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januaryembrs · 3 months ago

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MY BABY, HERE ON EARTH | Spencer Reid x Prentiss!Reader [BONUS]

Description: the NINE months of pregnancy

Word count: 10.9k

warnings: pregnancy duh, babies, giving birth, c-section, ummm body fluids? lots of emotions, nausea & sickness, talks of weight gain and stretch marks.

authors note: y'all... there you have it. I will be back to finish their story but until then this is my goodbye piece until I have finished my hiatus to write my own book and start uni (again). I can't wait to take these two (three) on the final lap they deserve but for now.. I hope you enjoy pookies being pookies.

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MONTH ONE. The one where she finds out.

She hadn’t meant to find out when she did. It had been just a routine implant swap that she’d had twice already in the last six years.

“Any blood clotting, any pain at all?” The nurse asked, jotting down a few notes on her form as she sat back on the bed and waiting for the numbing cream to take hold.

She shook her head. “It’s weird as hell to feel and when I think about it too long it freaks me out, but no, no pain,” She said and the nurse chuckled, nudging her glasses up her nose.

“And finally, is there any chance that you’re pregnant?” She asked, no doubt having rehearsed the same script about thirty times that day alone.

Bugsy gave her a flat smile, “Small chance, but I guess that’s what this is for, huh?”

The nurse looked at her then, as if mulling over the words before she said something, “Small chance?”

“I mean, nothing is a hundred percent effective,” Bugsy tried to weasel her way out of the awkward conversation, because she had absolutely no intention of letting the nurse know her and Spencer had been at it like bunnies since the Hotch had forced them to take medical leave. Who knew having so much time on her hands with her very handsome boyfriend would have that effect?

The nurse pursed her lips, and already the woman felt like she’d said too much.

“Alright, we’re going to do a routine test, just need a quick urine sample,” Bugsy felt her cheeks heat, though she was in no position to argue. Her discomfort must have been more obvious than she thought, however, as the nurse went on to explain, “If I give you this implant and there’s a fertilised egg, it can lead to ectopic pregnancy, in which case you’ll need surgery. Trust me, honey, peeing in a cup is your easy option,”

She gave the practitioner a small nod, wondering if she needed to message Spencer to say she’d be running a little late. She knew he was likely doing the sudoku in the waiting room magazine, since he’d refused to let her come alone. And even though she’d told him she would be fine on her own, he’d seen through it, had even offered to get her ice cream on the way home for putting on a brave face.

And yet her face was nothing short of horror struck not even half an hour later when the nurse showed her the stick with empathetic eyes.

“Congratulations,” The woman said cautiously, a fake smile plastered on her face as the girl stared at her, utterly gobsmacked.

“But, I thought…” Bugsy stammered, running a finger over where the nurse had removed her implant, “But I had everything ready, I never let it get late, I did what I was supposed to,”

“You said it yourself, honey, nothing is a hundred percent effective besides abstinence-”

“That’s just what parents say to make sure their kids aren’t banging every Tom, Dick and Harry out there!” Bugsy was near screeching, the worry in her tone clear as a bell and her chest hot with panic.

Pregnant. She was pregnant, there was no way she could be…

Except there was exactly a way she could be, seeing as she struggled even on a dry spell to keep her hands off Spencer longer than a few days at a time. And he was just as bad.

The nurse huffed, rifling through her drawers for a handful of pamphlets. She passed them to Bugsy whose mouth was still bobbing with more expletives she held herself back from saying, and it wasn’t until she saw the happy couple on the front of the first one, holding a very swollen and round bump that she thought she might be sick.

Comical timing, she hissed at herself.

“There are always options, sweetheart. Abortion is legal in Virginia, if that is what you decide, however there is always information and support that we recommend looking into before you make a solid decision,” Her response was professional even though her expression was compassionate, and Bugsy knew she must have looked scared because that was exactly how she felt and she had little to no room to hide it.

Abortion? Is that what she wanted? Except it wasn’t just about what she wanted, it was what Spencer wanted too. Even if he would argue against that being the case in a heartbeat, even if he would tell her she had every right to be the only one to make a decision, no matter what he thought. But maybe it wasn’t so much about needing his opinion for that reason, and more it was because she had absolutely no clue what to do and Spencer was always good at making sense of the things she didn’t know how to deal with.

She nodded silently, her mouth dry as sandpaper as she took the leaflets and stuffed them in the bottom of her purse where she hoped Spencer wouldn’t go looking.

She barely remembered standing on liquid legs, barely remembered the way her chest felt tight and her head spun as she thought of the fact her body had a baby growing inside it.

No, it wasn’t a baby. Not yet. It was likely the size of a grain of sand, miniscule. That wasn’t a baby, that was nothing.

But it would be. Eventually. It would be hers and Spencer’s baby.

And she wanted to tell him, wanted to tell him the second she saw him there in the waiting room, his head shooting up the second the door opened and she left looking a little ill and shaken.

“All done? Everything go as normal?” He preened, standing immediately as she neared him, his hand immediately weaving around her shoulder to pull her close by. Gently, ofcourse, because she had a big, fat bandage where her implant should have been.

“Y-yeah,” She stammered, hoping he didn’t hear the shake in her throat. Yet she knew immediately that he did. Because he leaned in to give her a delicate kiss to her forehead not even a moment later, “C-can we go straight home, I’m not feeling ice cream anymore,”

He looked worried, as anyone who knew her would because Bugsy turning down free pudding was a blaring red siren in his eyes.

“Yeah, sure,” He said, stroking a gentle hand over the side of her head and leading her where he’d parked the car.

And it was that worry, the same cloud that hung over him for months with Scratch and his mom and the Dirty Dozen and everything else that was put onto his shoulder that made her shut her mouth right then and there. He didn’t need one other thing to contend with, not when he was already carrying the weight of the world.

And so she wouldn’t tell him. Not yet at least.

MONTH TWO. The one with the scan.

“Spence, would you stop worrying, I’m sure everything will be fine,” She urged in the gentlest tone she could muster. Yet she was a hypocrite, because she felt her hands shaking as she sat in the chair, trying to adjust her sleeves for something to do and Spencer stopped his leg from bouncing.

Looking over at her, he sighed, holding out a large palm and weaving her fingers in between his and she flicked a look over at him, her own eyes nervous.

“I’m sorry,” He gave her a guilty smile, “If it helps, it’s half excitement too,”

And she smiled then, shaking her head as he squeezed her hand gently.

“Me too,” She confessed, looking down at her stomach that didn’t seem all too different than usual. She’d felt a few symptoms up until this point, a bit of nausea but that was nothing she couldn’t handle, headaches here and there. But it wasn’t anything exactly life changing that she’d expected when she’d always thought of pregnancy.

If anything, none of it felt real quite just yet. Having only been a few weeks since she’d told Spencer, they’d spent the majority of the time searching for houses and appointments and gynaecologists and neonatal care, and whenever they were free, they were trying to get used to the idea of the two of them as parents.

“Did you know they’re around half an inch long by now,” Spencer said, his hazel eyes falling to where her shirt hid her stomach that had yet to change no matter how many times he stared at it, “About a third of that is made up of their head,”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” She shrugged, stroking her thumb along the edge of his pinky finger, “It’s your kid, they’re going to have biggest brain out there,”

He snickered, lifting her hand to press a kiss to the back of it softly, “If they have even half your brains, we’re going to be raising the next Galileo,”

“Mr and Mrs Reid,” Their heads shot up at the midwife, Bugsy fumbling for words to correct him as the two of them stood up to greet him with bashful smiles. She didn’t need to look at Spencer’s face to know he’d gone bright red.

“It’s uh, Prentiss-Reid,” Spencer spluttered as they entered and the nurse looked again at his chart with wide eyes, his cheeks a little pink himself and he ushered the two of them into his office with a smile.

“So it is, I do apologise,” He said earnestly, holding a hand out to gesture Bugsy to sit on the reclining bed, “I hate to stereotype, but usually when dad books the appointments, its because their wives are already doing a hundred other things,”

“It’s okay, it happens,” She said with an awkward chuckle, avoiding Spencer’s eyes because they still hadn’t had that talk. Even though she knew her mother would frown at her grandchild being born a bastard, she didn’t care much for Elizabeth’s opinion. It wasn’t like marriages had ever led to good things for her mother anyway.

She hopped up onto the examination cot, her heart quivering just the slightest in worry because the smell of bleach and rubber made the whole thing real. Until then, having a grain of rice growing inside her seemed like a fever dream since she’d only had a handful of side effects, throwing up could have easily been passed off as bad chicken, the head aches could have just been her eyes straining from using her computer too much.

“Okay, everything feels okay, Mom? Nothing concerning at all?” And then the midwife said things like that, mom, and the part of her that almost forgot she was pregnant came to a screeching halt.

She’d be a mom. Someone would call her mom. The thought of it made her suck in a breath.

“Uh, no.” She cleared her throat and felt Spencer grab her hand, “Morning sickness is kicking my ass, but nothing worrying,”

The nurse chuckled, and she felt Spencer rubbing his thumb over the back of her palm, his eyes burning into the side of her head.

“Well, if it’s alright, I need you to lift your shirt up a little so we can have a see what’s going on,” He said with a kind smile, and she realised then he’d slipped latex gloves over his hands, and brandished a bottle of gel.

She nodded absently, doing as he said and lifting her shirt to sit under her breasts, drawing the hem of her skirt down so he had a space to apply. And the second he did she sucked in breath through her nose, the cold of the air conditioning chilling her to her marrow, and she tried telling herself that’s why her hands were shaking.

She felt Spencer’s fingers curve through her hair, and she reminded herself to breathe, looking over at him with nervous eyes she hoped he didn’t see straight through. But judging by the way he scooted the chair forward and gave her an encouraging smile, she guessed he’d seen the flicker of doubt in an instant.

“It’s okay, it’s going to be fine,” He murmured, his own fear buried deep somewhere she couldn’t see anymore the second she had been the one to look to him for help. She knew she wanted this, knew she’d always dreamed of Spencer and her having their happily ever after. She knew whenever she’d let herself think of a little boy with chocolate curls and hazel eyes that she wanted all of that and more.

But it was all so… real. Like seeing a movie come to life, and she was starring centre stage. Her body wasn’t a disposable shell that held thirty plus years of stupid mistakes and regrets and tattoos she’d decided she hated now. Her body had a whole other human inside it.

The midwife clicked the machine on, the transducer wand ready in his hand as he gently put it on her lower stomach, barely a few centimetres from her panties, and she wondered why they showed the wand roaming over the woman’s belly button on tv shows since that was entirely wrong and not nearly as embarrassing. She let out a shaky breath, and Spencer stroked her head again, forcing her to give him an unsure look, like she was trying to calm herself for his sake but couldn’t.

His eyes were anxious though he squeezed her again with a smile and she saw it immediately, like he too was trying to be brave for her.

She had never loved him so much.

“Apologies for the shock, I know the gel can be a little cold,” The nurse said with a grin, and it was only then she realised the screen had lit up with a black and white image, one she’d seen a thousand times when she’d studied neonatal procedures for her degree.

She knew that was her womb lining, and that was the amniotic fluid and that right there-

Bugsy froze, and judging by the way Spencer’s hand tightened around her own, he had too. She felt her mouth drop with a laugh of shock, and she sat up slightly to take a closer look at the monitor.

“And there is baby,” The midwife said, his expression warming as he watched Spencer’s stand up to lean over the bed, not once letting go of the woman’s hand, the two of them utterly enraptured in the screen, “Probably about the size of a raspberry,”

And Bugsy laughed, her eyes lined with tears as she looked up at Spencer’s equally wetted hues. He was grinning from ear to ear when he looked down at her, and it wasn’t long before he brought his lips to her forehead, his nose and throat burning with a held cry.

“Do you hear that? A whole raspberry already?” She said, her voice wobbling and he giggled, sitting back in his seat and rubbing his cheeks with his sleeve. “I am good at this cooking thing, might as well call me an easy bake oven,”

Spencer shook his head with another chuckle, his eyes trailing back to the little blob on the screen that looked more like a toy alien than anything else, and held her hand between both of his like he was in prayer.

Because Spencer never believed in anything sacred and divine until he met Bugsy.

MONTH THREE. The one where they tell everyone.

“What are you doing?” Bugsy jumped out of her skin as JJ all but materialised behind her. She looked over her shoulder guiltily, her hand still half way through pouring out her mug of coffee Derek had handed her before he left to get lunch.

She turned to see the blonde with her own steaming mug of decaf in her hands. She’d been taking the lack of caffeine much better this time around since having a second baby to breastfeed, considering she was nothing short of evil when she’d had Henry, which had been Spencer’s words not Bugsy’s. And it wasn’t as if the woman could blame her. She was grouchy when she didn’t get her regular dose even before being pregnancy, Derek had once gotten a kick to the shin when he’d disturbed her on a day she’d been too busy to grab one on her way to the office.

She was a fiend for the bitter god. And everyone knew it. Which was exactly why JJ’s eyebrows were all but raised into her hairline seeing the girl who would usually be in the stages of withdrawal by now tipping the drink away.

“Uh, the milk tasted funky,” She excused, though the way JJ narrowed her eyes at the poor excuse told her it hadn’t passed by a mile.

“Right, the milk that Hotch picked up this morning?” JJ pursed her lips, sliding her own mug onto the side and jutting her hip.

And as if he were summoned, Hotch sidled up to the kitchenette, Rossi and Tara hot on his heels as they flicked through some paperwork, and his head shot up the minute he heard his name.

His eyes trailed to where the girl flipped her mug upside on the drying rack, and his brow furrowed.

“Is everything alright?” He asked, and she huffed in response, wiping her hands on her jeans.

“Yes, I’m fine,” She grumbled, shaking her head, “I don’t know what you’re all so wound up about, it’s not like I’m dying, I just don’t feel like coffee today-”

“Oh my god,” Penelope gasped where she crept behind Hotch with her very favourite octopus mug in tow, one that was nearly thrown to the floor when she heard the words pour from the girl’s mouth, “Are you sick? Like in the body or in the head? Rossi, check her pulse, I’m going to get a thermometer-”

“Pen, I’m fine,” She said unconvincingly and she tried to skirt past the group that seemed to have her surrounded. Seeing Spencer pulling up the rear in search of lunch she felt herself sigh in relief, because he would think of a much better excuse than she ever could.

She had barely been able to keep her mouth shut for the months they had been secretly dating, and had relished in the peace it brought her when everyone knew. But the midwife had said it was common to keep things under wraps at least until the first trimester was over. Apparently the million of questions that were sure to be heading their way would cause her unnecessary stress, though she’d argue having to sneak to the sink every morning and dispose of a delicious looking coffee was torture enough.

“What’s up?” Spencer asked as she ducked towards him, his hand consciously wrapping around her waist, and she huffed again, looking to him with a silent plea.

“They’re profiling me,” Bugsy said, and he felt his gut knot because he should have known it wouldn’t be long before they caught on. It was their job to pick apart out of the ordinary behaviour, and Bugsy going teetotal on caffeine was definitely something of a head turner.

“I told you that diet would cause a stir,” He joked, hoping they bought his pathetic attempt of an excuse, as he gave her side a gentle squeeze, and hoped that he could lead her back to her desk like she was a lost little lamb being prowled upon by nosy wolves that rarely took no for an answer.

And it almost worked, almost, until JJ snapped her fingers and pointed at his wandering hand.

“See that, that is the fourth time you’ve been all touchy and weird this week,” The blonde surprised, her brows furrowing, “Bugsy hates PDA, usually by now she would have whacked you over the head and called you a perv,”

Bugsy smashed her lips together because she couldn’t exactly disagree with her. That’s exactly what she usually did. Usually would tell Spencer to stop being so horny in a place of work even if she felt her cheeks heat at the delicate grabs of her stomach fat.

But whether it was the little bean now around the size of a small lemon that had made her mellow and affectionate, or whether the lack of caffeine really was making her feel vulnerable, she wasn’t sure. And the whole thing was only made worse by Hotch’s eyes burning into the side of her, and she felt the trail of his gaze head straight for her stomach.

“Come to think of it, I only saw you with a lime and soda at Savannah’s birthday last week,” Rossi pointed out, wagging his finger in her direction, his brown hues widening in thought, “When Penelope asked if you wanted tequila you said-”

“I’m all tequila-ed out,” Penelope chimed in with the same frown, “But that can’t be, when have you ever been tequila-ed out, that’s like impossible, even that night we had to help Spencer get you in the shower because you’d thrown up everywhere you were demanding more,”

She felt her cheeks heat thinking about her twenty ninth birthday, or atleast the parts of it she could remember of it before the rest of the gaps were filled with black spaces of time that she guessed had been robbed from her by the shots she piled on.

“Maybe I just didn’t feel like tequila, can a girl not live in the moment?” She tried to rebuttal, only Penelope gave her a blank look that told her to try again because the Bugsy she knew would slap her for saying something so dumb. She opened her mouth to correct her again, but Hotch beat her to it.

“You know Hayley got really affectionate a couple months into being pregnant,” The man said, his eyes swirling with something proud and warm when he saw Bugsy’s head flick to him like she’d been caught red handed, which they had. “Though, if you ask me I think she was just a little sorry for herself that I took the coffee away,”

There was a beat of silence, and the room held its breath. Even Tara, who had only known them the best part of a few months raised her hand to her mouth in shock, and Bugsy shot a look at Spencer in utter defeat.

“We tried,” She said with her shoulders shrugging, and it was then that the office was filled with a piercing scream that turned a fair few heads and the infamous octopus mug was thrown clear across the kitchen floor, one of his tentacles snapping clean off.

“OH MY GOD, IT’S TRUE? YOU’RE PREGNANT?” Penelope wailed like a banshee, and Bugsy couldn’t help but break into a smile, nodding at the woman who screeched again and yanked her in for a tight hug, “Oh my god, there's going to be three of you, three geniuses, three little einsteins that I want to smush together and kiss all over-”

“Garcia, I think she needs air if she’s going to make another little genius,” Rossi said, and the tech analyst pulled away aghast, cupping Bugsy’s face that was still grinning ear to ear with a chuckle.

“Oh my god, I didn’t hurt you did I? Or the baby- Oh my god there’s a baby in there!”

Hotch wrapped a rare yet tender arm around Spencer’s shoulder, giving him a little pat and a “Congratulations” while Rossi smiled knowingly between the couple and JJ had her turn smothering Bugsy in a tearful hug.

And by the time Derek had walked into the office with his everything bagel hanging between his teeth and a tea in his hands, his onyx hues fell to Penelope, JJ and Bugsy exchanging weepy words while Tara handed them tissues with her own sparkling eyes.

“What fresh hell did I miss?”

MONTH FOUR. The one where she starts looking different.

She huffed, her fingers gripping the edge of her jeans and yanking them up her thighs as far as they would go. She felt like everything had shrunk in the wash, or like she was trying on a doll’s wardrobe. Surely she hadn’t gained that much weight in just a few months, but then again she’d been all but living off chocolate pudding cups since the Bean decided it wanted sugar, sugar and more sugar.

She grunted in annoyance, her arms and back aching where she was leaning over to pull at the infernal things. She barely had a second to pout childishly, before kind hands were wrapping around her stomach and a mouth kissed at her neck tenderly.

“What’s wrong? Talk to me,” His voice was honey sweet, thick and goopy with love overflowing as he pulled her to his chest, his hand caressed the bump that seemed to be getting in the way of her and her favourite jeans. Spencer knew she tried to ignore the symptoms that almost every woman felt during pregnancy, he knew she compared herself to how JJ had handled both pregnancies gracefully and looked better than ever even as a mother of two. He knew she hated complaining because she didn’t want him to think she was miserable carrying their kid, but god was she getting sick of her clothes pinching her in.

“I’m getting fatter,” Bugsy grumbled, her eyes darting to the vivid lines that had deepened into the crease of her hips within a few weeks and she winced, “I’m not even halfway, how does this kid want to eat pudding all the time?”

Spencer frowned, shaking his head slightly because he refrained from telling her what a silly statement it was, knowing it would only make her feel worse, and instead pressed delicate kisses to her jaw, squeezing her closer. He’d noticed the stretch marks, just as he’d noticed her face and hips gathering weight a bit more than usual, and was just grateful there was even more Bugsy to love.

“You’re eating for two, you’re literally growing a whole life inside of you. I think that is more than enough grounds to eat whatever you want,” He murmured, biting the inside of his cheek when she sighed as though she didn’t believe him, “Honey, clothes are replaceable. What your body’s trying to do is create a little bubble around you and this little pudding fiend so you can feed them when they’re out here,”

Bugsy knew he was right. She’d spent well over a hundred hours researching hormone levels and how pregnant bodies are changing all hours of the day to accommodate the foetus, she knew it was normal for things to look different. Had it been on anyone else she wouldn’t have batted an eye. But it didn’t make the sting of seeing her body morph into one she didn’t recognise any less harsh.

“I know,” She hummed somewhat defeated, turning in his arms to press her face in his neck, “I just didn’t expect it to happen so fast is all,”

Spencer smiled warmly, because every day he thought she had gotten impossibly prettier. He hadn’t believed in ‘pregnancy glow’, in fact he’d chalked it down to some sort of innate scientific survival tactic that associated a vulnerable woman with looking angelic, at least not until he’d woken up to see her stomach protruding from her pyjama top in a clear curve shape and he thought her face looked like she should be in some Monet painting, dozing in a field like a wide eyed doe.

“I know, it’s a lot for anyone to go through. But you know I’m so grateful for you,” Spencer said, and he felt her smile without even seeing it. Her fingers wove into his hair at the nape of his neck, kissing a trail up his chest because he suspected she looked somewhat embarrassed. “Besides, I’m not complaining. It means I get to do this,”

She felt two large hands grab at the fat of her bum cheeks and she squeaked in surprise, even though she heard him laugh in her ear at her reaction. That had been another thing she’d noticed, and how could she not. Penelope said just the other day that she was ‘baking a bun in the oven and cake in the trunk’ with a little wink, and she’d had to excuse herself quickly for lack of a response.

And Spencer wasn’t lying. He wasn’t complaining with any of it, not by a long shot.

MONTH FIVE. The one with the mood swings.

“So you guys really don’t want to know the sex?” JJ asked, sipping on her tea as she chatted with Bugsy who was balancing biscuits on top of her now protruding stomach. It was as if overnight the baby had stretched out enough to make themselves a damn penthouse suite in Bugsy’s tummy.

“We want it to be a surprise, either way we’re going to love the little bean, even if they do keep kicking my bladder at four am,” She said, balancing the tenth cookie on the tower she’d made, reaching over carefully for another one, “I swear if the bean kicks my cookie tower I’m giving them a hideous name,”

“It’s good to feel the baby kicking at this stage, it helps develop their joints and bones so they’re stronger when they’re born.” Spencer inputted helpfully as he slid a fresh mug of decaf tea over to her desk.

“Next time the baby kicks your uterus walls, Spence, gimme a shout and we’ll discuss how great it is,” Bugsy said with a small smile and he paused, looking at JJ as if he was caught in a trap, suddenly well aware of his mistake.

“Point taken,” He conceded quietly, and JJ chuckled because she’d seen Will just as hesitant to piss her off in both of her pregnancies. And she knew Bugsy would never hold it against him, that Spencer’s head just ran away from him sometimes.

She halted her little game and carefully leaned over to draw the mug to her lips, too impatient to wait for it to cool down fully and she barely spotted Derek swooping around the corner of the desk.

“Good morning, Mommies and Daddy Genius,” He greeted in that chirpy tone, his hand snatching up the top cookie and scarfing it down before she could protest.

Bugsy shared her snacks all the time, it was a no brainer that they took a bite here and there out of each other's goodies before they could get a smack to the wrist. And Derek had certainly noticed a few of his Rolos missing the last time he bought a pack, and a particularly cheerful Bugsy smirking at him over her desk.

It wasn’t a huge deal, and yet Bugsy sat up in a gasp, and the entire biscuit tower fell to a crumbling mess on the floor.

