’t a fully-formed opinion on Trish. He found her pretty, she had a sharp tongue -he still huffs a chuckle remembering when she used Fugo’s jacket as towel and her words after she did so-, a good smell… but he hadn’t had the chance to really talk to her, as they were always chased by various assassins out to hunt for their blood. He didn’t find her suited for mafia, this was for sure; it was a relief seeing her entering the church, as, now, she would have been safe from her father’s enemies. It wasn’t so: her greatest enemy was her own father, apparently. Mista, grown in a big and unite family, couldn’t accept it, he couldn’t even think about it. For him family was sacred: how could a father want to kill his own daughter? He just… he couldn’t understand. It was a so alien thought that he couldn’t keep it in his mind. This also helped him to finally take the decision to go on the boat: if for the Boss was so easy to kill his own family, than how much easier would have been to kill his subordinates? He couldn’t stand a Boss like this. He wanted to change things and Trish too would have been safe! But… it wasn’t more necessary. It had been Mista the one who noticed first that Trish was sleeping since when they had left Venice and she was so still… he touched her and felt her skin cold. He still screamed Giorno’s name, calling him inside the turtle to try to use Gold Experience to heal her, to do something, but inside of his heart he knew it was too late. Guido felt empty, after that. It was too late; the Boss has always been two steps in front of them. In fact, the Boss had already won and they hadn’t even noticed it. Mista felt guilty, even, ‘cause they had promised to protect her, but look now: she was dead. They had… failed her. She, who trusted them, in the end died. And it was their fault.

Even if he shaked off the mourn pretty fast, Mista, inside, was still in a turmoil. He felt guilty, angry, sad, all together. He had to regain his composure fast, as they were on the run, but, inside, oh, he was a ticking bomb. He didn’t know Trish since long, true, but her death was so unfair and sudden that it just shocked him to this point. He wanted to fight the Boss, he wanted to put an end to his reign of terror. For Trish and for all the others who died for the Boss’ pride.

Narancia Ghirga

Narancia was pretty indifferent towards Trish, but this didn’t mean he wouldn’t have wanted to be her friend! it wasn’t just the moment nor the place to do so. He liked her, he felt they could have been good friends, but what really made him feel a connection with her was what her father almost did to her in the church. She had been betrayed by someone who should have protect her… she was like him. He was like her. How could he deny his protection and help to someone who was in his same situation? He wanted to talk to her about it. He knew how it was to be betrayed in this way: he hoped to help her a little… but he never had the chance to help her. Trish was dead, she had been so since they rushed far from Venice. The Boss… the Boss did it. The Boss, in the end, won. Narancia felt angry, at first, so angry that he wanted to scream. Then it came the pain and the remorse, ‘cause he felt like he hadn’t done enough. If he had used Aerosmith, maybe he would have sensed the Boss, maybe Trish wouldn’t have died…

Narancia’s determination to take down the Boss, now, was doubled. He was ready to give everything he had, to fight ever subordinate the Boss would have sent to them, all to finally take him down, all to finally avenge Trish. A man who’s ready to kill so easily his own daughter is too much even for a criminal organization: Narancia couldn’t stand the thought to serve a man like this. For Trish and for all the close people the Boss surely used and then thrown away, Narancia wanted to fight and win. For them all.

Pannacotta Fugo

Fugo was the first to welcome Trish in the group, but also the first to touch with hand how snarky a scared girl thrown completely out of her life all of the blue could be. Even so, Fugo was not one to hold grudges over it: a scream and it’s gone. Being he a really diligent person, he knew that this mission was crucial to Bruno to achieve his role as Caporegime; completing it would have made him so respected that no one would have even tried to question his authority. So, Fugo was determined to fulfill the mission: not just for his leader, of course, but also for Trish. Even if she acted that way, it was clear that she was scared, that she wanted to have nothing to do with mafia and its affairs and Fugo couldn’t disagree with her: no one would have willingly chosen to be in a criminal organization. And so, when the real intentions of the Boss had been revealed, Fugo was more than shocked. And now… now what? What were they supposed to do? Fight the Boss? Fight him and die all together in a useless mission? Even if… even if part of him wanted to go, his brain was screaming not to go, that it was a suicide mission, they… they have to hide, first, and to think about a plan, not run like crazy hoping to find clues…! He watched them go with a heavy heart, feeling, inside, that someone wouldn’t have come back, from that damn mission. What he didn’t expect was that the one who didn’t come back would have been Trish. He was totally shocked when the others told him what the Boss did to her, that… that all of them had been fooled. Fugo’s first reaction is anger. When he’s stressed, nervous or too overwhelmed, he expresses his turmoil with anger bursts. He even had to go outside, not to explode with the others. All useless, everything they did, every enemy they had fought… useless. Trish was already dead, they… they had fought for a corpse, he found himself to think, bitter. But… no, not for a corpse. In the end, they fought for Trish, for her spirit, not her corpse. In the end they avenged her, so… so, maybe, her spirit was now resting in peace.

