#all i ever want is for the kids to get to burn david all the time always so he is frank and i'm not sorry

[supermenz]

one

summary: One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do; two can be as bad as one, it's the loneliest number since the number one. Or: you're two years old when you lose your parents. Your brother, a kid himself, is unable to give you the love you deserve, and you end up at twenty being as burn out as only a Gotham University student can be. So, what do you do? Change scenery, of course.

pairing(s): clark kent x wayne!reader, bruce wayne x sister!reader, eventual platonic batfam x reader (no use of y/n)

warnings: genius kid trope, kinda doomed siblings, language, there are reference to what happens in "the batman" but there will be a merge of both comics and films, written with david!superman in mind cuz he's my pookie 😞, bruce is so pathetic i love him sm

word count: 2.2k

author's note: my first ever fanfic for the dc universe!! constructive criticism is welcomed as english is not my first language,

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Gotham has left you feeling more claustrophobic in the last few months than it did all your life. 

Maybe it’s because you’re seeing your brother slip into his work — aka beating criminals in the night as a hobby — more and more, or maybe it’s just your brain playing tricks on you. It’s probably the latter. 

You’ve never been good with emotions — it comes with being a Wayne, and surely, having your parents die before you were three didn’t help your situation. Bruce spending most of your childhood abroad with barely any contact with you also probably didn’t help either. 

“But I’m here now,” he had said once, “Am I not?”

He is, but even if you love him with all your heart, sometimes you think that you’re more like colleagues rather than siblings. Your bond is strained, with him being so closed-off and spending most of his free time cosplaying as a bat, and you having just entered your twenties, trying to get your second degree in biology after an early graduation and an even earlier PhD in engineering. And since his first big case four years ago, neither of you has been the same. 

Your relationship has never been easy. The flood and the Riddler’s case basically forced you to trauma bond over what you both had experienced, as surely no therapist would’ve wanted to hear about all the horrors that you two experienced, even for all the money in the world. Besides, it’s not like Bruce could just enter a therapist’s office and tell them that he’s the fucking Batman. 

As of now, you tend to have your… ups and downs. Both prefer to just hide behind paperwork, projects, cases or research rather than just talk some things out. Because yes, Bruce’s your brother, but that doesn’t mean he’s easy to love. There are some days where he seems to be barely able to talk to you, others where you know he just wants to scream at you for whatever reason, others where… others where you think he might just crumble at your feet and start crying. 

You don’t have a lot in common. Maybe that’s why he manages to stay in Gotham even after all that’s happened — combined with the fact that he’s spent ten years or so abroad. Maybe you need that, too. 

“I’m thinking of moving out,” you tell him during one of your rare dinners together. You have already talked about your plan to Alfred, who has shown his support towards the idea and urged you to get out of Gotham as soon as you could, but you also wanted to tell Bruce — just to be honest with him. 

Yes, he left you to study abroad all those years ago without any kind of goodbye or anything, but you have no intention of leaving him behind like he did to you — you may be grown adults now, but that doesn’t mean that being left behind doesn’t exist anymore. You doubt Bruce would ever feel left behind by you, of all people, but still. “Found a faculty in Metropolis that will be able to transfer all my credits and studies and a nice flat downtown near the Wayne Enterprises’ site there. I think I need a breath of fresh air– I need to go somewhere where the sun actually shines and not everyone has hidden agendas.”

You’ve heard good things about Metropolis, and you think that the Martha Wayne Foundation could be expanded a bit more — somewhere far from Gotham, where surely there are other orphanages, other people in need that could use some help. “I could handle Wayne Enterprise’s gestion and settle our matters there while continuing my studies in a more… calm environment.” calm is a big word for a metropolitan city as big and populated as Metropolis, but every city is calm in contrast to Gotham.  

Your brother doesn’t say anything. He just stares at you, wide-eyed, fork still raised to eat the potatoes Alfred cooked, his face blank. Is he having a heart attack? You didn’t think that you moving out would’ve been such horrendous news for him. Yes, even if you are not that close he’s still very protective, but he went to live abroad at ten. You’re twenty and you’re just… moving to Delaware. It’s not like you’re going to the fucking Himalaya mountains as he did. 

(Meanwhile, Bruce is spiraling. He wonders when the hell did his little sister grow up, how it can be that she isn’t the little girl he used to sway around anymore, and why would she ever want to move out. Is it because of him? Did something happen? 

Isn’t Metropolis in another state? Is he so tremendous that you have to move states in hopes to forget about him? Is he too overbearing? He thought he had always given you enough space to do your own thing–)

Instead of saying all of the things he’s thinking, he tries to muster up a smile, even if it comes out as a grimace. “Alright.” 

He nearly jumps out of his seat when you beam at him — is he really that obnoxious that you can’t wait to move out and have him out of your life? “Oh, I’m happy that you’re taking it well! I was afraid you’d freak out.” you get up from your seat and move over to hug him, and he chuckles nervously. “Why would I? You’re an adult, you can do what you want.” 

(What do you mean?!, his conscience screams in his head, She isn’t even twelve! Just yesterday she was talking about going to the homecoming dance with her friends–

But time has passed, and even if Bruce feels that it was particularly hard on him, he didn’t think it’d affect you too, somehow. It’s weird acknowledging something’s — someone’s — changes in the years in… so little. He had gotten so used to you being his little sister that he didn’t even think about you becoming a full on woman. He still remembers the pink bundle of blankets your parents had given him that day at the hospital, telling him to be careful with her, she’s your little sister.

When have you grown this much? Where did the time go? He swears it was just yesterday when you were admitted to Gotham University.) 

“But… a flat? Are you sure you’ll be comfortable there? It’s not exactly as big as a manor.” 

You avoid his gaze, scratching the back of your head. “Yeah, about that…”

He raises an eyebrow, “Let me guess, you bought the whole building?” 

You snap your fingers, “They don’t call you the greatest detective for nothing!” you sit back down, cutting the meat on your plate, “I plan on making the floors I won’t live in into a laboratory of sort– almost like the Batcave, y’know, so I can continue working on the models I designed undisturbed.”

When Bruce had started his crusade as Batman, you had just gotten your bachelor’s degree in engineering, and were working on your master’s degree. You had basically given him the head-start, creating the software of the Batcomputer (or of the computer, as he calls it), designed and adapted a sport’s car to the Batmobile (just call it the car, Bruce always insists) and basically modified and created every single one of the gadgets and systems he uses. 

You just hope he won’t let the Batcomputer get hacked as soon as you land in Metropolis — you spent weeks programming her and years perfecting her system. You spent so much time on her, she might as well be your firstborn by now. 

“I’ll always be a call away,” you murmur when your brother’s eyes get a little dazy, unfocused– like he’s in another world, always thinking about the worst that could happen. “You know that, right?”

Bruce blinks. “Yeah. Yeah, I– I know that.” 

(He isn't sure about that.) 

You pat his hand, mustering a smile. "Maybe you should take a break, too. Why don't you book a vacation in, let's say... the Bahamas? Just to get a bit tanned and remember what the sun actually looks like."

He shakes his head. "Can't. Batman doesn't go on vacation."

You raise an eyebrow, sighing in defeat. "Well, I'm sure the GCPD could handle Gotham for a few days, but do as you like."

Your arrival in Metropolis is, of course, followed by an unhinged swarm of journalists and press that surround you as soon as you land.

You can already see the headlines — THE PRINCESS OF GOTHAM NOW IN METROPOLIS or some other corny predictable shit like that — as they shove their cameras in your face, screaming and trying to grab you, as your bodyguards try to contain them. You're much calmer than they are, having already endured years and years of invasive journalists.

“Miss Wayne, would you care to tell us the reason for this abrupt change in scenery?”

“Has your move got anything to do with your relationship with your brother?”

“Miss Wayne, look here! A smile for the front page–”

“Miss Wayne, why Metropolis, of all places?”

“Miss Wayne, a word for the Daily Planet?”

The guy for the Daily Planet catches your attention– he seems far too nice and isn’t elbowing anyone; he must be either new at the job or is too nice for it. He’s got a mop of curly, black hair atop his head, thick glasses perched on his nose, baby blue eyes behind them. His posture is a little crooked — he’s getting squeezed by reporters on both of his sides — but, even as disheveled as he is, you notice a thing. 

Ohh, he’s pretty. Like, jaw-dropping pretty, the kind of pretty that makes you want to bite his cheek and never let go for the rest of your life. 

You stop in your tracks, lifting your sunglasses to your head, bodyguards panicking at the swarm of journalists that suddenly all point to one direction; you reach for the pocket of your jeans and take out a business card that you pat on the pretty reporter’s chest. “Another time, pretty boy,” you promise as he takes the card, his fingers brushing yours, the other journalists speechless around you. “I’m kinda busy right now.” 

You don’t stay long enough to see him blush and hold the business card tight in his palm so that the other reporters don’t snatch it out of his grip — the bodyguards urge you forward, towards the SUV with obscured windows that is waiting for you right in front of the arrivals’ exit of the airport. One of them opens the door for you, and you don’t hesitate to get inside, the car speeding off as soon as everyone’s inside. 

“Never seen anything like this,” one of the men mutters.

You shrug, “I’ve had worse.” 

The ride to your building is short, mostly because it’s late in the evening and there aren’t many people still around. You leave a generous tip to both the bodyguards and the driver, thanking them but assuring them that you can walk alone the thirty steps that separate you from the entrance to what’ll be your home for the foreseeable future. They help you take out your trolley and duffle bag, which you swing over your shoulder right after taking the keys of the building out. 

You open the front door, carefully closing it behind you, taking the elevator right in front of it. You press the number thirty out of thirty-four, which turns green with a ding, and wait for the doors to open back up. And once they do, you’re not disappointed. 

The loft is arranged just like how you asked the movers to — it would’ve been hard not to, as you sent them the 3D interior design plan you had made, but still. You’ve been raised with the idea that if you want something done well, you have to do it yourself, so you’re pretty happy about how it turned out. 

Still, something’s missing. 

You check around the loft for any pieces of missing furniture or something like that, not finding anything. You even go back to the 3D model to make sure that everything got here safe and sound, only to find that yes, everything is in the colour you ordered and exactly in the place you asked for it to be. 

You sit on the U-shaped couch that sits right in front of the giant windows that let on the skyline of Metropolis, eyebrows knit in deep thought. The house is nice — for fuck’s sake, you bought a whole building just for you and your projects — but it’s weird not having anyone else around. There’s no Alfred to welcome you, no half-asleep Bruce roaming without an idea of where he is, no squeaking and creaking of the floor when you walk. 

You sigh. “Maybe I should get a cat.” 

[madelynraemunson]

i need to know if we ever get jealous of eddie’s said short lived relationships. do we ever try to sabotage them? or are we the type to try and get along with them and thats when they’re like “oh no you two need to be together?”

(i know the answer in my heart but i want to hear what you think lol)

ex husband!eddie x reader

whaaat? sabotage eddie's relationships? 😵 that's diabolical. why on earth would we do that?

that one time we showed up to his house wearing a sundress after months of wearing sweats was TOTALLY unplanned! we had a date, after all.

and that one time we were dancing with eddie at the family bbq, rocking out to all our favorite songs like careless teenagers right in front of girlfriend #3 was all a ploy by our kiddos! right, kids? right? we do everything for the kids. they love seeing their parents happy and getting along. right, kids?

and are you really still on about the day of eli's talent show?? 🤦🏻‍♀️ we only asked girlfriend #9 to take a family photo of us because she was the only one that was around. that's all 😇 and she shouldn't be mad at us! eli LOVES taking pics with mommy and daddy. who is she to get in the way of a family, especially when kids are involved 🤨😤 (also, we didn't MAKE eddie place his hand where he did in the pictures. he literally did it by himself, on his own terms.)💋

...okay, bunnie you got me! we know damn well what we're doing ��� but quite frankly, so does eddie.

you've got a date with david tonight. in fact, eddie knows was nice enough to house sit for you and help the kids with homework. an innocent, sweet little gesture. right?

you and david are watching a movie on his couch and things are getting steamy really fast. david is about to kiss you when...

RING! RING!

you pull away immediately. checking your phone to see who it is, you realize,

"it's my ex husband, that fucker. the house better be burning down." you go to answer it. "yes?"

“hey, sweetheart, this is eddie...the banished." he greets you. “i can't seem to find the measuring tape and was wondering if you knew where it was."

you're unsure as to why he would even need measuring tape. regardless, you reply,

"it's in with drawer of miscellaneous stuff. the one by the kitchen sink.”

"ahh, that's right. found it. thanks, babe."

but that's not the only useless call of the night. as your date with david continues, the calls keep coming through in seemingly calculated intervals. at the worst possible times. with the most irrelevant fucking questions.

“i can't find the baking soda." “where do you keep the batteries? the c batteries not the double As." "hey, just a heads up, you might wanna call somebody for this pipe." "what's the wifi password again?"

"EMUNSON1986!" you hiss. "the year you graduated high school."

"aww, really?" eddie coos. "that's endearing. thanks baby."

eventually after an hour, the calls stop. you and david were able to finish the movie, and get back to that steamy interaction before you were spammed mercilessly. david is now fiddling with your straps as you two are kissing, his available hand grazing your lower back, breath hitching when —

RING! RING!

"jesus h CHRIST!" you howl. "it's midnight for god's sake. this better be important. HELLO?”

"sorry," eddie mumbles on the other line. "remind me, i'm looking at your snake plant and was wondering how often these guys need watering? they look a little parched."

"once a day and i already did it," you say through gritted teeth.

"it's a new day, should they be watered again?"

"don't worry about it, eds."

"i always worry, sweetheart.”

david happens to hear this. giving you a side eye now, your date watches as you stay on the line with eddie for a couple of minutes. finally, you get eddie to agree to stop calling, which fills you with relief when you hang up the phone. your eyes then travel back to david, whom you begin to bat your flirty lashes at.

"now." you say. "where were we?"

"you should probably go home," david huffs. "looks like the fort still needs holding down."

you're seeing absolute red now. you are seething. that motherfucker.

your drive home is an angry, and sexually frustrated one. you can't believe eddie would sabotage your date like this, your only fun night out this week. he's in for it now.

"date ended early sweetheart?" eddie pouts at you the moment you walk into your house.

"bedroom," you order. "now."

tagging peeps who seemed interested in this lil universe! as always thank you for reading 💋

@highinmiamiii @potatobeans99 @mediocredreams @joshlmbrt @eddiesxangel @enam3l @mmunson86 @davidblowies-blog @thatissonnina @oskea93 @aurora-austen @lesservillain @madeofmunson @xxbimbobunnyxx @eddiesghxst @munsonssweets @nailbatanddungeon @swiss-mrs @winchester-angel @belokhvostikova @curlyjoequinn @strangereads @marrowfrog00 @shadyunknowncreation @tuolcaniacoc @catherinnn @prestinalove @pleuviors @cinemabean @calumfmu @littlexdeaths @let-the-music-take-c0ntrol @meetmeatyourworst @b-irock @spencerssatchel

divider by: @cafekitsune

[bedouinpoet]

PERMISSION

Aaron Hotchner x BAU Reader,

its a slow burn but hope you like it feel free to leave a comment. Pls be nice, my first ever fan fic (18+ only please) more to come.

y/n = your name

y/l/n= your last name

You never thought your wish to join the BAU would ever come true. It always felt like some kind of pipe dream for someone with so much baggage like you. The agreement was clear you never mention your past to this team and you get to work for the FBI rather than prison. You still remember the first day you came into work, JJ, the communications liaison introducing you to everyone at the round table. “Guys this is y/n, Agent y/L/n-“ “please just call me y/n” you quickly interrupt, she smiled understandably and nods “agent y/n is our newest member of our little family, y/n this is Agents Derek Morgan, Emily Prentiss, Dr Spencer Reid, Agent David Rossi, technical analyst Penelope Garcia and last but not least our unit chief and team lead agent Aaron Hotchner” “just Hotch please” you felt your toes curl as every inappropriate thought crossed your mind the moment you shook his hand and he smiled at you with those melted caramel eyes

3 months later…

You all just got back from yet another gruesome case, family annihilator with a fetish for kids underwear as trophies. ‘Fuck sometimes there really is no punishment harsh enough for these guys’ you think. You are one of the last ones in the office, Reid just left asking if you needed a ride. “Nah I’ll get a taxi later I need to finish the last of this case file” Admittedly that wasn’t the full truth, you could easily finish this tomorrow even at home in your office in your apartment but…Hotch… Hotch was still here. You've had a crush on him since the first day. But…what would you be to him? You always thought as a fucked up 23 year old coworker and subordinate. You’re pretty sure he even tried to set you and Reid up on a date. You’re glad of that in a way. Even though absolutely nothing happened and you aren’t into each other in that way (and he knows about your crush). You ended up becoming best friends. Second only to your girls JJ and Pen. But you know Hotch and he won’t leave here until someone drags him out which has been your job of late. Especially since Haley filed for divorce and he signed. It’s like the guy lives here now. You keep glancing up at Hotch’s office until you finally see your opening as he closes a file, taking a deep breath, rubbing his eyes and leaning back in his chair putting his hands over his head. Damn, every move mesmerizes you. You close your file and stuff them in your bag. Taking your leather jacket and head up. You knock lightly on his door, his eyes snapping open “y/n? What are you still doing here?” “Same as you ya workaholic come on I need a ride. Would you mind?” His confused eyes and eyebrow scrunch, he looks out to the bullpen like he’s avoiding this drive. “Jeeze haha if you don’t want to you don’t have to Hotch I just don’t wanna get a cab right now but all good-“ he quickly sat up. “No no I’ll drive I should probably head home….get some sleep and-“ “call jack” the words leave your mouth before even thinking. His face fell in offence. “Excuse me agent?” Agent, you notice he only ever says agent like that to you when you’re in trouble and damn does it make you wet. “Sorry! I-i-i just meant. Well. (Sigh) look this was a rough case and I know especially when it comes to cases with kids, calling jack-o-lantern puts a smile on your face….grounds you” his face softens and you see his half smile brighten the room and your heart pounds, he laughs lightly when you mentioned his sons nickname you gave him. “I never understood where you got that nickname for jack” “cause he’s a kindred spirit that loves chocolate and Halloween like my fine self duh. Now call your kid I’ll wait in the bullpen till your ready handsome-“ he immediately looked up “what?” “What?” He shifted in his chair and your heart pounds, fuck you get to conformable around him. “You called me handsome” why do you keep letting things slip. You clear your throat trying your best to be as nonchalant as possible despite every part of you heating up “yea? Your point. Just stating truths boss now dial” Hotch smiles at you again but this time….something about the glint in his eyes is different as if he is considering. You try to shake it off. Telling yourself to calm down. The second you sit back down you see Hotch laugh on the phone. You smile to yourself. You were right jack o lantern helped….