“Well done, princess, Hotch is going to-” Derek stopped mid sentence when he saw her sniffle, and his eyes widened at the sight of her eyes glistening with tears, “Bugsy- are you okay-”

“My cookies! Derek!” She whined pitifully, and she buried her face in her hands, “My cookies, I was so going to eat the shit out of those, they were gonna be so good, Derek,”

Morgan looked gobsmacked, his head whipping between the woman leaning against the desk with an understanding smile and Spencer who was already rubbing her shoulders with his lips smashed together, trying not to laugh.

“Honey, it’s okay, he didn’t mean to,” Her partner tried to coo, though he couldn’t help but feel sorry for the way Derek scrambled to draw out his wallet.

“I’ll get you more, Bug, I swear, they sell them by the deli down the street, right?” He asked, jittering in his bones because he’d never made her cry before. He worried or a moment Hotch might just put him on sabbatical leave for such an offense. Emily would probably fly to Virginia just to cave his skull in, “I’m sorry, I’ll go get more, I’ll even get you strawberry milk-”

“Chocolate milk,” She wailed, and JJ slid a box of tissues over to the pitiful girl with a silent snicker. She remembered all too well the feeling of unexplained emotion crashing over her, and she didn’t doubt that the tough faced Bugsy would be back to normal any moment soon.

“Chocolate milk, got it,” Derek said, with a nod, and he all but darted for the elevators, in a hurry Spencer somewhat suspected was down to the fact he feared for his life if Penelope got a whiff of what happened.

Bugsy sniffled for a moment, drawing a tissue out the box and dabbing her eyes sullenly, her feelings slightly worse for wear even if she had a small inkling of doubt that she was really so torn up about the cookies as her body made it seem.

But she had been thinking about them all morning; made herself promise she would only eat them once she got the stack fifteen high at least.

“Are you okay, baby?” Spencer asked, his gaze empathetic as she snuffled her sobs into the palm of her hands. He wasn’t too worried, even if he hated seeing her cry just as much as anyone else did. And it wasn’t that he didn’t take her seriously. But when she’d been crying just that morning because her shower gel spilled on the floor and tipped almost all the way out, or even when she’d stepped on a snail walking into the building and smushed it into the ground, effectively killing it, he seemed to be getting used to her mood swings.

She sniffed woefully, “I was really looking forward to those, and now I think I was too mean to Derek and…” Her eyes glistened with fresh tears, and the sight of it made Spencer sigh, leaning forward to kiss the side of her head because it must be difficult being so out of your usual self for nine months.

“And what?” He prompted softly. Only she burst out crying again, reaching forward to drag him into a hug that told him she was feeling extra sorry for herself.

He wouldn’t blame her. Would sit through every weep and sob and tantrum if it meant he got to show her even more times over that he loved her endlessly.

However he did have to hold in the giggle when she wailed; “I think I really do want strawberry milk,”

MONTH SIX. The one with the false labour.

She had been in Hotch’s office when she felt it.

Embarrassingly so, her first thought was trapped gas. She’d gotten a lot of that considering the baby had decided it craved spice, and had been planning to excuse herself when it felt like her whole abdomen seized as if she’d been hit with a particularly nasty period cramp.

Her hand flew to her stomach where she sat with Hotch reviewing her latest reports, the same quarterly check the whole team was mandated to have with their boss since Cruz became section chief. Hotch didn’t miss a beat, the folder in his hand hitting the desk in an instant as he tensed, looking at her with caution.

“Are you alright?” He asked, and she held her breath for a moment. Spencer was out with Rossi giving a lecture in Washington DC, JJ had the day off for her mom’s birthday, Penelope and Morgan were taking Tara to lunch to show her a few more of their regular spots. It was just them and Anderson in the office for the next few hours, possibly the worst time out of any to have an empty floor.

“Yeah- I just, woah,” Her stomach gave another lurch of a painful twist and her hand slapped on the table to keep herself steady. She breathed through the pain, because she’d had much worse only that wasn’t what was making her heart race. It was fear. Because she wasn’t due for another twelve weeks at least, and while she’d heard of baby’s being born as premature as six months, she knew premy babies suffered major complications later on, let alone the stress their body goes under during the actual birth.

Bean, as the team had affectionately named the baby since the couple had firmly decided they didn’t want to know the sex, was about the size of red cabbage, tiny in the scheme of things even though it felt like just a few minutes ago they were a grain of rice.

“Okay, it’s okay, stay calm,” Hotch said in a smooth voice, gentle yet reassuring as he rounded his desk in a flash and put his hand on her shoulder, “Do you feel like you need to use the toilet? Any back ache or irritability?”

Bugsy breathed out through her nose as her lungs jittered with nerves, “N-no, I don’t need the bathroom, why would that matter?”

Aaron stroked a large kind hand down her spine, watching her face scrunch in pain for a second time, and he slowly began directing her towards the door, taking small steps so she wasn’t rushing. “Needing to use the bathroom is an early sign of labour, it’s your body's way of helping expand your pelvis to accommodate the head. Any back ache or frustration at all?”

He didn’t care that he’d had to repeat himself, not even when he was usually so against it, because he could feel the own unease rising in his throat like bile even if he tried to keep his face as neutral as possible.

He would be damned if he let her see how worried he was, and so he swallowed heavily, holding his other hand out for her to take when they approached the stairs. Anderson was on his feet in seconds when he saw his unit chief leading the woman with a tightly concealed frown, fumbling around for his phone.

“Agent Prentiss?” He exclaimed, darting around the mess of chairs and paper and desks to approach them, “Would you like me to call Dr Reid? An ambulance, perhaps?”

“She's alright, I’m driving her to the ER, thank you Anderson,” Aaron responded politely, his hand still resting on her back, and the agent nodded, digging around for his keys.

“I can drive, if you’d like to ride in the back with her,” Grant offered with worried eyes as Bugsy’s face crumpled in agony again, and Hotch’s head whipped to her, and his composure crumbled for a moment.

“Bugsy, hey, it’s okay, we’re gonna be okay, honey,” He cooed, and Anderson was quick to open the glass doors, “Did you pack a bag at all-”

“No, Spencer told me I should but I said it was too early, why is that man always right,” She grumbled, her footsteps weary and jittery as the three of them got into the elevator.

Hotch fought a smile, trying to remember everything he’d memorised before Hailey had Jack. The 5-1-1 rule blared through his head, and he glanced at his watch for a fraction of a second, and he wondered for a moment if he was going to have to write off a company vehicle for the fact his youngest agent gave birth in the back seat.

“I’m afraid that’s just how Reid operates,” Hotch said, pulling his phone out to dial the man in question and let him know where they were headed, “It’s probably nothing, Hailey was getting cramps all the time once she reached her third trimester, but we’ll get you checked out to be safe,”

“Really?” She looked at him with pitiful eyes and he nodded with a tight smile, committing to his illusion of calmness even if he swore he hadn’t felt so scared in months.

Because it wasn’t just Bugsy anymore, it was Bugsy and her baby. Her and Reid’s baby. The two people who deserved their happy ending more so than anyone else he knew.

And he felt her hand slip into his then as she accepted his answer, in fact she didn’t let go the entire time she waited on Spencer and Aaron was in no rush to leave her side. Even when she lay back on the table and had the midwife checking everything over, he stayed by her head (no doubt to avoid a very awkward conversation), stroked her hair when she fretted through a few more cramps, even when Spencer burst in through the door with Morgan at his heels looking like the two of them had just ran a marathon.

“Is everything okay- what’s wrong- do you need fluids- do you need ice-” Spencer rushed on his odd breath, his chest puffing with inhales, and he pretended he wasn’t seeing stars floating across his vision.

“I’m assuming by your reaction you’re dad,” The nurse said, pulling off the blue gloves and dropping her mask from her mouth.

“Yes, he is, he’s dad,” Morgan filled in for him as Spencer all but fell back against the wall, because he really should have drank something other than soda and coffee this morning. He was close to swaying on his feet when he stepped over to his girlfriend, and she took his hand in the her own, or atleast the one that wasn’t occupied by Hotch’s tight hold.

“Don’t worry, everything is alright with mom and baby,” She said, noting down a few things on her chart and the four of them took an audible sigh of relief, “Braxton Hicks contractions are very common in your final trimester, it probably felt like a lot because your baby is moving to into the anterior position ready for birth,”

Bugsy’s head flopped back against the pillow in comfort and she forced herself to take a few deep breaths, willing her heart rate to go back to normal. Braxton Hicks, she should have known. Her head had been fuzzy the past few weeks as it was, but she supposed the moment she’d thought there might be something wrong with the Bean, all of her logic had flown out the window.

But at least she’d had Hotch to keep her level headed, and-

“Oh my god, Anderson,” She jolted up, her legs stuck in the stirrups the midwife had place her into while she examined everything, “We need to tell Anderson, the poor guy was so worried,”

Hotch chose not to tell her he’d seen Anderson go as white as a ghost the second she’d turned her back, and instead patted her leg as Spencer went to speak to the midwife a little more, no doubt picking apart every single symptom she’d presented in that huge, worried head of his.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure Anderson is fine, honey,” He said earnestly, and she looked at him like a kicked puppy, entirely sorry for the panic she’d caused, “Let’s just get you your underwear back, huh?”

MONTH SEVEN. The one where they decorate the nursery.

“What about Elias,”

“Veto,”

Bugsy pulled a shunned expression as she carefully rolled the wallpaper up the wall.

“Mason? Niko, stop,” She proposed, one hand on the wall while using the other to push the nosey feline away from the wet paste she’d been brushing on the wall.

He sat politely at her chide, blinking at her with those big eyes as he watched her work with a twitching tail, almost entertained at the woman who had ballooned up in just a few weeks struggling to do a relatively easy task.

“Hmm, Mason can go on the bench,” Spencer responded where he was sitting at the other end of the wall doing the same thing only much faster, though she’d argue it was a little easier since he wasn't carrying a large coconut strapped to his stomach.

They’d left the apartment just two weeks ago. Derek had been the one to help them cart their small amount of furniture into the modest house on the outskirts of West Springfield. It was large by Spencer’s standards, even if Bugsy had seen what grandeur looked like in her own childhood homes, but it didn’t matter. Because walls and floors and fancy grand pianos had never bought her love. Yet the first evening they’d spent in their new home they had slept on a mattress on the floor, the list of things to do the following day rattling around their heads. But they had a home. They had the picket fence with the nice school down the road and the bus stop within eyesight of the kitchen where their kid would one day walk to their door with a book bag and glasses like Spencer’s.

She had never felt like she belonged somewhere until she had a home with him.

“What about Ada for a girl?” Spencer called over his shoulder, where he had almost caught up to where she was still working on the small patch of wall. The paper was proving frustrating for her swollen fingers, considering the entire thing, when put together, made up a mural of little woodland creatures amidst a forest and left zero room for error, “Named after Ada Lovelace, the woman who pioneered computers,”

Considering it for a moment, she nodded, “That’s pretty. Ada makes top ten,”

Flipping the last part up to stick against the thick glue, she ran her hands over the seams to be sure it aligned perfectly with the rest of the picture. Satisfied when it matched and a little fox stared down at her, she smiled, tilting her head up where Spencer was standing over her, watching her concentrate.

“All done!” She chirped, and he bent down to give her a kiss to her puckered lips, sliding a hand beneath her arm to help her up.

“Looks perfect, you’re really carrying the team honey,” He mused as she got to her feet with a little whine, wrapping her arms around his middle in a proud hug.

“I know, what would you ever do without me?”

He laughed, looking at her with an adoring gaze.

The light cracked through the open window, laying over her face delicately. The house was still bare, still in need of carpets and a good dusting, still had leaky pipes and ants in the pantry. Yes, they had a pantry now. But it was a start. It was a home.

“I say we leave the cradle for another day, baby is calling for frozen grapes again,” She said, rubbing a hand over her protruding belly button and he smiled. Spencer could have sworn he was the luckiest guy in the world when he called her his friend. He thought maybe he should have bought a lottery ticket the same day she told him she loved him. The day she became his girlfriend he thinks he may have died and the past three years have been purely a dream.

But watching the breeze kiss her cheeks and stroke her hair, watching her eyes rove over the room that would keep their baby safe and warm in just a few weeks, even seeing her smile at him like he had handed her the whole universe in a box when she was the one growing a whole human inside her; Spencer felt like his life was so much better than he ever hoped it would be.

“Frozen grapes, coming right up,” He said, slipping his fingers in between his to help her down the winding staircase which had been a winner for her immediately. It’s like we have a castle, Spence. “You or the baby could ask for a whole damn ox and I’d give it to you.”

She laughed, holding onto the bannister as they headed downstairs to the kitchen that was in dire need of fresh paint.

“What if I said baby wants a holiday to Cancun and another cat,”

“I’d say baby is onto something there,” Spencer said, sweeping her from the final step and giving her a wet kiss to her head, “But first, grapes.”

MONTH EIGHT. The one where she gets cranky.

“Oh my god,” She groaned as she threw herself into her wheely chair, her button up shirt barely accommodating her stomach that was well and truly ready to pop.

Derek Morgan loved her, he truly loved her like she was one of his sisters, dare say he had loved her since that day he’d carried her out of the church she was held hostage in by Cyrus. He had seen her at her rock bottom, had seen her graduate with flying colours, had even put his job on the line for her; covered her back from a stupid mistake at a bar when she popped a little molly on government pay.

Derek loved her. He did. But the moment he saw her slump into her chair, her face scrunched up in frustration, he was collecting his mug of coffee and all but bolting for the door and heading straight for Penelope’s lair.

“Back pain again?” JJ asked, flitting past a very frantic Morgan and heading towards Rossi’s office with a stack of papers in her arms. Bugsy let out something close to a growl in return, and JJ took it as a yes.

“I swear I have been pregnant for years,” She huffed, barely reaching over to where her keyboard sat at her desk. Tara nudged it forward for her to grab, because it seemed like she was on her breaking point enough as it was, and received a brief nod of thanks “I can’t remember a time when my back didn’t hurt, or my boobs were aching or my head wasn’t all fuzzy and weird and- OH for the love of god SWITCH ON YOU PIECE OF SHIT,”

JJ’s brows raised as the keyboard mouse went flying off the side of her desk in protest, rolling straight past where Hotch and Spencer were strolling through the office, her boyfriend carrying the biggest Strawberry Milkshake he could find on this side of town.

If Hotch wanted to say anything about her damaging property, he thought it smarter to keep his mouth shut as she swivelled to face the two of them, her expression already irritated by the worried stare they shot her way.

“What?” She said with a bite, and Spencer raised his hands in surrender, which left her gaze to slide to Hotch.

And Hotch loved her too, loved her more than he would ever admit. But he swore he the second her eyes clamped on his, Aaron Hotchner considered an exorcism might be necessary.

“What, what are you staring at me for?” She snapped, throwing her hands out like a bratty teenager, and Hotch cleared his throat before he spoke, something embarrassingly close to fear shaking his vocal chords.

“Have you given any more thought to maternity leave, yet?” He asked and her eye twitched, and it was as if he saw the stapler was next on her list of things to send flying off the table, preferably straight at his head. “I would be more than happy to pull some strings so you take longer off after the baby is born, maybe even Spencer could start his paternity early-”

“What?” She said for a third time, like she was a broken record. And she knew she was being unfair, perhaps even cruelly so. But she would make it up to them later, when she was in a better frame of mind. Her underwear rode up and pinched where her uterus had begun to drop, her trousers itched for whatever reason, her face was hot from just walking from the elevator to her chair and that was just since she’d entered the office. She hadn’t got much energy for showers anymore and so washing her hair became some ugly affair where Spencer got in with her and did it for her, only last time he put a little too much product on and got the suds in her eyes and they had spent twenty minutes rinsing her face, naked and dripping wet, over the sink. She felt awful, awful for how she was being so irrationally rude, but it was like every inch of her being was uncomfortable. And there was still another month to go.

“Good god, man, don’t poke the bear,” Tara hummed as she passed, taking her own half full mug to the kitchen to escape whatever was rumbling in that hot head of hers.

Hotch swallowed heavily, noticing how Spencer stayed deadly quiet no doubt because he’d learned his lesson in trying to force Bugsy into doing something when she was like this, “I’m saying I think it would be good for you to take some time off, you’ve both worked hard enough as it is and with the baby being so close, it would be good to take it easy for a few weeks-”

She pressed her lips together, because she knew he was probably trying to help, probably trying to be considerate, and yet the heat of annoyance bubbled up inside her all the same like a kettle on the precipice of boiling.

“If you want the big scary pregnant lady out of your way just spit it out, Hotch,” She snapped, scowling at him in a way he remembered Hailey doing when he so much as sneezed too loud.

And he couldn’t find it in him to be mad at her. Because anyone with eyes saw she was uncomfortable, he knew if she was anything like his own ex-wife then she wouldn’t be sleeping nearly as much as she should, that more than likely their kid would be already kicking with long, scrawny legs to get out and show the world what they were made of.

Hotch was saved from the firing line when his guess was proved almost immediately, and she groaned with a hand to her abdomen.

“Spencer, would you tell your kid they’re not a linebacker and that my kidneys aren’t the damn ball,” She complained, and her partner flashed her a brave smile, leaning over her to rub where she was caressing her battered organs.

“Actually, right about here will be your spleen since the baby has pushed everything around at this stage-” And with that Hotch darted towards his office because Bugsy looked ready to clip someone around the ear, and he didn’t have the heart to write her up for it.

Although for the sanctity of his team, he rushed her documents through the same afternoon and gave her an extra four weeks pay in lieu of a truce.

MONTH NINE. The one with the birth.

It had been fourteen hours already when the doctor mentioned the word caesarean.

“Caesarean? We never planned for a C-section,” Bugsy’s eyes widened where she was intermittently sucking down gas and air, Spencer patting her forehead down with an ice wet cloth.

But then again she supposed she had never planned to go into labour when getting the laundry off the washing line while Spence painted the porch.

He looked at her with nervous hazel hues where her face sparkled with sweat and water, her hand squeezing him tightly as another contraction hit.

“I’m afraid we have few options left, Miss Prentiss,” The midwife said, a woman around her age that was already masked up after prodding around her cervix for a few hours, “Fourteen hours is rough on anyone and we’re not seeing any movement past your pelvis. Any longer and you or your baby might be at risk,”

And it was the truth, but it was a harsh one, and tears sprung to her eyes hearing those last few words. She had never had any delusions it would be easy giving birth, it was revered as the most painful thing anyone could go through, but she had assumed on a hope and a prayer that things would go smoothly.

“I know it’s scary,” Spencer found his voice after a second, their hands clasped tightly together because there was more chance of snow in hell than there was he was letting her do this alone, “But, baby, you’re doing so well, and you’re almost there,” He said in a watery sweet tone, dabbing at her brow once more and the two of them exchanged a teary look, “It’s going to be okay, you’re going to be okay, they’re going to numb you for the whole thing and when it’s over we’re going to have our baby, huh?”

She smiled ruefully because he was trying desperately to cheer her up, even though it sounded like he was reassuring himself just as much as he was her.

And she nodded, because she knew he was right, and more than anything she wanted their baby to be safe, even if it meant having her insides scooped out like she was some russian nesting doll.

“O-okay, yeah, c-can Spencer stay with me?” She asked nervously, and the midwife smiled, pressing a button to call for the anesthesiologist.

“Ofcourse, honey. Just try to relax, we’re going to arrange an epidural for you,” She said in a voice that told Bugsy she’d practised staying calm in an emergency a thousand times.

Bugsy breathed through her nose, feeling Spencer swoop in to wipe the lone few tears dribbling down her cheeks.

“It’s gonna be okay, we’re gonna be okay,” He said, his voice bustling with nerves and she wanted to tell him the same, wanted to tell him she loved him more than ever for trying to put a brave face on for her sake. But she couldn’t, so she nodded frantically, leaning her forehead against his cheek and taking a few more deep breaths.

–

“You’re doing great, honey, you’re being so brave,” Spencer reassured in his biggest voice, his hand carding over the side of her hot face gently. There was blood, there was so much blood, and the sound of her monitor was the only sound that was constant and not at all worrying with its steady heart beat.

The midwives were flitting around the room, the lead obstetrician making careful incisions and handing various things Spencer didn’t want to see over to his co-workers. Because he loved their baby already, couldn’t wait to meet the mini him he’d been dreaming about since he was a boy himself, but Bugsy needed him first. She was his everything, his whole life, his whole universe fading between clear consciousness and a slightly loopy gaze as she relaxed on the table.

“Is it over? Are they here, are they okay?” She slurred, looking over at him where his hair was covered in a blue scrub cap, his entire body wrapped in protective uniform to minimise the risk of infection on her body.

He cradled her face again, shaking his head, “Not yet honey, you’re doing so good, it’s nearly over,” Spencer said, pressing his brow against hers because he had a mask over his mouth and couldn’t kiss her properly, “I love you so much, I swear I’ll try every day of my life to repay you,”

“You’re being mushy, you’re freaking me out,” She joked as if she was her regular self, because the midwives had all warned him that the sedatives would take the edge off her nerves. And he chuckled, even if he was worrying enough for the two of them, sniffling behind the stuffy mask he had to keep on until she was in recovery.

“I’m sorry, baby, I just want you to be okay,” Spencer said earnestly, and he pressed a kiss to her head anyway even if she wouldn’t feel it with his mask, “I’m gonna get you so many milkshakes when this is-”

There was a wail behind the curtain they had draped over her stomach, and both their breaths stopped in their chests.

“Is that…” Bugsy started, her eyes wide and alert even if seconds ago she had been almost drunk, “Is that it- is that them?”

And another scream resounded around the room as if to answer her.

Spencer swore he had never felt tears well in his eyes so fast until one of the midwives brought a wriggling, wrinkly bundle around the curtain, and within seconds he felt his cheeks sodden with tears.

“Oh my god,” He said his smile reaching his eyes as the little creature was put on Bugsy’s chest, and it was only then he realised she was weeping too and he resumed his position stroking her head, “It’s a-”

“It’s a girl! Spencer, we have a girl!” Bugsy’s grin went from ear to ear, her eyes round and adoring at the ugly, scrunched face still screaming at them, her eyes closed and her skin covered in a white goop, “Oh my god, she’s so beautiful,”

“I told you she’d take after you,” Spencer said, not minding the nurses sewing Bugsy up as they stared at their little girl, Bugsy’s arms holding her body weight delicately though she didn’t quite know what she was doing.

Spencer was quick to remove the mask once they cleared him to, and the second he was freed he pushed his lips to his girlfriend’s, their mouths equally as salty and sodden as one another with the way their cheeks washed with tears. Pulling away, he looked at her in the eyes, the same eyes he’d always loved, the same eyes he’d know in any life, in any world, in any fog, and their smiles were damn near blinding.

“I love you so much, I swear I’m going to make it up to you, anything you want,” Spencer said, kissing her again, his hand resting over hers where she held their baby girl on her bare chest.

She didn’t have the heart to tell him she already had everything she’d ever wanted right there with her.

“I love you so much more, Spencer,” She said quietly, the two of them pulling away when the little girl squealed again and they chuckled, quickly rushing to calm her cries as they looked at her as if they had yet to realise she was real and she was theirs, “Oh my god Spencer, you’re a daddy,”

“Bugsy, you’re a mommy,” He said with raised brows and she gasped, giggling with glee as her free hand flew to grab his face and pull him in to kiss her again, “We’re a mommy and daddy,”

The two of them burst out laughing even though overjoyed tears lined their eyes again, and Spencer trailed a large finger down her chubby cheek softly, her skin shrivelled and pruney like she’d been submerged in a bath for too long.

“Spencer, she’s perfect,” She said after a moment, her breath completely stolen when she took her in, the small head completely covered in dark hair, which she had already suspected would be there from the amount of times she found herself itching at her stomach. Her tiny fists waved in the air as her sobs subsided, beginning to warm up to the skin on Bugsy’s chest, and Spencer audibly choked in a cry of his own when her eyelids slowly blinked open and revealed forest hues damn near identical to his own. He pushed his temple to Bugsy’s again as she carefully swayed her from side to side.