Even if it’s a hard blown -it’s never easy to see a person of your age die, even if you don’t know them well- Fugo does his best not to let Trish’s death be useless. Now that the Boss has been defeated, they all can work to build a better Passione, to drag the organization out of the terror Diavolo had thrown it in; and Fugo helps in it, he gives everything he has, every energy and minute he has for this. He offers his intelligence and strategic ability to the new Don, to use it in a better way: and all, also, for Trish. For the girl who made it all possible, whose death gave them the determination to go on and really fulfill their goal. It was all also for Trish.

Giorno Giovanna

In the beginning, Trish, for Giorno was mostly just the best way to reach for the Boss. He was trying to find a good excuse to go near to the Boss, he was preparing himself to wait months, but fate seemed to be at his side, sending no one else but the Boss’ daughter… and they had to accompany her to him! They would have been near him! It was the right chance to try to take him down, Giorno thought, feeling even relieved, knowing that soon it all would have been ended. But it didn’t go according to the plan: the Boss wanted to kill Trish, instead of keep her safe, and Giorno, as much as he cared for his dream, wouldn’t ever just let a person die for the sake of it. He had to think again about what to do, now, he had to plan… but Mista’s scream interrupted him. Giorno was rushed inside Coco Jumbo, as Trish apparently wasn’t feeling well. When he used Gold Experience on her, however, Giorno understood, with shock and horror, that she was… dead. Trish was dead. She was cold and rigid… for how long had she been dead? Hours? More? Giorno cannot speak, he cannot even think. This… this was too much. This was the first time he felt hopeless, that he cannot help somehow. His Gold Experience was useless, as it couldn’t bring back dead people; he felt useless. Trish… she was innocent. She was a common girl dragged in a world made of darkness, and her only fault was to be born. For her father, she had to die for being born, for simply existing. Trish’s death was a hard blow for him: was his dream really worth it? How many other would have died for it? Bruno? Mista? Who else? Even so, even if he felt so desperate, he didn’t show it. He had to be strong… he had led everyone in that mess and he would have done everything to keep them safe. At least them.

When it was all done, Giorno allowed himself to mourn. He didn’t know Trish a lot, nor he was a close friend or even an acquaintance, but… she has been part of the team, even if just for a little time. She entrusted them with her life, but they have failed her. She had dreams and hopes, like all of them, and they had been crushed by her own father’s hand. She had so much to do, so much to see… there was one last thing that Giorno had promised her: taking her back to her home and burying her near her mother. When it was all finished, Giorno kept the promise, the last one he made to Trish.

[sociopath-analysis]

Sociopath Profile: Arrowverse Zoom

Real name: Hunter Zolomon Other Aliases: Jay Garrick, The Flash Appearances: The Flash (2014-present[valid as of early June 2020]) Played by: Teddy Sears (pictured right), Ryan Handley (masked, pictured left) Masked voice by Tony Todd

Zoom personifies a genuine case of antisocial personality disorder. In fact, his actor actually described him as a sociopath and everything about him really shows that. In fact, he is not only the darkest antagonist to appear on The Flash, he may be the darkest antagonist of the entire Arrowverse! Yes, even more so than the likes of, the Reverse-Flash, Prometheus, and Vandal Savage. And since he is such a fitting example of a low-functioning sociopath, I’m going to give him my common profile model of showing you each of the symptoms and telling you how he fits.