“yep just park here my apartment is just ahead but parking sucks” He parks the car and takes off his seat belt, gets out and opens your door. Always the gentleman and he does it like muscle memory. Ugh perfect you think. “I can carry my own bags ya know? I’m a big girl sir” you whisper the the end of your sentence like calling him sir is a secret. Hotches jaw clenched as you winked “and I’m a gentleman. Shall we?” Every door he opened for you. You both get into the elevator, your go bag in hotch’s big hands. The moment the doors close all you can do is stare at his hands, imagining how good Hotch could pin you to the wall and kiss you so hard until you beg for air. Even one of those hands could pin your hands on top of your head. You swallow hard as your mouth gets dryer and you can already feel your knees weak and your panties dampen. You don’t realize how long you were staring at Hotch’s hands but apparently too long “is everything alright y/n?” Fuck he stares at you, his eyebrows stern but his eyes show genuine concern and confusion. Fuck. “Y-yea sorry was just day dreaming” he smiles “anything good?” “Pshhhh wouldn’t you like to know” his eyes darken with a hint of confusion as horrified realization crosses your mind as what you just admitted. Shit. “I-I- just meant, I mean it wasn’t anything in particular” Hotch nods as the elevators doors open, he lets you pass first as he walks behind you. You get to your door as you pat your pockets searching for your keys. Hotch stands deadly close behind you. “Ugh just pin me against the wall” you think trying to shake away the thought as you find your Keys only to drop them in front of you “dammit” you whisper and bend over quickly, forgetting how close behind you Aaron really was. You feel his front pressed against your ass as you grab your keys and hear Hotch take in a sharp breath and his pants bulge slightly. Your panties are near soaked with ideas of what this man could do to you. But he steps back clearing his throat. “Sorry” you stumble, grabbing your keys off the floor and quickly unlock the door and step inside. He takes only a step inside and hands you your bag. Your entire body shivers from the touch of his hands. “Thanks boss. Ever the gentleman….would you wanna come in? Don’t have much for drinks but got coffee and lemonade-“ “no thank you, it’s pretty late I-we should get some sleep. We have an early day tomorrow I’ll see you in the office. Goodnight y/n” “night Hotch and thanks again” He says nothing but smiles in reply and nods as he walks away. You could see his hands clenched, white knuckled as he presses the elevator button. You shake off the itching hope that there was something more between you two. You don’t even bother eating, can’t even think about food. Instead you go straight to bed, stripping off everything and taking your vibrator from your night stand. You lay down bringing your hands to your breast, pinching you nipples imagining it’s Hotches big calussed hands, no matter how hard you try to think of anyone else the only person you can think of to cum is Hotch, fucking you dumb, his lips on your skin trailing up and down your body, his hands rough and grabby. You feel your orgasm arising closer and closer until all you see is spots as you cum all over the toy. You take a deep breath wishing you didn’t just have yourself and the TV to go to bed too. “Welp… at least I can go to sleep.” You say to your empty apartment. Little did you realize Hotch was thinking of your ass rubbing against his cock in the shower that night. Pumping himself frienzied as he fantasizes about bending you over in that shower grabbing your hips and fucking you until his cum spills deep inside you….

the next morning was brutal. Another wet dream but no time to help yourself. “Dammit I’m late!” You call a taxi as you rush to get dressed. Struggling to find a clean shirt as you forgot to wash your laundry last night the only shirt remotely appropriate for work being your red deep v neck that’s a smudge too V and says ‘I solemnly swear that I am up to no good’ “thank you Harry Potter” -and a pair of cargo pants. “Fuck it” you put it on and tuck in the shirt at least trying to look put together packing a few things in your go bag, guns holstered and your badge in pants pocket you book it out of there…

you make it to work out of breath and five minutes late. Everybody already waiting at the round table. “Sorry sorry couldn’t get a taxi-“ “it’s fine agent y/l/n just don’t let it happen again” Hotch’s eyes stop on your shirt as Morgan laughs “up to no good huh pretty girl? Wonder what that means…” he winks you laugh and sit down next to him touching his shoulder “oh honey, you couldn’t handle what it means” you high five Emily and wink at pen and jj when “it’s from Harry Potter” pen and Spencer say at the same time “Ha I know y’all aren’t the only nerds you know” you tease Reid as Morgan leans in “working some magic huh nerd.” As he fist bumps you. “Please let’s continue-“ you don’t even realize Hotch is staring daggers in you and Morgan’s direction jaw clenched and eyebrows furrowed. Dammit he’s pissed about you being late you tremble. “Sorry-“ “let’s continue” is all he says. “Right we are heading to New Orleans my lovelies. At an opera house called Garnier-“ “like phantom of the opera?” Reid and you say at the same time “jinx! You owe me an iced coffee” he laughs “don’t you have one right now?” “You can never have enough coffee my child” you smile and wink at Reid “amen to that” Emily nudges me

“anyways there has been 3 deaths all at this opera house. All men, first was George Shepard the building manager, he got quite the beating in his office, the second Alex Miller he was props manager, similar injuries and the third was Jake Townson who was hung. The police question if it’s really a suicide-“

“that doesn’t make any sense” you say thinking out loud as you all do. “What do you mean y/n?” Garcia’s innocence seeping out of her adorable face “well look at the first two victims, beaten, the neck broken, that says anger, then hanging ? No bruises no prior beating? That’s more of what you see with mercy killers it doesn’t add up” Hotch stares at you intently anger slightly subsiding looking at you even when Morgan talks in agreement his eyes pierced you and you look away feeling your cheeks heat as you break eye contact to look down at the file. “Whatever the reason and whoever it is it’s clearly connected to this opera house and with his cooling off period we don’t have much time before another victim …wheels up in three hours….y/n in my office please” you swallow feeling you are about to get hell for being late….again. You really need to fix that alarm clock.

You follow Hotch into his office “have a seat” you swallow hard as he closes the door and stands in front of of you leaning on the desk, arms crossed, his face scrutinizingly serious “sir I know I’ve been late I promise I’ll do better and-“

“what is your relationship with Agent Derek Morgan?”

His interruption stopped you in your tracks. He leaned further back and crossed his legs and his pants creased at the most torturous places. Fuck your basically eye level with his crotch as you wish you were on your knees his hands grabbing your hair- “agent…I said what is your relationship with Agent Morgan?” You swallow as you look back up at Hotches face and you swear as you do his hands tense and his jaw clench’s….”I asked you a direct question agent” you shake off your hormones for a moment and reply “I’m sorry but I don’t get what you mean? There is no relationship other then friendship?” He scoffs “you seem awfully flirty with each other for just friends. You are also co workers and that was extremely unprofessional behaviour do I make myself clear?” All, of a sudden the hormones jumps out the window as all you can see is red anger “excuse me?” Your tone shocks Hotch but he quickly recovers “yes?” Fuck his ability to be so calm you think to yourself before saying “I am sorry but I find it awfully weird that you are lecturing me for something the ENTIRE TEAM does? Fuck sakes Morgan calls Pen Baby Girl on a daily? Flirting non stop. We make jokes about Reid’s love life. fuck sakes I flirted with prentess and JJ in passing but all of a sudden my behaviour is inappropriate-“ Hotches arms fall as he closes his fists tightening “are you saying you do it because everyone else does? That’s awfully childish and I expected better” at those words all reserve goes out the window and you become a bull just seeing red “excuse me!? How dare you. I am an equal member of this team AARON HOTCHNER. Yes I may be the youngest but that gives you no right to speak to me in such a manner as such I do not have to explain myself when I have done nothing wrong. I have worked my ass off for this team and this job.” Anger filled tears swell your eyes but fuck it you already started “I have assisted in solving how many cases? I have given everything to this team and deserve more respect then you have just displayed. So speak to me when you want to apologize for YOUR behaviour Hotchher” Without even thinking or considering you march out of his office. Your entire body on fire with anger and shaking, leaving Hotch standing dumbfounded as you slam his door. Rossi steps out from his own office “everything alright kiddo?” His hand out for support but even that doesn’t stop you “I’m fine Rossi see you on the plane” With that you leave as everyone watches you grab your go bag and jacket and leave.

….

On the plane Hotch sits at your usual corner window seat, avoiding all eye contact with you but you don’t care. You fought so hard for this job, crush or not you aren’t about to let anyone talk like that to you. The rest of the flight passed with further discussion about the likelihood of the unsubs gender and age, until you all were about to land “unfortunately it’s too late to go to the station detective Monroe says he will see us tomorrow morning so it’s off to the hotel my lovelies” Pen came with you this time as the team needed her in person and looking through every camera in the opera house to see what everyone might have missed and that’s the job for your girl PG. the drive to the hotel passed well as you drove with Reid and you in the back and Morgan and Em in the front. When you got down to the hotel you were all laughing but your smile faded as you saw Hotch get out of the SUV behind you, his own smile fading at the sight of you. You shake off the feeling and turn as Morgan takes your arm and Penelope’s come on naughty girls there is a nice bed and cool mini bar with my name on it.” You all laugh and you slap his arm looking back at Hotch to make sure he saw that as you enter the hotel. “Um sorry agents there are only four rooms available this week” you hear everyone behind you groan and sigh in frustration as all of a sudden “I ain’t bunking with Reid” minute Morgan says that Pen holds Morgan’s arm “dibs” with that, you all burst out laughing and before you could try and pair off with anyone. Emily and JJ pair off and Reid with a sly smile says he will bunk with Rossi who almost protested until he saw Reid’s face. Hotch and you stood awkwardly until “very well y/n and I will room together, here is all of your rooms keys, see you all at 7 am” everyone nods and disperses as you lean down to grab your bag, Hotch grabs it off the floor without even looking at you. “Shall we?” “Uh thanks” you shyly try and tuck in your hair behind your ear as you head to the elevator where JJ and Emily squeezed in, everyone on the same floor, when you all get to the floor and about to open your hotel room door you look in time to see JJ and Reid wink at you as you flip them off. You step into the room Hotch right behind you clearly confused “what was that for?” As you enter the room you notice how small it is one bed, one sofa, desk and coffee machine and bathroom. Fuck one bed, that’s an issue you’ll have to figure out in a minute. “What was what for?” You ask pretending to be oblivious “y/n….you just flipped off at JJ prentice and Reid? Why?” “Why does it matter are you going to lecture me on how childish and inappropriate it was? I’m off the clock boss” The anger beginning to roll back in but you stop when Hotch drops the bags harshly on the floor. His glare scrutinizing, his eyebrows so furrowed you could barely see his eyes, he remained quite. You roll your eyes feeling like a teenager but replying “inside joke that’s all…sir” you end your sir with more of an attitude then expected. Aaron just shakes his head “y/n that’s enough…I AM your boss my question about you and Morgan was valid I do need to know what is going on with my agents as it affects this team-“ he had a point and you can’t help yourself but soften your body tension as Hotchs face also softens, before you can say anything he continues “however…as you stand you have more then earned my respect and ….and trust…and I am sorry for my comment it was out of line and I hope we can move past this and focus on this case.” His eyes became almost pleading and every harsh feeling you had towards him melted away, your knees almost giving out as he licks his lips. You were getting horny again and too tired to fight. Taking a deep breath “I’m sorry too…friends?” You stuck out your hand as he looks at it momentarily and relaxes as he grabs it with a smile “friends” he keeps his hand in yours a moment longer with a light squeeze as a tension fills the air until he lets go you almost whimper with the lack of warmth from his hands. He clears his throat

“Right um…would you like to take a shower first?” You shake your head “nah I’ll take one in the morning you go ahead” he smiles “great thanks” he went straight to the bathroom you grab both bags and put them on the sofa as you change into your sweats and t shirt attempting to tie up your almost shoulder length short hair, strands falling on your face. You take out the files and the copy of phantom of the opera you bought at the airport placing it all on the bed as you hear the shower go on. You try not to picture a soaked naked Aaron Hotchner and concentrate on the case…it barely works and you get uncomfortably wet but before you can even try to help yourself the shower goes off so you fully concentrate on the files. As the door opens you finish writing your notes not looking up “Hotch! I think I figured out what’s been bugging me about this case I did a quick once over on the phantom of the opera and-“ you stop somehow out of breath when you look up and see Hotch walk closer in nothing but a towel hiding what you are dying to see. You sit up gaping. You’ve pictured him shirtless yet this was somehow hotter then you even expected, his messy hair, his body still dripping, his chest with perfect amount of subtle hair. You think how good holding him would be, lying your head on his chest, sitting on his lap and removing the towel. You don’t even realize how long you’ve stared at Hotch but he blushes, his ears going pink and he looks away and back “sorry…I forgot my pajamas ….but….um…you said there was a connection?” His face going back to agent hotchner face and with that and shirtless was a mix you could barely handle. “Right!” You shake off to the best of your abilities looking down again as he sits on the side of the bed looking attentively at you as you keep moving the hair from your face. “So I mentioned that the hanging was weird ? Well I think I know why the unsub did it, he’s following the plot of the book buts he’s making it somehow more violent.” “How so?” His head tilts his curiosity almost adorable but you can’t stop thinking about the towel. “Well umm” you take a deep breath but nope your horniness is getting worse and wetter “could you put some clothes on please”

you laugh breathlessly, his confusion evident but blushes “sorry “ he whispers and you swear your heart melts “no no it’s just….your dripping on the files and my book” you try to lighten the mood as you lie and look up moving your hair from your face again. You need a hair cut. But your answer seems to calm him “oh right” he smiles “right sorry just give me a second” he went to his bag grabbing some sweats and a shirt and went to the bathroom. Coming out moments later with his deadly grey sweats and white tshirt….you can’t help but wish he was shirtless again but lord have mercy those sweats you think. “So you were saying?”

“Right so the first two victims fits with the first two characters in the book. The two managers however in the book…the two managers only get their legs broken by the opera ghost. Not their necks. It’s not till the third in the book which the character hangs himself Hotch…I think our unsub sees himself as Erick the opera ghost he most likely has some deformity and lack of social skills like the character and…HA that’s it ….tomorrow we need to ask Garcia for the original plans of the opera house the unsub probably lives there we need to do a search and fast.” Hotch never interrupted you, he listened and waited and watched you then took a few notes “right. Good work y/n I’ll get Garcia to get the plans tomorrow and a list of anyone born around 25 to 35 years ago with a severe face deformity around the area he is probably local.” You can’t help but smile you always feel overwhelming sense of pride when you crack a part of the case. You smile at Hotch but the way he looks back makes you have butterflies all in your stomach and chest, he reaches over and moves the hair from your face, your toes curl at the touch “really good work y/n” he whispered, every part of you loses control as you grab him by the shirt and kiss him.

you move back in absolute shock and fear when you see shock in his eyes “fuck I’m sorry I’m so sorry” you get up “y/n”

“I need a coffee” you interrupt before he rejects you

“y/n stop!”