“I’m never going to let anything hurt you,” He murmured, his breath warm on her collarbone and his baby girl stared back at him like she understood, even though he knew that was pretty much impossible, “Either of you,”

Bugsy sniffled with a wobbly smile, her hands shaking as she held her daughter up, “Do you want to hold her?”

Spencer looked ready to wail all over again, not that she would ever hold it against him. The two of them had been weeping all day, and their kid was a real tear jerker to look at with her thick lashes and wide eyes.

He was quick to pop open his shirt, holding his hands out nervously as she placed the baby in his arms, his fingers supporting under her head the whole time he brought her to his chest.

Bugsy smiled, the midwife checking in with her for a moment before they were ready to wheel her into the other room to rest up, while Spencer looked entirely enamoured with the little bundle in his arms.

He was a dad. He had made this beautiful, perfect little girl with the woman he loved more than anything in the world, and somehow she had given him even more reasons to feel so lucky.

“Hello, you,” He said through bleary eyes, smiling through a chuckle when he saw just how tiny she looked in his arms, and he had never seen anything look so fragile, “I’m going to try be the best dad you could ever have, okay? I’m gonna be there for all the lame parties, and the sleepovers and the big games and every single time you need help on your homework, I’m gonna be right there with you.”

“What name are we putting on the chart?” The midwife asked as Bugsy watched Spencer murmur to the sweet face that looked up at him in wonder, “Or is it just Baby Girl Prentiss for the moment?”

“It’s Reid,” Bugsy said with a smile, as Spencer poured even more of his gentle heart out in promises she knew he would keep until the day he died. And she knew without checking with him the name they chose weeks ago was perfect; the one they’d decided on just a few days after the nursery was finished and she had yet another bowl of frozen grapes to chow down on while they admired their work.

One for his mother, one for Emily.

“Ana Emilia Reid,”

–

taglists:

TROUBLE

@littlemadamred @stainedpomegranatelips @mcntsee @release-your-sweets @smileykiddie08 @caramelised-onions @the-tpd-bau @stephthepeach @sunflowersndpeaches @sammy-4103 @starmansirius @yeonalie @delusionallooney @sadbae-33 @mdanon027 @swag13r @frickin-bats @bilesxbilinskixlahey @mindfullycriminal @mrsbellastyles @imagines--galore @bluejaysaysstuff @imaginexred @flow33didontsmoke @spicyspirit @mywellspringoflife @lovelyygirl8 @pleasantwitchgarden @rosylnsworld @jamieolivia27 @halcyonwithletters @waywardhunter95 @ineedtosusoutmyreadinglist @theoraekenslover @niktwazny303 @alyeskathewave @yondiii @cultish-corner @lllucere @escapismurmom @stillhere197 @hiireadstuff @queermaxwooo @telengraph @ivyflowers13 @estrela-rogers @busy-buzzing

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid imagine #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds fic #emily prentiss x sister!reader #prentiss!reader #matthew gray gubler x reader #bugspence

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warnersister · 6 months ago

Text

How the Peaky boys would react to “you wearing a sundress” -> headcannon

(NSFW) but more implied then truly written, but still read at your own risk

Tommy🪖

🪖it was a hot day, and you were rummaging through your clothing chest to try find something suitable to wear to bear the heat outside.

🪖Tommy had headed out early, business to attend to with Alfie Solomons.

🪖he hadn’t meant to wake you, trying to sneak around the bedroom to get dressed and get out of the house: especially after a… long night

🪖but still, you stirred and whined “Tom?” You breathe with a rasped voice “s’alright, back to sleep darling” he instructed but you endured, sitting up and stretching your arms high above your head and Thomas watched as the covers fell to reveal your bare torso and it took all his self control to stop salivating.

🪖you climbed out of bed and threw the slip dress over your head, heading towards your husband who was buttoning his shirt in the mirror

🪖you turned him towards you and swatted his hands away, and he allowed you to finish buttoning his shirt for him, finishing the top button and pulling the collar down to kiss him.

🪖”Solomons is coming by today” Thomas huffed and you looked up at him with narrowed eyes “long meeting?” You ask and he shakes his head “shouldn’t be” you nod “d’you want me to come by later? Bring you some lunch?” You ask and he connects his eyes with yours “y’know y’worry me when you stay in there all day” you continue and he offers a small smile. “I’ll take that as a yes” you say, kissing the corner of his mouth and tapping his chest, ushering him out of the door. “Go on, shoo.”

🪖he smirked and grabbed his cap on the way out, whistling as he went

🪖so there you were, already sweeting with mere silk on your body

🪖you saw a dress with the tags still on, yellow and billowing at the bottom: sundress

🪖you looked it over one before deciding it was the perfect choice for today’s endeavours.

🪖you’d nipped out to the market first, collecting some supplies to make him some soup or whatever you could conjure up.

🪖you even grabbed some sunflowers too; having bought him a vase for his office, thinking it needed some life brought into it, given the volume of lives that were lost in that room.

🪖later in the day you headed to Tommy’s office, assuming that his meeting must be done by now and to feed him.

🪖you’d headed to the Garrison, greeting Harry and having a few wandering eyes following you as you approached the Blinder’s designated room, thinking nothing of it as you turned the door knob.

🪖Tommy couldn’t be mad at your intrusion for the sheer sight of you. His pupils blew out of his head as he looked you over, he’d never seen this dress before. Yet his jaw gritted at the way Alfred fucking Solomons had the same reaction.

🪖”oh I’m so sorry gentleman” you said, pivoting to leave “no no, sweetheart. Alfie was just leaving. Weren’t you?” Tommy asked and Alfie creased his brows but with the eyes his business partner was giving him told him everything he needed to know. “Yeah yeah, just leaving Tom”

🪖Alfie stood, to leave and smiled at you “lovely to see you, poppet” Alfie said, you’d always gotten along with him; you hugged him as he welcomed it, and he grinned at you “you look gorgeous you, yeah? Lovely new dress. Fabulous it is” “fuck off Alfie” “yeah yeah I’m going, bye love”

🪖Tommy looked you over as the door clicked shut with tight lips. “I’m sorry Tom I didn’t think he’d still be here-” “have you had that on all day?” He cuts you off and you raise your brows “the dress?” “Mhm” “oh yeah, found it earlier. Never worn it.” You say, spinning to give him a giddy look at it.

🪖Tommy couldn’t help but smile “c’m ere.” He beckons you over and you approach him “I brought you some lunch-” you begin “nah, got all I need to eat right here” he says and grabs your hips, prompting you to discard your basket on his desk.

🪖he sits back in his seat; opening his legs to pull you to stand between them. He gently takes the fabric between his fingers, then drags his hands so slowly up to your torso, not looking at your face. You fidget anxiously, his hands dragging back down to the hem of the dress.

🪖”dangerous wearing this, love” he says, dipping his hands under the dress to rest on your upper thighs, finally looking at you. You smile. He realises how easily the fabric is lifted, pushing you back to sit on his desk “can’t do this to y’old Tom and expect to get away with it” he says, with a tut, unzipping his trousers and removing his suspenders as he pushes your underwear to the side.

🪖”I’m buying you more o’ these.”

Alfie🧸

🧸Alfie was sat reading the newspaper in his armchair, Cyril asleep beside him when you came into the room.

🧸”so, what do you think?” You asked and Alfie looked up but had to do a double take. A white sundress with frilled straps and tight torso. “Blimey poppet, what’s this then?” He asked, dropping his glasses to the end of his nose to get a better look at you.

🧸”a sundress Alf!” You say, “y’bought it last year, remember?” “Thought I’d remember buying something like this.” He says, standing to his feet, moving to take your hand in his own “give us a spin then darling” he says, turning you as the fabric billowed as you went only for your gorgeous beaming face to return to him.

🧸”now this is fucking fabulous ain’t it darlin’, fucking fabulous. Bloody love it. Suits you nicely” he mumbles as you smile “but y’can’t wear it” he says and your face drops “y’what?” You asks, brows furrowing. “Y’aint givin y’old man heart palpitations and expecting me to let y’out of the house, flower. Not like this” he says sternly, wagging an accusatory finger at you.

🧸”but we’re got to go to the market-” you protest “nah, we ain’t” he says, picking you up and throwing you over his shoulder as you yelp. He flips the rim of your skirt up so he gets a great view of your ass, smacking it lightly “Alfie!”

🧸”don’t think I won’t shag y’on these stairs, treacle, now let me get up the fucking stairs, yeah?”

🧸then later in the day when you’d finally manage to coax him off of you and out of the house to the market, there was a hand permanently on your waist. And then at some point you bent over to smell some flowers and Alfie couldn’t help but lean his hips into yours. You yelped “Alfie!” You hissed. “C‘mon love I can’t cope.” He grunts, impatiently prompting the rest of the shopping to go by faster, flipping the skirt of the dress up again when he finally got back to the car.

Arthur🍺

🍺so. Fucking. Antsy.

🍺can’t keep his fucking hands off of you.

🍺left early, didn’t he? Ended up waking you up; banging all the doors shut and all that as he clambered out of the house.

🍺you decided that was your wake up call regardless, knowing full well that if he’d have left in a state such as the one he was in last night then it wasn’t good business. Meaning it’d perk him up for you to visit him and calm down his anger during the day, even if it was only a chat to rectify his emotions.

🍺you’d gotten yourself dressed without a second thought, inly to do a double take and head right back into the house when you felt the sweltering temperatures outside the from door.

🍺you’d rummage through your clothing chest, struggling to find anything suitable for such an occasion, used to the drizzly cool downpour of the indefinite English winter.

🍺then you spotted it; the sundress

🍺Arthur had gone mad for it last year, and it was forgotten about at around Christmas time when it was way too cold for attire like that, but now was the perfect opportunity to wind him up again.

🍺and you were in a teasing mood after the way he’d slammed the front door shut and made a crack in the mahogany.

🍺so you’d slipped it on, it was a lovely shade of pink; baby pink to be exact. Arthur loved that colour on you, made him forget all his troubles and appreciate his woman for a while - especially when he couldn’t get his hands off you. So, giving yourself a once over you spritzed a bit of the expensive perfume Thomas had kindly gifted you the Christmas prior, the one you knew Arthur liked the smell of, and headed out the door.

🍺you decided to stop by the bakery on the way to his office, the bakery with the young cashier who had a large crush on you who Arthur absolutely despised, and you knew it’d get him even more rilled up knowing full well that you’d been in that dress, had leant over the counter while the young lad stumbled over his words and explained what was in every one of them, let you sample the one that the lad knew full well was your favourite, and gave you it on the house with a tip on the hat and a kiss on the hand.

🍺yeah this was turning out to be a pretty good day.

🍺so you waltzed through the building, little spring in your step as you greeted all the turning heads who watched you as you walked.

🍺you knocked on his door “fuck off” and you opened it “sorry Arth, thought you’d want some company” you say in the shyest voice you could manage to muster. His demeanour immediately changed when he heard your voice, his posture settled but when he looked at you his mouth ran dry.

🍺”brought you a bun” you say, taking it out of the bag you’d brought and knew full well he looked at the branding on the paper packaging. His jaw went slack. “Fuck me love, y’tryna kill me?” He asked, taking his cap off his head and shooting his head beneath it. “What do you mean, darling?” You asked, feigning innocence, heading to his desk as you placed the treat in front of him. “You know fucking damn well what. That bastard dress is back again” he says, grabbing your waist with calloused hands to bring you closer to him and he looked you over.

🍺”wearing the nice perfume too, ain’t ya love?” He asked meekly and you nodded “warm day and I couldn’t find anything else. Saw how quickly you’d left his morning so I thought I’d bring you something to eat” you say with a small, innocent smile as you stroked his cheek. He swallowed hard, eyes unwillingly shifting from you to the pastry on his desk.

🍺”y’ve been to that fucking bakery, ain’t ya?” He asked, gritting his teeth “well it’s your favourite-” “and that little bastard was serving wasn’t he?” He asked again, eyes narrowing “who? Daniel-” “yes fucking Daniel that little cock rocket who thinks he can get in your knickers that’s who” he seethed.

🍺then it dawned on him. “And he saw you in this fucking thing” he growled, bunching the pink material in his hands as he huffed “m’sorry Arth. Didn’t think” you reply. Liar. “Nah I think you knew. Knew to tease y’old Arthur didn’t you?” He asked, thumb drawing small circles into your waist. You replied with a small smile “I knew it! Y’little minx!” He chuckled, shaking his head.

🍺”well!“You exclaim, taking his hands and prying them from your waist as his face dropped “I’ll leave you be. Enjoy your pasty. Love you.” You say, turning to make your leave and he almost growled.

🍺”where the fuck do you think you’re going?” He asked, standing up after you as you walked back through his door, failing to suppress your smirk. He pretty much sprinted after you, grabbing you roughly and throwing you over his shoulder to turn right back around and into his office. “Got all I want to eat right fucking ‘ere. You ain’t leaving this office in this bastard dress” he promises, slamming the office door behind the two of you.

John🥃

🥃bold of you to think you’re even leaving the house with it on.

🥃he’s not like his brothers, he wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye unless Tommy was literally at the door screaming for him, and even then he was quick to reassure you before he sprinted out the house.

🥃no he liked to wake up with you, especially now there were too many kids to count running around the house.

🥃he liked to wake you up with little kisses, grab you at the waist and pull you back into bed if you tried to leave, brush his teeth beside you in the bathroom, help get the kids ready, pick your outfit, and let you tie his tie which usually took a good half hour between all the songs he’d sneak in.

🥃gave him a sense of homeliness.

🥃a bit of normality.

🥃today was no different, he’d woke you up with little kisses, rolling you to sit on top of him, legs either side of his hips as he repetitively kissed you as you giggled and tried to rise for a breath.

🥃”mammy I’m hungry!” A voice came from the doorway and you saw your agitated son pawing at his pyjamas as he looked at you desperately. “Fucking kid interrupting. About to fu-” John mumbled quietly before you were placing a hand over his mouth with wide, warning eyes. He smirked at you. “Alright mate, I’ll come, leave your poor mammy alone” John answered, finally managing to pry your hand away. “Thanks daddy” he says, giddily, as John reluctantly placed you back in bed and rolled out, chucking a shirt on and turning back to you. “Don’t move” he says, wagging a jokingly warning finger at you and you laugh “yes sir” you salute and he smirk.

🥃”right c’mon mate.” John says, grabbing your son and slinging him onto a piggy back to go grab him something to munch on.

🥃you practically jumped out of bed to go grab the new sundress that you bought last week, you hadn’t shown John yet and decided that today was the day you were going to wear it, especially now you had the quick couple of minutes of peace alone.

🥃”right, little’uns eating his breakf- fuck me” you spun around to look at your husband and smiled “what d’y think?” You ask, “g’i us a twirl” he said, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe with a smirk. You did as he said and pivoted around, showing how the dress spun with you.

🥃”it’s a sundress” you say “I can see that flower” he replies, walking up to you to have a good feel of the fabric, gliding his hands from your upper back to your waist as he pulls you into him “y’can’t wear tha’.” He says simply and you giggle “why’s tha Johnny?” You ask and he raises his brows “that little name tells me you know goddamn why gorgeous.” He says “y’cannea wear it cause I’m not gonna be able to keep my hands off of ya.” He says, quickly turning to slam the door shut before picking you up and dropping you on the bed, climbing on top of you and leaning in to kiss you hungrily.

🥃you move to take the dress of and he shakes his head “now, now whole point of this dress is that it’s easy access now, ain’t it?” He hums “leave it on I’ll work around don’t you worry ‘bout me.” He says quickly with his tongue protruding to lick his dry lips as he looks you over.

🥃he dips his head under the hem of the dress and eats you like a man starved. “Mammy! Daddy we’re ‘ungry!” You hear from beyond the door and John stops his movement to come back up for air and clamp a hand over your mouth to stop the sounds coming out of it. John huffs, frustrated but clears his throat. “Harriet darlin’ can you reach the milk?” He asks after a minute “I can da’.” Her little voice replies “Toby can you reach the cereal?” “Uh-huh” the other retorts. “Great and Charlie? Bowls and spoons?” “Yeah I know where they are daddy!” The little one says “perfect. Harriet want you to get the milk, the big ‘un I’m not having you using up the fancy shit your mam bought from Camden. Y’here me?” He asks “yeah dad” “Toby, grab the cereal and Charlie get the bowls and lot.” He instructs “okay!” The collective voices come out. “Hannah need you to make sure it’s all gone to plan, alright hon?” He asks “sure thing” then you hear the patter of feel heading down the stairs

🥃”and I swear to god if any of you little shits make a mess y’ll all be up for the fuckin’ high jump!” He announces loudly, before quieting down and turning back to you “where were we?”

🥃and then when you’d finally managed to pry him off of you, he begrudgingly let you wear it “don’t forget we’re going to Alice’s garden party.” You say “what?” He asks, noticing how you’ve dressed all the kids appropriately “y’ain’t going looking like that flower” he says “I sure am. Come in you lot! In the car!” You say, ushering him out the door

🥃he managed to sneak you away one or two times at the party.

Bonnie🥊

🥊Bonnie’s just as bad as John

🥊cannot keep his hands off of you

🥊”’m takin’ y’ to Bonnie Gold’s fight.” Your brother said walking into the room “wear summot nice, that dress I bought you” “why?” “Just get dressed” you nodded at Tommy, not opposed to visiting Bonnie Gold any day.

🥊”is his sister coming?” Bonnie asked his dad hopefully and the man smirked “why?” “J’st wonderin’.” “Yeah well keep y’eyes on the prize” Aberama told him “she is the fuckin’ prize” “try keep y’hands off of ‘er until the fights over, yeah?” He asked and him and Bonnie just shared a knowing smirk.

🥊you put on the sundress Tommy had bought you the other week, deciding it was a nice enough day to have a breeze against your skin, plus you had a pair of lovely shoes to match.

🥊so you rocked up downstairs, dress on and ready to go and Tommy just gave you a once over “poor lads gonna have a fuckin’ heart attack” John said, laughing “shut up John” you reply, as he opened the door to the car for you, offering his hand to help you up. “You look nice” Arthur commented with a raised brow “damn fucker better win this fight”

🥊”Bonnie” Thomas nodded as he entered the building, followed by his brothers, you at the back with John who’d strung an arm over your shoulder. “Mr Shelby” he nodded at him, but was clearly distracted. “Don’t you worry, Bonnie. She’s right ‘ere.” Tommy says, moving out the way for John and you to come into his view. “Hiya, Bon.” You smile “hiya flower” he manages to muster.

🥊yet, his breath had caught in his throat at the sheer sight of you. Your gorgeous face, hair done up nicely, and a fucking milkmaid dress. Some lovely sundress that other men didn’t deserve to see. Bonnie’s jaw clenched.

🥊”right, we’ll leave the two of you for a minute. Aberama, let’s chat” Thomas said, leading the others away “if he tries anything come and fuckin’ find me.” John said, looking Bonnie over once with narrowed eyes before strutting off after the others.

🥊Bonnie smirked looking at you “y’look lovely” he said quietly, approaching you “not too bad y’self Bon” you giggle as his hands wrap around you, leaning down to kiss you gently. “This fuckin’ dress. Y’do it on purpose?” He asks and you crease your brows “do what?” You hum and he sighs “I guess you’re not beautiful on purpose are you darlin’?” He grins, grabbing your hand to drag you into his changing room and lock the door behind you.

🥊he picks you up and you squeal with a laugh, wrapping your legs around his waist as he holds you against the door. He slips his hands under the hem of the skirt and holds your thighs gently.

🥊”this fucking dress” he says, chuffed that he managed to slip his hands all the way up to settle on your waist and you just smiled at him. You could feel him toying with the waistband of your panties and you laugh “Bon we’ve only got ten minutes!” You giggle and he sighs “guess we’ve got to be quick then, ay sugar?” He asks, undoing his trousers and just merely pushing your panties aside.

🥊you lean your head into the curve of his neck, muffling the sounds erupting from your mouth and muffling them with his bear skin and he slid in and out of you. “God ‘m so fuckin’ obsessed with you.” He groaned “y’know what this makes me think of?” He asks and you shake your head in question against him. “Makes me think of a mammy. What a mammy should wear when she’s pregnant ‘nd can’t get into nothin’ else.” He mumbles. “This wha’ya were tryna do t’me?” He asks “tryna get me to make y’a mammy? Cause it’s working darlin’. So well.” You whine at his remark.

🥊and when you both finish you try to pull up from his shoulder but he holds you firmly in place “Nuh uh. You dress like a mammy y’become one” he says and you can’t help but smile at his statement. Eventually, he unwraps you from his waist and lets you down onto shaky legs. A knock comes at the door “five minutes, son. Get your hands wrapped” you hear Aberama say to him followed by leaving footsteps. You smile up at him “c’mon I’ll wrap your hands”

🥊you pull him to where the wrap is, sitting him down on the bench and standing between his legs as you work on protecting his hands.

🥊He was being extremely difficult

🥊trying to wrap a man’s hands when all he wants to do is have them under your dress is an extremely difficult task as he kept groping at your skin rather than letting you work. “D’ya want your hands wrapping or not?” You ask with a huff and he smirks “would rather be doing somethin’ else.” He shrugs, but lets you finish. And when you do he pulls you into a tight hug, leaning against the fabric where your breasts were constricted.

🥊”Bonnie, c’mon lad it’s time” you heard your brother say from beyond the door, knocking on it thrice (sausage roll video lol)

🥊Bonnie groaned from under your dress (you didn’t know when he’d managed to snake his way back under there) but you grabbed his hand and yanked him from his seated position to standing; pulling him towards the door and unlocking it to take him to the ring.

🥊Bonnie pulled the hand that was dragging him, sending you flying into his chest with a force that nearly winded you as he gave you one last kiss. “Bonnie! Go!” You giggled, pushing him away and towards the ring, taking a stand beside your brothers as the match began.

🥊The rounds went by painfully slow for Bonnie; regardless of the fact that he was winning - but in reality it was only a good few minutes of pure fighting.

🥊then when the match was finished, he waltzed over to the Shelby family like he owned the place and offered a blood-filled grin as it dripped down his chin.

🥊”well done Bonnie lad.” Tommy said, lighting a cigarette. “Cheers Tommy.” He replied, adrenaline still pumping through his veins. “Didn’t y’get some money f’this match?” John asked, lighting his own. “Nah he’s got his own trophy right over there” Tommy replied, nodding at you as they all turned to see you chatting with Bonnie’s father.

🥊”just do us a favour” Thomas told him and Bonnie immediately nodded “marry her.” “Don’t have to tell me twice, mr Shelby.” Bonnie told him with a chuckle, heading to grab you to resume your activities.

Isaiah♟️

♟️haha.

♟️again, bold of you to assume that you’re getting fucking anywhere with that thing on.

♟️feel like it’d be a black sundress, one with frills on the sleeves.

♟️you’d gone for a walk with Finn, Tommy having told you both to fuck off for a while while they dealt with some deeper business; so a stroll around seemed to be the choice at hand.

♟️eventually though, Finn had gotten distracted by a sign you’d read that said ‘pretty women here shilling for a good time’ and left you to fend for yourself, opting not to follow your twin into the whore house, yet you weren’t in your own company for long, feeling a cap placed on your head and an arm around your shoulders.

♟️“Hey pretty, what’re you doing all alone?” Isaiah asked, as he feel into step with you, but came to a sudden halt almost lurching you back. “And who let you wear that?” His eyebrows raised as he looked you over. “Why what’s wrong with it?” You asked “nothin’ nothin’. J’st don’t understand why it’s not on my bedroom floor” you smacked his chest and giggled “Isaiah!”

♟️”y’shouldnt have been let out wearing this, love” he said, backing you against the wall of one of the nearby buildings. “Well I was with Finn” you reason “hmm? And where is Finn now?” He asks, taking your chin between his forefinger and thumb, forcing you to look at him.