[SPOILERS BELOW]

Aggressive behavior. This guy really likes murder and destruction. Hunter was actually already a serial killer in Earth-2 before getting his powers. He’s so unstable that when given the chance to indulge in his violent behaviors, it’ll be hard for him to hold back. Every other appearance involves him pummelling, injuring, maiming, or outright killing someone; or threatening and/or attempting to do at least one of those things. Hunter even kills Barry’s father to incite that same rage that he feels. He also seems to have many time remnants of himself that he will just murder whenever it’s “necessary” and all of them have agreed to it. He even goes so far as to plan to destroy the multiverse! Jeez, dude! You need to take a (metric ton of) chill pill(s).

Pathological need for excitement. Tying in with his love of violence, he tends to do many things simply because he can. Him being a serial killer was to sate his bloodlust. And as Zoom, he takes so much pleasure in crushing everyone around him both physically and psychologically. Him going on a hero stint as Jay Garrick was because he got bored of being the villain. And he only gave people hope as the Flash just so he could take it away from them by destroying that image. He also plans to take over Earth-1 and further expand the scope of his reign of terror across the multiverse because he has already brought Earth-2 to its knees.

Glibness and superficial charm. Despite how much of an unstable maniac he is, Zoom can genuinely be pretty jovial and laid-back when he wants to be. Often during battles, he will playfully mock his opponents. Even in the middle of beating someone up. As proved when he does this to Harrison Wells. And he’s definitely charismatic enough to lead a cult of metahumans and speedsters into his crusade. He is quite the persuasive speaker. Not to mention his time as Jay Garrick. He was able to put on the guise of a hero for so long that even Team Flash thought that he was a good guy. They were horrified and shocked to see Zoom murder Jay only to see the same face under Zoom’s mask.

Conning and manipulation. This is one thing he uses his superficial charm for. As Jay, he plays Team Flash for fools the whole time while secretly being the monster they’ve been chasing. When not directly using that charm, he’ll be using threats by either holding their loved-ones hostage or threatening to kill them. He does this to Wells in order to get Barry’s Speed Force.

Consummate Liar. Aside from what’s mentioned in the last two paragraphs, he definitely drops a lot of falsehoods when he is trying to get what he wants. When he killed everyone in a bank, he left only one alive and promised to spare him if he sent the warning that Zoom was going to be coming for Barry. The man did exactly that… and Zoom still killed him anyways.

Grandiose sense of self-worth. This arrogant motherfucker takes every opportunity to knock down his opponents and laud his superiority over others. In one of his first appearances, he boasts that he is truly the fastest man alive and drags an injured Flash around Central city to discredit him. Even as Jay, he personally describes Zoom as “an unstoppable demon with the face of death “ All things considered, with how shamelessly evil he is, that is most definitely him complimenting himself. And many things he does are just because he can with the knowledge that no one can stop him being a huge ego boost.

Pathological selfishness. When confronted about this by Barry, he openly, and emphatically, confirms that he has no concern for the lives that he destroys in his pursuit to improve his condition. And his supposed love for Catlin can also come off as this (as mentioned in the next paragraph).

Lack of empathy. Most of the empathy Hunter ever had died with his mother. As you can see above, he does most of these things to people on a whim without any concern for anyone else. He is woefully incapable of forming any genuine attachments to people that aren’t faked or severely warped due to his trauma. His disturbing affection for Caitlin Snow is one show of this. He does seem to love her in his own sort of way (at least as capable as he is of loving another person), but he will still be aggressive with her when she doesn’t do what he wants and has threatened to outright kill her. Even in a trap set for him with a fake image of her that claimed to want to join him, he still tried to murder her while still believing it was the real deal.

Lack of remorse. Have you been reading this profile? Not only does he show no concern for the atrocities he has committed, but he openly identifies himself as the villain. Though between his dark and scary-looking suit, his often black and soulless eyes in his mask, and his very demonic-sounding voice, you’d have to be an idiot to look at Zoom and think he’s a good guy. But he takes pride in being the villain of Barry’s story and does not cast a shadow of a doubt that he is a complete and utter monster.

Note: Black Flash is not Zoom, so he’s not included in this profile.

Arrowverse Sociopath List

[ficsinhistory]

So ... What does "Muira-Horror !!" mean for the series? A discussion about the episode.

Spoilers for the second season of Big Hero 6.