Too late and you didn’t go back until 3 am waiting in the downstairs bar beating yourself up. You quietly sneak to the bed. Ugh fuck Hotch for being so hot and good you think as you see he slept on the couch lightly snoring away. The second you put your head on that pillow you pass out. Hotch moves your hair back “you did really good y/n well done” the tension rises as he moves closer, his hand cupping your cheek you lightly moan as you lean into his touch, kissing his palm, he groans “fuck it” as you give him the pleading eyes and his lips smash into yours. It feels so good as he warms your entire body, laying you down as he goes on top of you, moving his hand down caressing then grabbing your breasts slowly pinching your nipples between his callused thump and forefinger, you arch your back up pushing into his body even more feeling his bulge between your legs. He groans as he takes his chance opening your mouth wider with his tongue, kissing deep as you wrap your legs around him, even with those grey sweats on you can feel his hard on as you grind up, moaning you feel yourself getting so wet even from that friction he bites down at your neck “fuck y/n baby what am I gonna do with you-“ he whispers in your neck.

you wake up to your phone alarm, hotch just getting up from the sofa as he looks up at you blushing and then averting your eyes ‘shit, did I moan out loud?’ You blush just thinking about it but he says nothing “uh….morning boss” is all you can muster up to say, he smiles “good morning y/n sleep well.” You blush further closing your legs somehow terrified he will know how wet you are even under the blanket, “yup you? Why did you sleep on the couch?” You try not to look up at him as he looks unbelievably hot in the morning, his clean hair cut messy with bed hair, “seemed right in case you wanted to sleep on the bed I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable”

“ever the gentleman”

he smiles and it seems you don’t need to even use words to agree that the kiss never happened and it was best to forget it even if you couldn’t. “If you just let me wash up quick and such then the shower is all yours and I’ll go downstairs and wait for you so you can get ready, if that’s alright?” You think it’s adorable that’s he’s asking as if you could say no “of course” you get up and get your clothes ready digging in your bag to take out your black lace bra and thong, cargo pants and black dress shirt, you hold up the bra and panties just as Hotch steps out of the bathroom and the sight stops him dead in his tracks, his eyes darken, jaw clenched as he starts to breath shallow and quickly licking his bottom lip as if all of sudden his mouth is dry. “I-um-I -you can shower now” maybe it was how much you enjoyed seeing how flushed and flustered you made him or the fact you’ve never seen him that way, or maybe it was the dream or sleep deprivation or all of the above but you were feeling confident and adventurous as you lift the bra to your chest and the thong to your hip giving him a mischievous smile that makes his eyes go almost entirely black “you like? Got it for a date that no showed but damn glad he didn’t, may have ripped them off their nice don’t you think?” He licked his lips as he swallowed heavily like it was a struggle, for once you finally made this man speechless until “what date? When?” You giggle “Jeeeze Hotch I asked you if you like my bra and panties and THATs what you ask first?” His expression turns serious, almost angry, dare you think jealous. For a moment he were actually scary and damn did it turn you on. “That’s not an answer” you shrug “I dont remember, his loss is another’s gain huh?” You wink as you move past a completely flustered Aaron Hotchner “I’ll be quick handsome” dam you really are pushing it today but his reactions only fuel your urges.

…

the case continued and after that morning your adventurous side simmered down and you regained your shyness and professionalism especially looking at all the dead bodies on the board. But since the morning Hotch has been different. Always near you, every car ride he made sure you rode with him in the passenger seat, when you split off you were always paired off with him. Now you and your team had the unsub surrounded, hiding in the shadows of the large set on the main stage of the opera house, you and Hotch took the front, responsible for the negotiation. Emily and Morgan went to the back and Reid and Rossi took both sides. “Lucas!” You shout “Lucas Sanderson! Come on hun we have you surrounded” you and Hotch slowly get up on the stage, flashlight and guns raised as a noise came out near you, metal clanging “Lucas FBI- come on hun I know why you did it but times up come out with your hands raised” it happened too fast, the unsub came crashing down on top of you, you struggle for your gun as Hotch pushes him off you, there was a struggle as Lucas got a hold of your gun facing it directly to Hotch . It was like time slowed your heart pounding out of your chest, no time to think you run pushing Hotch out of the way as you hear a gun shot. You and Hotch are on the floor and immediately you both sit up, looking each other over for any injuries, then you see Lucas on the floor, blood trickling down from the back of his head, Em’a gun facing him “everyone okay!?” A wave of emotion flows through you like a storm and you don’t even know what to say when Hotch replies “yea, we’re good” but were you? As Hotch said those words his glare never left you he was furious and he remained glaring with absolute anger and …something else you couldn’t place. You averted his gaze. Morgue, ambulance, and drive to the hotel later.

“we will sleep here tonight and leave for home first thing in the morning, you all worked hard well done rest up everyone” as Hotch speaks he keeps his eyes set on you “thank god I am exhausted hotel bar here I come” Morgan smiles as the team laughs as Emily says “maybe I’ll join this was brutal….you sure your good y/n?” Her genuine concern and care warms your heart you smile heartedly “I’m fine Em really, drink up and have fun for me I’m way too tired, goodnight babes” as you hug each other and part. You and Hotch go into the elevator alone. He hadn’t said a word. “Urrrm are you okay sir”

“don’t call me that”

he doesn’t look at you just straight ahead “what?” You try and think what you possibly did for him to be so angry “don’t call me sir” the elevator doors open and that’s when you feel his hand on your elbow gripping your arm with a deadly grip he marches both of you to your room “Hotch what the fuck!” Is all you can let out as the pain turns into something more horny but you try and ignore it “shut up” is all he says. He opens the door slamming it behind the both of you and practically throwing you when he lets go. “HOTCH what the -“

“what the hell were you thinking y/n!?” His yelling voice damn near throws you back but you stand your ground as you see his face as serious as ever, eyes furrowed, arms crossed and his tie slightly ajar, his tone the same as his reprimanding voice but somehow even angrier. “What are you talking about?!” He tilts his head as if he can’t believe you don’t know what he is speaking of “you push yourself in front of an armed suspect!? What the hell were you thinking agent!? What if prentess didn’t get there on time!? That was reckless! You could have died!”

All of sudden anger boils over you as the storm of emotion inside of you begins to break the dams you try to keep up “what!? I was doing my job SIR! What exactly are you mad at here? Lucas Sanderson has a gun ON YOU!? What the fuck did you want me to do!? Let you get shot!?” Tears stream down your face at the very idea of seeing Hotch hurt “YES! Better me then you!” He shouts even louder his voice becoming dam near terrifying but you held your place if this is when it all comes out so be it “I WOULD RATHER DIE THEN SEE YOU HURT AARON HOTCHNER” tears and full on cries followed as your answer takes Hotch aback. He stands in shock as the tears fall. you continue “if you are going to reprimand me sir for doing what I did, do so SIR but I won’t apologize for…for…for loving you and not wanting to see you hurt!” You are almost out of breath by the time your done anger being replaced by fear that you just ruined your relationship with Hotch for good and maybe lost your job when Hotch says quitely you barely hear “how…how do you think I feel?” You couldn’t understand the question couldn’t feel anything other than your heart pounding in your ears. “You think I could ever see you get hurt? Do you have any idea how fast I felt my heart break then and there I could barely breath when I thought you-you- you were shot. I couldn’t- I’d rather have died then see you shot I couldn’t I -“ you didn’t think, your head was spinning and your heart filling with overwhelming care. You stopped thinking as you grab at his tie pulling him down to your lips and kissing him, this time no hesitation “y/n” he groans “shut up and kiss me Aaron” the moment he hears his name from your lips he grabs you like he owns you and no one else in the world, he turns you around pinning you against the door, you moan into his mouth as his tongue directs the kiss and he bites your lower lip “Aaron” you moan deepening the kiss and grabbing the back of his head raising one of your legs and wrapping it around him “fuck…say my name again sweetheart say it” he groans as he kisses down your neck and biting down “Aaron! Fuck yes please please” he growls as you lightly pull his hair then turning your hands down and rubbing his cock over his pants, even with his dress pants in the way you can feel how large the bulge is, he groans as he lifts you up and takes you to the bed.

laying you down with such force he practically throws you on the bed like he’s been waiting for too long to do this, he stands taking off his tie as you unbutton his shirt, he stands in front of you shirtless as you kiss up and down his body right on top of his belt you look up and smirk at him pleading. He growls “strip. Now” you can’t help yourself and your bratty nature when you reply “make me” the moment you say it you are glad as he grabs your neck putting his thumb on your bottom lip “do you really wanna be a brat and play this game sweetheart?” The sexy threat in his voice makes your legs shiver and your panties soak. His eyes go feral as you suck his thumb and reply “what do you think sir?” He watches mesmerized as you lick his thumb his breath hastening as you put your hands on his belt but grabs both your hands with one of his “not yet baby” the way he smiles at you calling you baby his hand still on your neck got you so wet you felt close even from that. You had to close your legs tight as you squirm “Aaron- pls please sir” he smiles “please what y/n? Tell me what you want” his hands grabbing you harder “you” that was enough to release any hesitation Hotch had as he crashes his lips to yours this time even rougher biting your bottom lip until it bled licking you up like the only air he needed was you, kissing and biting down your neck as he rips open your shirt throwing it to the side then your bra. Trailing his mouth down to your nipples kissing one then the other grabbing both and growling and groaning as if it’s the best sight he has ever seen “you are gorgeous” he whispers as he bites on one of your nipples and pinching the other, you grab his hair for support as your legs shake “AARON yes yes please sir please more” he begins to unbuckle his pants his mouth never leaving your body as he stands back up. You immediately slide off the bed on your knees in front of him “baby what are you-“

“shhh, what I’ve been craving for months sir”

at that he groans and you feel his whole body shake and tense at your touch rolling his head back as you push his pants down, he smiles down at you as you sit absolutely flabbergasted at his size almost scared and even more turned on “what’s wrong?” He asks caressing your cheek “fuck you’re huge”

you both laugh as his eyes darken once more and he smirks “think you can handle it?”

He moves your hair away as you look up with a smirk “that was never in question sir” with that you don’t hesitate as you lick his tip then begin to slowly deep throat him entirely the moment you do Hotch’s grip on your hair tightens as he moans curses over and over and “fuck yes” loud enough for you to be proud that your causing him this much satisfaction. You use your hands and mouth together pumping deeper and deeper not caring how sloppy you looked spit down your chin moaning as he pulls your hair hard and begins to fuck your mouth, his legs getting shaky you finally stop just for a moment looking up at Aaron. “Fuck y/n you look so beautiful you have no idea how bad I wanted this , to feel that pretty mouth, but I need to feel your pussy now”

without warning he lifts you onto the bed like you were a doll, taking his pants completely off and going on top of you. You feel his weight, his warmth his body on top of you and you spread your legs wide for him as he adjusts himself and you both moan together as he rubs your clit with his thumb and enters his tip inside you. you swallow hard “please Aaron” he smiles into your mouth “beg for me sweetheart” you obey without hesitation “please Aaron, please I need you, I need your cock inside me I can’t take it” he started slowly putting just the tip in and out at a torturous rate he pulls your hair so you look up at him “are you sure y/n? Truly. Y/n if it gets too much you tell me understand ?” You nod whimpering as you start to wrap your legs around his waist scratching down his back “please sir, Aaron please fuck me how you want me give me everything” “fuck-“ he growls with that final permission he needed he thrusts his entire cock deep.

you scream how good he filled you as he grunts “fuck your tight fuvk” he thrusts into you with a mission harder and harder you grab on to him for dear life as he grabs one of your hands and pins it down on top of your head interlacing his fingers into yours and grabbing hard as he pushes into you deeper you feel yourself almost give over when he moans in your ear “yes baby fuck”

he thrusts upward hitting your g spot like a pro who knows your body better then anyone else, making your legs shake, he hits that spot over and over moving his hand down rubbing your clit as you grab on to him once more for dear life scratching his back. “Fuck Aaron yes please I’m going to cum please !” You feel your senses overwhelmed you “that’s right babe cum for me let go” he thrusts into you harder and faster at an impossible rate as you feel the coil break and release washing over you as you clench his cock. Hotch grabs your hand again as he gets close thrusting, groaning your name over and over as you feel his cum deep inside you.

both of you are out of breath as he stays on top of you for a while, you wrap your arms around him as he digs his face into your neck. In that moment you would happily stay forever. As he slowly stands up you whimper at that loss of heat, he smiles at the sound “I’m coming right back baby just grabbing a washcloth” he leaves to the bathroom coming back he cleans between your legs gently kissing your thighs. He throws the cloth to the side and lays you down and wraps his arms around you as you lay your head on his chest. You feel so at home it hurts. And it terrifies you. There is no question why he is the unit chief of your team when he asks “are you alright?” His concern growing in his chocolate eyes, “hmm? Oh yea I just….Hotch what does this mean? I know I said I love you but I don’t want you to feel like….i don’t know….like you have to say it back or be with me-“

“I love you y/n - I have loved you for months now I love everything about you. How kind and clever you are, how you always try to make sure everyone on the team is doing well even if you are hurting, you give without a second thought, you care and love with your whole heart. I love you I was just scared. I mean y/n I’m over 20 years your senior not to mention your boss”

“that doesn’t matter “

“doesn’t it?”

“no…I want you. You want me, together we will figure everything out. I just got you I don’t want to lose you.”

He looks down at you eyes filled with emotion, naked emotion. “I love you y/n y/l/n you have all of me” you kiss him “I love you Aaron Hotchner. I’m all yours”

[thebus1boys]

Even though I read plenty of fics and have been doing so since I first started in 2021, this is the first time I actually noted down the names of the fics as I read them this month. I’m so thankful to our fandom’s wonderful writers for sharing these with us and it is because I read so many that I wanted to start noting them down so I can remember them. I was debating posting the list but fics have always been a source of comfort for me and if you feel the same, maybe these can bring you some comfort too.

🎃 The Serpent and the Lion by louiseparker @louiseparker [212k]

Seventh year Hogwarts AU in which Harry Styles is an asshole Gryffindor jock with daddy issues, Louis is just trying to get through the year, and Liam, Zayn, and Niall rarely ever know what the hell is going on.

🎃 Tainted Saints And Velvet Vices by Toomanytears @toomanydreamers [126k]

A self-fulfilling Hogwarts AU in which Louis is new to seventh year and Harry is the resident devil-may-care Slytherin set to make his entire experience a living misery. Due to less than favourable circumstances they're forced to forge an unwilling, tentative relationship for their own survival. Repressed emotions, decidedly unromantic ballroom dancing, Triwizard Tournament tasks, creative jinxes and twilight flying above the Forbidden Forest ensue.

🎃 You Drive Me Round The Bend by TheCellarDoor [77k]

In which Louis is a spoilt rich kid who’s always on the phone while he drives and Harry is a struggling musician making his way down the mountain. It’s just a matter of time before they crash and burn.

🎃 but me, i'm not a gamble by orphan_account [33k]

A Posh & Becks AU in which Harry is a star on the stage and Louis is a star on the pitch, but they're both inexplicably terrible at articulating their feelings. In the end, it only takes a season's worth of failed matchmaking schemes, platonic dinner dates, road trip holidays, and one very convenient David Beckham cameo for them to figure it all out. And if Niall knew all along? Well, he at least has the decency not to be too smug about it.

🎃 The Lone Hydrangea by sarah_writes @lightwoodsmagic [77k]

The post Hogwarts AU where Harry's a florist, Louis' a muggle who edits fantasy books, and they both have no say in how quickly they fall for each other.

🎃 The Sunshine Stays by quickedween @becomeawendybird [15k]

It's three years after One Direction got back together, and Harry and Louis have just come off a world tour. They're enjoying a much more relaxed schedule the second time around, allowing themselves to bask in married life. Until, one day, Louis surprises Harry on vacation, and there are some surprising consequences.

🎃 House Of The Rising Sun by @itsmotivatingcara [100k]

Witch Harry/Vampire Louis. The Originals AU.

🎃 Something Like This by multicoloredme [150k]

After leaving his boyfriend, Louis is a little sore emotionally and is ready for a fresh start in a new city. When a coworker tells him about a couple friends looking for a new flatmate, he decides to go for it. Little does he know, that one of his new flatmates is the gorgeous, captivating guy he met at a party a few weeks ago. A New Girl/Grey’s Anatomy/Relief Next To Me inspired AU.

🎃 Say That You Can See Me (I'll Speak Up I Swear) by @coffeelouis [20k]

The liberal arts COLLEGE AU where Harry knows Louis as the best friend of the boy he has been hopelessly in love with for years now and Louis knows Harry as the boy he wished would look away from Zayn long enough to notice him.

🎃 Don't You Think It's Boring How People Talk? by wildestdreams @thelavendrhaze [80k]

A Gossip Girl AU where Louis is the king of the Upper East Side and Harry is the bad boy he loves to hate until a late-night limo ride changes everything.

🎃 Magical Soup by gloria_andrews @gloriaandrews [28k]

Slytherin prefect Louis Tomlinson's seventh year at Hogwarts takes an immediate turn for the worse when he's made to be potions partners with Harry Styles, Hufflepuff's resident heartthrob and class clown. Louis has always considered Styles to be a terrible show-off who coasts by on his charm and good looks, but the more they work together, the more he questions that idea. As term goes on, will Louis be able to admit to himself that he might actually like Harry Styles after all... and maybe, just maybe, as more than a friend?

🎃 King Of My Heart by wildestdreams @thelavendrhaze [80k]

A Red, White, and Royal Blue AU where Hollywood elite, Louis Tomlinson, finds himself falling for the closeted Prince of England.

🎃 And What If I Were You by @jacaranda-bloom [100k]

For Louis, will losing his sight give him the clarity to realise what is right in front of him?

For Harry, will losing the love of his life give him the strength to finally open his heart?

And can they find their way back, before they lose each other forever? A story of love. A story of loss. A story of fighting for each other, no matter the odds.

🎃 Tell me when you're ready (I'm waitin') by insufferablelovebirds [17k]

When Harry's love letters to his old crushes get sent accidentally, one recipient, Louis, offers to help him fake a relationship but it gets complicated when feelings get involved.

Or an au loosely based off to all the boys I've loved before.