♟️”in some whore house” you mumble in reply. He scoffs “some brother”. Then he starts again “why don’t we turn my house into a whore house and get that dress off you and into my room?” He suggests and you roll your eyes “such a way with words”

♟️”y’look fuckin’ insatiable” he says, leaning down to kiss that sensitive spot on the crevasse of your neck. “Dunno how I manage to keep my hand off you most of the time, doll” he shrugs “and in this? Fuck y’not gonna be walking anytime soon”

♟️you laugh at him “you wish peaky junior, now I was enjoying a lovely walk before you came along.” You hum, pushing him back by the chest and he scoffs “I’m a Shelby I can fend for myself” you shrug “not while I make you a Jesus.” He retorts, smirking like he knew he’d won. “Whatever, Isaiah” you say, calmly walking away

♟️he laughs loudly, running after you “c’mon Mrs Jesus we’ve business to attend to!” He announces, swiftly placing a hand onto your chest and pressing you back against the wall, lifting you up and placing hungry hands under the hem of your dress “Isaiah!” You scold, “not here!” He rolls his eyes “fine”

♟️and he places and arm under your knees and one to support your head as he carries you bridal-style back to his house. You clutch at his suit jacket and squeal at his action, holding on for dear life until you got to his home.

♟️did not wait until you got to the bedroom

♟️defo had his way with you against the door once it’d been firmly slammed shut and locked

♟️and on the sofa

♟️and the kitchen table

♟️and then bedroom

♟️(you never took the dress off)

♟️and eventually when you’d decided Tommy was probably done with his important business you managed to coax a begrudging Isaiah to the Garrison with you, who’d initially planned to keep you up all night with him but instead you were heading to a pub instead of his bed; which you’d end up in later anyways

♟️”oh she’s alive!” Arthur said sarcastically as you join them, noticing your presence and subsequently you noticed Finn’s. “How long did you last? Two minutes?” You asked and he scoffed “fuck off” “and of course I’m alive, I’m fine. It was Finn who left me alone!” You say, blame bombing your twin who looked at you with evil eyes.

♟️then Isaiah popped his head round “plus I wasn’t alone I was with Isaiah” you say matter-of-factly and Finn grits his jaw “what’ve I said about staying away from my fucking sister you fucking scrubber” Finn growls, landing a pent-up punch to Isaiah’s jaw who stumbled back slightly. “Didn’t say nothin’ ‘bout fucking her did ya?” He retorted and then he was running for the hills with three brothers sprinting after him.

♟️”men.” Polly said with a roll of her eyes

Michael🎱

🎱he wouldn’t be here nor there

🎱loved how it looks on you

🎱but hates the fact that other men see you wearing it.

🎱he makes heart eyes when he sees you in it, believing it to be the typical dress of a wife and mother; so it pretty much feeds into his delusions.

🎱the only time it saw the light of day in public would’ve definitely been when he’d been courting you. When he’d been invited to some garden party of a rich aristocracy down southwards.

🎱what Tommy failed to mention was that the Capitalist had a daughter a few months younger than Michael, of whom was extremely well spoken, and ridiculously pretty.

🎱he’d obviously weaselled his way over to you and the rest was history.

🎱and of course, history tends to repeat itself.

🎱again, you were heading to a garden party: Shelby arranged this time around, to show your initial family that the marriage between yourself and Michael was going well and therefore Tommy’s expansion to a more wealthier estate was worth the investment.

🎱”I’ll meet you there darling, business to take care of.” Michael had told you that morning while adjusting his collar, allowing you to help him straighten the tie you had wrapped around his neck. “Okay” you hummed, he always loved how you’d never pried.

🎱in reality he was off to see a man about a dog, in other terms; kill a man. Kill a man who’d been eyeing you up like a fucking slice of meat the evening prior. Eyeing you like he wanted to eat you like a man starved, as if your husband didn’t have a firm arm wrapped around your waist and oversized number of carats around your finger.

🎱even had the nerve to try talk to you, had groped at your ass and Michael covered your eyes with one hand while he clocked the bloke around the jaw with the other.

🎱never wanted a woman to see him fight, especially his woman.

🎱so he went about killing the man the next day; well he’s probably dead by now. He took his cap calmly to the man, beneath that bridge by the canal, castrated then blinded the man and left him struggling on the ground, having a couple of lesser known Peaky men surveying the area for the rest of the day to make sure no aid was to come to him, and when his struggling stopped they were to sort his body out.

🎱you made your way to the garden party independently, having worn a darling sundress; white and pristine and freshly pressed, accompanied by a sun hat and some subtle shoes; conservative enough for Michael not to complain that you looked like a whore, but skin-showing enough not to overheat in this sweltering weather.

🎱you were there before Michael, embraced by John and given a kiss on the temple by an already tipsy Arthur who was in that sort of mood where a gent gets rather happy when squidgy, it was a fine line with Arthur.. happy to angered

🎱but you entertained him, saying your hellos and greeting the rest of the family you’d married into, patiently waiting for Michael’s attendance.

🎱he was there soon thereafter.

🎱and he was fucking seething.

🎱he took one look at you as his mouth ran dry, grabbed your wrist and dragged you away from the garden getting countless opposing arguments from the likes of Ada and John questioning what he was doing

🎱but nothing could soften the red he saw.

🎱how dare you wear that dress?

🎱practically threw you into the car, you’d never seen him this upset, let alone have it take it out on you; his loving, doting housewife of whom he trophied for every mistake he made, initially he thought you were his punishment from god.. sent an angel for a devil to take care of. But he’d gotten the hang of switching into a loving husband the minute he returned home

🎱but tonight was different

🎱”Michael, darlin-” “how dare you?” He seethed and you silenced yourself “pardon?” “How many fucking times have I told you you’re not wearing this fucking dress in public, hmm? And you wear it around my fucking horny cousin?” He growls and you don’t know how to reply “he looks at you like you’re a fucking piece of meet, sweets.” He tells you, finally looking at you

🎱”undressing you with his eyes. Watched him myself.” “John has a wife-” “John hires prostitutes. Y’think he’d be a better husband?” He asks, knuckles white as he grips the steering wheel harder “no-” “no. Cause I’ve never hired a fuckin’ prostitute since we’ve been together, and I work hard for you, y’know. Got no where to take my anger out cause I love you so much.” He says and despite the harshness of his words your heart swells.

🎱”killed a man for you and I show up to you actin’ like a fuckin’ whore?” Your mouth opened agape and he chuckled darkly “think I didn’t kill that bloke? Think I’d leave him safe? Nah, not with my missus I wouldn’t” he confirms, placing a hand on your leg as he speeds back home.

🎱he stops the car and doesn’t move for a minute.

🎱”listen to me very carefully, flower. I’m going to change my bloody shirt, and you’re gonna go upstairs, lay on the bed and wait for me. Yeah?” He asks “yeah o’course Michael.” You say as you get out the car

🎱”and leave that fuckin’ dress on!” You hear called behind you.

Finn🎞️

🎞️Finn is just horny 25/8 icl.

🎞️doesn’t know what does it for him about that dress, but it does something.

🎞️it was a hot day, and the family was in some beer garden, Arthur already off his head drunk and the brothers just enjoying one another’s company after successfully ridding the threat of a rival family, the head now dead and the rest cowering to surrender.

🎞️Tommy told Finn to bring his lady friend, the one who worked at the bookshop along, decided it was time to meet the family, and so he did.

🎞️waltzed into your little hole in the wall, grinning as you peered your head around to see the customer who’d caused the door’s bell to chime, and you broke out into a mighty smile just as he did, him opening his arms for you to rush over and into a bone crushing hug.

🎞️even shared a sweet kiss as he said a gentle “hello pretty”

🎞️he noticed the dress you were wearing was new, initially not noticing it as he was too caught up in admiring you. “What’s this? Is it new?” He asked, taking your hand to spin you around. “It is” you grin, allowing the white flowing material to spin as he made you “it’s lovely” he says, noticing something about it but he didn’t know quite what.

🎞️”why are you here?” You hum with narrowed, suspicious eyes as you leant your chin against his dress “aren’t I allowed to say hello to my favourite girl?” He asks with a smirk “yes but I can tell there’s something. A look in your eyes.” You say and he sighs, defeated “party at the Garrison” he says “when?” You ask “right now” he says and you laugh “Finn I can’t just shut shop at 12 oclock on Thursday!” You say, as he reaches into his pocket, throwing ten whole pounds onto the counter “Finn! Where did you get that much money?” You gasp “don’t worry bout it. Enough for you to close?” He asks and you scoff “I can’t accept ten whole pounds, Finn” you tell him “sure you can cause I’m not having it back” he shrugs, pulling your hand to coax you out the door “okay fine!” You surrender as you relent, allowing Finn to pull you out the door and in turn, you lock your door behind you.

🎞️then when you showed to the party, you were greeted by tipsy cheers and hellos as Finn introduced you to his family, Polly and Ada immediately dragging you away to have a separate conversation as they question you about everything to which you giddily go along with.

🎞️John came to stand with Finn, where he was stood still; drink in hand as he watched you interact with his family. “What’s up, Finn?” He asked, nudging him with his elbow and Finn finally broke out of his trace to smile at his brother. “Nothin’.” He shrugged. “Can’t be about your missus, y’head over heels for her.” John said, and Finn immediately raised his brows in panic “no! no! Nothin’ like tha.” Finn said, shaking his head. “Then what is it?” John asked, looking at you, trying to figure his younger sibling out.

🎞️”dunno. It’s summot about that dress” Finn said, eyes raking over you as he tried to figure out what it was and his brother chuckles “easy access, mate.” John said and Finn creased his brows “y’what?” “Sundresses mate, fuckin’ kill me. Easy access innit? Don’t have to even take the dress off” John told him matter-of-factly, necking the rest of his beer in one. Finn’s eyes darkened and John couldn’t hold in his laugh at the realisation that Finn had settled that that was what it was.

🎞️John claps him on the back “if y’wanna sneak off I’ll cover” he said, but by the end of the sentence Finn had already started after you “cheers, mate!” He said to John “sorry, stealing her” he said to Polly and Ada against their judgement, dragging you away from the conversation and into the Peaky office inside the Garrison.

🎞️you giggle at his actions as he locked the dork “what y’doin sill?” You ask “party’s outside!” You say, as he picks you up and holds you against the door, dropping his hands for them to head under the hem of your skirt “right, ‘nd I’ve just figured out that this dress is driving me fuckin’ crazy” he says “you’re fuckin’ insatiable” he says “d’you even know what that means?” You ask and he shrugs “find me a dictionary later or summot.” He says

🎞️”what’s up with the dress” you ask, as he undoes his trousers “easy access innit?”

Aberama🌞

🌞Aberama is a cultured bloke

🌞by that I mean he’s had many a trips around the sun, and in that time good women are few and far between in his opinion

🌞so regardless of you being substantially his younger, he was positive that you were the woman for him and therefore he had to have you.

🌞recently you’d moved into his vardo with him, having left the urban life behind.

🌞he’d woken up one morning to the sun blaring at him through the unclad opening of the vardo, stretching his arms above his head in a mighty yawn, almost certain it was almost midday by this point; especially after the long trek they’d had to get to this sight the night prior.

🌞he reached his arm over, but the spot in the bed was cold and empty, a lone spot where you should’ve been laid. He creased his brows, shooting up in bed to a sitting potion, realising that you were no longer in the vardo at all.

🌞he groaned. Damn you and your early rising tendencies.

🌞he rubbed his eyes and pulled on a pair of undershorts, smirking at the remembrance of the night prior once you’d arrived. He popped his head out of the doorway, looking left and right but curiously not being able to find any trace of you.

🌞he climbed down the steps and placed his hands on his hips, walking around the side of the wooden structure towards the lake that trickled slowly downstream. And that’s where he found you:

🌞his gorgeous bride.

🌞he’d always told you that he never expected you to conform to the traditional gypsy wife role, never needed you to bear him any more children or do the cooking or cleaning. Hell, you could lay around all day doing nothing and he’d look at you with the same adoration he always does. He didn’t even expect you to want to live in a vardo, yet you’d shown up with a bag and a smile when offered.

🌞 yet you refused, you demanded to help. Demanded to conform. You would cook the rabbit he’d kill (given you’d been a bit sick at the initial sight of it). And you’d kill his clothes, paying no mind to any blood shed on it.

🌞you were knelt against the river bank, ringing some clothes out you just washed then placing them into a small wicker basket, in a dress he didn’t quite recognise.

🌞”what y’doin up, sweetheart? Thought I told y’to relax today” he started, beginning towards you. Your head spun and those wide, innocent doe eyes gleamed back at him “had a big journey last night. No good f’little girls to be working the day after” he said, matter of factly with a stern look.

🌞”just wanted to get these clothes washed” you mumble, placing the final garment in the basket. “And what’s this you’ve got on, hmm?” He asked, as you look at your clothes “oh it’s a dress” “Mm I can see that, darlin. Just never seen it before” he tells you and you stand to give him a little spin. “My sister bought it for my birthday” you said and he grunts, gently grabbing your hips to pull you into him and sway you back and forth along with the breeze, dancing to nature’s music.

🌞”well y’know what these dresses are?” He hums and you shake your head, placing both hands on his chest. “These dresses are the kind that mammys wear. The kind you’d wear when they’re all pregnant and swelled up with little babes.” He says, accusingly. “Kind that little wives wear that are asking for a hiding” he warns

🌞”didn’t mean nothing by it, abe. Just thought it was nice” you admit and he smiles “I know you did, princess. Just an innocent little flower y’are.” He shakes his head.

🌞”but y’ve seen the other mammys around the camp haven’t you? Seen how they’ve dressed. Think you know what you were doin’ to your old man” he teases and you shake your head “m too old to be a da’ y’know. Way too bleeding old. Punishing me ain’t ya? Just asking for a little’un” he tuts and you giggle as he picks you up bridal style and carries you back to the bed where he’d began

🌞”Aberama! The clothes!-” “Can fuckin’ wait” he grunts “got a little’un to put in ya first” he says, dropping you onto the bed and lazily flipping up your skirt to do what he did best.

🌞make your skin fucking crawl.

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dreamerschroniclesofstories · 8 months ago

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I love your work I got a request for Tommy Shelby

So you are tommy daughter or the youngest Shelby sister and u are 2 years old

And Arthur or John or Finn is looking after u and u get sick and tommy’s not home at the moment so she just cries until he gets home no matter how hard the others try to console her and then when he gets home and he holds you stop crying and fell asleep hope that make sense

Hey love! Of course i can do this request for you!

I DO NOT GIVE PERMISSION FOR TRANSLATION OR POSTING ON A DIFFERENT SITE.

Summary: request above.

{Y/N}: Your name.

Word count: 1,023.

Once Finn was born, the Shelby clan felt like the family was complete, they hoped their parents would stop having children since they were barely looked after by them.

However, just under two years after Finn Shelby was born, [Y/N] Shelby entered the world. The second daughter of Arthur Shelby and youngest sister to the Shelby brothers.

Since she was born, she had a handful of health issues, ranging from constant illnesses to developmental delays. This caused her to look younger then she is and resulted in Polly becoming very cautious of going outside with the young girl. When [Y/N} was taken outside, Tommy and Polly would make sure she had on at least three layers.

However, the winter had been brutal on the young girls body, it had snowed for the first time in ten years in Birmingham, and like any other child {Y/N} wanted to go outside and play with the the playful swirling snowflakes coming down from the sky. Polly knew it wasn't safe but the young girl was growing and seeing snow in Birmingham was a rare occasion. She let {Y/N] go outside for ten minutes.

Two days later, Polly had regretted that decision. Polly had woken up that morning expecting the young girl to be awake in her bed waiting for her aunt to take her downstairs to make her breakfast. Instead Polly had found her niece still asleep curled up in her bed, from where Polly was standing she was able to see {Y/N]'s skin glistening with sweat.

The middle aged woman immediately walks away from the child's room, going to Tommy's room and knocks on loudly, knowing her nephew would be awake, Polly opens the door " get dressed and go to the doctor down the road" she demands.

Tommy stood up quickly, puling on a pair of his tailored trousers then followed by putting on a shirt " {Y/N] again?" he asks, he knew it was for his sister but asked anyway.

" i don't know whats wrong with her yet" Polly uttered, her voice full of stress and panic.

Polly rushes back over to her nieces room, walking over to the young girls bed, wrapping her arms around the fragile body of her ill riddled body of the youngest Shelby.

{Y/N} small mouse like voice breaks out from her throat "pol" she whispers, her voice cracking, squirming slightly. The young girl was uncomfortable, the warmth from her fever coming through in bursts, her night clothes soaked in her own sweat.

The sound of Tommy leaving his room followed by the sound of the front door opening and close less then a minute later reassured Polly that help would soon be on the way.

Three hours later.

It had been hours since Tommy had left the house, he had not come back. {Y/N]'s fever had gotten worse as the hours past, Polly had given her several cold water baths to try and bring her fever down but nothing was helping.

The sickly young girl had become distressed, her wailing voice filed the small Shelby home. Her brothers and aunt doing everything they could think of to comfort her.

" Don't hold her like that Finn, that will just make her more upset" the eldest Shelby brother barked at his youngest brother.

Finn was holding his sister under armpits and arms length away from him. " shes contagious"

Arthur grumbles and stands up from the dinning room table, stalking towards his siblings, taking his sister gently from the arms of his brother. " You're a Shelby Finn, you've got other things you should be more scared of" Arthur points out.

The eldest Shelby, holds his sister, his hand on the bottom of her back whilst his other arm sat under her legs to support her weight, The young girl lays her head on her brothers shoulder hiccuping as she cries.

" where is bloody Tommy" Arthur grumbles, looking towards Polly as she walks out of the kitchen holding a cloth. The older woman walks over to Arthur, gently wiping the cold cloth against the forehead of the sickly looking child.

" He's coming Arthur, doctor is probably busy with other children sick from this weather"

" Other children aren't {Y/N} pol, she could di--" Polly quickly interrupts Arthur.

" don't be ridiculous Arthur" Polly hissed.

However, Arthur wasn't wrong and Polly knew this, her niece was already weak from birth and the doctor had warned the family that {Y/N} could die from becoming ill, its just the matter of what will kill her and when.

Luckily, the sound of the front door opening and shutting filled the chaotic family home of the Shelby's. Footsteps clunking towards the room filled with hiccups, coughs and wailing.

The sight of Tommy Shelby was a relief for Polly but when she didn't see the doctor her stress levels turned up a notch. Tommy takes his cap off followed by his jacket.

Tommy walks over to his older brother, Arthur transferring his sister over to him " the doctor will come in a few hours, he is full today with other patients" Tommy explains.

Polly runs her slender fingers over her eyebrows, sighing " her fever isn't breaking Tommy, shes making herself worse by crying" his aunt vents.

The sight of the most feared Shelby rocking his youngest sister as she holds one of his fingers wasn't a rare sight for the family, since {Y/N} was born it was clear her and Tommy had bonded incredibly quick and nothing could break that bond.

The house slowly began to become quiet, the occasional hiccup and cough appeared, Tommy sits on the couch, his sister slowly closing her eyes, her body relaxing for the first time since the morning.

Polly laughs and shakes her head, putting her hands on her hips. " i should have known" she smiles.

Finn frowns and looks towards Polly " known what?" he asks, oblivious.

Polly grabs a cigarette from her metal case and uses a match to light it, then sits down at the dinning room table for the first time since waking up.

" All she wanted was her Thomas".

A/N: Hello again, i apologise for the long wait for this, life has been hectic and i had no time to post anything but i finally have time to post on here! i appreciate all the Reposts, Likes and Comments.

#peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders fandom #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders masterlist #tommy shelby #peaky blinders x sister!reader #thomas shelby imagine #tommy shelby imagines #tommy shelby fanfic #tommy shelby x sister!reader #thomas shelby fic #peaky blinders fanfiction #arthur shelby #shelby sister #polly gray #polly shelby #finn shelby #peaky blinders

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shirecorn · 2 years ago

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Let's hear it for Mr. and Mrs. Autism <3

Mudbriar is a horse after my own heart. I too am obsessed with sticks, to the point the logistics of having so many is a struggle

I like sticks

Please watch this timestamp

youtube

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riordanverse-craziness · 3 months ago

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Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Season 2 New Faces

Daniel Diemer is Tyson

Tamara Smart is Thalia Grace

Sandra Bernhard, Kristen Schaal, and Margaret Cho are The Gray Sisters (Anger, Tempest and Wasp)

Timothy Simons is Tantalus

#rcpjtv #will reblog with an update according to the upcoming news #percy jackson #pjo #percy jackson and the olympians #tyson pjo #daniel diemer #the gray sisters #sandra bernhard #kristen schaal #margaret cho #tantalus pjo #timothy simons #tamara smart #thalia grace

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wpdarlingpan · 1 year ago

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will you do a platonic yandere older brother coriolanis (I think that’s how u spell it lol) snow x a sibling! reader ? and he kidnapped them? also it can be fem or gn. have a good day/night!!

I love this idea! And thank you so much I also hope you have a good day/night.

I’m open to doing a part 2 since this is somewhat short if enough people like this storyline. I’m curious on where it could go.

His Little Snowflake ❄️

Platonic Yandere Coriolanus Snow x Younger Sister

Female Pronouns

Word count: 1.1 K

Warnings: Obsessive behavior, mentions of murder

Coriolanus wasn’t an only child, albeit he was the oldest. He had a little sister named Y/N. She wasn’t as known as he was, after all he was the heir to the snow name and ‘fortune’ so it wasn’t up to her to preserve the name.

When Corio found out he was going to have a little sibling, he was indigent. He knew he would keep all of the rights being the oldest but the idea of having to share with a sibling was torture in his mind.

That was until he saw them.

His mother died in childbirth after having the baby. When his father came home with her, he was prepared to loath the baby that took away his mother, even if she wasn’t the best one.

But one look into the baby’s eyes something shifted.

Corio was the one to look after his sister when his father passed away.

Tigres would always offer to help while Grand’mam claimed she was too old to care for her.

He didn’t care, this was His sibling. His responsibility. His little snowflake.

When the 10th annual hunger games began and he was forced to mentor, it took up some time. With having to write the proposal for the Doctor and being a mentor to Lucy Gray he barely had time for his little sister. He blamed everyone else for the situation. If a teacher kept him after class? That teacher would have something unfortunate happen to them.

He could just give up but he was obsessed with his little sister getting the life she deserved so he had to win the money by any means possible.

Everyday when he got home from all of his duties, he’d go to her room.

“Corio!” She squealed happily running into his open arms. She would jump as high as she could to try and wrap her arms around his neck but it would often end up with him having to bend over as she wrapped around him like a koala.

“Hello Snowflake, I miss you today.” Thats what he’d always say. That fact that he missed her was true but he would also say it to prompt her to say it back. After all didn’t she miss him just as much?

“I missed you too!” Then she’d ramble about her day to him. Not noticing as his scowl as she talked about her friends since the second she’d look up at him he’d change it to a soft smile.

All you needed was each other and he firmly believed that. Maybe Tigres on the occasion when absolutely necessary but she was a cousin. You are his little sister.

“You need to distance yourself from them, it sounds like they are bad influences”

“That doesn’t sound very nice of them, I think you should stop talking to them.”

“A boy? You’re too young. They’ll old hurt you. Do you want to be hurt? Don’t you trust me?”

Those are just a few things he’d say to try and turn the favor back to him through gaslighting and guilt tripping. Of course it always worked. Y/N loved her older brother, she couldn’t not trust him.

With all of the cheating Coriolanus did to make Lucy Gray win it wasn’t that much of a surprise he was caught, at least to everyone else but him. He was too focused on winning that the idea of getting caught was child’s play.

Now they wanted to take him away from you. He simply couldn’t allow that to happen. The idea of not seeing you every minute was distressing to him but for 10 years as he is sent away to the districts? He would kill everyone in his path back to the capital.