So, yeah, this episode was pretty intense and scary. Not only that, it brings a number of serious implications to the fate of the show. So let's go!

The most obvious is that Hiro will finally begin to suspect Liv and his sinister intentions. As we saw at the end of the episode, he managed to pick up one of the nanoreceptors that Amara transformed into an immediate and temporary form of transformation. This is useful for her, since she does not need to capture the victim and is much faster, besides she can control in the same way, losing control only if someone removes it.

He is not sure of that, but he has strong suspicions which leads to a much more sinister and important topic that I will address later.

Not only that, Liv is increasingly insane and psychotic. In "Pray Date" it has already been shown that she does not have any kind of remorse at killing to protect her plans, as in how she almost did it with two teens who interfered in their plans, which in itself is disturbing. However, in "Muira-Horror !!", she not only had plans to assassinate Hiro, Krei and Gogo, but took that as a bonus, even if they did not even know of her plans. This reveals that Liv is a cold-blooded killer and does it for pleasure, like the crazy psychopath she is.

Besides, Liv now also has Bessie. As I said in another post, meteors have with them not only magnetic fields, but biological and chemical space materials. There, in space, unlike Earth, there are extremely radioactive materials, many of which here could not be produced or maintained alone. And what she now possesses may be:

 A biotech energy source that it can use.

 A radioactive raw material to leave its transformations permanent since only DNA with a high radiation rate changes and Liv needs a way for her guinea pigs to stay alive.

 Or it may be some form of conscious life that Amara can use to mutate more people.

Not only that, we discovered that Chris was made by Liv! This explains the blind loyalty and the fact that he punches a freaking robot and does not bleed! A robot or something that Liv created? I do not know, but since she has Bioengineering skills, Liv may have created a bionic human, so he does not short for Bessie.

We have also seen that Krei is not a complete idiot, but has hobbies and a sad and lonely past, explaining his actions and showing that he is not pure evil. What I'm loving in the series, BH6 is showing how Krei, Liv, Gogo, Karmi and others have nuances! From how you are more than the obvious and who should not judge yourself the book by the cover, and I am thriving as the main cover is from someone seen as annoying!

Now, let's go to the elephant in the room, yeah !!!

We know Liv used to transform Ned was one of the nano receivers Karmi invented. 

However, it is more than obvious that Liv modified them and that Karmi does not know anything of it or it is part of the plan to have it alive, since Liv did not hesitate to architect his death when he saw her interfere, unlike Obake that even the assassination attempts on Hiro were planned. In "Pray Date" was not only established the personality of Liv, but also of Karmi. Despite everything we have seen, she is an unselfish, heroic and courageous person, and is incapable of deliberately seriously injuring anyone. Throughout the episode, Karmi did not focus on saving herself, on the contrary, she worked ceaselessly in pursuit of a cure for Knox and put her own check security several times in the name of someone who was literally hunting her! Facing Liv herself to save Knox's life because she saw that she could be saved and still not minding not to get credit for it. Karmi is the perfect opposite of Liv Amara. While Liv seeks to modify people for nefarious reasons, no matter how much they suffer, acting cold, selfish and homicidal, Karmi has as the core of their motivations to help others, putting their lives at stake and seeing each being as worthy to live, never resorting to violent attitudes, example when in "Big Problem" she sedated Orso, not hurting him in any way. Another opposite is in the first impressions, Karmi seems to be harsh, irritating, with antisocial attitudes, with the passage of time and in the series however, we see the true one, selfless, worried and even sweet. Liv on the other hand, at first glance, seems to be sympathetic, approachable and benevolent, but but she turns out to be cruel, manipulative, and evil. As we saw in "Muira-Horror !!"

The point is: Karmi does not know that her inventions are being used for evil or that Liv herself is evil. And the impact of it on her character can be disastrous, not that shecan be bad, but the opposite. Karmi is selfless and emotional, she would not hesitate to sacrifice herself for others and Liv knows it. Liv also knows that Karmi is intelligent and possibly the only one who can rival her mutations, since no one else on the team and even Honey, who is a chemist, does not know how to reverse cellular experiments and Amara can take advantage of that.

What am I talking about?

That Liv Amara can use Karmi's guilt and regret against her.