Total Fics Read: 14

[reidsc0nverse]

A Rose by Any Other Name (Chapter One)

Summary: Reader has her first day at the BAU in training to take JJ's place on maternity leave. She gets comfortable around the office with the help of her father Davis Rossi and the other members of the team, especially one specific genius.

Warnings: None

AN: This is my first real try at this idea that's been collecting dust in my brain, so far this chapter doesn't have a whole lot and it's mainly intro to the character but yeah. Also reader doesn't have Rossi's last name fyi and she's taking Jordans place in season 4 but they're not the same I promise.

Series Masterlist

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   Well, I knew the time was coming, just not so out of the blue.

   I was training under the Communications Liaison of the BAU today, Jennifer Jareau, due to the fact that she's leaving for maternity leave soon. 

  It was only a matter of time before my dad, him being THE David Rossi, pulled some strings to get me to that spot despite me barely finishing the academy. I mean, I rocked it, but they usually want someone of more...experience in a position as such.

But here I am, walking through the doors of the bullpen and Jennifer walking up to me with a friendly smile.

"Ah! Agent Y/L/N, glad to see you," she said cheerily, holding her hand out for me to shake it.

"You too" I say returning the gesture and trying to keep my composure and maintain the same cheeriness as her, but failing.

"Nervous?" She asks, seeing through me with ease but continuing to keep her friendliness and walking me to her office.

"No of course not" I say sarcastically with a playful smile on my face as we enter in the room filled with a vast amount of case files.

She motions for me to sit across from her at the desk and laughs softly, "Don't worry, after your first couple of cases it gets easier..ish." 

"I just hate the part of the job that involves dealing with the press" I admit, with the stuff I've heard from my dad I can understand the stigma around journalists and outside sources.

"Tell me about it, but you'll get the hang of it, it's usually just repeating yourself after a while." She replies and we continue to discuss more about the details of the job and what I'm gonna have to do in the next weeks. 

"Alright enough of this, everyone should be here by now. I'll introduce you to everyone." She says and we get up and out where three agents stand talking.

"Hey guys, I want to introduce you to someone. This is Agent Y/N Y/L/N. She'll be taking over for me while I'm on maternity leave." She says and I smile at the three that Jennifer has described to me.

I go to shake their hands, "You must be Agent Prentiss, Agent Morgan, and Dr. Reid." They all return smiles to me, "Agent Jareau has told me so much about you all."

"La mia bambina!" I hear a familiar voice say as I look over to see my dad, his arms stretched out and pulling me as he kisses my cheek. 

"Hi dad." I say sheepishly, my face burning as the agents in front of me furrow their eyebrows. 

"Dad?" Prentiss says and continues, "Does your last name come from wife number 2 or 3?" she jokes and Morgan laughs in response.

My dad waves them off and looks back to me, "Training start today?" I nod and he holds me with his arm over my shoulder. "Yeah if you can let me go I can finally start" I joke with him and he lifts his arm in response.

"Yeah Rossi, I'd like to get her started with that." Jennifer says playfully as I wave once again to the others when she brings me with her to look over a case before bringing it to the team.

"I may have forgotten to mention that part to them," She says, looking at the file in her hand. "Oh, what? That Rossi's my dad?" I ask, her nodding and I continue, "No worries, I don't think he's ever even brought up having a kid. One that he knows about at least. We haven't been that close in all honesty." I explain to her. It's really no big deal to me, he wasn't very present in my childhood but as I've gotten older, he's put in a lot of effort to be a part of my life even if it's a little late. Hence, my place at the BAU.

We spend the next hour going over cases and she guides me on how they decide where to go and whether or not the risk of more lives being lost is prominent. Once we settle on one she lets out a breath, "Alright let's take a break, I need to stop staring at all of this" she says motioning to the abundance of cases on the desk. I nod in agreement smiling and make my way to the break room for a cup of coffee.

"Agent Y/L/N, right?" I hear someone say as they walk in. I turn my head and see the tall stature of Dr. Reid.

"Yes, yeah. Hi." I say, waiting for the coffee machine to finish brewing. He walks over and waits next to me with his empty mug. "But I don't really care about formal titles, you can just call me Y/N."

"Okay, Y/N. You can call me whatever, Spencer, Reid, I don't mind." He says gently and continues, "Rossi never mentioned he had a daughter. Let alone one coming onto the team."

"Temporarily" I remind him, but it's more to myself, "but I don't know how often he really wants to talk his personal life." I say lightheartedly and the coffee finally fills up my cup and I move over to let him use the machine.

Spencer shrugs and begins to make his own, "How long have you been in the FBI?"

At this I get nervous to respond, you can be as young as 23 to get into the FBI, but the BAU needs prior experience. But of course, my dad rushed the process some. "Well, uh, I kind of just finished the academy. I'm only 24 so there hasn't been much room for familiarity."

He looks at me with a slight surprise in his face, "Really? I mean if it makes you feel any better I started here as soon as I could. So in reality, you don't need all that much prior experience in the FBI to work here."

"Aren't you like, a genius though?" I laugh, Jennifer did tell me that about him.

He laughs and nods, "Well..you know what I mean. They make exceptions."

"Yeah, I suppose"

"Are you interested in profiling?"

"I only just recently figured that out." I laugh and explain further, "Psychology has always intrigued me and that's what I majored in, so once my dad figured that out he kinda shoved me into this field." I say, doing an exaggerated push motion absentmindedly.

He smiles and nods, "I think you should go for it, after this whole liaison thing of course, I wish you luck." He says and waves as he walks out. In that moment I can feel my face flush slightly, it wasn't that big of a deal but I guess I just wasn't expecting that sort of kindness on my first day.

I shake my head slightly and walk back to where Jennifer and I previously were.

She was already back on her side of the desk and reading a file, looking up she points at my cup, "Good thinking" she smiles and I take my seat again.

"I'd hate to think about how much coffee is drank in this building." I joke.

"Probably enough to supply a small country." she laughs and goes on, "Alright so I think you're pretty much all done for now, I don't think you'll be able to join us on the case but you can just get yourself used to the team if you want."

I nod and the day goes by with loads of 'how to's' around the office and in the perks of Jennifer's job. Sooner than later I get to go home and I get my stuff packed up and walk in the elevator.

The doors start to close but before it shuts completely, I see Spencer rush towards the elevator and I hold them open for him.

"Sorry- sorry." He says awkwardly as he gets in next to me. "How was your first day?"

"It was new. That's for sure. Just a whole lot of information on what I need to do." I say, fidgeting with my hair slightly.

"I'm not sure how much I can do, but if you need anything I know anyone on the team will help" He reassures me, and i smile back. "Thanks, really. I appreciate it."

"Of course." He smiles and the elevator opens up leading to the parking lot. "I'll see you later." He says and I smile back walking to my car.

I can feel the pink in my cheeks when I sit in the front seat and drive home.

I think I'm gonna like my time here.

---------------------༺⚘༻---------------------

okay chapter two will be out sometime between today and next week I hope y'all like it so far ik it's not a lot but give it some patience lols

[erial-c]

redacted headcanons if they were filipino 🇵🇭

please bear w me and my scattered thoughts😭 also credits to @pandoraroid for the vincent hc it's so real

- when the shaw pack gets together they do the family gathering thing of making the kids have a dance competition for money

- angel doesn't know how to commute (public transportation) and david would have to come along with them on a jeep to help them learn

"davey ikaw pumara para sakin please nahihiya ako" "kaya mo yan, dali lalagpas na tayo oh"

("davey can you make the jeep stop please i'm too shy" "you can do it, cmon we're gonna miss our stop")

- at a jollibee birthday party david would always help the shaw kids win the "bring me game" . that shit is SERIOUS for him i would bet

- milo would overdress all the time  . kahit anong ganap he will be layering IN SPITE of the heat. he'd also be called "estetik" and he HATES IT  .

(estetik: from aesthetic, used to make fun of people who dress up)

*(kahit anong ganap: whatever event there is)

- also, milo and sweetheart ukay-ukay dates perhaps. . . . but i think they'd both get carried away because they'd be blessed by the ukay gods and forget they were ever on a date

(ukay-ukay: secondhand shops in the ph!! mainly clothes)

vincent and lovely  . aircon humor x kanal humor CMAWWNN. the vampire houses alone r so extra and fancy vincent would for sure have the conyo/filipino rich ppl accent too like. 

(vin telling lovely abt his first summit): vin: "ok so inisip ko like, paano ako gaganti kay william during the summit, right? so i decided i was going to show up looking like as the, pinaka-antithesis of what he wants me to look like."

lovely, absorbing nothing of what he just said: "HUY antithesis???????"

(vin: "ok so i thought, how am i gonna get back at william during the summit, right?; ...looking like the (most)antithesis of what he wants me to look like.")

(aircon humor: humor associated with wealthy people, priv school kids, "out of touch" humor

kanal humor: "public school humor" , vulgar and relatable

conyo: someone who speaks filo+english in a pretentious way, mostly due to being raised wealthy . idk they always have that rich ppl accent)

- i can't imagine guy being filipino no matter what i do. however, i think honey is for sure filo (projecting) and they wld have a complete filo friend group  . honey wld still have that gruff exterior but their walls r down, and their friends would joke that honey and guy r the "nonchalant x oa" pairing and guy wld have NO clue what they're all talkin abt.

(oa: over acting, usually used negatively to call someone dramatic, but with the "nonchalant x oa" it's kinda similar to the introvert x extrovert trope)

- when honey brings guy along to hang out w/ their filo friends, he just looks at them mesmerized 90% of the time they're all talking . afterwards, when they ask abt it, guy says that honey is way more expressive when they speak in filipino and he thinks its rlly cute (IDK. I FEEL THIS ONE IN MY BONES .)

- i also have a hc that honey likes to draw so . stem strand/course to art course pipeline baby (many filipinos can relate🔥🔥🔥)

general idea / kinda just a joke but honestly it'd be so hard to allude to being a vamp in the philippines . 

"pag natamaan yung balat ko ng araw, nasusunog ako" "beh nasa pinas ka, lahat tayo nasusunog"

("when the sunlight hits my skin, i start to burn" "beh you're in the philippines, we're all burning")

[perfectlysunny02]

hi sunny! you've got too many good ideas so 😌💖

✨✨✨💌💌💌💔💔💔🌈🌈🌈🫀🫀🫀🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫

abigail! i am at war (the er) and im dying (my stomach hurts so bad). just thought you should know.

✨- He’s not sure what he’s expecting when he takes Evan, no jacket and bare feet outside in the rain, but it’s not this. Evan giggles, sticking his tongue out as if to catch raindrops on his tongue before going to jump in a puddle. Deacon’s eyes quickly catch Annie’s surprised ones in the window. He’s not entirely sure what’s happening right now, but he’s not getting in the way of it.

Evan’s curls are matted to his forehead in seconds, and Deacon’s freezing, but he doesn’t dare go inside.

“David?” Evan asks, startling him. Evan talks to Rocker, Hondo, and Luca but never to him and Annie. At least not until now, He reaches for Deacon’s hand. “Come play with me?”

💌- Tommy tries to not think about how late his husband gets home He tries not to think of the liquor smell stuck to his clothing. He tries not to think of the fact that Evan’s so drunk, he’s almost cross-eyed and he can barely stand.

It burns in his gut, his thoughts sitting putrid. He longs to shake him, to demand that he stop all this madness and just go get help. He wants to demand that Evan stop hurting himself but most importantly, stop hurting Tommy.

He wants his home to feel like home. He can’t remember the last time it did.

💔- “What was it like?” Tommy asks, suddenly desperate to know if he’s going to feel like this forever. He knows he probably deserves it but he doesn’t know how much longer he can stand it.

“What was what like?” Evan asks softly, putting down the carrot he was peeling to look at him.

“Losing your brother,” he says. “What was it like?”

“Awful,” Evan laughs bitterly. “It was the single most awful thing that’s ever happened to me. It was… it was Leukemia. His third time. He was first diagnosed when I was born, and he was in remission until I was fifteen. He went in for a routine check up two years ago, and they found growth. They caught it in time, they said, but Danny… Daniel didn’t want to do it anymore. Said he was living on burrowed time. Asked me what kinda bastard gets cancer three times if he’s supposed to live. I begged him to reconsider, to get the treatment, told him I’d do anything he wanted. He looked at me, smiled, and told me to let him go, he was tired. He was gone a year later.”

🌈- It’s three am when he wakes up next. He’s not entirely sure why he’s awake. He’s been pretty good at sleeping through the night, and most of the day, considering a that’s happened. Tommy isn’t in bed. His side of the bed is cold like he was never in it. Buck can’t stop the whimper that leaves his throat when his hand touches the sheet next to it.

“Baby?” he hears Tommy whisper, and the creak of the rocking chair that Tommy’s nonna gave them in the corner. “Evan, are you alright?”

He’s not sure how to answer, the words getting caught around the lump in his throat. He’s not alright. He hasn’t been alright in a long time.

🫀- It’s different now that he knows Officer Nolan is on nights for him. It’s nice to have someone to talk to. And sure, things may get back to Athena this way but there’s no reason they should. Nolan doesn’t even know that Buck is under Sergeant Grant’s husband. To him, he’s just Evan. Between him and Tommy, he’s not sure he’s ever liked being Evan more.

“You seemed to have lost weight kid, you eating alright?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m good.”

🔫- “Evan!” He hears his sister. But he doesn’t dare to look up. He put her daughter in danger. She’s never going to forgive him. “Evan! Oh my god! Thank god you’re alright!”

“Maddie-“

“I was so worried when I got the call, Chimney has Jee now. She told us how you protected her, oh Evan-“

“Maddie-“

“And you’re here, safe and sound, and she’s here safe and sound, and it a miracle. Oh, Evan!”

[jewish-vents]

My Anti-Social Personality Disorder is helping me cope with the spike in antisemitism - I've been told I'm not a person, I don't have a soul, people like me shouldn't be allowed to have kids, I should be euthanized, everything someone with ASPD does is secretly evil or manipulative and every person who sucks secretly has ASPD, etc. - but it's not helping me with the one thing I need it to. I need to protect my great-grandmother, my only living relative, the one who raised me after my parents died, who fought tooth and nail to get me out of the foster care system. I need to shield her from all this bad news and make sure she doesn't realize how violent and dire things are. She always protected me. I have to do the same for her. I have to keep her happy for however long she has left on this Earth.

I love her more than anyone or anything in the world. I would take a bullet for her if I had to, but antisemitism is more like a sea of landmines that keep detonating all around us. I try to get out in front of everything. I buy her silky summer scarves because she loves them and they cover up her Magen David. Instead of going to the summer music festival here, which I know attracts a lot of country good ol' boy white supremacists on top of the left wing antisemites, I bought us tickets to a classical violinist she's a huge fan of. She asked about my girlfriend breaking up with me and instead of telling her about how antisemitic my ex is I blurted out a truth I've been hiding for years, which is that I'm asexual but not aromantic and that's made dating hard sometimes. I've sought out, downloaded and burned DVDs of all kinds of her favorite movies from the black and white era so she'll be distracted away from her time spent normally watching the news by that. In spite of my dyslexia, I've recommitted myself to learning Hebrew because she helps me and that pulls her attention off of the news and the realities I don't want her to face.

And yet it's not enough. More and more of the news of antisemitism rising around the world filters through to her. I'm doing everything I can but it's not enough. I am not enough. I am insufficient. ASPD comes with being acutely aware of your own high intelligence but what no one ever tells you is, to quote an anime I watched recently, "You can't recover from something you can't escape." There's too much for me to shield her from all of it.

I'm used to being treated as if my personhood is conditional and can be revoked at any moment. That's my whole life. That was not her whole life. She's a survivor of the Shoah. Her whole life has been spent seeing progress made in antisemitic attitudes in many countries after witnessing the worst it could get. My brain is uniquely (mal)adapted to process and disregard people's cruelty as normal. Hers is not. She expects people to have humanity. They don't. And I can't protect her from that. I can't save her. I can't keep this from creeping into her spectrum of awareness.

Sometimes I wonder why Hashem even bothered giving me heightened intelligence if I can't manage to use it correctly to help her. What is it good for? What is it worth?

Sometimes I think this must be a skill issue. If I just tried harder, surely, with my IQ, I could keep her safe and oblivious to everything. I need to be doing more. But what?

Sometimes I just look at goyim and - and I am aware this is not something you're supposed to admit to/is bad, I just don't care - I think, "I hope someday someone treats you exactly like you've treated others. I hope you get back exactly what you've put out into the world, and you get as little sympathy and help in that moment as my great-grandmother is getting right now."

I'm so sorry you're dealing with this. If you haven't already, I strongly recommend that you reach out to your local Jewish community. If you don't have one, or you for any reason don't feel comfortable with the local community, seek out community online.

There is only so long that you can shield your great-grandmother from the world. I understand the urge; we all have it, but no one has the power to keep their loved ones from ever being hurt.

What you can do is support her through the pain, and find other people who will help support her.

This will not be the first time your great-grandmother has experienced antisemitism. She may be better equipped to handle it than you fear.-🐞

[bluejaysandblackbats]

Keepsafes

Fandom: Batman, DC Comics

Summary: AU where Martha and Bruce survive, and they adopt the batkids.

Chapters: 27/?