So in order to prevent that he did what he does best, manipulate.

First of all he had to get Y/N.

~*~

Bursting into her room he saw her where she usually was, sitting at her desk coloring.

“Y/N!” He spoke urgently as he ran around to pack some clothes “Get ready. We need to leave.”

Y/N saw the panicked look on his face he tried to hide, making her panic about what was happening. Or course she wasn’t told about his treachery, he would murder whoever painted him in anything other than a perfect light to his little sister.

“What’s going on?”

“I’ll explain later, we are going away for awhile.”

“What about Tigres? Grand’mam?”

“They are staying here.”

She was in shock, leaving her family? Her young mine couldn’t process the fact even if she would be with her older brother. It was natural to be scared of change.

And this would change everything.

“I can’t leave them!” Coriolanus was delusional and would hope they would accept to leaving but he planned for the rare possibility of them not.

“Please don’t make me do this the hard way. You want to be with your older brother right? It’s the two of us against the world remember?” She nodded with tears in her eyes as she hugged her little tiger stuffed animal “I have to leave, and I’m not leaving without you. I love you.”

“But-but” Y/N began to stutter out but Corio knew he was losing a lot of time. So he grabbed some sleeping powder he found in Dr. Volumnia’s office and lightly blew it into her face as he caught her as she began to sway on her feet.

“What’s happening-“

“You’ll be okay I swear, we will be okay. We just need to go away for awhile.”

~*~

He somehow convinced everyone he came across that he was allowed to bring her with him. Sure it took some convincing for some but the way he could talk circles around people make them give in pretty quickly.

Then he paid the transfer worker money to send him to district 12.

In no way did he trust Lucy Gray with his little sister, but he didn’t want you to see him killing people nor did he want her left alone for any of those district people to get ahold of and poison her little mind. But he didn’t have a choice so he had to go to the person who is his only option. After all her oh so kind heart wouldn’t allow her to get hurt. That is if Lucy Gray was still alive.

When Y/N woke up she was in the arms of her brother as he brought her into his individual room in the barracks due to his higher standing.

“Where are we?”

“Welcome to district 12 my little snowflake. Nothing can get between us now.”

And he meant it. Even if it meant getting a few people killed along the way and sending his best friend to the hanging tree after he suggested she return back to the capital.

#coriolanus snow x reader #coriolanus snow #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #ballad of songbirds and snakes #younger sister #Yandere #sibling #10th hunger games #the hunger games #hunger games #platonic #platonic yandere #lucy gray baird

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luciferslilith7 · 5 months ago

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I still hide you in my poetry

@luciferslilith7

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book-place · 2 years ago

Text

Peaky Blinder Song

Warnings: violence, cursing, weapons, blood, let me know if I missed any :)

Pairings: Shelby family x sister reader

*not my gif*

Summary: Growing up as a Shelby wasn’t always easy, but at least your siblings were always there for you

A/N: Welcome to book place’s one year event!!

Inspired by: The Jet Song by the cast of West Side Story

Please don’t plagiarize my work, you may reblog if you like but I’m asking that you don’t steal my hard work

When you're a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way

“Well, would ya look at that,” Tommy mused, the slightest bit of amusement dancing in his eyes as he spoke.

At his words, John and Arthur looked up from their breakfasts in confusion before following their brothers line of sight to where you were waddling into the room, one of their caps upon your head.

Arthur let out a booming laugh and scooped you up into his arms, playfully rubbing his mustache against your cheek, emitting giggles from you, “Would ya look at that!” He agreed.

“Where’d ya get that?” John asked, reaching up and gently shaking your foot.

You began blabbering to your older brothers, ignoring the fact that the hat had fallen into your face, covering your eyes. Arthur calmly lifted it up, seriously nodding as if he could understand a single thing that you were trying to say.

“Give ‘er here,” Tommy ordered gruffly, standing up and gently taking you from his elder brother's arms, eyes softening as you looked up at him with that toothy grin of yours, “What’re ya doin’?” He asked in amusement.

“I think she’s ready to be a Peaky Blinder, Tommy,” John laughed as the other man had to lift up the hat away from your face again.

“Is that so?” He asked teasingly, reaching out and ticking your stomach a little bit, “You gonna be the leader of the Blinders now, little one?”

Arthur laughed again, “We don’t need you anymore, Tommy, we’ve got Y/n.” He said jokingly.

“I think you might be right, Arthur,” He said seriously, “Looks like n/n can handle it from here.”

You began blabbering again after a loud laugh, making your brothers all chuckle around you.

“We’ve got our own little Peaky Blinder here.” John declared.

From your first cigarette

“Come on now,” Finn said impatiently, “Hold it for me.”

Without a word, you did as your brother demanded, taking the object in your hands and looking up at him with wide eyes.

“Finn Shelby.” The furious voice of your aunt made the boy tense up and freeze instantly.

“Polly,” He gulped, slowly turning around to face the woman.

The look on her face alone was enough to put him six feet under on the spot. He didn’t even want to think about what was going to happen to him.

“You better tell me right now why the hell my three year old niece is holding a cigarette, and if you don’t say that you found her like this, then you have something else coming for you.” The threat made him pale even further and his blood ran cold.

Oblivious to what was going on, you grinned up at your aunt, “Pol! Pol!” You cheered happily, dropping the cigarette and reaching your hands up to her.

Instantly, she stooped down and swept you into her arms, you snuggling closer to her hold without a second thought as your eyes fluttered shut and you sighed in contempt.

“What’s all the bloody racket in here?” Arthur inquired, stalking onto the room with Tommy following right behind.

“Your youngest brother tried handing a cigarette to your sister.” Polly didn’t once take her venomously dangerous glare off of the young boy.

By then, his eyes had begun to fill with tears, only for them to spring loose when the two older men’s heads snapped over to him.

“Finn,” Tommy spoke in that eerie stern voice that only he seemed to be able to master, “Is what she’s saying true?”

“I-I just wanted to be like you guys!” Finn sobbed openly, dropping his head into his hands, “I wanted to smoke and be like you!”

“And you though’ that makin’ our little sister hold your cigarette was the way to do that?” Arthur asked angrily, glowering at the boy.

He shook his head vigorously back and forth, “N-no!” He hiccuped, “I just had to do somethin’ so I needed her to hold in for a minute!”

“Oi!” Polly snapped in a harsh whisper, “Hush now, Y/n has fallen asleep.” She leveled a last glare at Finn, “We’ll deal with this later, young man.”

To your last dyin' day

A joyful laugh left your lips as you ran as fast as your little legs would take you down the alleyway.

True, Tommy and Arthur had told you to stay on the sidewalk where they could see you while you played, but it didn’t hurt to go for a little run to see how fast you could make it back.

Now five years old, you were constantly getting into mischief, reminding Polly too much of how the boys were when they were little.

You hadn’t been looking where you were going, your gaze was turned up towards the brightly lit sky, so you didn’t see the person standing in the middle of the alley until you ran right into his legs.

Stumbling slightly at impact, you quickly fell onto your backside with a small ‘oof’, a stinging sensation quickly making its way through your body from the pavement.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” A malicious voice snarled from above you, causing your head to snap up with wide eyes.

The man whose legs you ran into was sneering down at you from the end of his greasy nose. And to you, he looked downright terrifying.

“I-I’m sorry Mr,” You mumbled with wide eyes, slowly crawling backwards, “It was an accident.”

He shot you a sinister smile, slowly stalking towards you, “Was it now?” He hummed mockingly.

Your head bobbed up and down as you nodded desperately, “It was, I swear it was!”

The man shook his head softly and clicked his tongue, “Now, I’m findin’ myself not really believing you, girl.”

You could feel your face pale even more at his words, “I’m sorry!” You tried again, panic swirling in your stomach. This man scared you, and you didn’t like it.

“Listen here, you little-“ He snarled, storming over to you and snatching your arm in a bruising grip and squeezing while dragging you to your feet, making you cry out in pain.

“What is going on here?” Despite the deadliness of the calm in his voice, you still sagged in relief the second you heard Tommy speak.

“Nothin’ to worry about, Mr. Shelby. Just takin’ care of this little bitch.” From the way he spoke about you, it was clear as day that he didn’t know who you were.

“Is that so?” There was no mistaking the flash of complete rage that appeared on your brother's face, “And what does my baby sister have to do with that?”

If you thought your face had been pale before, it was nothing compared to how the man looked when all the color drained from his face instantly. He let go of your arm, stumbling away as if having been burned by the contact of your skin.

As soon as you were free, you scrambled over to Tommy, hiding behind his legs and burying your face into his coat that hung near your head.

“M-Mr. Sh-Shelby,” He immediately began begging, “I-I swear to god I didn’t know who she was-“

“Clearly,” Tommy cut him off coldly.

“Listen- listen, I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry, I never would have done that if I had known-“ Tears had begun cascading down his cheeks.

“But ya did, didn’ ya?” He questioned rhetorically, “And now you’re gonna have to pay the price for messin’ with the Peaky fuckin’ Blinders.”

A hand reached out and touched your shoulder and you flinched away immediately, not having heard someone approach. Whipping your head around, you were met with the sight of Arthur, holding his arms out to you.

After one glance at Tommy for confirmation, you grabbed onto your eldest brother's hand and followed him out the alley. When you tried to look back, Arthur simply turned your head away and quickened your pace to get you out of there.

Silence carried on in your absence for a moment, Tommy letting it drag on until the man looked like he quite literally was going to suffocate from it.

“Did ya see that?” He asked quietly, taking slow, menacing steps towards the man, “Did ya see how jumpy she was after what ya did to her? How she flinched away from Arthur?”

“Please, please- I’m begging you-“ The man had quite literally backed himself into a corner, his head frantically whipping around to try and find a way out.

“You scared my little sister,” He carried on, “You hurt her. And something like that… is unforgivable.”

Arthur closed the door to the house particularly loudly just in time for a gunshot to go off, silencing it slightly from your ears.

When you're a Jet

“What’d ya want?” Harry asked jokingly, leaning over the counter of the Garrison so he could look at you, “A drink?”

You giggled loudly at his words and shook your head, “Polly says I can't be drinkin’ anything from here yet!” You replied with a wide grin.

“Now, is that so?” He tapped his chin as if thinking about it, “I suppose your aunt is always right, though, ain’t she?”

You nodded your head in agreement, swinging your legs back and forth from the barstool you sat at.

“Oi!” John called, coming sauntering out of an office in the back, “Ya better not be lettin’ my little sister drink!” The smirk that played at the ends of his lips let you both know he was joking around.

“Nah!” Harry shook his head, “I tried to be cool and let her, but that little rascal is a rule follower, she is.”

John laughed loudly at that, reaching over and ruffling your hair, “That don’t sound like my sister.” He teased, “She don’t ever follow no rules.”

“She sounds like a certain group of boys I know.” There was a twinkle in his eyes as he spoke.

“Now, what’re you insinuating?” John leaned back against a table and placed his hands in his pockets, “That she's actin’ like us Blinders?”

“I think so,” The man reached over and playfully flicked your nose, making you laugh so hard that you almost went tumbling off the stool.

“Okay, alright, that’s enough now.” John quickly lowered you to the ground, not trusting you not to fall off anymore.

“Imma Blinder!” You cheered, giving your brother a toothy grin.

He laughed, bending down and scooping you up, “Yeah, I suppose ya are.”

If the spit hits the fan, you got brothers around

“Yer nothin’ but a stupid little kid,” A boy a couple years older than you, about Finn's age, sneered down at you, his raised voice attracting the attention of the other students in the school yard.

Despite the tears that began to collect in your eye ducts, you glared at him, not backing down, “That isn’t true!”

Even though he was way taller and bigger than you were, you stood your ground. That is, until he gave you a shove back by the shoulders and you went sprawling to the ground.

He had been picking on you for having mud on your clothes after playing with a couple friends outside before school and even though you tried to walk away, he just wouldn’t leave you alone.

The crowd that had gathered around gasped when you hit the ground, clearly not expecting it to escalate that quickly and your cheeks turned red.

“Hey!” None other than Finn Shelby had pushed his way through the sea of kids with a glare set on his face that resembled that of your brothers.

“What do you want?” The kid rounded on him, glaring down at your brother, who was still at least a head shorter than him.

“That’s my sister.” Finn informed him through gritted teeth, as if the boy didn’t already know.

You sniffled slightly, scrambling up and making your way over to him, tugging on his sleeve to get his attention, “It’s okay, Finn.” You mumbled, “Let’s just go.” You didn't want either of you to get into any trouble.

He just shrugged off your hand though, sizing the boy up before reeling his arm back suddenly and without warning sent it flying into the boy's nose.

Almost instantly afterward, two teachers surged through the crowd and quickly pulled the two boys apart, the one that had been picking on you now crying and holding his nose.

You and your brother had to sit in the principal's office until one of your siblings or aunt showed up, the house having been called for one of them to come pick you up.

Not too long had passed before Tommy made his way through the door, demanding and controlling aura in tow.

He ignored the staff that tried speaking to him, immediately turning his attention to the two of you, “What happened, eh?” He demanded sternly.

“I saw this kid push Y/n,” Finn jumped up to explain, “So I punched him in the face! Just like you and Arthur taught me to!”

Your older brother's eyes quickly flickered over to you, giving your body a quick once over to ensure that you were alright.

“Okay,” He spoke before turning on his heel and exiting, leaving behind a stunned teacher and not turning back to see the two of you scramble up to follow.

After walking to the car, he opened the door and waited for you two to get in before sliding into his own side. He didn’t start the car though, just turned to you.

“Are you alright?” He asked softly, to which you nodded your head, “Lucky Finn was there, then, eh?”

“I could’ve hit him too,” You insisted.

His lips quirked up, “I know, but it’s still good to have some backup sometimes.”

You were silent for a moment before turning to Finn, “Thank you for helping me.”

“He didn’t have the right to push ya,” He grumbled while leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest.

You're a family man

“Game night! Game night!” You cheered, sprinting into the living room before diving head first onto the couch.

“Mind your head,” Polly scolded, “Don’t need ya hittin’ it too hard that we have to end up takin’ ya to the doctors.”

“But it’s game night!” You cheered, falling backwards onto the couch with a large grin overtaking the entirety of your face.

“Did somebody say game night?” Arthur’s voice boomed into the room before he even entered it, with a smile that could be heard through his tone.

“I did!” You chorused back, “And I’m going to beat all of you?”

“Is that so?” John strode into the room with Tommy and Finn following close behind.

“Uh huh!” You agreed, turning your face as serious as you could make it in order to try and get your point across.

“Hmm,” John tapped his chin and pretended to think, “That's weird, ‘cause if I remember correctly, I was the winner of the last game night. Not you.”

You pouted at him, crossing your arms, “Well, I’m gonna beat ya this time!”

“Ya think so?”

“I know so!”

Arthur chuckled at your words and even Tommy softened a bit at the interaction.

You're never alone

“T-Tommy?” You called out hesitantly in the darkness, voice wavering as you spoke.

The man’s eyes immediately snapped open and he shot up, hand flying out to grab the gun that was kept under his pillow, “Y/n?” He echoed back, squinting to try and make you out through the dark room, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I-I had a nightmare,” You admitted in a whisper, shuffling your feet and toying with your fingers.

His entire being immediately sagged in relief, fingers loosening around the weapon once he realized that you were in no physical danger. He wasn’t stupid though, he knew how much of a danger dreams could be, how they could affect one’s mind.

“Come ‘ere,” He mumbled, scooting over in the bed to make room, lifting up the blanket like an invitation.

You wasted no time before plunging onto the bed, cuddling up to your brother's chest, “Thank you,” You murmured shyly.

“No, need to thank me, sweetheart,” He mumbled, dipping his head so he could place a kiss on the top of your hair.

It was silent for a moment, and Tommy would’ve thought you had fallen back asleep if you hadn’t spoken up with an embarrassed whisper, “I know I’m eight now and I’m supposed to be a big girl, but it was really scary, Tommy.”

He let a small sign fall from his nose as he tightened his arms around you, “There’s no such thing as being too old for nightmares, sweetheart.”

You pulled away and looked up at him with wide eyes, “Really?”

He hummed, “I get them all the time.”

Your jaw was on the floor by then, “You do?” Never in a million years would you be able to picture your strong big brother having a bad dream.

“I do,” He repeated, “Do you want to talk about yours?”

Immediately, you shook your head into his chest, arms wrapping around his torso to the best of their abilities.

“Okay, alright,” He mumbled, leaving another kiss on your head, “You can go to sleep, sweetheart. I’ve got you. I won’t let anything get you.”

You're never disconnected

You had no idea where you were. You spun around in circles but still couldn’t pinpoint your own location.

Earlier in the day, you had insisted to your brothers that they bring you to a marketplace that was in town, and they reluctantly relented and brought you. But now you couldn’t find them and the panic was starting to set in.

You gasped, whipping around when you felt a hand on your shoulder and were met with the sight of an unfamiliar man.

“Let go of me!” You demanded immediately, squirming out of his hold.

He raised his hands automatically, backing away from you, “Sorry, kid, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

You narrowed your eyes at him, “You didn’t scare me,” You grumbled.

“Hey, it’s alright. I work for your brothers.” He reassured you, but even though it was supposed to comfort you, it only made you even more suspicious of him.

Slowly, you took a step away from the stranger, ready to make a run for it, when the sound of thundering footsteps made you turn to your right, all your brothers rushing over to where you were.

“Oh, thank god,” John mumbled, coming to a stop and running a hand down his face when he saw you safe and sound.

“Daryl,” Tommy greeted, clearly knowing the man, “I am now in your debut. Thank you for taking care of her.”

The man, Daryl, tipped his hat to Tommy and shot you a playful wink, “‘twas my pleasure, boss. Just lucky I was in the area and saw her before anyone else did.”

You're home with your own

“You’re doin’ it wrong!” You insisted with a whine, bringing your foot down and stomping against the floor once.

“I’m following the directions!” Finn snapped back, “How am I doin’ it wrong if I’m following the directions?”

“You ain’t, though! You’re addin’ too much chocolate chips and not enough flour!” You were beginning to lose your temper with your brother.

He simply shrugged, “I don’t see the problem with havin’ any extra chocolate.” He tried to reason.

You dropped your head to the counter with a groan, “We need to make them special! We can’t do that if you don’t follow the recipe.”

Finn seemed to contemplate it for a moment before rolling his eyes with a sigh and beginning to undo what he had done, “Fine, we’ll follow your borin’ cookie recipe.”

“What’re you two doing?”

You both shrieked and whipped around at the sudden voice, coming face to face with Tommy, who had a single eyebrow raised in your direction.

“Makin’ cookies,” Your brother answered dumbly.

“No!” You shrieked, reaching over and slapping his arm, “It was supposed to be a surprise!”

The boy scowled, reaching up to rub the sore spot of where you had hit, “Not much of a secret, anyone could see what we’re doing.”

Tommy looked amused by the scene before him and put his hands up in mock surrender, taking a step out of the kitchen, “Just act like I wasn’t even ‘ere.”

You eagerly jumped on the opportunity and began shooing Finn back to what he was supposed to be doing to prepare the dessert.

When company's expected, you’re well protected

Tears silently ran down your cheeks as Polly held you close with a hand resting over your mouth, keeping you from making any noise to notify anyone of your presence.

A group of men had broken into your house while your brothers were out on business and began ransacking it. Your aunt had pulled you into a closet with her as soon as she had gotten wind of what was happening and hid the two of you behind an old pile of jackets.

“Shh, hush now,” She whispered as quietly as possible into your ear, “It’s alrigh’. We’re gonna be alrigh’.”

The walls muffled the exact words being spoken by the group of men, but you could still hear their voices and the sounds of their footsteps getting nearer and nearer to your hiding place.

“-thought you said the kid and old lady were still here,” You heard one of them grunt, meaning that they were a lot closer than before.

Polly held you tighter to her chest at his words.

“They are, I’ve been scouting outside this place all day and neither one of them has left.” A new voice shot back.

“Check the closets,” A third voice said, making you whimper softly.

Just then light poured into your small space, temporarily blinding you the second the door was roughly thrown open. Polly was quick to move you behind her, using her body as a shield against your own.

“I found them-“ He was cut off by the sound of multiple gunshots going off at once that automatically made your ears begin ringing, making it near impossible to hear anything else.

Slowly, you tried to peek around your aunt's body, but she quickly pushed you behind her once more, “Don’t look.” You could barely make out her words over the constant ringing.

“Giver ‘er ‘ere, Pol.” A voice- Tommy’s, you think- spoke through the haze, and you were carefully passed into the arms of your older brother, who maneuvered you in such a way that you couldn’t see the body’s that lay scattered all over the room, your other brothers standing over them to ensure that the job was done.

“You’re alright,” He whispered soothingly in your ear, striding out of the room with you as you desperately gasped for air and gripped onto his shirt like a lifeline, “You’re alright, I’ve gotcha now, I’ve gotcha.”

Sure, you’ve had scares in the past- it came with the line of work your family was in- but nothing compared to the heart gripping terror you experienced for the first time that day.

Of course, your family saved you just in time, though. Just like they always did.

Then you are set with a capital J

“Well, don’t you look fancy,” Arthur commented as you happily skipped into the kitchen.

You giggled a bit with a nod of your head, moving past where he and John sat at the table to grab and apple from the counter.

“What’s the occasion?” Your other brother piped up, glancing up from his own breakfast.

You couldn’t help but roll your eyes teasingly at the two men, “I don’t need a reason to dress up,” You informed them, “I’m going to school! All the girls dress up now at school!”

John’s eyebrows shot up, “Oh, and you’re doin’ what all the other girls are doin’ now?”

A hum left your lips as you floated over, placing a kiss on each of their cheeks before joyfully leaving the room.

Tommy entered just as you were leaving, receiving a large bear hug from you before you continued on your way, singing a song quietly to yourself.

“I don’ think I’ve ever seen anyone that happy to be goin’ to school.” The man commented.

“Tommy… I’ve just had an awful realization,” Arthur looked up at his brother with wide eyes, taking his little brothers raised eyebrow as a sign to continue, “I thinks n/n is growin’ up.”

“And what makes ya say that?”

“She’s goin’ to school all dressed up becuase it’s what all the other girls be doin’ now,” Arthur was talking with a horrified look on his face, “And I don’t like it, Tommy.”

The man rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, “She’s just dressing up a bit, Arthur, it’s not the end of the world. You can start worryin’ when she comes around talkin’ about boys, eh?”

“Boys?” Arthur paled even more, “I didn’ even think of that part.”

Which you'll never forget ‘til they cart you away

“Hey, hey, what’s the matter?” John asked softly, worry painting his features as he immediately dropped onto the couch next to you.

You had your head in your hands and tears were falling down your cheeks when you looked up, startled by your older brother's presence. You hadn’t thought anyone was home.

“John,” You immediately moved to wipe your tears away, but he gently caught your wrists, halting your movements.

“What’s wrong?” He asked again, making sure he was looking you in the eyes as he spoke.

You sniffled slightly, shrugging harshly and trying to avert your gaze from his.

“Y/n,” He prompted, “I just wanna help ya.”

A sigh fell through your lips and you realized that it wouldn't hurt to just tell him, there was nothing he could do to change it anyway.

“A couple girls were making fun of me in school today.” You whispered, wrapping your arms tightly around yourself as you spoke, “I was called on for a question on the homework and I got it wrong.”

His eyebrows set in a furrow, “So they made fun of ya for it?”

You nodded tearfully, biting down on your lip and dropping your head in defeat.

“Hey, hey,” He cooed softly, gently taking your chin and moving it so you were looking at him again, “Wanna know what I want ya to do?” He didn’t wait for you to respond, “I want ya to go back to school tomorrow and show those girls exactly who they’re dealing with.”

It was then your turn to allow your eyebrows to dip in confusion, “Who?”

“You.” A smile tugged at his lips, “You’re a Peaky fuckin’ Blinder and nobody gets away with messing with one of them.”