Liv is a psychopath and manipulative sociopath who does not hesitate to even kill and Karmi has a strong sense of duty and help to others. She would be devastated to know that her invention made so much chaos and suffering possible and would do everything in her power to fix it. Which probably leads me to a bleak but possible thought: Liv will ask for the death and / or surrender of Karmi in return for the city or someone she cares for safely.

This would be advantageous for Liv who would have the only person capable of reversing her evil out of the game and would be sure of that, since Karmi would do anything not to be the cause of someone's suffering even if she was killed in the process.

Not only that, Liv would hit someone else in the process.

Has anyone ever found it strange how Liv never cares about Big Hero 6? Unlike Obake, Liv follows her plans as if they did not even exist! She was very pleased to kill Hiro in this episode, perhaps out of rancor for what happened in "Pray Date", but she never shows any concern. Maybe she's too presumptuous to assume she'd be discovered? Perhaps.

But what strikes me is how Hiro seems concerned to find the nanoreceptor. He's suspicious, yes. But, he always has concern in his face, since he knows where to get answers.

Why?

Because he knows what that means. He knows it will drag Karmi into the whole mess. And he does not want that. As a hero, the last thing he wants is to drag a civilian into the mix and guess what? Liv would have a huge advantage (and he's already, honestly) dragging civilians into the mess. She gave an internship to Karmi, and now we know it was for Amara to steal and hone her technology without suspicion, which puts her right in the front line of this confrontation. The fuse is Karmi discovering the true colors of Liv. And when that happens, and it will happen, it will be at the top of the execution list. Because, as I and several other people have said before, Liv wants Hiro, anyone who disrupts his plans, out of action. And if this person is someone who knows how to reverse what she did, Amara will not bother to end the threat personally. Even if it means destroying a 16-year-old girl who does not want to do anything but help, because she does not want setbacks, whatever the cost.

[painfulstitches17]

Hey do you mind doing either thatcher or bandit headcannons please 💙

I already have an ask for Thatcher so here's Bandit real quick as I've got him down from writing him so much 😂 Nothing shippy in this one.

Warning : a few heavy stuff.

The "good" stuff :

- He has pranked at least 85% of the base.- Learned how to sew once he started living alone and has become good at it.- Learned the guitar and/or the piano in his youth. Likes to cover songs at parties and doesn't sing so bad !- Actually has a lot of empathy and doesn't know what to do with it.- Can't stand shitheads and will protect anybody that needs it within rainbow (or sometimes strangers), most often behind their back. That guy at the bar who keeps looking for trouble stopped ? Nobody knows why !- Watches lots of movies/TV shows and organizes movie nights on the regular. Huge fan of Lethal Weapon, unsurprisingly.- 500% chaotic bisexual.- Orders lots of junk food just out of cheer laziness. He prefer homemade meals but is again too lazy to cook.- Owns the latest gen consoles and will often play with fellow operators. Nothing better than beating Buck at FIFA.- Uses his scar as a way to scare recruits. Yeah, he did that himself, what a crazy guy !- Isn't so scared of Caveira but Nokk ? She creeps. Him. Out. They later get to know each other but he still gets goosebumps.- Has a very friendly relationship with Smoke. The guy can be crazy at times but they go along well. Especially when pranking...- Somewhat dislikes Lion. He's a dumb fuck but Bandit tries to get to know him. It has ended in fist fights several times but they've made up.- Sees his unit as his second family. They're all his siblings and he'd die for them.- Spends a lot of time with them. Playing the switch with Blitz, tinkering with Jäger, long talks or reading with IQ.- Loves messing with Jäger so much because the poor boy has a hard time with social cues. Ended up in very weird situations for the two. He's cut it back a bit.- If Cedrick is HC as dead, he def takes Jäger as a legit sibling in his eyes. Still stands otherwise but it's more hardcore if he's missing his twin.- Keeps an eye out for people, even the ones he despises. Will report anything weird/bad back to Doc. Their little secret - Tries to keep smoking but it's a hell of a fight.