Characters: Bruce Wayne, Thomas Wayne, Martha Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth, Harvey Dent, Dick Grayson, Cassandra Cain, David Cain, Talia al Ghul, Damian Wayne, Jason Todd, Tim Drake

Relationships: Thomas Wayne/Martha Wayne/Alfred Pennyworth, BruHarvey, BruTalia

Additional Tags: Canon Divergent AU, Hurt/Comfort, Bruce Wayne is Not Batman, Angst, Alfred Pennyworth Knows All, Bruce Wayne Only Has One Child, Bruce Wayne is Not An Only Child, Bi Bruce Wayne

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Thomas and Martha

Harvey fell asleep on the floor, naked and shaking as fever dreams took hold of him. Bruce draped a blanket over him before sitting in the corner farthest from Harvey as tears streamed down his cheeks. He wiped his face and turned away. Bruce didn’t cry much anymore, but he could feel something eating at his insides. His skin was irritated from rug burn and there were all sorts of bruises that he couldn’t account for, but he wasn’t upset about that. 

He sat there for a moment before getting up and dressing to go out. He crept around Harvey and headed down the hall. His parents’ room was two doors down, and he knocked. There was no use in trying to clean up his face. The tears wouldn’t stop coming anyway. Martha answered the door, dressed to go out as well. She slipped out of the room and shut the door behind her. “Your dad got back late from the ballet. He’s exhausted. Do you want to come with—?” Martha finally glanced up at Bruce’s face, and he embraced her, exhaling shakily as he tried to stop crying. “Oh… Lovey? You kids aren’t getting back together… Are you?” 

“I don’t think we should… Last night was fun, but it wasn’t—. Something’s missing. I don’t have it in me anymore,” Bruce whispered. Martha rubbed his back. 

“That happens sometimes… Do you think you can’t be friends?” Martha questioned. 

She never asked much about Bruce and Harvey’s relationship. Bruce usually went to Thomas to talk about these sorts of things, but Thomas seemed perpetually upset about the shooting. Everything felt tense when he’d speak to Thomas as if they were on the verge of arguing about Bruce coming home. “We always take a hit… Like I can’t—. I just want things to be normal, Mom. I wish we never would’ve fallen—.”

“Hey. Don’t. Don’t ever say that. You and Harvey were the safest it could get for a first love. First loves are messy and tumultuous and so so painful when it’s over. Who better than your best friend? Your bond is much stronger than romance… And you’ll fall in love again once your heart heals… And who knows, maybe this is just a weird time that you need to work through right now,” Martha whispered. Bruce let go and took a breath. 

“Where are you going?” Bruce asked. Martha unzipped her purse and wiped Bruce’s face with a tissue. 

She stood up straight. “Well, lovey. If you must know, I’m going out for breakfast. Will you join me?” Martha questioned in reply. Bruce nodded. 

**

Thomas knocked on the door of Harvey’s room looking for Bruce. “Harvey? Are you in there?” Thomas asked. He heard a faint noise, and he moved to open the door, and his heart dropped when it opened. “Harvey, the door’s unlocked. I’m gonna need you to make a little noise, okay?” 

Harvey coughed, and Thomas entered the room to see Harvey lying on the floor with nothing but a blanket on. His face was pressed against the rug, and he struggled to sit up. “Hey, hey… Relax,” Thomas whispered, “Stay still. I’ll be right back with my medical bag.”

Harvey lay flat and breathed heavily as he tried to say something. Thomas left the room and came back less than a minute later. He pulled the blanket up over Harvey’s lower back. “Where’s Bruce?” Harvey mumbled. 

“I’m not sure. I thought he was here with you. What happened?” Thomas asked. 

“Woke up sick… He wasn’t here when I got up,” Harvey replied, “Thomas, maybe you should come back later because I’m—.”

“I know you are… But I’m here as a doctor, and you’re sick. Bruce is probably with Martha. They’ve been spending a lot of time together lately,” Thomas interrupted. Harvey turned over, holding the blanket in place as he fell into another coughing fit. Thomas placed a steadying hand on Harvey’s back. “I’m gonna take a closer listen… It’s gonna be a little cold.” Harvey nodded as he felt the cold metal of Thomas’ stethoscope touch his bare back. He flinched, but he couldn’t stop coughing. 

Thomas listened in different spots, and he made a soft noise as he set his stethoscope inside his bag and took Harvey’s temperature in his ear. “I remember the first time you got sick when you were with us. You probably don’t… Do you?” 

Harvey shook his head. “I’m sorry… I don’t remember much about when I first came to live with you guys,” Harvey confessed. 

“You were twelve. I remember because you had that little bowl cut,” Thomas stopped to laugh. “It was perfect, though. It was.” Harvey smiled and shook his head. “But that’s not—. You were downstairs when I found you. I just got in from a shift at the hospital, and you were carrying your blankets and crying and apologizing. I remember you kept saying you didn’t know what to do, and you and I were very separate at the time. We kept our distance from one another, but I remember—. I set up some blankets on the couch, and you told me that you missed your mom. I can’t explain how hard that hit me, Harvey.”

“I don’t—. I wouldn’t remember… I don’t talk about her,” Harvey answered. Thomas looked at the temperature on the thermometer before asking Harvey to open his mouth. 

“You were really out of it, but I couldn’t get you to go to bed until I followed you to your room. You took a New Jersey driver’s license out of your little superhero wallet. The look on your little face broke my heart. You pointed to the woman on the ID card and said, ‘This came in the mail after it happened.’ You never told me what happened, but you let me carry you downstairs, and you were asleep before I set you down on the couch.” 

“Well—. I—. I don’t want to talk about that,” Harvey whispered. Thomas nodded. Harvey turned to lay on his back on the floor, and Thomas grabbed Harvey’s clothes from his suitcase. “What’s going on?”

“Might be bacterial pneumonia. They’re gonna want a mucus sample and some blood taken. Your fever’s high and that cough is a little too wet for my liking,” Thomas whispered, “And don’t worry, I can step out while you get dressed.” 

** 

Martha held Bruce’s hand on the street. “Have you decided what you are going to do?” Martha asked. 

“I don’t think we should sleep together if we’re not together,” Bruce answered, “And I want to be his friend again. Just that.” 

“Bruce, I think something will work out if you talk to him about it... But, I want to ask a favor,” Martha replied. 

“What is it, Mom?” Bruce asked. 

“I want you to spend some time with your father. He’s afraid to ask you,” Martha explained, “Maybe you should go to the opera with him. You used to love going to the opera with Dad.” 

“I hate opera. I just liked seeing Dad happy… But I’ll go because I miss spending time with him,” Bruce replied, “Look. There’s Alfred.” 

Martha’s smile dropped. She knew Alfred well enough to know something was wrong. He was always with one of them. Either Thomas or herself. She dropped Bruce’s hand and ran toward Alfred. Bruce watched as Alfred explained something to Martha, and she nodded. She glanced at Bruce and said something else, but Bruce couldn’t see her face. He did, however, see Alfred’s face as he said Thomas’ name and hospital in the same sentence. Bruce turned and ran toward the nearest hospital without waiting to hear anything else.

[boldlyvoid]

I Know Places 3: Omnivore

18+ Aaron Hotchner x Fem Reader | Masterlist | AO3 link

Summary: Reader thought that Aaron was depressed post-divorce and following the death of Kate Joyner... nothing compares to how he is dealing with the mass amounts of guilt surrounding The Boston Reaper.

Warnings: Canon Typical Violence (child sexual assault, arson, murder, burn victims, death), background moreid hurt/comfort, mutual pining, depression, suicidal thoughts/feelings, deep emotional chats, love confession, first kisses, lots of kissing

Word count: 8.1k

The last couple of months have been nice. Neither she or Aaron has gotten hurt, which is the best part, but it’s also been nice just getting closer to one another. They’ve continued their phone calls at night, they get dinner together sometimes after work, she’s met Jack and accompanied him and Aaron to the museum on one of Aaron’s weekends alone with him. Aarons has been over to her place, and even spent the night a few times now.

It’s been lovely, actually.

Something changed after the cult case. After she was held hostage and beaten pretty badly. He took care of her, he got closer to her than ever before… she can’t really remember much from that night right after the case, all she knows is she woke up in his arms again and she never wanted to leave.

They’ve shared a bed in every case since then.

As for the rest of the team; JJ had her baby, a little boy named Henry. He’s adorable. So, needless to say, JJ was out of the field for a while, other than that, not much has changed at work.

Something is defiantly going on with Reid and Morgan… Reid had his own special case just before JJ had her baby, he remembered a case from when he was a kid and thought maybe his dad was a killer or worse. Derek stayed back with him in Vegas to figure it all out, they bonded over it too. Having similar childhood trauma, Derek was the only one who could really talk to him about everything he went through as a kid. She was glad they had each other.

Penelope’s even been trying to get them all to go on “double— triple? … quadruple? Quintuple dates!!” Seeing as everyone in the BAU has a significant other now. JJ and Will never come because they have a baby, she and Hotch don’t go because the assumption that they’re a couple is still awkward for them as they haven’t admitted to the other that they even like each other yet. And Reid and Morgan are too busy having alone time together to go out in public yet.

And then there’s the ever-secretive David Rossi… Dave’s been talking to one of his ex-wives again. He’s been happier. He’s whistling in the mornings and not staying as late anymore. He’s definitely getting laid.

All this gossip is stuff that she and Aaron have talked about lately. They would stay up late, either on the phone or at her apartment, chatting about anything and everything… And at the end of the night, when he’s at her place, they’d get ready for bed together, he’d slip into her bed on the side she never slept on and they’d fall asleep, cuddled into one another. On nights he didn’t come over, however, they’d still get ready for bed together, their phones on speakerphone, and they’d talk until one of them started to drift off.

She loved this new tradition. So seeing it come to an end so soon, it broke her heart a little.

Aaron's lowest point wasn’t getting divorced. It wasn’t losing Kate Joyner. It was letting the Boston Reaper getaway. Again.

It all started with a phone call. Tom Shaunessy’s care nurse called Aaron one morning while they were on their way into the office, inviting him out to Boston as Tom was dying and this was his final wish. Aaron couldn't just say no, so that night after work, she drove him to the airport.

When he got back the next morning, she picked him up and he knew something was up. Something happened… at first, she thought he was there as Tom died, then they got to the office and Penelope handed him a copy of The Michigan Post from March 1998. As it would turn out, Shaunessy made a deal with a serial killer, he vowed to the Boston Reaper that he wouldn’t kill anymore as long as Shaunessy stopped hunting him. He agreed, the killings stopped and he sent Aaron and the rest of his team home.

As soon as Tom died, The Reaper killed again. A young couple first, an older couple second and then a bus full of people simply because Aaron wouldn’t take another deal from him. She was there when it happened. She was sitting beside him in their hotel room when he got the call.

At first, she thought there was another attack, they had only been at the hotel a few minutes. It was only 9 pm, normally he didn’t hit until later at night. She got out of bed to start getting dressed again as Aaron answered the phone. She watched his expression change almost instantly. The heavy breathing on the other end was loud enough for her to hear… it was The Reaper.

“Who is this?” “If you stop hunting me I’ll stop hunting them,” the deep, sinister voice started. “you think I’d take that?” Aaron spits back, pissed that he’d even suggest it to him. “It’s a good deal.” “I’ve misjudged you. I thought that you were smarter than this.” “You should take it.” “Then you’ve misjudged me.” “This is your last chance,” The Reaper says, audibly angry that it’s not going to be this easy this time. “I don’t make deals. I’m the guy who hunts guys like you,” Aaron says, stern and confident. Angry as all hell. “There are no guys like me.” “You all think that,” Aaron spits. “You’ll regret this.” “I’ll see you soon,” Aaron says and then slams the phone down on the receiver.

She doesn't say anything, she watches him run his hands through his hair and turn towards the window in their room. He’s watching them. He knows where they are. He finally turns to her, “This is going to get messy.”

“We’re used to that,” she reminds him. “They all make contact with the police, they insert themselves into the investigation every time. We know this.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be that east this time.”

-

They couldn’t go back to sleep. They waited and waited for another call- for the police to report another killing. Another couple in their car or a single woman stabbed a bunch of times the way he liked to do… what he actually did wasn’t at all what they were used to.

The Reaper was more than mad. He was furious that Aaron wouldn’t take the deal. It’s like he wanted the deal. He wanted a reason to stop but Aaron's words just made him need to kill even more. There were 7 people on the bus, including the driver. They were all shot multiple times and then the women were stabbed.

And when Aaron stepped onto the scene… when he saw what The Reaper did because of him, he almost threw up.

Rossi follows him around the side of a building, down an alleyway and away from the scene. Leaving Y/N and Morgan at the bus alone to check what was taken and what was left. There were numbers left on the window in blood 1488, 201, 1439. And The Reaper's calling card. An eye drawn in blood on the front window of the bus.

She heads around to find Aaron, wanting to ask what he thinks of the numbers when she finds Rossi handing him his gun. “You convinced me…” Dave explains.

Aaron pushes the gun away and wipes his eyes.

“No, no, you hung up on him. You practically killed them yourself,” Dave pushes even further. “Go ahead, get it over with. Don’t worry about us, we’ll get this guy without you.”

“Dave I had 10 years to do something about it!” Aaron fights back, trying to reason with him that his reaction is warranted.

“Shaunessy made the deal, the killing stopped, he closed the case and sent the BAU away. For 10 years you worked on active cases—

“But I kept coming back to this one,” he admits. “I kept coming back to this profile.”

“Hey, I was retired. Should I blame myself?” Dave pushes. “Is it my fault for every victim died while I was out on my book tours? Look. If you want to end up like Shaunessy, like Gideon, blaming yourself for everything, you go ahead. But that voice in your head is not your conscience, it's your ego. This isn’t about us, Aaron. it’s about the bad guys. That’s why We Profile Them. It’s their fault. We’re just guys doing a job. And when we stop doing it, someone else will. Trust me. I know.”

“You can put that away,” Aaron looks down at the gun and then back at Rossi. Neither one of them notice her and Morgan standing there, watching.

“You sure?”

“It’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?” Aaron manages to give him a little smile.

Before they turn towards them, he and Morgan rush back to the front of the building and pretend they never saw a thing. But she saw it. She saw the tears in his eyes and the hurt in his soul. This is going to affect him for a while.

“What did you find?” Aaron asks them once he rounds the corner.

“The bus driver has the wedding band taken from the male vic at the last attack,” Morgan explains. “But I can’t figure out the importance of the numbers on the windows?”

“Send them to Reid, he might know,” Aaron suggests.

“Wait…” Dave says as he looks through the windows. “I know those numbers?” He pulls out his little evidence book from his pocket and flips to the most recent page. “Those are the addresses to George Foyet’s apartments.”

Foyet, being a man they interviewed only yesterday. He was the only survivor of the original killings in 1998. He was stabbed over 67 times in the chest while in his car with his girlfriend… after the case, Foyet healed, he recovered and he disappeared. He essentially killed off every part of who he used to be, making himself somewhat of a ghost that even Penelope couldn’t track down. The only way they could find him was through another guy, Roy Colson who wrote a book on The Reaper and interviewed Foyet. He gave them three possible addresses for him.

1488 Edenhurst, 201 South Brookline, and 1439 Yarborough.

“Okay we’ll split up,” Aaron announces. “Me and Dave will take South Brookline, you and Morgan take Edenhurst, we’ll get the police to do Yarborough, let’s go.”

—

When they arrive on the scene, she heads around back and Derek kicks in the front door to clear the house. It’s scarily quiet and dark, she holds her flashlight up as she checks out the yard and heads towards the shed in the back. That’s when she hears it. With a loud crash, she holds down the talk button on her in-ears and speaks, “Morgan?”

No answer. She rushes around the front and see’s Derek laying on the ground surrounded by glass. He was thrown out the window and he’s unconscious. “I need medical assistance at 1488 Edenhurst, I have a federal agent down, I repeat, a federal agent is down at 1488 Edenhurst!”

She doesn’t approach him, she simply keeps her eyes out for The Reaper, her gun drawn, she keeps her back to the street and watches the house. “Come out here and face me like a man, you sick fuck!”

From behind her, she hears a laugh. Deep and dark like the phone call. She turns around in search of the voice but no one is there, she shines her flashlight on the street, across the neighbour's bushes and then she turns back to the house. He’s gone. Disappearing into the darkness of the night as the sirens are heard approaching the street.

She heads back over to Derek then, he’s coming to and trying to sit up. She holsters her gun again, “Hey, hey, it’s okay. Don’t move too fast, you have glass all in your shoulder.”

“Did you get him?” He asks.

“No. I heard him laughing at me, but he got away. I couldn’t figure out where he went, it was like he was right behind me but when I turned there was nothing… he-he just disappeared. Like a ghost.”

The paramedics are the first on the scene, they get Derek off the ground and inside Foyet’s house. They sit him down on the back of the couch for height and cut him out of his shirt so they can start pulling the glass from his shoulder. That’s when they find it.

He left Derek with a bullet. Unused, gold and shiny, in the pocket of his jeans. “What did he take?” Y/N asks.

“I don’t—” Derek looks around at all his things and then he realizes. “He took my credentials.”

“At least that’s all he took,” Aaron’s voice is heard from the doorway. “Are you okay?”

Derek nods, “I’ll be fine…”

Aaron heads off deeper into the house, she hasn’t left Derek's side so she hasn’t seen what state the house is in… “Y/N,” Aaron calls out to her. “Come see this.”