You smiled now, tears having stopped springing from your eyes, “I’m a Peaky Blinder.” You repeated.

He grinned, reaching over ruffling your hair affectionately, “And don’ ya ever forget it.”

When you're a Jet, you stay a Jet

“Happy Birthday,” Tommy smiled one of his rare, real smiles with an even rarer twinkle in his eyes, “I hope ya like it.”

You were finally fourteen, and your whole family was gathered around the living room to celebrate, passing gifts upon gifts into your arms.

A gasp escaped from your lips as you opened the lid to the box and peered inside, “I-it,” You choked out, “It’s wonderful.”

You gently placed it to the side and sprang forward, throwing your arms around your brother's neck and bringing him in for a tight hug.

“All right, all right,” He said playfully, “Try it on now.”

Carefully, with the rest of your family gazing at you in wonder, you took out your very own Shelby family, Peaky Blinders cap.

Something that looked much like a distant memory flashed over Arthur and John’s faces instantly the second you placed it upon your head.

“Do ya remember when-“ John began, and Arthur nodded.

“When what?” You echoed in curiosity, looking at a nearby mirror and adjusting your new present.

“When the last time you wore one of those, it was too damn big for your own head,” Arthur laughed loudly at the memory.

Tommy chuckled fondly, “I remember.”

You looked over your shoulder and gave them wide grins, causing their hearts to squeeze tightly at the deja vu they were getting from seeing you like that.

When you're a Jet you’re the top cat in town

“M-Miss. Shelby,” A store owner stuttered out as soon as you opened the door to his bakery.

“Morning, sir.” You greeted kindly, having learned a long time ago not to take his fear to heart. No matter how nice you tried to be to people, no one was able to see past your family name. And oftentimes, you wouldn’t even complain.

“I- I have some freshly baked cakes!” His eyes widened at his own realization before quickly scrambling into the back and coming back less than a moment later with the treats in hand.

You shot him a smile, picking them up after he slid them along to counter towards you before reaching for your pocket for some money.

“Oh, oh no, Miss. Shelby.” He shook his head, “It’s on the house.”

A frown pulled on your lips, “But, sir-“

“It’s the least I could do,” He insisted, “Please, just take it.”

Hesitantly, you nodded before thanking him and making your way out of the store. Of course, this wasn’t even the first time something like this had happened to you or any other one of your siblings.

While you found it slightly worrisome, Finn found it downright hilarious.

You're the gold-medal kid, with the heavyweight crown

“Hey, oi, Johnny boy,” Arthur whispered, making the man look up from the newspaper in his lap, eyes following to where his older brother had inclined his head.

He felt a smile slowly grow on his face when he realized what he was looking at.

You were cuddled up between some pillows under a blanket on the couch nearby to them with an open book in your lap and your head dropped lazily to the side, having fallen asleep while reading.

“Should I wake her?” Finn asked mischievously from his seat beside John, who reached up and gave the boy a good whack on the back of the head, “I was only jokin’.” He grumbled.

“Let ‘er sleep,” Arthur said quietly, “Besides, she looks so peaceful right now.”

When you're a Jet, you’re the swingin'est thing

“I will push you in, Finn Shelby, don’t test me,” You warned as the two of you walked side by side on a bridge that hung a couple feet above the river.

The boy snickered, playfully shoving his shoulder against yours, “I’d like to see you try.”

A wicked glint settled in your eye, but it was gone before Finn could have been able to see it.

Deciding to wait until he let his guard down again, you allowed a few moments to pass in silence as you walked side by side, pretending to study the water.

Then, without giving him so much as a slight warning, you used all your force and sent him flying into the water down below.

You were holding onto your stomach and doubling over while cackling by the time he resurfaced, jaw dropped and a look of betrayal on his face, “Look whatcha did!” He complained.

“Oops,” You giggled before making your way over to the edge and sticking out your hand to help you up, feeling only a little bit bad about what you did.

He swam over to you and took your outstretched hand, but instead of using it to pull himself out like you thought he would, he yanked down on it hard, sending you toppling right after him into the freezing water.

You gasped as soon as you resurfaced, and he was now the one laughing at the look on your face, “That’s what you get!” He cheered.

Glaring at him slightly, you hit your hands against the surface, sending a big wave straight into his face.

He sat there, frozen for a moment, before slowly turning to face you fully and splashing you right back in the face.

Little boy, you're a man, little man, you're a king

You couldn’t help the wide smile that grew on your face as soon as you sat down at the table. All around you, your brothers and aunt chatted loudly amongst themselves whilst enjoying the first dinner you had all together in a couple of months.

“What’s got ya smilin’ over there?” Tommy asked from beside you.

“Just really happy that we’re all together right now,” You replied without so much as allowing your smile to falter.

His lips twitched upwards, “Yeah, me too, sweetheart. Me too.”

Shelby Family 💚- @kiyomi-uchiha777

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skyeeuphixia · 8 months ago

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𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚗 𝚜𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚋𝚢 // 𝚑𝚘𝚠 𝚍𝚘 𝚒 𝚜𝚊𝚢 𝚐𝚘𝚘𝚍𝚋𝚢𝚎?

finn shelby x sister oc (florence)

summary: in which finn is left forever broken

⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺

warning/s: blood, violence, death, grief, emotional distress

words: 1010

⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺

When Finn and Florence Shelby were born, they instantly became the pride and joy of their families lives. They were loved by and doted on by their older siblings, the two of them could get away with close to anything, even Tommy would crack when he watched as his baby sister looked up at him with her big blue eyes that matched his so perfectly.

Despite each of them having particularly close relationships to different older siblings, Florence being especially close to Tommy, and Finn close to Ada, no one could deny the bond the two held with one another, they all saw it from the day that they were born and the two of them grabbed each other’s hands as they slept in their cot. Being twins they were connected on a deeper level than normal siblings. Aunt Polly pointed it out days after their birth. If Florence cried, Finn would cry. If Finn was happy, Florence was happy.

“They can feel each other’s feelings” she claimed.

For a while, the other Shelby’s brushed off their eccentric Aunt, they were babies reacting to the world around them, of course one would start crying if a baby started screaming in their ear. But as they grew older, their Aunts words became truer and truer. The twins would occasionally finish each other’s sentences, or say things at the same time, they could predict the others feelings even when they weren’t around each other. They couldn’t feel the others pain, but if Finn was in pain, physical or emotional, Florence knew, and vice versa.

They never provided much explanation as to what it was they felt, they simply placed their hands on their hearts stating that ‘they could feel each other’.

“Gypsy twin magic” is what they called it.

As the twins grew older, their differences emerged. Finn was street smart, Florence was book smart. Finn wanted a dog, Florence preferred a cat. Finn was eager to be more involved in the business, Florence wanted to be involved with business as little as possible. But despite their differences, they were just as close as when they were children. At 16 years old, they had never spent more than 24 hours away from each other. You would never see one twin without the other and if you did, something was likely very wrong, especially with recent events. Ever since Tommy’s wife, Grace, had died and things had been getting more tense against the Changretta’s, the twins had been ordered to never leave each other’s side and to protect one another, which they didn’t need to be told twice.

However it made moments like this more frustrating. Family meetings had to take place somewhere different every time they were held, it lowered the risk of the Changretta’s targeting them all at once, as they wouldn’t know where they are, Florence, ever the good girl of the family was often first to the meetings, and could almost always guess when Finn would come crashing through the door, panting dramatically as if he had sprinted a 5k. But now, the family had to wait for the two of them to arrive at the Garrison together. And Tommy was getting impatient.

“They should have been here by now,” Tommy says as he paces the room, more on edge than ever.

“’ave a bit of patience Tommy.” Arthur calls out, already half way finished a glass of whisky, “They’ll be in ‘ere any moment, Flo dragging Finn by the ear, scolding ‘im for making her later,”

Their aunt however was less convinced. She was good at sensing when things were wrong, and the pit in her stomach was growing more and more as the twins refused to appear, “Somethings not right,” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper.

Then, as if summoned by the collective fears of his family, Finn stumbled through the door. His face was deathly pale, eyes void of any emotion other than pure shock, but most significantly, in his arms, he was carrying Florence’s lifeless form. Her skin was as pale as ever, and she was drenched in blood from a bullet wound in her forehead, that was staining Finn’s white shirt.

Finn had barely processed what happened, he remembered hearing a gunshot, running to where he knew his sister was, and shooting his own gun in anger, that was all he could remember, but hearing the horrified gasps from his family, everything in his brain clicked. He didn’t hear himself scream, or the pain in his knees as he dropped to the floor, all he could do was sob as he desperately clutched his sister and held her close to him, desperately willing for her to wake up and end this nightmare.

The rest of the Shelby’s watched the scene in horror. Ada was sobbing into Johns side, as he held onto her burying his face into her hair to hide his own tears. Arthurs fists were clenched in fury, hardly being able to keep himself from smashing everything in the garrison.

Tommy’s ever cold and distant look had contorted into anguish at the loss of the sister he held so dear, “Not Flo…” he whispers, a quiet plea to whatever higher power there was to give her back to him.

Aunt Polly was the only one who could will herself to move over to the twins, kneeling down next to Finn, holding as much as he’d let her and placing a gentle kiss on the crown of his head, trying to hold herself together for him.

“I only left her cause I forgot my cap,” he whispered, his voice shaky and laced with guilt and self-hatred, “I knew Poll…I knew something was wrong, I could feel it…here,” he said, as he pressed a trembling hand to his heart, his sisters blood staining a red handprint, “It felt like I was dying, and then it vanished…”

“She’s gone…I can’t feel her anymore,”

And the family knew, then and there, the twin flame had burnt out,

and Finn would never be the same.

⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺

(fin)

#finn shelby #peaky blinders #finn shelby x sister #thomas shelby #arthur shelby #john shelby #ada shelby #polly gray #peaky blinders imagine #shelby sister

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shreksstepfather · 3 months ago

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Liking Gray Wing not in the "he's wise and did nothing wrong" kinda way but in a "characters who sabotage their interpersonal relationships and defend heinous actions for the sake of someone who doesn't care if they live or die are really interesting" kinda way

#gray wing #skystar #clear sky #warrior cats #dawn of the clans #on my first read of the dotc i didn't notice how terrible pretty much everyone is #but upon seeing some posts w/ excerpts from the books that i just overlooked... yikes?#gray wing did some pretty bad stuff and he really isn't the uber-wise nice guy that the fandom makes him out to be #but the fact that he hangs onto clear sky's ideals and defends him constantly is waaaaay more interesting to me #bro didn't care that clear sky killed someone for no reason. he just wants to defend his brother.#maybe for an ounce of validation? maybe because they grew close after their sister died? i don't know #fun to think about

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sister-lucifer · 29 days ago

Note

I love your work ever since I saw it on my fyp it’s very unique I would like to ask if you could make some cloudy stars designed dividers? :D

☁️Cloud + Star Dividers⭐️

please like, reblog, & credit if you use!

[DIVIDER REQUESTS ARE OPEN!]

DNI: TERFS, endo, proship, pro ana, nazi, MAPs, zoophiles

tag list: @ghostboneswrites2 @savanaclaw1996 @lordhavemercyyyyy @bloodythornsandskulls @noteverystarisasun

@und3ad-mutt @ribbed-scythe @idkwhatto-namethis @nothers @yourlocaltrasheater

@ang3l-d1nn3r

[if you’d like to be on the tag list for dividers, please leave a message in my inbox]

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januaryembrs · 4 months ago

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YOU CAN HEAR IT IN THE SILENCE | Spencer Reid x Prentiss!Reader [9]

description: the TWO big steps you take together.

word count: 13.5k

trigger warnings: entire mr scratch episode including drugging and suic!de, gore, violence, blood, mention of Diana's schizophrenia, mention of hotch's upbringing

author's note: lets do this again UGH. also set throughout season 10 so even though it seems like a jump its been a whole year bcus I can't write about every day my babies spend together.

previous chapter | series masterlist | next chapter

‘Cause you can hear it in the silence, you can feel it on the way home, you can see it with the lights out,

You’re in love. True love,’

The one where you meet his mom. [you have the parenthood talk]

She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, her thumbnail instinctively picking at the side of her forefinger as her eyes trailed over the dress in the mirror.

It was a little too chesty, were the sleeves too short? Would his mom not like that it was backless? Backless meant suggestive to some people. Would she hate her piercings? She could take out a couple of her earrings just for one day, cover the hole where her nose ring slipped in with foundation easily.

Smile, she needed to remember to smile, not that god awful resting bitch face that Elizabeth used to say looked like she’d sucked a lemon between her cheeks. Smile. No, not like that, that looks fake and awkward.

Was her make up too much? She would hate for Spencer’s mom to think she looked like a hooker. A cheap one at that.

She felt his hands on her shoulders before the throes of her vicious mind could nab her once more, and her eyes trailed behind her in the reflective, if not slightly fingerprinted, mirror.

“You’re thinking loud,” Spencer said as if it was a fact, though that tended to be the way with him, since he knew damn near everything there was to know. Especially about her. “Why are you so worried, it’s my mom. Besides, what’s not to like about you?”

She huffed, shaking her head even though she really tried her best to give him a smile, instead turning to look down at her hands with wincing, cynical twinge of her lips.

“Maybe my tattoos or my make up or my slutty dress or my piercings that make me look like I just raided Penelope’s collection of ‘goth chic jewellery’, her words not mine,” She said pessimistically. She didn’t want to dampen the mood, honestly she was looking forward to the woman who graced the world with Spencer Reid (she wondered if a handshake or a hug would be appropriate, she would ask Spence in the car she decided,) “People don’t tend to see me the way you do, honey, I can be blunt and rude and snappy and cold. And it’s your mom, she’s like the most important person in the world to you.”

“She’s joint first, actually” Spencer corrected, trying to lift her spirits even a little. He knew none of the things she was saying were necessarily true. He suspected that voice that had overcome her was not her own at all, more likely her own mother nagging into to her for years to sit up straighter, smile more, make an effort to network and socialise, or any other piece of shit observation about how she acted for Elizabeth to badger her about.

But then she smiled at him, her eyebrows drawn together a little like she guessed he was lying or perhaps sugarcoating things.

“You’re allowed to have her first, you know,” Bugsy reassured him, her eyes melty and soft as she looked at him and he nodded, wrapping his arms around her stomach, almost like he was trying to suck the negativity out of her whole body through diffusion of their skin alone. “She’s your mom,”

“I know,” Spencer said simply, their eyes never breaking the gaze at one another, and Bugsy felt herself warm inside when she saw just how besotted his forest hues were, “Please stop worrying, she’s going to love you,”

“You can’t know that for sure,” She pushed back, because when had she ever allowed herself to enjoy a good thing when she had it. She knew she was being somewhat of a Negative Nancy, and she didn’t mean to be, truly. But Diana Reid was possibly the most significant person in Spencer’s life, despite what he said. And Bugsy was… Bugsy. All teeth and chaos and bite and vicious tongue when she didn’t mean to be.

If Diana didn’t like her, she wasn’t quite sure she’d be able to look at Spencer again without blurting out the million ways she’d try to make it up to him.

“Oh, I do know for sure actually,” He said, spinning her around so he could see her first hand, not in a reflection or a mirror image, and she smiled despite herself, pressing into his lean body and taking a big whiff of his freshly washed clothes. It was the same detergent she used, the same one he’d always used, and yet it was so Spencer it made her skin crawl with what she thought felt like warm goosebumps.

“Oh yeah?” He nodded proudly, and she progressed to a grin, her chin leaning against his chest as she spoke, and he stroked her neatly braided hair away from her face to see her better, like he’d won the second he saw her smile properly, “How do you figure that one out, wonder boy?”

“I’ve mentioned you in almost every single letter I’ve written to her for three whole years. When she saw the photo of you I sent her, she asked if I’d cut you out of a vogue magazine,” Spencer said and she burst out laughing. He couldn’t say he blamed his mom, the photo he’d sent had been one of Bugsy’s best, but then he’d be willing to argue all of them were just as newsworthy as the last. And nothing compared to the real thing. “You make me happy, happier than I ever thought I was allowed to be. Believe me, I know she’ll love you, because I love you,”

Bugsy smushed her face into his sweater to hide her modesty, and she pressed a small, barely there kiss to where her lips met even if he wouldn’t feel it.

“Does my hair look okay?” She checked again, her voice muffled by his thick knitted clothes, and he pressed a kiss to her forehead, stroking a gentle hand down her spine.

“You look beautiful,” He said softly, pulling her away from his body and holding onto her right hand, “Give me a spin,”

He lifted her hand above her head, despite the fact she seemed reluctant and embarrassed, “Spence,”

“We’re not leaving until you give me a spin,” He teased, and his smile was infectious as she twirled around beneath his grasp, the long, floral, sundress fanning out around her knees, “And back again!”

“Spencer-” She said with a chuckle, but he seemed to ignore her, or judging by his smile that spread across his whole face he didn’t care.

“Sorry, it’s just the rules,” He said, though she was almost certain there wasn’t ever such a thing as a rulebook on how to make your girlfriend less of a whiny bitch.

He spun her back around, and by the time she whirled around to face him a second him, his arm dropped down to secure around her waist, yanking her towards him to press a scorching hot kiss to her lips.

She kissed him back, her tongue trailing against his lip and Spencer’s obscenely large hand released her waist, trailing up her sides to cup her cheeks. Spencer kissed her like she was sucking air right out his lungs, like he was receiving life saving medicine, like he was being graced by an angel, a non-believer, a man of science reaching out to the white gates of heaven as if they were about to disappear under his touch.

They parted with a small smack that reverberated in the bathroom, and Bugsy looked at him as if he’d infected her with a drug, because truthfully that was how his touch, his kiss, made her feel.

They settled in his car, a few soft and loving affections later, because she really did look beautiful and he could apologise for smudging her lipstick another time, and Spencer it was the first time in a long time that Spencer felt like his future was laid out in front of him.

–

She fretted some more in the lobby, the woman behind the desk at the sanitarium lighting up at the sight of Spencer walking towards her with a smile.

“Dr. Reid,” She enthused, noting the woman next to him that squoze a book to her chest tightly like she wasn't sure what her fingers might do if they were let loose, “She’s been so excited to see you, her doctors said she’s responding well to the new medication,”

“I heard, I’m glad to hear she’s feeling calmer,” He said, his eyes trailing past the brunette who tapped away at her keyboard idly, “Where is she?”

“She’s just in the sunroom. She’s been learning how to crochet, just like you said,” The receptionist smiled kindly at Bugsy, who looked all but terrified, though she hid it well through tight lips.

Spencer nodded, reaching up to put a hand between Bugsy’s shoulder’s to lead her through the lounge area where a few other residents watched a black and white movie.

“Are you sure my make up looks okay, my mascara hasn’t ran has it?” She whispered, because a few other people, some even her age, were sitting in comfy armchairs flicking through books.

Spencer smiled at her, because she was so cute when she was nervous, usually it was the other way around, “You look lovely, you always look lovely,”

“I believe that’s what’s called voter bias, Dr Reid,” She said, because jokes and wit always seemed to release the pressure on her head when she was stressed.

He chuckled, opening the door to a large room filled on all sides with windows, and the cosy heat hit her in the face, “Not if what I’ve said is a verifiable fact.”

“Who’s your secondary source, Dr?” She said, because they seemed to fall into a nerdy sort of teasing when they were like this. Facts and figures were predictable, getting your boyfriend’s mother to like you based entirely on your personality was not.

“My mom,” Spencer said, and her head whipped to his, ready to protest when he led her to the corner of the sunroom, where a woman sat with her ocean blue eyes screwed up in concentration where two blush pink hooks were crossing and bobbing between a cream thread of yarn, “Mom,”

Her eyes flew up from where she sat, immersed in the delicate movements. Spencer had said a few weeks ago her hands were becoming stiff on her new tablets, that the side effects were making her circulation poor and so Bugsy had been out to help him pick up a crochet kit from Walmart the very same day.

“Mom, this is Bugsy,” He said, and it was his turn to be almost shy as he gestured to the young woman. “The girl I was telling you about,”

Diana stopped for a moment, as if assessing the new face, the way her hair fell around her ears, and Bugsy clutched the hardback tighter to her chest, thinking that maybe she should have gone for something a little fancier than the small piece of twin that wrapped around the present. First time meeting his mom and this was the best you could do, really Bugsy? Where’s the flowers or even another ball of yarn to keep her occupied?

Bugsy swore her breath caught, her brows furrowing together worriedly as she went to hold a shaky hand out to Diana, but then second guessed herself when she wondered if the loathing of spreading germs was shared between Spencer and his mom. She’d forgotten to check when they were in the car- stupid- stupid girl.

“H-hello, Mrs Reid,” She said quietly, shakily, holding out the book to the woman. Diana Reid looked good for her age, considering Spencer had told her on numerous occasions that she struggled to pretty herself up the way she used to before her Schizophrenia had spiralled. But her hair was a warm blonde with only small traces of grey in it, short around her neck likely for practicality, and despite the fact her face seemed somewhat grumpy, though Bugsy would describe her as lost more than anything, she lit up like a damn firework on the fourth of July the second she saw her son.

“Spencer!” She exclaimed, holding a hand out for her son to take, which he did so without hesitation. Bugsy thought she might be going in for a hug, maybe that she’d missed the hint that Bugsy was trying to greet her, which the young girl didn’t mind one bit. She was well aware she was stepping on their time together, “Help me out of this chair, I left my glasses in my room, I want to see her,”

Bugsy felt heat rush to her cheeks as Diana all but threw her crochet set to the little table beside what seemed to be a lukewarm mug of coffee, and Spencer helped her out of the recliner, Bugsy holding out another hand in case she needed it. She was tall once she stood to full height, taller than Bugsy would have thought she would be, and hands were on her shoulders the second Diana had released her son.

“Oh, look at you!” Diana exclaimed, and Bugsy tried not to falter with embarrassment under her words. But his mother’s hands were soft, if not rough on the tips where she had spent her life flicking through pages on pages of literature, “I’ve always told Spence he was a looker but, my god, you’re a catch even for him,”

“Mom,” He said indignantly, but Bugsy chuckled through flaming cheeks. Diana waved him off in favour of smiling at the girl, and the second she met eyes with the woman who had raised Spencer Reid she saw where he got his good heart from.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs Reid,” She stumbled over her words, trying for a second time to give her the book, and Diana looked almost aghast that she had brought her a present, “Spencer said you’d finished all your books they let you keep here so I bought you one of my favourites-”

“How could I resist The Great Gatsby,” Diana said, running a polished thumb over the gold printed writing, a small smile playing at her lips, “I’ve been meaning to brush up on Fitzgerald,”

Spencer smiled at his mother, who seemed more full of life than she had in weeks, before she waved her hand in front of the two of them, and Bugsy wondered if she had done something wrong.

“And none of this Mrs Reid crap. You're not the IRS, Diana is just fine, honey,” She said, and Bugsy grinned, nodding in agreement with the older woman. “Mom is even better if you’re feeling brave,”

“O-okay, absolutely,” She said, smiling even wider when Spencer seemed almost aghast his mother was being so brazen. Though he needn’t be so prudent, Bugsy was certain she loved her already.

“And how is my big strong FBI agent?” Diana turned to her son finally and he shook his head, his eyes full of boyish affection for the women.

“There’s dozens of words I think would perfectly describe me yet ‘big and strong’ fall nowhere in that category, mom,” He said, smiling widely at his mother who rolled her eyes and nudged him with her shoulder. She seemed more like herself than she had in years, her eyes were clearer, her nerves weren’t shot like usual. She seemed like the mother from his best memories.

“Alright, how does ‘contumelious’ work out for you?” She cracked back, and he laughed, shaking his head and he caught the pure warm grin radiating from Bugsy’s direction at the two of them.