The "bad" stuff :- I mostly HC him as having killed his brother, either out of pressure from somebody or by accident.- He's seen as the guy who killed/injured his brother in cold blood back home. People tend to try and avoid him and look at IQ, Jäger and Blitz like they've grown two heads. Couldn't be further from the truth.- Feels a lot of guilt and often feels remorse, even about pranks.- Constantly blames himself but tries not to voice it, will sometimes do when drunk or once he snaps.- Can be hot headed.- Can be very reserved. It's hard to make him get out of his tough guy shell.- Refuses to talk about Hannover 99% of the time. Even Harry has trouble scratching the surface during therapy sessions or there's A LOT of sarcasm and protective jokes.- Humour is his coping mechanism.- He has seen so many people being assaulted and die while undercover that he has lost quite a bit of faith in humanity. From drugs to murder to suicide, he's seen a lot. Being in counter terrorism does not help either.- Vehemently against drugs since his undercover days as he has seen the destruction it can bring and he hates it right down to his core. However he lets people do whatever they want with their lives and tries not to lecture them too much.- Got forced to take drugs a few times as well. Pretty traumatic experiences happened then.- Jäger felt his wrath once he started doing weed in small doses after T&C. Bandit got anxious about it but ultimately realised his friend was responsible.- Might get into bar fights on bad days.- Has trouble sleeping. It's alleviated when somebody shares the bed.- Has had tons of sexual adventures once out of undercover, terrible way to try and cope/forget.- Has had suicidal tendencies in the past.- I HC to have pure OCD sometimes.

With Cedrick (alive or not) :

- They were very, very close. Not surprising for twins. "Sleep in the same bed sometimes" close.- They used to do pranks together. Got into trouble a few times in the polizei.- They shared a treehouse as kids. He's very fond of that memory, he keeps it as a safe space when zoning out.- Cedrick has always been very supportive of his brother. They try to go back and forth.- Bandit had always been the more rowdy of the two.- They'd pretend to be the other just for laughs.- They'd also joke about being the same person ! "I'm Dominic." "No, I'M Dominic !"- They miss each other very much.

Thank you so much for the ask 💛

[riviae]

Regis and/or Dettlaff for the character headcanon meme (ya know, if a hundred others haven't already asked lol)

character meme (accepting!): under a read more due to length 

Regis: 

favorite thing about them:

besides his obvious kind heart & unflinching loyalty, i love how passionate he is about things!! dude’s been alive for 400+ yrs & he still wants to travel, to make friends, to learn, to teach, to heal, to share his interests & knowledge. he loves life–loves humanity (cdpr can miss me w/ his referencing humans as mosquitoes metaphor nonsense)–& is my favorite example of a good redemption story/character. 

least favorite thing about them: 

he can be… rather pretentious at times. but to his credit, he never really belittles or alienates anyone in the hansa–it’s more like he has a lot of ‘high-brow’ interests for the time/setting (not counting distilling, of course) & in sharing/explaining them, he goes a bit over the top. i don’t think it’s on purpose, but case in point… not everything has to be a lecture, ya know? 

favorite line: 

kinda cheating on this, but my favorite scene of anything ever is this one from lady of the lake: 

“Well,” sighed Regis. “Have it your way. I’ll have to avoid mirrors and dogs, and will have to beware of sorcerers and telepaths… And if I’m still exposed, I’m counting on you.”“You can count on me,” Geralt said seriously. “I’m not in the habit of leaving a friend in need.”The vampire smiled and because they were alone, he did not hide his fangs. “Friend?”

now specifically from b&w, i like this line from Regis’ journal: People justify bad deeds by good intentions. I’m not sure if there is greater idiocy

brOTP: 

geralt/regis (which you’ll also see in the otp section), regis/yen (goth-nerd solidarity & also they both love geralt so jot that down), & regis/angouleme (he’s a wonderful uncle figure to angouleme)

also if regis ever got to meet vesemir i’m 100% sure they’d have gotten along swimminglg

OTP: 

geralt/regis–it’s my lifeblood babey

nOTP: 

romance-wise, any regis/hansa member that isn’t geralt is just not my cup of tea as well as regis/dett****

random headcanon

after his second regeneration, he became wearier around unknown sorcerers/sorceresses/magic users (w/ the exception of yen). at one point, geralt had decided to light a candle near regis using igni w/o really thinking abt it & noticed that regis had visibly flinched. geralt apologized immediately & now lets regis know when he’s abt to light something using magic (’normal’ fires, those not started by magic, don’t bother him. so it’s less of an aversion to fire & more of an aversion to fire made thru magic).