She follows his voice into the kitchen and that’s when she sees it. The whole floor is covered in blood, signs of a struggle and a drag mark leading out the back door. “I didn’t even notice the back door was open when I was checking out back? Holy shit…”

“He has Foyet,” Aaron says, confident that this is his blood and no one else. “He finally got him.”

Reid comes running onto the scene then, JJ not far behind him. He rushes to Morgan's side, “are you okay?”

“Reid,” Aaron calls out to him. “I need you back here.”

“Go, it’s okay,” Derek assures him.

Spencer walks right into the kitchen and stops dead in his tracks, “oh, wow…”

“How much do you think is here?”

“The average human has 5 quarts of blood in their system… I’d say this is close to half that. No one could lose this much blood at once and survive,” Reid explains.

“We need to regroup. Somethings off with the profile,” Aaron announces. “Why would he leave Foyet alive all this time just to get him now?”

“Foyet disappeared,” she reminds him. “Penelope said he was like a g— oh my god?”

“What?” Aaron asks.

“The Reaper, he was outside with me, he was laughing, I couldn’t figure out where he was in the dark and I said to Derek it was like I was looking for a ghost.”

Hotch rushes out of the kitchen towards the living room where the rest of the team is around Morgan. “Why would he go after Foyet?” Aaron poses to the team.

“I don't know?” Derek shrugs.

“He’s not a threat at all,” JJ says with a roll of her eyes.

“He kills men quickly and easily, but women and girls… the younger they are the more time he spends with them. He likes to stab. Stabbing represents a sex act. He likes them younger. Specifically teenagers… Amanda Bertrand, she was only 19. She was a freshman and he was her teacher's assistant,” Hotch explains. “Y/N said The Reaper was like a ghost, Penelope said the same thing about Foyet. What are the chances that both men would be sexually interested in teenagers and disappear easily?”

“The guys a hebephile,” Rossi states. “But how would he be able to stab himself 67 times and call 911?”

“He called 911 before he stabbed himself after he killed Amanda. That’s why he was the last victim, that’s why he disappeared, he had Shaunessy agree to the deal right after that. He both inserted himself into the investigation and made it so we wouldn’t think twice about him,” Aaron keeps going. “Get Penelope on the phone.”

JJ whips out her cell and starts the call, “Hey is Derek—

“He’s fine,” Hotch answers for him. “Penelope I need to know everything about Amanda Bertrand.”

“Oh, okay, uh,” she stumbles around, typing furiously. “She was 19, a freshman. She came to Boston from Michigan to go to school.”

“Michigan. That’s where The Reaper had Shaunessy put out the personal ad in the paper,” Hotch remembers. “what were Foyet’s aliases?”

“Kevin Baskin, Mark Holden and William Parker,” Rossi reads from his notepad.

“Garcia—

“got it, sir.”

“I need you to look them up in the Boston City Records— try the Department of Education,” Hotch asks.

“Well played sir, they all work for the Department of Education as substitute teachers… they all teach computer science—

“High school?” Hotch asks, knowingly.

“Yeah… oh wait,” Garcia pauses.

“What?”

“William Parker was fired for alleged inappropriate behaviour with his female students,” Penelope reads off her screen.

They all watch as Aaron stares off, remembering something that he isn’t sharing with the rest of them.

“Hotch?” JJ tries to bring him back to the conversation.

“Aaron,” Y/N reaches out for his hand. “What is it?”

“Colson. Foyet called him, he wanted to meet with him.”

“Garcia,” Dave is about to ask her to track his phone.

“I’m already on it,” She explains furiously typing away. “Give me one second to triangulate… okay, he’s at 2633 South Babylon.”

“Come on,” Hotch orders, stand-in up and reaching for his bulletproof vest again. “George Foyet is The Reaper.”

Getting out to their SUVs happens in the blink of an eye, and the police follow them in their squad cars. It’s only been 6 hours since the phone call. To hear the police rushing down the streets at 3 am, everyone in Boston knew something was going down. Everyone gets off the street, allowing them to race down the roads as fast as they could, rushing to the 1 house Foyet didn’t tell them about.

“How did this guy afford to rent 4 different homes in Boston?” Y/N asks. “Seriously, what kind of freelance computer guy makes that kind of money?”

“I don’t know,” Aaron shrugs, going 120 down the road, he’s not even really listening. He only cares about getting there before Colson’s death is on his hands too.

When they pull up to the house, Roy’s car is parked on the street and all the lights are on inside. There’s movement in the front window, behind the curtain, causing them to all head around back. Dave jiggles the back door handle and it opens, Hotch is the first one inside, gun drawn, clearing the room as they head around to the front room. There’s a clear view from the back door to the front door, Aaron and Rossi start slowly walking towards, it, blocking the exits so that they have him surrounded. He’s yelling at Roy, preoccupied with why it was never published that The Reaper made a deal with Shaunessy. He doesn’t even notice they’ve entered the house.

With Hotch and Rossi in front of him in the dining room, Y/N, Morgan and Reid make their way around to the little room behind the dining area, boxing him in so he can’t even think about running.

“It’s over,” Hotch makes their presence known.

“Stop!” Foyet yells, holding his gun to Roy’s head. “I’ll kill him.”

“You need him to write your story,” Hotch reminds him.

“I’m taking him with me, I’ll let him go as soon as I’m safe,” he tries to broker another deal.

“No, you’re not,” Hotch is so done with his shit that everyone can hear it in his voice.

“I said I’ll kill him!”

“You kill him, I kill you,” Hotch bites right back. Calmer than ever. He has the guy, he knows this is so close to being over.

“you think I’m afraid to die?” Foyet laughs in his face.

“You’re not afraid. You’re greedy and narcissistic. You want the recognition that’s going to come the book that he’s going to write. You want the fame that’s going to come from the media. It’s gonna be like Bundy,” Hotch profiles him right to his face.

“I’m going to be bigger than Bundy,” Foyet says with a smile.

“Well, you can’t enjoy it if you’re dead.”

“If you know me so well how come so many people had to die to bring you here?” He rubs it in, profiling Aaron right back and digging in where it hurts.

“It’s your choice, not mine. You’re the serial killer,” he reminds both himself and Foyet.

“That’s right,” he says, starting to lower his weapon. He turns back to Morgan and smiles. “Hello Derek,” he teases, putting his gun down on the table and in a rare turn of events, it’s Reid who grabs him by the back of the neck and pins him to the wall and begins to cuff him.

“Where’s my badge?” Derek asks as Spencer flings him around, holding him by the cuffs. Foyet starts to smirk and so Derek grabs his hair and tugs his head to the side, staring right at him now. “Where is it you son of a bitch?”

“I’m going to be more famous than you even realize,” he teases one last time before Spencer hands him over to the cops so he can be processed and booked into the nearest prison.

Once he’s out of the room, Aaron checks on Roy and Y/N and JJ let in the detectives. “Reach this place high and low, I want no stone gone unturned. Find me trophies, evidence, anything you can that can really get this fucker pinned and locked up for the rest of his life,” Y/N explains to them. “And if you find Agent Morgan's credentials, you know where to mail it.”

“Let's go home,” Aaron announces to the rest of them, taking his in-ears out and pulling on the Velcro strap of his vest. He’s so over this case.

—

The flight home isn’t too long. They touch down around 6 am and all head back inside the building together. Headed up to their floor, everyone is quiet. They’re exhausted, they can’t wait to file their paperwork and head home to sleep the rest of the day… they get about 20 minutes into their paperwork when JJ gets a call and goes running from her office, down to Aarons.

“Foyet escaped?”

Just then, their phones start to ring, the detectives called Y/N and she grabs Reid right away taking him to the fax machine, the one in her ear says that they found schematics to all electrical, water and heating ducts to every single correctional facility, prison and courthouse in Massachusetts. He was planning this for far longer than anyone thought. He knew this day would come and he was ready for it.

He was going to be bigger than Bundy… and Aaron had to find a way to live with that.

—

She notices a shift in him, this one is worse than after Haley served him the papers at work.

He wasn’t just depressed this time… he hated himself a bit now. He hated that he never gave the profile in ’98, he hates that he didn’t realize that The Reaper leaving a witness was weird. He hated himself for not watching George Foyet carefully as he was brought to prison.

He feels like everything is his fault.

She watches him stay later than ever, he misses nights with his son and they don’t talk on the phone anymore. His nose is constantly in his files, trying to find a way to figure out where George Foyet would be before he takes another life.

She walks up to his office one night, having left already just to grab some dinner, she returns only to make sure he eats. She knocks on his door, “Hey… hungry?”

He looks up at her from his files and he softens, “Starving… thank you.”

She places the bag on his desk, “You need to take care of yourself, too, you know? You can’t catch this guy if you’re withering away to nothing.”

“You say that as if you don’t love taking care of me?” He teases, knowing her way too well.

“Okay, whatever,” she jokingly rolls her eyes, taking both their meals out of the bag, she places his in front of him and then takes her own to the other side of the desk.

She went to a nice restaurant and ordered a meal she knew he would appreciate. A steak with a baked potato and steamed vegetables. He opens the container and he can’t believe it, “you didn’t have to get all this?”

“When was the last time you had a good meal?”

He thinks about it but genuinely doesn’t remember. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she shoots him a sweet smile. “What are you working on?”

“A way to track Foyet,” he explains with a sigh. “I’m not getting too far.”

“That’s okay… you know you don’t have to look for him alone, right? It doesn’t just fall on your shoulders because you’re the only one still on the team from ’98.”

“I know,” he says between bites, hand over his mouth because it’s “impolite” to talk with his mouth full. “I just feel… terrible? He wanted to make a deal and instead of leading him on and continuing to look for him behind the scenes, I just made him angrier. He has to start over now, make new aliases, find a new place to stay, and figure out how to get all the millions of meds he takes without someone recognizing him from the news… I’ve made his life a living hell and he’s going to repay the favour. I know it.”

“You know serial killers don’t have rational thoughts, I mean, look at Ed Kemper, he really thought that he had to kill his mom's best friend because she’d be sad to learn her friend died and so her being dead too, stopped her from being sad… they don’t make any sense, you really can’t blame yourself for that,” she explains.

He just nods along, trying not to bring it back to himself. The self-pity is so strong, he really believes part of the weight needs to land on his shoulders.

“Why don’t we get out of here?” She suggests, “Just leave the files, leave the work here, let’s go eat our dinner somewhere else… we can eat in my car, we could drive somewhere or go to my apartment? Let’s just get you out of here for a while.”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s go,” he agrees, he stands up and puts the lid back on his container and she follows his lead. “But I’m driving and we’re taking my car…”

“Okay,” she doesn’t mind. “You’ll just have to bring me back to work tomorrow.”

“I can do that,” he agrees. “It’s not like we haven’t been carpooling after I spend the night for the last few months, anyway.”

He slips back into his suit jacket and grabs his bag and keys. He holds everything in one hand and she offers to take his food for him, he places his hand on her back and leads her out of his office. “How would you feel about staying at mine tonight instead?”

“I don’t mind at all, I just need to grab my go bag from my car,” she agrees.

They take his SUV, he drives them to his own apartment and for the first time ever, she goes inside with him. They put their food on real plates, warm them up in his microwave and sit at his tiny dining table.

“How long have you had this place?” She asks.

“I got it just after my suspension. Right after Haley threatened to leave me… I think she was already seeing someone else,” he admits.

“What?” She can’t believe that. “Why?”

“Someone called the house phone and when I picked up and answered… they hung up and called her cell instead. It wasn’t her mom or her dad, it wasn’t her sister either. I know all their numbers. Someone called expecting her to be home alone during the day and when I answered, it threw them off. I knew that whoever they were was a secret she was keeping from me and she knew I knew it too.”

That just makes her angry, “I can’t believe she could even entertain the idea of cheating on you.”

“I’m not that—

“Stop talking down about yourself. You’re handsome, you’re a wonderful dad, you’re funny and kind and you care. I mean, you watch the boring TV shows I like just so we can talk about it together. I’d kill to have a husband like you and she just threw it all away? And for what? Have you ever met the guy? Has Jack?” She rants, visibly angry.

“I’ve asked, she won’t tell me,” he answers the last two questions but smiles because of the rest of it. “Thank you… you know, you’re pretty nice to know too.”

“Just pretty nice? I buy you steak and nurse you back to health and I’m just pretty nice?” She teases.

“Fine, I think you’re—“ they’re cut off by his cell phone ringing in his pocket. He takes out his phone and see’s JJ’s number. “Where are we headed?”

—

They get pulled out to Royal, Indiana for an arsonist case that’s claimed over 31 bodies so far. Aaron's stress level was already at an all-time high, watching people die again is just making it worse. He’s angry, he’s being a bit of an asshole… he even snapped at Penelope of all people.

And he’s not the only one in this mood, the whole town is pissed. That’s to be expected, they’re losing family and friends and memories to fire. First the rec centre, then the movie theatre and just today, the local bar. The bar fire is the most important to the investigation, seeing as he didn’t go after a larger crowd of victims, which means he’s going after individuals. They just have to figure out which victim it was.

Nancy, the bartender, she lived… she’s just barely hanging on, but still available for questioning. Aaron goes to see her. This is the second time he’s held a woman’s and hand stayed with her while she’s died of extreme burns and smoke inhalation.

At the station, Y/N and Reid are sitting together, going over the victims' lives with Penelope.

“I’m worried about Aaron,” Y/N whispers to their small group.

“He’s going to be okay,” Spencer shrugs it off. “We all have cases that hurt more than others, it sucks for a while but then you either catch the guy or enough time passes that you build some scar tissue and forget about it.”

“What if he never forgets about it? We’ve seen cops go through this. Something happens and they feel so guilty, like if they were there 10 minutes earlier or if they did something different, it eats at them and then they die too,” she whispers, her heart aching for him. “We need to intervene at some point. We can’t let it get worse… what Rossi did- handing him his gun- that only worked because he got embarrassed around a coworker. What happens when he goes home and he’s alone and it all catches up to him? What if he doesn’t show up to work one day and it’s because he’s killed himself? What do we do then?”

Reid gets up and pulls her into a hug, “Hey, hey, don’t think like that.”

She rests her chin on his shoulder and lets out a sigh. “I love him, Spence, I can’t lose him.”

“You loving him is exactly what he needs to stay here,” he reminds her, rubbing her back, soothingly. “Let him know, spend more time with him, get him to talk. You’re good at that. You’re warm and inviting and he’s going to want to tell you things. Listen, keep his secrets and let him know you love him… even if you just tell him it’s friendly, either way, I think he’s going to appreciate it.”

She pulls back and she nods, wiping her tears from her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, you’re right.”

“When am I ever wrong?” Spencer teases, trying to make her laugh a little. He succeeds, she giggles and swats his arm lightly. “You know, it’s really nice being friends and going through stuff at the same time… I didn’t think I’d have anyone to talk to when I eventually fell in love.”

Her heart soars for him, “oh, Spence, really? You and Derek?”

He nods, “Yeah…”

“I’m always free to talk whenever you want to,” she reminds him.

“I know,” he smiles. “Now come on, we should call Penelope and at least start a theory before they all return. I don’t want them to think all we did was gossip this whole time.”

—

At the end of the case, they’ve caught a killer but they don’t feel good about it. So many lives were ruined, it could’ve all been avoided years ago if people knew how to treat children kindly… that’s the case for so many of these killers. They’re raised through terrible events in their childhood, events that shaped them into monsters and nothing could stop them from wreaking havoc on a small town just like this.

They take the plane home late that night, she drove in with Aaron so he has to drive her home, too.

It’s a quiet drive. She can tell he’s stuck in his own mind and she wants to ask what’s going on in there but she can’t get the words to come out. Instead, when he pulls up at her apartment, she reaches out for his hand, “Come in with me?”

“Okay,” he agrees quickly.

They barely slept the last few days, scared that their hotel would go up in flames if the arsonist knew they were in town and trying to stop him… so Aaron looks tired. Exhausted, even.

They get out together, she walks around the front of the SUV and he meets her there. She takes his hand and she leads him inside. They kick their shoes off at the door, she helps him out of his suit jacket and hangs it up on the coat hook. He undoes his tie and the first couple of buttons and she smiles, “You want a drink?”

He shakes his head. “I just want to get in bed.”

“Okay,” she doesn’t mind either way. She leads the way down to her bedroom and he’s right there behind her.

He’s been over so much lately that some of his things are still there. She’s done a load of laundry and washed a few of his nightshirts and boxers that he’s left in the bathroom after his morning showers. He always comes out smelling like her shampoo, so she went out and got his usual body wash to keep in there, so she can have his smell back on her sheets. She’s worn his shirt to bed a few times too… she just loves him and when he’s not around she wants to pretend that he is.

She sets out some of his things on the bed while he’s in the bathroom, he has a toothbrush in there too… he could move in if he wanted and she’d be fine with it. More than fine with it. She never wants him to leave.

She changes in her closet, it’s pretty big— a walk-in closet, actually. She hangs up her suit on the “has to go to the dry cleaners” side and changes into her pyjamas before she heads back out into her room.

He’s already changed, standing there in his underwear, looking through her bookshelf, trying to pick out something to read in bed while she watches her show… it’s just what they do.

“What one are you going for tonight?” She asks.

“Hello Sadness,” he says, holding it up for her. “Where’d you get this?”