And Bugsy saw in the kind, devoted eyes that hid behind Diana’s fluffy white, blonde hair where Spencer got his gentle soul; as if no amount of medication or illness would ever make his mother let up on the tenderness she held for him. She felt it in the air alone, the way they fell into sync only blood could ever achieve, and for a flash of a thought, Bugsy wondered if Spencer would be so doting on their children.

And for the first time all day she didn’t need to second guess herself. She already knew the answer.

–

“And this was Spencer in the mathletes,” Bugsy’s hand flew to her mouth to suppress the ‘aww’ threatening to tumble from her lips, because she knew from the way his cheeks had turned a bright rouge that he was embarrassed and she hated to make him feel like she was finding humour in his shame.

It was easy to see which one was him from the offset. Three college boys who had probably spent the best part of their first years begging sorority girls to fuck them and eating funny brownies stood at the back, atleast in their late teens judging by their late-adolescene acne and braces. Yet there, standing in front of them dressed in a tweed sweater vest and pressed brown trousers as if he was a small grandpa, was a scrawny pole of a boy, peeking out from behind a sweeping fringe in need of a trim and a pair of bubble-like glasses.

He was smiling wide, holding some sort of trophy in between his slender, little fingers, and Bugsy could bet her entire savings that he had answered almost all of his team’s questions.

“Spence,” She murmured, taking the photo gently between her fingertips where she sat in between her partner and his mother at the foot of Diana’s bed, “You were so cute,”

“You can just say dorky,” He corrected, fighting the urge to cover his cheeks with his hands, because he could feel the way they gave away his self-consciousness.

But she shook her head, leaning into him with adoring eyes as she stared at the photo, “No, I mean cute. Look at your little hair, you were so tiny- aw!”

He laughed awkwardly, not missing the way she put a hand on his leg in reassurance, and Diana handed her another photo of a toddler with thick dark hair, those hazel eyes she loved, huge and round on the baby's smiling face. Bugsy melted when she saw the milk teeth gleaming in the midst of his laugh, yet she burst into sheepish giggles when she realised baby Spencer had no clothes on.

Spencer’s eyes widened when he saw the thing dangling between his legs as the picture captured him crawling towards where Diana had the camera. “Mom!”

Diana rolled her eyes, producing another one of Spencer watering the flowers with the garden hose, barely one year old in a bucket hat and, yet again, nothing else. “Oh, Spencer, don’t give me that, look how cute those little butt cheeks were,”

Bugsy slapped a hand over her mouth, her brows pulling together at the endearingly innocent photos, and she met Spencer’s gaze again, the urge to squish his cheeks in between her fingers suddenly itching her hands. Though, judging by the embarrassment in his expression, he wouldn’t like it very much even if she did mean the best of intentions.

“You were so adorable,” She confessed, looking back down at the two tiny, round butt cheeks that made something well in her chest because it was Spencer, so small and vulnerable and helpless. She turned to Diana, her eyes wide with love, “How did you not want just millions of them?”

The woman laughed, leaning against Bugsy and palming off another photo, this time of Spencer in swimming trunks at the beach, likely around two or three, a line of white sun cream running down his nose and cheeks as he looked to be grumbling about the sand on his legs.

“Because I knew none of them could ever be as special as my Spencer, and then that just wouldn’t be fair on them.” She said simply, and Bugsy smiled at the woman, truly smiled, because despite everything her illness set against her, she loved her son more than anything in the world. “You don’t win the lottery and then pawn in your rings for a couple bucks, now do you?”

Bugsy chuckled, shaking her head. Elizabeth had never been so doting on her. She knew she shouldn’t think about her, shouldn’t compare the two of them because they weren’t similar even in the slightest. Diana was a single mother of a deadbeat husband who left, she battled a disease day in-day out that threatened to eat away at her brain, her memories of her son who thought the world of her, and she was still a better mother than hers had ever been.

Part of her felt that bitter sting that never really left her since she was thirteen, since she saw the maid at breakfast time more often than she ever saw her mother, the kid that got picked up and dropped off in another country like she was furniture, a barbie doll for her mother to primp and clean and boast about her big brain to her colleagues without ever showing a semblance of affection for the girl reading material eight years above her grade level.

Diana was living proof that no matter what, it’s not a challenge to love your children the way Elizabeth had always made it out to be, that she was difficult to love even for her own mother.

Bugsy bit the emotion back, knowing it was just the baby photos ramping up her hormones, and felt herself fall perhaps even more in love with Spencer Reid when she saw the photo of him at Christmas dressed as a Jedi.

–

She was quiet on the way home, her stomach warm with fondness, her hand warm with his palm as they held hands on top of the gearstick.

She watched the last of the sun peek through the trees in a cantaloupe orange and candy-floss pink swirl, and she let herself close her eyes under the day’s worth of laughter.

“What are you thinking about?” Spencer said after a moment, giving her hand a small squeeze when she didn’t answer right away, and he wondered if she may have even fallen asleep, feeling immediately guilty for waking her.

She looked at him with an uneasy smile on her face, and his brain threw up a million different reasons for it, almost all of them making him worry.

“I know my mom is a lot,” He said, his tone jittery and she started shaking her head immediately, forgetting he couldn’t see where he was looking at the road, “I know she’s-”

“She’s wonderful, Spencer. God, no, it’s not that. I loved her,” Bugsy cut him off, and his shoulder’s immediately sagged in relief. She moved her hand to tuck a single lock of hair behind his ear, and he nudged into her touch on instinct.

“Then what’s wrong?” He asked, his brows pulled together in worry as they came to a red stop light, and he put the Beetle into neutral. He looked over at her then, and he saw the way the grin had slipped off her face, leaving her with something oddly unreadable, though if he had to put a name to it, he would say doubtful, and she swallowed thickly.

“Do you ever worry…” She paused herself, because she already could see their picture perfect day spiralling down the drain like yesterday’s woes, “It’s nothing, just forget I said anything,”

“No, tell me,” Spencer insisted, and the road around them seemed to hold its breath waiting for her reply. He’d taken a nice route home, claiming he wanted to skip the eight pm traffic, whatever that was, had cut through one of those neighbourhoods they show on holiday brochures or estate agents' windows. The kind people with kids and volvo’s and yoga mom groups lived in.

Her eyes snapped out the front window when four young boys zipped past them on their bikes, their knees muddy from where they’d probably spent the day playing soccer, their clothes just as messy and torn, likely waiting to be scolded by their mothers for their recklessness. And pulling up the rear was a kid smaller than the others, jogging after them, wanting to cross the road before the light turned green, his glasses slipping down his nose with every step, and some weird, small part in Bugsy’s gut wanted to throw her arms around him and walk him home to make sure he got there safely.

Spencer’s hand was on her thigh, pulling her out of her thoughts for a second time, and she blinked a little too harshly, wishing she could just enjoy a lovely day for what it was rather than putting such a downer on things.

“I haven’t spoken to my mom since Emily’s funeral,” She said, swallowing heavily, and understanding passed over his face then. He knew he would never have with Elizabeth what they had just had with his mother. Even if she retired tomorrow and wasn’t jetting off to another country every week, Elizabeth Prentiss was a cold, shrewd woman who could make someone, mainly her daughters, feel empty just by being in the same room.

Her damning grey eyes, her tight lips that never smiled, her harsh brow.

“I don’t think she even kept any of my baby photos, none that don’t have her in them at least,” She confessed, and the lights flashed to amber, then green, and he was forced to let go of her for just a moment as he pulled off again, “I don’t… I don’t think she ever liked me.”

He had no idea what to say that would make it better. Usually he was so good at wriggling her problems out from the core, proving all her worst fears were wrong with simple logic. Yet he was at an end. Because Elizabeth had never shown any sign of loving her daughters, truly loving them beyond trophies.

“I’m sure that’s not true,” He tried, pulling over to stop at the curb because he hated speaking to her when he was distracted. “Some people just have a funny way of showing these things,”

But she shook her head, turning her eyes to her lap, “Your mom is… Amazing. And I feel like a total asshole for complaining about mine when yours is sick most of the time. And I know things weren’t great- I mean you were just a kid, you should have never had to look after her, it’s supposed to be the other way around, you know? But you’ll know she’s always loved you, like truly, truly loved you. I mean, you’re her whole world,” She rushed, like the thoughts had been bouncing around her head all day, waiting to burst out at the seams, which they had.

Spencer took the keys out of the ignition, shuffling in his seat to face her, and he only realised then she was watching where the four boys had taken off down the street on their bikes, the smallest one trailing at the back like a lost puppy.

“Don’t you ever worry sometimes I’ll be..” She started, and he knew where it was going before she forced herself to finish. Taking her hand in his, weaving his fingers between hers and squeezing them tight.

“Like your mom?” He said for her because the words were lingering in the air like alphabet soup. She nodded silently, grateful that he always seemed to know how her brain was ticking over. She reminded herself to make it up to him later, “Never,”

“But-” She started, and he grabbed her chin then, forcing her to look at him. He smiled dopily, because usually it was him who needed to be told how other people felt, and she swore his eyes had never looked so sweet.

“Never,” He repeated, feeling the smile spreading under his fingertips as it took the second turn for her to hear it, “If anything, I worry more about becoming like my dad,”

Her brows furrowed, and she shook her head again. Sometimes Spencer wondered if she knew she was so expressive. It was one of his favourite parts about her.

“Never,” She echoed back to him, and they shared a sombre smile, squeezing each others hand just that bit tighter, “I tell you what, the second either one of us starts becoming our parents, we have the right to call them a jackass,”

He laughed, nodding his head and leaning over the centre console to press his forehead to hers, “Alright, deal. Although I think I hear Freud rolling in his grave at that statement.”

She kissed him, hard, because she would never be able to tell him exactly how he made her feel with words alone. Over two hundred thousand words in the English Language, at least five other languages she could speak fluently, and yet not one of them knew how to describe this feeling. Like she had been absorbed so completely, effortlessly, by Spencer Reid. That she was disease ridden, riddled with Reid.

And the thought made her giggle into the kiss, because she would have to tell him some other time. Her hand ran through his hair, pulling him closer, and his hand skirted down to her waist to tease underneath her shirt.

They pulled away after a moment, staring with the same dazed look in their eyes.

“We have three more days in Vegas,” She started, fixing his collar and hair with idle fingers and pressing an absent peck to his lips, “Do you think we could go back one more time? To see your mom? If that’s okay with her, of course,”

And he smiled widely at her, nodding and pulling her in for another long kiss. They had a dinner reservation in a half hour, but he didn’t mind being five minutes late for once in his life, not if it meant he was with her.

The one with Scratch. [he buys a ring]

He’d walked past the jewellers three times that week on his way back from the coffee shop. Bugsy had a fair bit of paperwork to catch up on, despite him offering to halve her load with her because Hotch had already warned them once about the complaints he got from the other agents that she was using Reid’s memory as an unfair advantage, although he would argue that her brain was just as capable as his.

So, he’d been sent on a coffee run alone. He wasn’t complaining, it was just down the road, barely even a five minute walk, and it meant he got to look at the range of neatly cut diamonds in peace.

He wasn’t looking to buy it soon, at least that was what he’d told himself the first time he’d seen the pretty one in the corner. He was just having a browse, perhaps just looking at the watches they had on display and his eye had happened to fall to the women’s section below. The second time he’d stopped for a look, it was just to see if anyone had bought that one he’d seen the first time, and when he realised they hadn’t, his heart gave a somewhat relieved sigh that he decided he would confront later.

By the third time, the shop keeper stuck his head out the door, making Spencer jump.

“Either you’re buying or you’re fogging up my window, kid,” The old man’s voice was gruff, but he had kind eyes, that of a romantic, and Spencer supposed you didn’t sell a dozen engagement rings a day and not feel hopeful.

“J-just looking,” He stammered, taking a step away from the rings and double checking he hadn’t gotten any smudges on the glass, “Not to buy right now, just for future reference,”

“No one comes back that many times for future reference, son,” He said with a chuckle and Spencer hated the part of him that said that he was right, “Why not for right now?”

Spencer huffed quietly, wondering if her coffee would be cold by the time he got back at the rate he was going, “It’s still a little early. I don’t want to freak her out,”

She had been his girlfriend for one year, seven months and two weeks (and four days but who was counting). It had been her thirtieth birthday just a couple months ago, as far as he was concerned Bugsy had never dropped any hints about wanting to marry any time soon like he knew other women did at this time in their life.

He was happy where they were, in their apartment, in their semi-public relationship, with their boys that were starting to look a little grey and rickety on their paws. Spencer didn’t want anything to ruin that, even if that one ring did seem to call out to him like a siren song.

The jeweller grinned slyly, like he knew something Spencer didn’t, but he nodded at the kid nevertheless, “Well, that little number in the corner you’ve had your eye on has had two offers already, incase that sways your hand at all,”

And Spencer felt the jolt of injustice in his head at the idea of someone else taking that ring, one that he couldn’t get out of his head the entire way back to the office, one that only went away when he saw her smiling up at him.

One that only dissolved when he imagined how she would look wearing it.

–

“Tell Penelope I said hi,” Director Axelrod murmured, turning on his heel and heading back to his car as Hotch flashed a look down at the paper, the name ‘Peter Lewis’ scribbled out on the line and he passed the paper to Bugsy where she peered around his shoulder.

“Get this to Garcia, Lewis has his final victim already,” He said and she nodded, the two of them heading back to the car. Bugsy pulled her cell out her pocket, immediately calling their tech whizz where the rest of the team were at the office an hour away.

“Peter Lewis, born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida. To call him a Math genius would be an understatement,” Garcia reported, her press on nails clicking against the keyboard as she worked in the candlelight since Lewis had hacked into their electric systems.

“Where was he in the foster system?” Hotch asked, Bugsy holding the phone up over the centre console so they could both speak to their team.

“He was… ugh this WiFi hotspot is the worst,” They waited, Hotch heading for the freeway, “He was not in the foster system. He had two very biological parents and they ran the foster home until it- oh dear,”

“Looks like we found Mr Scratch,” Rossi sighed, and Bugsy’s brows furrowed, waiting for a response.

“So one of the boys in the house said Peter’s dad would dress up as the devil then the other kids would follow suit, this has to be where all the victims stayed before they were adopted and their names were changed,” JJ chimed in.

“Did Lewis’s father serve any time?” Bugsy piped up, chewing the inside of her cheek because the whole case had given her the heebie jeebies. Grown ups reporting sights of shadow monsters and waking up with dead loved ones. She thought by now she had heard it all.

“The case was pending and then he was killed in jail for being a paedophile. Peter’s residency is still listed as Florida,” Garcia said, her mouse whirling around at the speed of light judging by the soft ticks they heard on their end.

“He broke into FBI files to find someone in witness protection, did any of the kids from the home end up in WITSEC?” Hotch asked, clicking the blinker down to chand lanes and overtake the ford infront of them.

“That would be… no? No, none of them,” Garcia replied, and the team shared a confused pause.

“Who the hell is he still hunting?”

Hotch spoke up, his own mind whirring as to who could possibly be Lewis’ endgame, “Garcia, who ran the investigation in Florida?”

“Hold on, that would be Dr. Susannah Regan, who went into witness protection on a very nice estate in Columbia, Maryland,” Bugsy and Hotch looked at one another, sharing the same thought and the unit chief floored the gas pedal, knowing Regan didn’t have a whole load of time left if Peter had gotten to her already.

“Send Reid the location, we’re on our way,” Hotch ordered, and Penelope was already ten steps ahead, Rossi and JJ grabbing their vests and heading for the garage.

Bugsy hung up, checking her gun was still holstered as Hotch launched them the final five minutes to Dr Regan’s home.

And yet she couldn’t help feel like they were walking into the belly of the beast the victims had been describing.

–

Garcia hadn’t been kidding when she said it was a nice estate. By the time they’d gotten out the car, the entire street was silent, a quiet only lots of acres and high gates bought you.

“You stay behind me, we watch each other's six. We get Dr Regan and we get out, are we clear?” Hotch muttered, his eyes darling to the living room window where the curtains had been pulled closed, one single lamp left lit.

She nodded, the two of them edging towards the door that had already been left open a crack, “Crystal,”

He took a second to breath, wondering if they should wait for back up, but Savannah didn’t have alot of time, not if the unsub was already inside like he suspected, before he raised his hand up to the knocker and snapped it a couple times, pushing the door open.

“Dr Regan?”

“It’s open, come in,” The woman’s voice called, though it sounded too chipper to be authentic, some sort of uncanny valley as if it was an automated response from an answering machine.

Checking Bugsy was still behind him, he pushed on, his footsteps light and quiet, eyes scanning the large antechamber, the grand piano sat in front of a huge fireplace cold to the touch, the lights all switched off despite the owner being home.

Maybe Dr Regan was cheaping out on her bills. But Bugsy doubted it. Something in her gut didn’t sit right.

“Are you alright?” Aaron called, his torso squeezing against his vest as he scanned what he could see from the room, and she held up behind him, flicking a look over her shoulder every once in a while for movement from the other rooms.

“Agent Hotchner, I got Agent Rossi’s message,” She said, again in that cheery voice, despite her words claiming she understood she was in peril, and the sound of it made Bugsy’s chest seize with suspicion.

“Doctor, you’re in danger, you need to come with us,” She explained, her eyes squinting to see in the damning lowlight of the home.

“I understand,” That robot voice spoke, “I’m in the study,”

They paused for a second, exchanging another look before pressing on because they had no time to lose over silly hesitations. Passing through the entrance into the room lined with bookshelves on bookshelves, expensive tapestry on expensive tapestry, their heads flicked over to a frail older woman that somewhat resembled the woman they’d been sent from Penelope, when she had was freshly turned twenty five with a sparkly new bookdeal under her nose.

She sighed in gratitude when the entered, and Bugsy held back a moment as Hotch moved in, keeping her finger on the trigger, “I’m so glad you’re here, you need to see this,” Savannah produced a long, glass sharp letter opener that could easily pass for a knife with the eight inch edge of it, “He wants you to see this.”

And with that, without hesitation or caution she jammed the knife through her own windpipe as if puppeteered by a master, and Bugsy leapt forward to try stop the bleeding just as Aaron did.

Only she never got that far, because no sooner had she stepped forward a hand reached out from the darkness, grabbing her by the scruff of her hair and throwing her to the floor while she had been caught off guard. Pain exploded behind her eyes as her nose met the hardwood floor, and she swore she cracked a tooth or two. Her hand scrambled out for her gun, only to watch a large black boot stomp down on her digits that made her hiss in pain.

She heard a scuffle up ahead where Peter had managed to grab Hotch equally unaware, and she watched her unit chief tumble to the floor, smacking his head on the table on his way down.

And it was then that she smelled it. A raw chemically odour that ran up her bloodied nose, went into her mouth when she tried calling out for Hotch, and it made her cough up a thick mucus before it had even slid down her throat.

She heard shots fired, and it was enough for her to reach out for her own gun again, hoping that Lewis was distracted enough to not pay attention to her, only to realise somewhere in the scuffle he had kicked her weapon across the floor.

When had he done that? Why hadn’t she seen him? Probably because the pain behind her eyes had damn near wiped her vision into a blur of white.

It was then the nausea hit her, the vertigo washing over her like she’d stood up too fast, only she wasn’t standing up at all, in fact she was pretty sure she was on her hands and knees trying to crawl towards Hotch.

Hotch, who lay on the floor with his own eyes rolling like the room was spinning for him too, and she wondered how on earth anyone could have beaten Hotch. He was a rock, immovable, irreplaceable, forever.

“Hotch-” She garbled out, her voice tragic and weak in a way he’d never heard before.

And he opened his mouth to speak, only to find his own voice gone when he saw the figure leering over her body, a glint of a knife in his hand, and Aaron wanted to know how he had managed to emerge out of the shadows when he could have sworn Lewis was right next to him.

The drug, it had to be the drug. God his eyelids were heavy, what had they been in this house for?

But Aaron felt a scream lodge in his mouth, sounding more like a yelp, something that could have been a mix of ‘no’ and raw anger because Peter had brought one of those big black boots behind him and kicked Bugsy so hard in the gut she flew to her side like roadkill, the wind leaving her lungs with a whimper of pain, and her eyes never left Hotch’s gaze as he did so.

“Sorry, sweetheart, I’m going to need some alone time with Mr Hotchner here,” Lewis said, and before Aaron could plea or beg, he watched the man lean down and drive a swift line across her throat, as if he were simply gutting a pig, and her carotid artery was sliced clean in two, her blood spewing all over Aaron’s shoes, seeping into the floor.

And Aaron went to scream, felt the tears well in his eyes because he’d failed her, only this time, unlike Hailey, he was forced to watch every second of life trickle from her face as she bled out onto the floor, choking and clawing at the floor for reprieve.

What would he say to the team, to Spencer? What would he say to Emily?

Aaron let himself sob, shaking his head in denial and squeezing his eyes tightly shut, hoping to god medical would get here soon. It would be too late by then, he already knew it.

Bugsy was dead. There wasn’t any miracle fix or band aids that were going to fix that.

And yet in the next moment the sound of her body writhing in desperation against the floor, the sight of which he couldn’t even bring himself to watch, it had gone quiet.

And Aaron peeled his eyes open, wondering if she had passed, if she was still in pain, if she wanted someone to hold her hand as she went, and he urged his heavy muscles to do something god damnit anything to help her, except his body felt like lead and even opening his eyes was too much for him.

But there was nothing there. Not the puddle of blood he’d just watched spill over the flooring, not her hand reaching out for him, clawing at her throat for reprieve and certainly not a body of a girl he once loved like a daughter who would stay with him for a lifetime.

All of it, just… gone.

“Don’t you worry, Mr Hotchner, I’m saving the girl for later. Can’t have a pretty thing like that go to waste,” Lewis smiled toothily, and Aaron wanted to wrap his hands around the bastard’s throat, wring the life out of him until he was a crumpled mess on the floor, “But for now, it’s you and me, Aaron. And I think you should answer your phone. Your team are on their way for you,”

–

Her scream was piercing, cut through two walls. He could hear it the second they stepped out of the car. He’d all but thrown himself out the vehicle before Anderson had even stopped, probably would have barged right through the front door without even drawing his gun if it hadn’t been for Morgan grabbing him.

“Reid, Reid, no-” Derek said, even though his voice wavered, his head flicking back at the house, “You can’t just head in there without backup, it could be a trap, man,”

“She’s in there, can’t you hear her?” Spencer said, his eyes wide with terror as the sound of her screaming kicked up a whole other decibel and Spencer's stomach churned at the thought of what might be the root cause of it, “Please, Morgan, I can’t-”

He didn’t even realise his eyes had welled up at the sound alone until he couldn’t finish his words, and Derek was staring at him with an equally solemn expression.

JJ rounded the other SUV, Rossi at her tail, their guns drawn low to their thighs as they gave Derek a nod; ready to enter.

“Just promise me you’ll keep your head, Reid,” Morgan said with a cautious tone. Realistically, Spencer should have stayed back at the office with Kate. He was too emotionally invested in the case, though no one wanted to be the one to argue that with him, knowing Spencer would only fight back that they would all struggle to keep their cool once they entered the house.

Because the UnSub had Hotch and Bugsy. He’d taken family. He’d made it personal.

And then, just as Spencer nodded, unholstering his own gun and making sure his vest was tightened at his waist, perhaps the worst happened.

A shot fired from inside the house, loud and unmistakable over the deafening cries and Bugsy’s screaming stopped.

–

Spencer didn’t even remember entering the house, not really, despite his promise to Morgan. He felt like his heart was in his throat, images of Maeve’s brain matter splattered over the warehouse floor flooding his head, because apparently a revolver can cut through two heads at once and still pack a punch.

Spencer was realistic, had sprung into a clinical sort of worry that told him exactly how many times he’d told her he loved her (two thousand, six hundred and seventeen times) and that maybe that wasn’t enough. It told him the amount of kisses they’d shared could have easily been doubled if he dared to steal them more often before bed, if he’d been honest with her years before he had, if he’d just taken five minutes off his showers.