unpopular opinion: 

i don’t really like his sideburns or hairline–not bc i think the design is bad per se (i think it solidified his intro in b&w as a more scholarly character), but bc i think it ages him much more than necessary. when the other 2 higher vampires (dettlaff, orianna, hell–even the unseen elder), look much younger, then it just seems unusual imo. a middle-aged tax collector w/ a crooked nose is how sapkowski describes him & idk, i think cdpr just wanted to give regis a more stereotypical scholarly look instead of using descriptions from the books. 

song i associate with them:

when i’m in an angst™ mood, this song is what makes me think of regis (& higher vampires in the witcher series in general). it’s called far from home (the raven) by sam tinnesz 

favorite picture of them (i’m too lazy to do this but assume every picture of regis is my fave)

Dettlaff: 

favorite thing about them

his hobbies! woodworking & building toys for kids is nice™; cdpr should’ve at least given us a tiny scene of him tinkering on stuff. presumably he has a caring nature given that he nursed regis back to health but once again, cdpr couldn’t be bothered to flesh out the interesting aspects of his character & instead gave us an albeit cool but ultimately unnecessary boss battle :/ 

least favorite thing about them

oof, his lack of patience & propensity towards violence. well, perhaps propensity is the wrong word; i mean that in a character who is powerful/deadly (in which even a brief lapse in judgement could mean death for another), a hair trigger temper is... not going to endear me to them. for instance, i don’t think that dettlaff went to tesham mutna with the intent of killing syanna--i don’t think he knew himself what he would do upon seeing her. BUT, he still did it--& i’m sorry but killing an unarmed/defenseless (presumably unarmed, but even if she were armed it wouldn’t change the fact that she was defenseless against him & dettlaff knew that) woman in a fit of rage (who yes, wronged dettlaff greatly) speaks of a deeper problem relating to his inability to process his emotions. 

i originally thought that cdpr was going to do some cool parallels between dettlaff and geralt bc both have issues w/ emotion but in different ways (i.e., dettlaff has difficulty controlling his while geralt has trouble expressing them), but they shared maybe a handful of sentences w/ each other before the conclusion of the dlc so yeah D: 

favorite line: 

“If you acknowledge any gods... start praying, now.” 

brOTP: 

regis/dettlaff is pretty much it/the only relationship i find interesting in b&w for dett anyway 

OTP: 

dettlaff/character development 

nOTP: 

mentioned in regis’ list above, but i also am not a fan of geralt/dett

random headcanon: 

his “pack” up until syanna consisted almost entirely of orphaned lower vampires. whether due to their family dying or abandoning them, dett’s reserved & calming demeanor makes it easier for LVs to trust him. he’s nursed plenty of injured LVs back to health & when he passed thru the remnants of stygga castle, he did so bc he originally thought that he was following the trail of an injured LV (having caught regis’ scent). it was only when he got closer that he recognized the ‘shapeless smear’ was regis--someone he hadn’t seen in centuries--& chose to help him heal despite how taxing it would be. 

unpopular opinion

i don’t understand his popularity as a character or how his actions can be defended. his character design is great (i still wanna to buy his moth brooch tbh), he was voice acted very well, & there are hints of an interesting backstory esp in relation to why he chose to help regis regenerate, but that’s not the focus of the dlc. 

if i have to rely on regis to explain why dettlaff is a good person/deserves redemption/etc., then that’s lazy writing. i love regis to death, but he, like anna henrietta, was blind to/didn’t want to see his loved one’s faults/misdeeds. u can’t make an unbiased character judgement on someone you’re close to and indebted to imo. 

granted, regis himself is an example of dett’s charity since he is alive & well (& also is stressed af bc of dettlaff), but does one good deed wash away all the death he later commits in the attack on beauclair? motivation or not, murder is murder, plain & simple. i can forgive but not condone regis’ actions in his youth bc, arguably, regis was already punished severely for it & chose to change/become a better person. cdpr didn’t give us an option to allow dett to be punished for his crimes (in something other than death--which i don’t think he nor syanna deserve) or let us know if he eventually grows to be a better person w/ the help of regis & so i can only care for him in the respect that i mourn the character he (& syanna) could’ve been. 