“Spencer,” she says with a smile. “He said that one is the best translation from the original version. bonjour tristesse.”

“Did you like it?” He asks.

She nods, “It’s good, it’s about a girl and her father who live in France, her dad has been a widower for a long time and his late wife's old friend comes to stay with them. They fall in love and his daughter is scared that everything about her life is about to change… the plot twist at the end is a lot though, you might not like it.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” he smiles at her and makes his way over to her bed. To his side. His phone is already plugged in and resting on that night table and his watch is right beside it. It’s like he’s really made himself a home here.

She climbs in bed beside him, forgetting the TV remote for her little tv over on the dresser… so she snuggles into Aaron's arm and reads along with him. Page after page, they read in tandem, sometimes he even reads parts out loud. Things that caught his eye and stood out to him.

“I have loved to the point of madness. That which is called madness. That which to me is the only sensible way to love,” Aaron whispers.

She hum, barely awake, “I liked that line the first time too…”

“It’s so true,” he says with a sigh.

She just snuggles in more, “You been in love a lot?”

“3 times,” he says, closing the book for the night and placing it on the night table.

“I’d say the same,” she says, including him in the equation.

Aaron turns off the lamp light on his side and the two of them settle down against the pillows in the darkness. “Love is strange.”

“You’re telling me,” she teases.

She rolls to her side and he snuggles into her back, the way they always slept together. “When was the last time you were in love?” He asks, and he sounds hesitant.

Maybe this is the time to tell him. Maybe Spencer was right. Maybe telling him could soothe his soul and make him feel more at ease. Anxiety pools in her stomach and she’s been quiet for too long now… but she says it. “I’ve been in love for a while now. Almost a whole year now, I think?”

“Oh,” he acts like he’s surprised. “I’m sure he’s a lucky man.”

“He is. He’s strong and confident but he’s also soft and sweet. He’s so good to me, he’s so good at his job and he’s a great father too…”

“wait—

She rolls around to face him in the dark. Taking a leap of faith. “I love you, Aaron.”

“Really?” He doesn’t believe her at first.

She nods, reaching out she places her hand on his cheek, barely able to see him in the dark but she can see enough. “Even if you don’t want me to… even if you rather we be friends. I love you.”

“I-I-

“It’s okay,” she cuts him off. “You don’t have to say anything. We can pretend this didn’t happen if you want. I just… I don’t want things to change again. I was so scared in New York, I thought I was losing my best friend and then you got hurt and this thing between us got stronger… and then we went on that little trip. And then I got hurt and—

“You told me you loved me that night,” Aaron whispers. “You were high on the medicine I gave you and you were falling asleep but you said it. I wanted it to be true so bad, but I never said anything.”

“Oh,” she had no idea. Truly never remembered a thing. “Is that why we kept getting closer?”

He nods. “I don’t know how long I’ve loved you.”

Her eyes widen her heart speeds up, “really?”

“Trying to be in charge of hostage rescue knowing you were in there almost killed me,” he whispers. Still affected by it. “Hearing him hurt you… not knowing where you were in the compound… Derek and Dave had to keep reminding me I couldn’t storm the place myself just to get you back.”

“Oh.” She doesn’t know what else to say. “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he assures her. He rolls back onto his back and pulls her in closer, she rests her cheek on his chest and he holds her hand where it rests on his stomach. He kisses the top of her head. “You’re my best friend too, you know?”

“I figured,” she teases, holding him close, she smiles to herself. It’s hard to believe this is real and she isn’t dreaming. “So what does this mean for us?”

“I don’t want anyone to know,” Aaron whispers. “Not because I’m ashamed or anything… but with The Reaper out there, with him saying he’s going to make my life a living hell, I can’t risk it.”

“We’re going to find him,” she says, confident in the team. “I need you to know that. I need you to believe that this isn’t your fault and I need you to remember that what he does doesn’t fall on your shoulders. No matter what he does.”

“It’s easier said than believed,” he whispers.

She gets off him and reaches over to the lamp on her bedside table, she flicks it on and sits up, staring at him. “I am so scared to lose you over this. After what happened after the bus— with Rossi, and-and after the way you’ve been so withdrawn and honestly… you’ve been kind of a dick to everyone but me, Penelope especially. I can’t have you being mad all the time, I can’t deal with the thought that a case is going to send you over the edge and I’m going to find you dead in your apartment one morning. I can’t do it,” she cries. “I can’t lose you over this.”

“Hey,” he sits up and tentatively puts his hand on her knee. “I’m not going to do anything like that. I promise.” He wipes the tears from her cheeks, “am I disappointed in myself? Yes. Am I going to kill myself over it? No. Never. I’m not going to do that to you or the team or my son. Believe me, I know I’m going to get over this. I know we can catch this guy, but the anticipatory dread I’m feeling, this anxiety, it’s not just going to go away until we catch him. I’m not going to feel okay again until he’s either behind bars or dead.”

“You can talk to me about it,” she reminds him. “Always. I’m never going to push away your feelings or make you feel small. I won’t think less of you or tell your secrets to the others. What we have is special, I’d never break that. I want to be there for you.”

“And that’s why I fell in love with you,” he admits.

Her bottom lip sticks out a bit more as she pouts at him, “Really?”

He nods, “Yes, really… can I kiss you?”

She places her hand on his shoulder and lifts her leg over his lap so she can sit in it, her hands resting on both his cheeks now. “You can kiss me whenever you want to.”

His hands come around to cup her lower back and cradle the back of her head, he pulls her in closer and presses their lips together softly. She never thought she’d get to kiss him… but she has imagined it many times. This is even better than anything she could’ve ever conjured in her mind, alone in the middle of the night.

His lips are soft, his hands are so big and his chest against her own is so inviting. Her hands drop from his cheeks, down his neck, she drags them over his shoulders and then down his strong arms. She feels him up as he kisses her over and over again. Soft pecks at first, he finally licks along her bottom lip, inviting her in for more.

His hand cupping the back of her head comes around to caress her jaw, he traces his fingers down her neck and stops right at the hem of the neckline of her shirt. She pulls back then, breathless and anticipating more, “you can touch me,” she whispers against his lips, stealing more kisses. “You can have me.”

“Have you?” He smirks, trying not to laugh.

“I’m yours now,” she says, feeling drunk on his kiss. “Keep me, touch me, love me, whatever. I’m yours.”

He smiles into another kiss, “All mine you say?” He whispers before kissing her jaw and down her neck. His hand continues down, cupping her breast gently before resting at her side.

She tilts her head back, letting him have more space to kiss… his lips feel so good on her like they were always meant to be there. He starts to go lower, kissing over her shirt, right where her heart would be in her chest. “I want to kiss you everywhere, every last inch of you.”

She reaches for the hem of her shirt, pulling it up and over her head, “keep going.”

He lays her back against the bed then, her head resting on her pillow, he kneels between her legs and hovers over her. He stares into her eyes for a moment and then starts to look at her naked chest, “you’re so beautiful.”

“Thank you,” she can’t help but smile.

He leans in and kisses her shoulder and all the way down her arm until he grips her wrist and holds her hand to his mouth. He kisses every finger on her right hand and then reaches for her left, doing the same before kissing his way back up to her shoulder. Across her collarbones, down the centre of her chest. He spends equal amounts of time with each boob, making her smile to herself, suppressing a laugh at just how much attention he gives them. But he is a man after all… then he hugs her hips and runs his cheek over her tummy, caressing her gently before he kisses her right beside her belly button and over to her hip.

Loving every inch of her just like he said he wanted to.

She basks in it, the soft touch of his kiss, his calloused hands, his coarse, barely there, beard against her… it's more intimate than anything she’s ever experienced in her life.

This is what love is supposed to be like. She was always meant to be loved by Aaron Hotchner.

He keeps her shorts on, pushing each loose pant leg up to her underwear line to get as much surface area as possible. He kisses all down her thigh, grips under her knee and lifts her leg up to kiss all the way down to her ankles. “Don’t tell me you’ve got a thing for feet…”

He smirks, shaking his head, “I don’t,” he whispers, kissing the side of her foot before laying her leg back down. He grips her at her other ankle, kissing the side of her foot and once again repeating the same pattern as the last leg, just backwards. He gets all the way back up to the hem f her shorts, pushes them up and kisses her underwear line. She sucks in a sharp breath, wishing he’d take a risk and peel her out of her shorts… and then he kisses her right over her shorts, smack-dab in the centre of the mound of her vagina and looks up at her. “Roll over.”

She listens, carefully getting not her stomach, he places a knee on either side of her thighs, boxing her in, and moves her hair over, off her back and to the crook of her neck. He leans in, kissing her one shoulder blade over to the other and then starts down her spine. Once he has her all covered, he wraps a hand under her, holding her close as he presses his body weight onto her. He kisses her shoulder again and then rests his cheek there. “I love you.”

“I love you, more,” she whispers back to him.

He gets off her and lays on his side, facing her. “Are you tired now?” She asks.

He nods. “Can I have just one more kiss?”

She sits up a bit, switches off the lamp and moves in closer to him, rests her hand on his cheek and kisses him softly. Again and again and again until the last thing either one of them remembers before falling asleep is the taste of the other's kiss.

General Taglist 

@ncsls0515 @stevesmunsons @reidsbookclub @sweetyyhippyy @manuosorioh @mrs-dr-reid @k-k0129 @squishyturtle @katsukis1wife @babybisexual @marsmunson86 @buckleyhans

IKP

@southernraven @alluringshawn @lambsheepsheeping @lmg-stilinski24 @louderfortheback @deludedfruitcake @kleff03 @mrs-ssa-hotch @maxinehufflepuffprincess @lokifanfic2021 @art-and-thoughts @forkswabutnoforks4me @no-1martinipolice

[labrxnth]

EotP Chapter 1: Into Darkness (Leon x Reader Series)

Tag List:

WC: 3310

CWs: some heinous forced father figure shit, human experimentation, PTSD, kidnapping, cannon level body horror, cannon level swearing and violence, body comparison.

AN: So, This monster is finally here now that Prison Break is done. I'm thinking of a schedule that I can accurately keep, maybe one chapter every two weeks. This series will span over all of Resident Evil, it's gonna be a big boy so strap in.

If you want to be on the tag list, comment and it'll be done.

Spotify Link: Listen along to the playlist I've curated for this fanfic

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡ﾟ☆. ───

The first thing you experienced about the apocalypse wasn’t the loud sirens, explosions, or screaming. It was how quiet it was. The usual fluorescent lights of the lab testing floor you were on were still burning as bright as ever, your eyes trailing the multitude of doctors and nurses scrambling through the hall, clipboards and keycards in hand. 

Your hand placed itself on the glass wall, confused as to why the doctors and scientists were acting more skittish than usual. The feeling you had in your stomach turning into a deeper pit. Anxiety swelling inside of you. 

Even without any of the chemicals dumped into you through the many syringes “gifted” to you, your intuition was off the charts. You knew something was wrong. 

Hearing the usual vroom of the door to your cell opening, your eyes turned to it, seeing the scientist usually in charge of you with a lead in hand. He stood in the doorway, his salt and pepper hair slicked back like it always was. His glasses were pristine, no scratches or dirt on them, his lab coat and scrubs eerily clean. 

“Subject 13, we’re moving you,” David said, his voice not leaving room for question. 

You nodded, walking up to him. David had been in charge of you since you got here at the ripe age of 10. A decade of being trapped in these four walls, not seeing the outside. 

The last time you were outside, the whole world felt like it was dripped in neon. The lights, the hair, the makeup, everything. All you wanted was a Barbie doll or a cabbage patch kid. Now, the world to you was white walls, white floors, and people wearing all white. 

David clasped the lead onto your thin collar, starting to walk the opposite end down the hallway that you were used to. You only ever walked to the left of your cell, not the right. Today you were going to the right, following all the other doctors and scientists. 

“Where are we going?” You asked quietly. 

“Hm?” David asked, not even bothering to look over you. 

You took a second, looking down at your feet while you walked. Taking a deep breath, you get ready to rephrase your sentence. “Father, where are you taking me?” You rephrased. 

He smiled back at you, his yellow cigarette smoke stained teeth being visible from behind his lips. “My flower, we’re relocating you.” He responded, then looked forward. 

Relocation….. 

You’ll get to see another part of the world. Maybe if you were lucky, you’d be able to see outside through windows. The idea thrilled you more than the fear of being sent to another location. But still, one thought loomed over you, the NEST had been your home for the past 10 years, why were they moving you now?

“Father, why?” You asked, watching people run by you. The hairs on the back of your neck were sticking up, matching the anxiety of everyone else besides David. 

“Because, My Flower, someone messed up on one of the upper floors,” He replied. His tone was always condescending, infantilizing you, talking down to you. He acted like you were still 10 like when he “found you”. 

“Messed up?” You asked. He never told you about stuff happening on the upper floors, you were hoping that he’d be willing to go into deeper detail if he was already in a talking mood. 

“Birkin…. messed with something that he shouldn’t have,” He responded and left it at that. 

Birkin…. That had to be a person by the way he was talking. You had searched your memory, trying to figure out if you ever came into contact, but couldn’t remember anything. 

As the two of you walked through a set of double doors, the hallway changed from white to a blaring red. An alarm was going off, along with the emergency lights, making the hallway a sensory nightmare. 

You squeezed your eyes closed, attempting to quell the migraine you were starting to get from everything. 

After going through another set of double doors, you felt yourself rising from the ground. Opening them in a panic, you noticed you were in an elevator, making your way to the surface. How long had it been since you were in an elevator last? It had to have been at the mall, while you were waiting impatiently to get to Orange Julius. 

The mall that had just opened up down the road from where you lived. The same mall where a strange man in a suit came up to you and asked you where your parents were.

The same one where you were taken from, never to see the outside world again. 

“Where will we go?” You asked, your (e/c) eyes meeting his face. 

“Where we go,” David replied dryly. 

You nodded, discontent with the answer, but pushing your feelings aside like you had been trained to do. If you dug too far, it would only spell more pain and suffering for you; curiosity was not a trait celebrated by Umbrella Corp. 

He led you down another hallway, the lead tugging at your neck, an uncomfortable feeling, making you seem like a dog. Your place was a lab rat, property owned by Umbrella Corp. You were truly David’s bitch through and through. Something he held over you. 

After a mind numbing walk through more hallways than you could count, you felt the cold air prick your face. Your nose breathed in the fresh air for the first time in a decade, tears almost welling in your eyes at the nostalgic feeling of it. It was crisp, but warm at the same time. Smelling like nothing, but everything all at once. Where the air smelled like cleaner and chemicals in your cell, the air here smelled of an electric charge, a storm on the horizon, and the calamity happening in the city. 

Looking around, you saw the city horizon line. There were more lights than when you were brought here, assuming you were looking at the same side of the building from before. You saw the misty haze sweeping over the city, the pine trees in the background surrounding the mountains in the faint distance. If you could see the roads, you would have seen the destruction breaking out around you. 

You would have seen the hell emerging from the depths of where you were kept. 

Looking forward, you saw a military grade helicopter, the same type they brought you here in. When you were first taken, you remembered every single detail you could with hope you could somehow make it out. 

Obviously, you were naïve. 

David ushered you into the helicopter, taking his seat in the pilot’s. Two U.S.S. (Umbrella Security Services) agents accompanied the two of you on the helicopter, guns drawn. One was pointed off the ramp, the other was pointed at you. At this point, you would have either been an idiot or had a death wish if you attempted to run. At this point you had the survivor mentality beaten out of you. 

Starting up the helicopter, David tied your lead to the bar separating the two of your seats. Your eyes were glued to the world outside, watching the rain hit the windows and windshields in awe. The world seemed darker since you saw it last, obviously because it was night time, but it felt grungier. Less like the neon wonderland you left and more like cigarette smoke and leather. 

As the helicopter flew above the city, the fires and crowds of people below were finally visible to you. The shock tore through your body at the sight. 

“The people… what’s happening to them?” You asked, your eyes following clusters of people attacking others. It looked like ants fighting from how high up you were, but you could still make out their shapes and sizes. 

“Birken’s atrocity. This is why I worked on more sophisticated projects like you, My Flower,” David replied, running a hand through your hair. An unfamiliar sound filled your ears, getting louder and louder by the second. 

David’s head whipped to the side. “Holy shit!” He yelled and jerked the steering sticks of the helicopter towards you. Your eyes widened as you saw a glimpse of something coming at the two of you, then the world went white again.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡ﾟ☆. ───

You woke up to a searing pain in your right arm. Eyes shooting open, all you saw around you were silent flames, engulfing the helicopter and licking up your right arm. You tried to lunged through the flames and get out of the helicopter, but a force pulled you back, the fucking collar and lead. Looking around the helicopter, you found a stray shard of glass and picked it up. Your hand instantly filled with a sanguine red, the glass cutting your hand from just holding it. Quickly and wasting no time, you sawed through the lead, gritting your teeth at the pain. 

David would surely forgive you for breaking your lead, it was life or death. Then again, he was a psychotic doctor that experimented on and tortured you for years. 

Once the lead went slack, breaking apart, you jumped through the flames, rolling on the floor of wherever you were to extinguish the flames on you. Catching your breath and feeling your heartbeat die down, you took a few seconds, waiting for David or a U.S.S. agent to pick you back up. 