He had barely survived Maeve dying. If Bugsy was gone… there would be nothing left of him. Nothing important anyway. Just a body, limbs, a heart that would never beat again. He wagered even his blood would stop because the idea of her gone from the world had already made him cold.

He heard movement in the living room, and judging by the way Derek’s head whipped over to their right, he had too. And before they could raise their guns up to aim, Derek edging forward to kick the door in with pure, simmering rage, a voice sounded out from the other side.

“In here!”

Hotch. Hotch, who sounded like he was weeping, or at least had a frog in his throat, hummed his words almost. The men drew a breath of relief, Derek reaching forward to open the living room door, his weapon still tight in between his fingers as he pushed.

“Hotch?” He said, though Spencer’s eyes cast around the room the second he confirmed his unit chief was okay. He had a nasty gash on his head, likely from where he’d fallen, and his pupils were dilated. Drugged. “Hotch, where’s Bugsy?”

“H-he took her-” Aaron slurred, attempting to get to his feet, holding out a hand to the sofa and using the furniture to claw himself up to a stand, “Upstairs I think- I need to get her- Where’s my gun-”

Morgan rushed in to grab Hotch under his arms as Rossi and JJ burst in from the kitchen, Rossi calling out behind them for medical attention.

“Hotch, you’re not going anywhere, you need to- Reid,” Morgan yelled, but Spencer ignored him. Because he could apologise later.

Lewis had Bugsy alone, had taken her upstairs, that was what Hotch said. And Spencer couldn’t stand by and wait while they had no idea what was happening to her. He heard JJ’s footsteps pounding behind him, following him up the stairs, and he knew he should be paying more attention for any hint if Lewis was still in the building. But he didn’t. All he could think about was those screams. Raw. Guttural. Like she was being skinned alive.

His eyes trailed the empty bedrooms, any sign of movement whether it be Lewis or the woman he would trade his own life for in a heart beat if it came down to it. But there was nothing there, not even as JJ swept the other handful of rooms, leaving them with one small storage room at the end of the hallway, and the two of them cast a glance at one another.

JJ nodded to him, and he reached out a shaky hand, praying on everything in the vast universe he’d spent his entire life learning about that someone heard him begging to keep his Bugsy alive.

He slid the door open, cocking his gun up to the figure in the corner, his own weapon at his feet as he smiled in a smug manner.

JJ took stock of their surroundings, waiting for the trap they were walking into to spring, only he held his hands out in surrender.

Because he had already gotten what he wanted. He had killed Dr Regan, and taken two cops down with him.

“Where is she?” Spencer spat, handing JJ cuffs as the woman grabbed him harsher than she should do, because the pleased look on his face was infuriating, only made worse by the chuckle that bubbled out of his mouth.

“She’s in the closet,” He nodded his head to the smallest bedroom, and Spencer’s eyes narrowed, “She sure is a darling, isn’t she? So easy to tame once that smart mouth of hers was gone,”

Spencer wanted to shoot him between the eyes there and then, put him down like the sick dog he was, but instead he fled after where Lewis had directed him, because he didn’t know if she was injured herself or if it was already too late.

For once in his life, Spencer Reid knew nothing.

–

And then he saw her.

She was alive, thank god she was alive, a dent in her nose that suggested he’d thrown her to the ground face first, her knees skinned, her palms scratched.

But that wasn’t what worried him.

Because no sooner had he opened the door to the closet, reaching forward to yank her hands off her ears, or maybe pull her for a hug, or maybe break down into sobs and tell her how sorry he was he couldn’t have stopped any of it, she’d started screaming again.

He didn’t think after so many years on the job he’d ever heard something so gut-wrenching. For a moment he thought he might even be sick. Because it was full of pure terror. Not the childish fright you get from a scary movie or a loop de loop on a rollercoaster, but blood curdling fear like he had never heard before.

It was enough to have Morgan running up the stairs with his gun drawn, only to see Spencer frozen, his hands reaching out to grab her, and it was only then the agent realised Reid was trying to speak to her.

“Baby, baby it’s okay, it’s me, it’s Spencer, you know me,” He said, his lip quivering, his words warbling with tears, “Please, please come back to me, I don’t know what to do- please just tell me what to do-”

“Reid, she’s not herself. Hotch said Lewis made him see things, awful things, just like he did with the other victims,” Morgan said, holstering his gun, his own resolve crumbling when he came closer and realised she had her eyes screwed tightly shut, curling herself into a ball in the corner like a kid trying to hide from the boogey-monster.

But Spencer didn’t listen, he couldn’t accept that they had found her alive and still he had been too late, didn’t want to accept that he had her in his grasp and yet she was still living her a personal hell with no end in sight.

“Please, please, come back to me,” He sniffled, leaning forward onto his knees to try hold her hands in his, maybe get her to hear his voice and wake up from whatever nightmare she was stuck in, “Come on, I got you,”

“No, no, no, you’re not real, you��re not real,” She screeched, shoving his hands off her, and it was then he saw the dribble of tears running off her nose, “You’re not, I won’t kill him, I won’t-”

It was the ravings of a mad woman. But Spencer didn’t doubt for one second that whatever was happening inside that big brain of hers felt entirely real. He heard Morgan draw a sharp breath, turning to face away from the girl and steady himself where his dark eyes lined with woe and salt.

Spencer hated seeing her cry, hated not knowing how to help her even more, and he didn’t care if she pushed him away even more. He had to hold her, hold her and make her listen, make her understand she was safe because he was there.

Spencer swore then and there that he wouldn’t let anything touch her ever again as long as he lived.

It took everything in him to ignore the way her hands scratched at his wrists desperately, and he wondered if in her mind he’d taken the form of some beast ready to swallow her whole. But he was sure he could calm her down with some coaxing, get her to see what was real if he was patient and gentle enough. He scooped an arm under her legs that shook, and it only took him a second to realise he had peed herself in the throes of her nightmare, the sight of it causing another cry to roll from his tongue. He didn’t care about the mess, because his entire focus was on her as her hands thrashed against his chest, trying everything to get him off her, even when his other hand wrapped around the back of her head and pressed her tightly into his shoulder, squeezing her against him in his lap like she was an inconsolable child.

“Please, please, I can’t, I can’t do it again, I don’t understand,” She wailed, her voiced croaking and pathetic and he wouldn’t be surprised if she’d damaged her vocal chords, “I don’t understand,”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” He cooed softly, pressing his head next to her ear and rocking her slowly, “It’s me, it’s Spencer. I’m real, this is real,”

Her hands stopped their fight against his body, his own grip tight and not showing any signs of letting go any time soon as he waited for her to wear herself out, for her body to lose its adrenaline and slip out of its fight response. She pushed him limply a few more times, with little more than the strength of a toddler, and he knew she was coming back down, at least something close to it.

“I’m so tired,” Her voice was muddled with tears, slurring and stumbling over each other and it was then that JJ walked in with three paramedics behind her.

The blonde’s face evened out when she saw the girl was alive, nothing but a few surface wounds, but it was then she saw over Spencer’s shoulder the way her eyes were clenched tightly together, the red marks on Spence’s alabaster skin where she had put up a fight behind cradled in his arms.

And JJ knew then that something inside Bugsy had changed that day.

“I know, you were so brave, you were so brave for me,” Spencer nodded, his cheeks flooding as he tried to keep his tone strong, stroking the back of her hair softly, “You did so good, I’m so sorry,”

“I’m so tired and I don’t understand,” She said, like she was putting sentences together for the first time, and it was like suddenly the fight had been sucked out of her as she slumped against him, not even realising in her haze that she needed to be showered off desperately.

“I know, honey,” He murmured, sniffling and pressing his face into her neck, “You can sleep now, I got you,”

She hummed like she didn’t quite believe him, like she still thought he was some figment of her imagination, but she hadn’t the strength to fight back, to call his bluff. And so she drifted in and out of sleep, as the paramedics got her on a stretcher, Spencer hovering over her face incase she woke up in a panic again, cracking her eyes open right as they got her on the back of the ambulance and suddenly it wasn’t Spencer’s face she saw flitting in and out of her eyeline, it was Hotch.

“Hotch-” She tried, her hand swinging out at her side with her attempt of grabbing onto his face because there was a trail of blood down his cheek. Her voice was fried, just like Spencer had suspected, her words sounding as if she had swallowed stones, “Hotch, your head,”

“I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, I should have known he would be there,” Hotch said, as her eyes rolled back, straining desperately to keep herself awake. But she had said it herself. She was just so tired. “I shouldn’t have taken you in there,”

“I don’t think I like dreaming anymore,” She garbled childishly, a small frown on her face, and Hotch bit his lip to hide a whimper, raising a hand to her cheek, and Spencer sat at the foot of the stretcher, his neck and wrists sore where she’d clawed him, but he didn’t care.

Hotch gave her a long kiss to her forehead, one Spencer pretended not to see for the sake of paperwork, because he knew Hotch needed it, even as she’d been sucked right back into the reverie of sleep, their eyes never left her frail form, not even when the paramedics started hooking things up to her wrists to take her charts.

Spencer knew then he should have bought that ring.

–

She’d been staring at the ceiling for about five minutes before he tried to pry an answer out of her.

He’d tried not to smother her the second she woke up, had seen the hesitation and distrust swirling in her gaze when she saw him there, and he wondered if she thought it was another one of her dreams she had yet to wake up from. But he was real, and he was worried, and he loved her. God, did he love her. Loved her so much he couldn’t stand for one more moment to see her so dissociated from a world where she was his and he was hers and everyone was missing her.

“What did he make you see?” Spencer tried, his voice as soft as he could try make it without crying, because her gaze remained in her lap, the side effects of the drugs making her a little woozy, “Baby, I can’t help you unless you talk to me, please just, let me help you,”

Her throat was in agony the second she opened her mouth to speak, ripping with pain when she cleared her throat and in an instant, Spencer’s hand was on her thigh drawing comforting circles with his thumb.

“Emily was there, she came to- r-rescue me,” She started shakily, her hands trembling beneath the covers and she breathed slowly through her mouth, “S-she wasn’t wearing a vest, and when I asked her she said she’d gotten the first flight out of London to get me; and then… Doyle,”

She swallowed, and he took her hand in his, giving her a reassuring squeeze, and she tried not to let her eyes well up only to find it was already too late.

“He stabbed her like he did that night, but it was different this time. She was on the floor, trying to get away, begging me to call for help but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything, and I was trying so hard to scream and tell someone, but I couldn’t…” She sniffled, squeezing his hand so tight it hurt, but he didn’t care, “And he wouldn’t stop. He just kept going, over and over again, and I had to watch every second of it knowing it was my fault,”

The floor was red, a horrible midnight ichor of Emily’s blood seeping from her body, more blood than a person should ever be able to hold. Last time Doyle had killed her, there had been a hairline chance that she would pull through and Emily had beaten all the odds stacked against her.

But this wasn’t like last time. There was no miracle escape to Europe. Bugsy would be surprised if there was even anything left of her to put in the casket.

Her eyes were terrified as she watched Doyle drive the knife into Emily’s skin, the scream lodging in her throat for a reason she couldn’t place. She begged herself to do something, say something, tell the man that she would rip him limb from limb if she ever got the feeling back in her legs, wail for help because that was her sister, her big sister, and she’d stopped moving a while ago.

Stop, stop it, stop it.

But the words wouldn’t come out. She was frozen. Numb. Like someone had unplugged her from the socket, and the only part of her that did work was her eyes, why did it have to be her eyes.

And the blade was red, so red she thought she’d never see anything else other than red again, as so was the floor, and his arms, and Emily’s clothes. Red. All over. Driving into her stomach with a wet squelch that made Bugsy want to vomit.

Over and over and over.

She burst out crying then, the first real emotion she’d shown in days, and he was out of his chair in seconds, cradling her to his chest and shuffling to sit next to her on her bed.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it wasn’t real, baby,” He soothed, and she shook her head, her tears soaking his shirt through, and all he could do was stroke her hair down and press gentle kisses to her brow, “You were so brave,”

“And his face changed, and he wasn’t Doyle, it was Hotch. And he-he gave me his gun, and said I had to pick between him or you because one of you had to die and-and I wouldn’t do it, I wouldn’t pick-” Her words warbled into his shirt, an amalgamation of sobs and deep breaths in between sentences, but she needed to get it out. It would eat her alive if she didn’t.

“Choose,” It was Hotch’s voice. The same rough edge, same bite he used with the UnSubs they chased, the tone he’d never used on her.

She shook her head, because the feeling had tingled back up her spine into her neck by now, and with it brought her voice, her sorrow.

“No, no, Hotch, please don’t make me, I can’t, I won’t-” She sniffled, looking at the thunderous eyes of her unit chief she’d known for years. He didn’t look like himself, like someone was wearing him as a mask, yet she knew it was him by his steady hands that drew his gun from its holster. He had always been sure of himself.

How had she got here? Had Lewis got to Hotch, brainwashed him into slaughtering and terrorising his own team. Whatever it was, Bugsy knew in her chest that whatever was standing in front of her was not Aaron Hotchner.

“Me or him,” He said simply, as if it was that easy, as if he wasn’t pressing a gun to Spencer’s head.

The sob fell from her lips before she could help it, looking to Hotch’s feet where he held the love of her life bound, his eyes rimmed with fear.

“I can’t, please, I can’t,” She wept, her cheeks soaked, the salt trickling down her neck and into her shirt. Or was it blood. Had she hit her head? Why did her head hurt?

She couldn’t care, couldn’t think of anything other than the fact a monster had taken over the man she thought the world of. She knew if anything happened she would never be able to hold it against him if anything happened, even if it would always be his face in her mind killing Spencer. Because it wasn’t him. It was Lewis. It wasn’t him.

Hotch’s finger clicked a bullet into the chamber, pointing the gun at Spence’s crown, and she warbled in protest, because her legs were still numb, her body from the waist down useless, but this time she could scream and fight and yell all the ways she begged for this to stop.

“Hotch, please, please don’t. It’s not real, it’s not real,” She yawped, her chest in agony, her head spinning because she could have sworn Emily was just here, could have sworn she had been coming to save her. Why was Emily here? And she’d usually be embarrassed to admit it at her big age, but she wanted her sister. She wanted her big sister more than anything, “Hotch,”

But the man who looked and sounded like Aaron Hotchner wasn’t listening. Instead he looked at her with a steely glare, cocking the gun once more between his fingers, “If you’re too much a spoiled little bitch to choose, then I suppose I’ll have to do it for you,”

And with that he pulled the muzzle away from Spencer’s head, and before she could say another word, utter another plea, he angled the weapon under his chin, pointing it straight for his brain, and pulled the trigger.

She thinks she screamed, though her hearing had gone with a staticky blur, his blood spraying across the wall like something out of a slasher movie. She remembered howling in shock, her face soaked with ichor and salted tears, and she expected Spencer to rush forward, grab her in his arms and cradle her with soft words.

But he did. Those hazel eyes she would know in every life time stared blankly at her, all trace of terror gone from his gentle face, and in a whirl of movement, he was standing where Hotch had been, his body gone in a wisp of smoke, like he was nothing more than a magician’s magic act, like her chest hadn’t just cleaved in two at the sight of him dying.

And Spencer took his place, the lips she’d kissed a thousand times pressed into a scowl, the hands she wanted to melt under, to hold her and tell her he was going to fix everything and make it make sense again holding the loaded gun.

And at his feet, bound by the same rope he had been was JJ. Freightened, beaten. Mother, wife, best friend, sister. JJ.

“Choose,” Spencer said, but it was cold and unfeeling. Nothing like the saccharine tone he used with her, and she felt the pit of pain and suffering and dread that had opened in her stomach grow only deeper, “Me or her,”

–

She had cried for about two hours after that, and he had held her for all seven thousand, two hundred seconds of it, stroking her hair, reassuring her that Lewis was gone, the drug disposed of, and more importantly, telling her he would never let anything like that happen to her again, over his cold, lifeless body.

And he meant it. With everything in him, Spencer would never let an UnSub get so close to harming the woman he loved. Not a bruise, or a cut. Not even a scratch.

And for the three days they’d kept her in for observation she’d slept, and slept some more like she hadn’t known a wink of rest in years. And with it came the nightmares, of all the people she loved splattering their own brains over the walls, Chose, chose, me or them?

But by the fourth day she was allowed more than one visitor in her room, the spot that had solely been filled by Spencer, who would take to his grave that he’d gone home and washed their clothes of the mess she’d made when she wasn’t herself.

And on that fourth day, the team had arrived with love by the bucket load, because Bugsy was family, and family never let each other suffer alone.

“Oh, look at you!” It was Penelope first, ofcourse it was Penelope first, “Spencer, where’s that cardigan I told you to bring her, she could get cold, and that purple is so her colour- oh what am I saying, come here!”

Penelope bounded over to her bedside, not completely blind to the way Spencer tensed up as she threw her arms around the girl, fighting his urge to chide Garcia into being more gentle because he knew he’d been hogging time with her while the others had been forced to wait.

“Pen,” Bugsy said, breathing out and hugging the woman back as hard as she could, “Why do you smell like lavender?”

Garcia released her clutches (reluctantly) and produced a big tote bag of trinkets, one of which Bugsy suspected was a candle.

“Spencer said they might be keeping you another couple of days and so I brought you some goodies to cheer this place up,” She said with a chirp, reaching in her bag for two stuffed teddies, and Bugsy’s eyes melted when she realised they resembled Niko and Sergio, their colourings not quite identical but the thought had been there, “So you don’t miss your boys too much.”

Bugsy smiled, her chest spreading with warmth “Thankyou so much, Penelope,”

And Garcia went to respond, her smile wide and relieved, when another voice spoke up behind her, “Quite hogging her, mama, there are people waiting to see the kid,”

Penelope rolled her eyes which made Bugsy snicker slightly, moving out the way for Derek to lean over her bedside and give her a tight squeeze.

“You gave us a scare and a half, baby cakes,” He said with a sigh, and she hugged him back the best she could, though his arm muscles were the size of her head.

“I’m sorry,” She murmured, and he patted her on the back gently, before letting her go for the next person waiting to pounce on her.

“Don’t be ridiculous, you don’t need to be sorry,” JJ shushed, her slender arms all but crushing her into her chest, and she heard the breath of relief from the woman’s throat as she stroked a hand over her spine, “Just get better for us, okay?”

And Bugsy knew she didn’t mean the crack in her nose Peter Lewis had given her when he’d grabbed her by the nape of her neck and slammed her face into the wooden door the second Hotch’s back was turned. She meant the screaming. The nightmares. The chill that ran down her spine even now when she looked at every one of her friends and remembered that night. Picturing their brains on the wall, their blood on her face-

“Henry drew you a picture,” JJ said, pulling away and presenting her with her own gift basket full of homemade goodies and fresh pyjamas because the ones she had from the hospital were starting to itch, “He said you needed magic kisses,”

Plucking the card from the front of the wrapping, her lips quirked into a smile when she saw two stick figures, a small dot with yellow hair labelled ‘henry’ with an arrow, and a tall woman with a triangle dress and two glittery wings labelled ‘bugy’, and she was almost certain it was because they had played fairies and princes the last time she had gone over.

She flipped the page, and saw his hand writing scrawled in a green crayon, a few spelling errors here and there where he had tried his best.

‘to bugy

mommy said you wer hurt at work and needed somethink to make you happy agan.

I gave the card majick kisses before mommy takes it to the hospital to make you better agan.

also plees coud we play princes again some time soon.

Love Henry’

She chuckled, her finger stroking over the letters gently, because she could imagine him at his little blue table writing it out for her, and she handed it off to Spencer to put on her bedside table.

“Thankyou JJ,” She said earnestly, and the blonde nodded, squeezing her leg under the blanket gently before she moved over for Rossi to shuffle in, ruffling the girl’s hair because he would joke later that his back couldn’t handle all the movement when really he felt like she’d been mauled with enough affection for one day.

“You okay, kid?” He said, his eyes roving over the bruise on her nose that had bled into her eyes, and she nodded, smiling up at him somewhat convincingly.

“I’m still kicking aren’t I?” She said, and the older man chuckled, shaking his head, “Can’t get rid of me that easily,”

And it was almost true, the small seed of double planting in her own head because for a second in that house she had thought things were done for her. And Spencer had thought the same, judging by the way he nervously cleared his throat, playing with the collars of his shirt.

But Rossi nodded with her, “You kidding? There’s enough life left in you to resurrect all of my dead end marriages,” The team snickered, Rossi squeezing her arm the way grandads do, “Kate sends her love, she had to take Meg to her dance recital, she said she’s dropping by later with good coffee,”

Bugsy took a sigh of pleasure, because she would kill for a steaming cup of good coffee, and Rossi smiled at her attitude they’d all missed in the office.

And then there was Hotch, who looked damn near like a dog with a tail between his legs, sporting his own jagged forehead wound that had been stitched up, his lips pulled into a guilty pout unlike everyone else's grateful beams.

“Bugsy,” He started mournfully, and he swallowed heavily, “I’m-”

“Don’t-” She shook her head, looking up at him from where she’d sat up in the bed to accommodate everyone’s hugging, “It wasn’t your fault, so don’t give me that. He caught us both of guard,”

But he still didn’t look like he quite accepted that answer, settling to reach out and squeeze the hand that was laying across her stomach, his skin warm and rough as he held her like she was cracking glass under his touch.

She realised she had been wrong that day with Lewis, when she’d been damn near shaking in her spot because of the man who looked so much like Hotch, and she saw the fatal flaw that gave it all away.

His face was set in a frown more often than not, and it was for that reason a lot of the agents on the other floors lived in fear of SSA Hotchner’s thunderous tone and barking attitude, but Bugsy knew that couldn’t have been farther from the truth. Because while he could be cold and domineering and bossy, his eyes told her all she needed to know.

He was hurt. He was guilty. He was worried. He was mourning. He couldn’t stop seeing Peter Lewis slitting her throat in that flash of a blade. He didn’t want to take his eyes off her incase it was all a dream in itself, that they had never been found, he had never woke up, they had never saved her.

His eyes were haunted by the past twenty years of his life, perhaps what happened even before then because she wasn’t so stupid to miss how he was more rough on child beaters and abusive fathers than he was their usual UnSubs, how he was so extra gentle with Jack, how he hated raising his voice. And inside the big scary exterior, Bugsy saw a boy who only wanted to save everyone because no one was ever there to save him.

She squeezed his hand tightly in hers, pulling him towards her and he’d resisted hugging her to start with because he knew the frog would leap into his throat, but he could never deny her. And he didn’t, he simply leaned over, caressed the back of her head over his shoulder with one of his enormous palms and gave her a warm hug no monster or demon or whatever she had seen could ever be capable of.

And Bugsy felt stupid for ever believing anything she’d seen.

–

They stayed for another hour or so, Derek running out to grab Bugsy a subway because the food at the hospital hadn’t been the best, and she had devoured the steak and cheese footlong so fast Rossi’s brows had raised into his hairline. Spencer handed her a strawberry flavoured pudding pot, the lid already peeled open for her and a spoon.

And it was then a figure came rushing through the door, so fast they were surprised they hadn’t heard the heels on the linoleum and the whole room stopped for a breath, Bugsy dropped her pudding cup down her shirt, barely even making her first bite count.

“Why did no one tell me those two were screwing for eight months?” Emily barked, gesturing between the two agents that cuddled up on the hospital bed, and almost as soon as the pure joy to see her older sister had flooded her body, it ebbed again, and Bugsy rolled her eyes.

“Eleven hour flight, Em, and a buttload of head trauma and that’s all you have to say to me?” She snipped, mopping up her pudding with the edge of her finger.

“I got weekly updates about the consistency of Sergio’s bowel movements but this you missed out?” She threw her hands up, sighing in contempt and almost immediately the girls were bickering like they hadn’t spent a single day apart from one another, but then Spencer supposed that’s what happened when you were blood.

And part of him wondered just who was going to tell Emily about the proposal, the same small part that had gone and bought the ring just yesterday while she’d been sleeping.

He supposed he could live with it being his secret for a few weeks longer.

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