in summary: everything i dislike abt dettlaff is entirely due to a lack of care when it came to fleshing out his character. we only see him committing acts of violence/murder, never healing or helping. we see the fallout of his anger, see that he feels grief & even remorse (like in de la croix’s death), but it doesn’t excuse the act itself. ppl are more than welcome to like or love morally dark/dubious characters, but i have an issue when a morally dubious character is painted as good or good but misunderstood. 

song i associate with them

the song inferno by sir sly gives me real dettlaff vibes: I think you clipped my wings to save me from the sunForgot my hands and knees, I had to learn a lessonOh fearless teacher how'd I ever lose my sightWhy'd I ever try to fight against your path?Somewhere at half my life, I wandered in the woodsCan't find a single right, I swear nothing is goodI'm blinded now and darkness shrouds my every sightWhy'd I ever try to fight for my own path?

favorite picture of them: 

once again, too lazy to find one, but his final form in the boss battle was cool even if it kinda went against sapkowski’s lore.

[chubbycaucasianchristiancloseted]

I love the hypocrisy of the left.

I love the hypocrisy of the left. Can you imagine if a right-leaning political or public figure did something similar? It would be labeled as inciting violence, that individuals would then be canceled, removed from all of social media and never work again. Whether it should or should not is a different discussion but the first amendment does not currently protect you against making threats to injure an individual. Based on prior situations the left have had melt downs over, THEY would consider this a threat of violence and therefore should be treated that way.

Individuals want Trump cut from Home Alone 2. Would these same individuals support a movement to remove Kathy Griffin from shows and movies for holding a fake, severed head of a president of the United States?

In this article Griffin shows no remorse and in fact decided to “hit the road again” and go overseas in search of people filled with as much hate as her to continue her “act”. While on tour in London she received a threat of injury from a driver and called the president of the company and had him fired. If Griffin claims that she did not break the law with her stunt then shouldn’t the same apply to the driver?

I would love to have a Democrat explain to me what consequences a conservative should face for similar actions and why I should pity and feel sorry for Kathy Griffin?

Direct Quotes:

Griffin said the photo was meant as political satire, but that didn't stop all hell from breaking loose. The president reacted, tweeting: "Kathy Griffin should be ashamed of herself. My children, especially my 11-year-old son Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick!"

But the damage was done. Her comedy tour was cancelled; she lost her endorsement deal with something called Squatty Potty; and she found herself under investigation for conspiracy to assassinate the President of the United States – a charge that potentially carries a life sentence.

At a press conference, Griffin was emotional when she spoke of Mr. Trump's, and the government's, response: "To be honest, he broke me."

Griffin says her name ended up on the no- fly list, and CNN fired her from her long-running gig co-hosting their New Year's Eve special with Anderson Cooper. "I really did love Anderson and I really loved doing that gig. And it was a lot of fun. And, you know, they just couldn't get over it."

"I thought: 'Well, I know how to be funny, and I know how to get people to buy tickets.' Because I'm pretty sure there's a whole bunch of countries overseas that really don't like Trump. And that's how it all started."

So, she hit the road again, but only after taking control of her business, learning how to book every element of it herself, from renting the theaters, to marketing the shows, to hiring the ushers. "I think it was 13 countries and 26 cities. And then I thought, 'Okay, I'm onto something.'"

Her tour grossed more than $4 million. "And yet, I don't have a single day of paid work on television ahead of me for the rest of my life," she said.

But she'll always have the stage. Her world tour became the basis for her new comedy special, called "Kathy Griffin: A Hell of a Story."

"I was in London a month ago and I had a driver who took myself and my assistant from London Heathrow to the hotel, and he recognized me from the photo and he said that he was from Morocco and that if we were in Morocco he would cut my tongue out.

"I called the president of the company and had him fired!" she replied.

Burbank asked, "If you could click your heels together and go back and just like, at the end of the photo shoot before the mask came out, could it just been like, 'Let's call it a day,' would you?

"No," she replied, "'cause I've learned so much. I think a lot of people would love it if I said, 'Oh, I wish I had never taken that picture. I wish I had never cursed. I wish I had never made this comment or that comment.' But the most important thing that I hope people see is that, long after I kick the bucket, they see the crazy red-haired lady didn't go down."