When no one jolted you up to your feet, your eyes opened to find a dusty wooden floor beneath you. Pushing off of your arms, you looked around you and saw a hallway of some sort, a rather plain one, but not the white ones you were used to seeing by now. 

You stood up and looked toward the helicopter, seeing three bodies in there, engulfed in the flames. David and the two U.S.S. agents. 

You were…. Free. 

Free… 

David was dead. 

Your mind kept going over these words in your mind before you decided it would be better to move than stay still. While David had beaten the survivor out of you, you weren’t an idiot. 

The helicopter was cutting the hallway in half, giving you only one choice to go: behind you. You turned around and looked down the daunting hallway, feeling like it would’ve been better if you perished in the crash with everyone else. Nonetheless, you pushed forward into the darkness, your eyes adjusting to the darkness and your ears adjusting to the quiet. 

Walking down the hallway, you found the first door, a wooden door directly in front of you. On the wall, there was a sign that stuck out from it saying “Waiting Room”. As you walked closer, you found yourself having to limp, your ankle feeling less than ideal for walking a great distance. Your hand pressed up to the door, feeling the indents on the real wood. Every texture you had dealt with since you were taken was either slick, cold, slimy, or all of the above. 

It felt nice to feel something homemade, something that felt real. You cautiously pushed the door open and a sudden warmth filled the hallway. The room had multiple lights on, the type that you weren’t used to anymore. Instead of the fluorescent lights that made you want to gouge your eyeballs out, they were small lamps with a warm, orange or yellow glow to them. 

Closing the door behind you, you tried to find anything that could tell you where you were. You had no clue the size of the building you crashed into or where exactly you were. 

Turning to your direct left, you found a bulletin board on the wall with multiple posters. All of them said Raccoon City as the location of what they were advertising, so it was safe to say you were still in the city. 

Looking around more, you were startled as you heard the door behind you open. It was quiet, but you still picked up on it, your ears flicking slightly at the sound. 

“Are you alive?” A rather young voice asked you. Your hands went up slightly in surrender and you turned around. 

When you looked at who was talking, your eyes lit up. The question he asked puzzled you, but seeing someone that looked around your age was a relief in its own right. 

His face was unlike any other face you had seen. Most faces from your childhood blurred together, the only faces you really remember being your own, David’s, and the other scientists that occasionally worked on you for David. This young man’s features were soft, his eyes blue and kind, with an emotion at the forefront. You had seen that emotion in your own eyes before. 

He was scared and trying to hide it. 

“You’re alive,” He responded. You knit your eyebrows in confusion and noticed the gun he was pointing at you. Confused, you nodded and watched him sigh in relief, then lower the gun. “You, me, and Marvin are the only ones here that aren’t infected,” He added, reholstering his gun. 

“Infected?” Your voice asked. 

The young man looked at you, his eyebrows knit together, confusion matching your own. His eyes looked up and down your outfit, the white hospital gown and scrub pants that you had worn for the last ten years catching his eye. 

“Yeah…. Where did you come from?” He asked and took a step towards you. 

Instinctively, you took a step back, his eyes immediately softening. “Hey, I’m not gonna hurt you okay? I’m a police officer, it’s my job to help people.” He said softly. 

You remembered your parents telling you to find a police officer if you ever needed help when you would go to the mall alone. The day you were taken, you tried to tell one that a man in a suit was following you.

You were laughed at. 

Sensing your apprehension, he took off one of his fingerless gloves and held his bare hand out to you. “My name’s Leon, Leon Kennedy. If you want to survive, I might be your best bet,” He said. 

You looked at the hand and hesitantly reached your own out to his. But your name, what name could you tell him? Subject 12 wasn’t your name, it was used to get rid of your humanity, taking away your ability to even have a name. 

A name, you used to have a name, but what was it? Digging deep into your memories, you tried to remember it; tried to remember a friend saying it in joy, tried to remember a parent saying it in love, a teacher in anger. 

Nothing. 

Leon looked at you expectantly, trying to read your expression. Your eyes met his as your hand met his in a shake. All you could remember for a name was the sound of rock playing through your dad’s radio, him praising a female singer for her melodies and guitar playing skills. 

“Joan, my name is Joan,” You said, claiming the name as your own. 

“Nice to meet you Joan, got a gun?” Leon asked. He looked down at your hands and you guessed that you had held on for way too long judging by the look on his face. You let go and awkwardly smiled at him. 

“A gun? No,” You replied, your head tilting to the side slightly. “Why would I need a gun?” You asked. 

“Why would you need a gun?” Leon echoed your question, looking at you incredulously. His eyes then went down to the burn mark on your right arm and the cut through the palm of your same hand.  “Where did you come from, you haven’t been here?” He asked. 

You shook your head slightly, proving his theory correct. “I was in a helicopter, then everything went white and I woke up surrounded by flames in this building,”

His eyes widened. “You were in that helicopter? The one that crashed into the building?” He asked, his eyes almost bugging out of his head. You nodded in response and he dug through his hip pouches, producing a small box with a red cross on it. 

“Here, let me patch you up, take a seat,” He said and gestured to one of the benches. You limped over, his eyes catching which ankle you weren’t letting touch the floor and taking a mental note of it. 

Sitting down on the bench, you looked at the palm of your hand seeing just how deep the glass had cut you. Leon kneeled down in front of you and looked up into your eyes, then back down at the collar you had on. 

“I don’t mean to pry…” He trailed off. You stared at him, expecting him to ask a question, but he just shrugged and shook his head, saying something to himself that a normal person wouldn’t be able to hear, but you could. “Isn’t the weirdest fucking thing I’ve seen today,” He said to himself. 

You watched him take bandages and a small spray can out of the case. “Can I have your hand?” He asked. You gave up your hand, palm side up. His hand gently grabbed your wrist, his eyes darting to your face for any sign of discomfort, but finding none. 

“This will hurt a bit,” He said and shook the small can. As the spray hit your cut, a slight hiss left your mouth. “Sorry,” He said, his eyebrows knit in focus and sympathy. Leon was quick to wrap the hand in bandages and then wrap the burn loosely.   

His hand dropped your wrist and he gestured to your ankle. “Can I help that too?” He asked. You nodded and he took your ankle, resting it on his knee. Almost as quick as when he wrapped your hand, your ankle was wrapped and all set to go. 

“It looks sprained. If we were in a better situation, I’d tell you to stay off of it, but we’re not,” He said and looked up at you.

“Thank you,” You said and lightly smiled at him. Looking down at him, you got a feeling that you haven’t had in awhile. 

You felt like he could be trusted; instead of the churning sea that your stomach usually was, it was calm. A slight warmth spreading through your chest at his smile.

“We should head out, I have this puzzle that I need to solve for us to get out of here,” He said, fishing a small booklet out of his pouches and putting the box back in. 

Looking at him, you could tell that he’d been here for at least longer than you had. He might be useful to stick around; especially if he had weapons and you didn’t. 

“Sounds good,” You said and stood up, getting used to the new weight on your ankle. 

“Before we go…. I gotta ask,” He said, leading into a question that you didn’t really want to answer right now. 

“No you don’t,” You replied and steadied yourself, looking up to meet his gaze. 

“Okay, I guess I don’t,” He said, his head moving to the door he came out of. “Alright, let’s get moving,” He added. 

You followed him through the door, into the unknown. Maybe on the other side of the door, there would be a fully fledged freedom; the world that you were kept from. 

To you, you were free of the white walls, white floors, damnation you were sentenced to. Now, you were headed into hell on Earth that you were completely unaware of. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡ﾟ☆. ───

Catch this fic and others on my AO3

[carryingthebannershitposts]

Very genuinely important question

So, in a modern AU, I feel like all the Newsies would have drastically different music tastes from each other, and I have almost all of them figured out, but I need y'all to tell me if I'm right

Spot: Mother Mother, specifically both Haylofts and Burning Pile since he thinks it makes him look badass, but also he relates to a lot of the lyrics and likes to scream them. On the other side of things, he likes listening to egotistical songs (mostly from Bradways and shit) because they make him feel better about himself. (I give you as an example, What The World Needs from Ride The Cyclone. He loves RTC, Ocean is his favorite character. He hates her character arc tho.)

-

Race: Half Cavetown/Alex G/Will Wood, and other music artists that just make music for a living, half surprisingly upbeat songs, mostly from shows, games and movies, that for the most part aren't made to be listened to as much as he does. For example, No Girl's Toy from the Raggedy Ann/Andy movie had him in a chokehold for a little bit, same with the Cab Calloway version of St. James Infirmary Blues from Betty Boop's Snow White (Specifically JUST that version- he refuses to listen to the other ones). He is not allowed to have his playlist of shuffle in the lodging house because it'll skip right from the most depressing song you've ever heard to some random ass thing from the Cuphead soundtrack.

-

David: Doesn't listen to actual music with lyrics most of the time. No, he puts on that one 10 hour lo-fi compilation from Youtube. If he does want actual music though it's shit like MARINA and Melanie Martinez. Also, he LIVED AND BREATHED the Dear Evan Hansen soundtrack at one point. There's also a few songs he likes but he doesn't listen to anything else from the artist/source material, most notably Soldier, Poet, King and It's Not A Game/It's Just A Ride (After Spot forced everyone to watch RTC with him and Race).

-

Jack: COUNTRY MUSIC. But also, not actual country music. He likes the aethstetic (because cowboy) but can't stand the music, so he gets away with saying it's country music by listening to shit like I Love You Like An Alcoholic. He's gotten caught once listening to Hug All Ur Friends after Race recommended it, but he always used headphones after that. Also, being the tenor icon he is, he would be in choir and all his choir pieces (specifically the concerning sounding ones) are on his spotify playlist. (I raise you: A Silence Haunts Me. Look it up. Also, yes, as a Tenor who sang that piece with the choir I'm in, it's still in my playlist.)

-

Crutchie/Les: Grouped together because these two have the same music taste and share headphones a lot. It consists of AJR (They like the vibe of the music and both giggle quietly when it swears) The entire lion guard soundtrack, a bunch of Yaelokre songs and other fantasy-sounding stuff, and a bunch of My Little Pony (g4) songs.

-

Albert: Doesn't listen to as much music as the others, but he notably blasts the entire Hazbin Hotel soundtrack whenever he's watching the younger kids, very loudly yelling all the swears. He doesn't even watch Hazbin Hotel, he just does it to piss everyone off for fun. Jack hates this but can't really do anything about it.

[spurgie-cousin]

I hope that when Jrod was on the floor today “weeping with joy” that her hair extensions got caught in the floorboards, or that Cinnamon yanked them out thinking her hair was a toy. I hope that her tears left burns down her face from her days old, caked on, crusted eye makeup having some kind of chemical reaction with the salt in her tears.

I give it 2 months or less and she’s going to be weeping with something other than joy when David gets targeted by ice for having the last name Rodrigues and a skin tone other than paper white

*mutters quietly to myself* I will not make a false report to ICE.........I will not make a false report to ICE..........

no but Jill can be happy all she wants, it won't change the fact that she's universally hated and lives a sad small life that she can't admit she resents (otherwise why constantly try and prove how GREAT it is?).

it'll come back to bite her in ways we probably won't ever hear about, just like all of her bigoted hateful decisions. so she can be happy for one day in the miserable life she created, i hope she enjoys it before she has to go back to scaring her kids into submission and making inedible looking food.

[nathantheauthor]

I said I was going to start talking about the rewrites I have, and what better way than just start with the poster boys, and I do mean boys!

Welcome to the first entry of my Creepypasta rewrites, I introduce the rewrites for Woods, Keaton and a variant of 2015, as well as my own original Jeff! We'll talk about this in chronological order.

Before we get into it I do have to preference there is a lot of lore that I'm not going to fully dive into here, cuz as you'll notice I have excluded a Jeff variant, as I'm saving Hodek for his own blog entry. My takes on Jeff depict the variance as a cult worshiping the original Jeff the killer, with Woods and Keaton at the head of it, well, Keaton is the REAL master mind.

Hailing from 2013, we have the ever well-known and (not very) beloved Jeffrey Woods, the second ever recorded Jeff The Killer. No I actually had a lot of difficulty figuring this one out, because he needed the biggest rewrite out of all of them, and frankly, I had fun and adore the end result.

Jeffrey Woods is still a story we know, and have seen time and time again, but there is a few major updates and differences to his origins. For starters, one of the major things I wanted to do and touch up on is his relationship and dynamic with Liu, and I went a step further to switch their ages, Jeff is once again the younger brother, with Liu being only a year older than him, making most of the stuff to come later make a lot more sense.

The other major change is the incident is no longer a birthday party, I rewritten and restructured a lot of the events without changing most of the beats, and this is the event I've changed the most, and it's aftermath, you see instead of a birthday party this takes place at a 4th of July gathering. The events play out somewhat the same, with his parents sending him to find his own entertainment and ultimately he ends up playing cowboys with some of the younger kids, before Randy and crew came onto the scene, pulling him away for a "chat".

Instead of guns or the flare gun this time around, no, Jeff is hit with some illegal fireworks, the incident burning him from head to toe, leaving him worse from where when the ambulance is finally do arrive and Randy is arrested. His pale skin is actually explained by the improper skin grafts, leaving him with ghostly pale skin, and in fact, he still has his eyelids. Rather than them being removed, his eyes are unable to shut properly due to a problem with the methods used to treat him.

In fact the events of the first murder are completely different, it is instead the family of Jane Arkensaw, leading to his parents seeing him coming back from the burning the house down, forcing him to silence them as well before visiting Liu. In this version of events there is no catchphrase, instead it's Jeff struggling to find any sort of comforting words for his brother, only what their parents used to tell them... "Shh. Just go to sleep." Before smothering him with a pillow and leaving during Liu's unconscious moments. Now homeless, and on the run, he's forced to fend for himself until!

Jeffrey Keaton, the third and most vile recorded Jeff The Killer, based semi off of the MBK version. He's more violent and manipulative, and audible stutter often signifying his enjoyment of his depraved actions. Unlike Woods, there had been something wrong with Keaton deeply from the start, hell it wasn't just him, his elder brother David was equally as vile. They killed their parents together, and wreaked havoc across the small town of Ferguson,

However, similar to his counterpart in the MBK-verse, he would be trapped in Krueger asylum and meeting group of colorful individuals. Helen Otis, Natalie Outlette, Katherine Knight, Diana Angels, and Owen Allaster. Eventually they would all find themselves free in the wake of Natalie's superhuman strength awakening. They broke out as a group, ultimately splitting up as Owen and Katherine returned to Slenderman, Jeff sought to find his brother, Diana Angels left to seek out answers to what she is, and Natalie vanished into the night.

Having split ways with his asylum gang, Jeffrey would find himself lured into an abandoned pizzeria, David strung up from wires, the mad head of the asylum was waiting for him, garbed in wolf mask and trench coat. The resulting class at ultimately end in the death of David and the first of many deadly experiences for Jeffrey Keaton.

In the aftermath of this, he would be indoctrinated and resurrected by Zalgo, infected with the demonic warden's influence, and ultimately coming to die multiple times.

Present day Jeffrey Keaton is a walking corpse, malnourished and rotting, bugs crawling beneath his skin and threatening to eat him from the inside out. He can only be described as a GHOUL, a zombie. His appearance began to resemble the ugliness inside of him over time, to be a reflection of the monster within.

He's long evolved from playing serial killing, now using the existence and concept of Jeffrey Hodek, he's formed a cult alongside Woods, calling themselves The Church of Smiles, which, unbeknownst to Woods, is a way for Keaton to highly rack up the amount of kills made in the name of Zalgo. The undead abominable aims to speed up his master's arrival, using the others as his pawns.

Our next stop is Jeffrey Coleman! A reimagined 2015, which is mostly the same for now, the only difference is that rather than the flare gun... He is suffering from a chemical burn that covers half his face.

Our final stop, the original concept. Jefferson Forester! The youngest of the jeffs here, and the most short-lived. Honestly I'm still working on flushing on his backstory, and general concepts for him...

I can't over say that I do have a lot of concepts for what he was during his time alive, but I do want to talk about him because he's how I started to like Jeff The Killer again. I actually originally hated the guy, and that just spawned from how I written a lot of variants were, and just the damage he did to the fandom as a whole. But, the goal for Forester was to create what I would like to see as the ideal Jeff The Killer.

Forester is an amalgamation of all that came before him, the stutter from keaton, a more thorough burning than 2015, leaving him a SCARRED mess, and he is the only one that actually has the catchphrase penned by Woods. He's twisted and chatty, he'll break you down psychologically before he takes your life.

Forester is egotistical and short sighted, he was the first one to come up with the idea of leaving carved Smiles as a sort of calling card for the church, and it's ultimately he that ends up creating this world's Nina. Ultimately, it's his ego that got some killed, for when Jack Revver came for him, he thought that nothing could stop him. I'll probably make a blog for him when I eventually return to fully flush him out.

So, yeah, I figured we start off strong with the poster boy(s) of the community. And I'm sure you've noticed them in the tags and their real names in thread, but there are plenty of pastas mention here that will get their own blog entries with time. Bloody Painter, Clockwork, Killing Kate, Zalgo Judge Angels and Nina Hopkins, all already have their own rewrites, and I'm actively working on the rewrite for The Red Artist

[vampire-club]

Heroes | November 7th, 1983

steve harrington x oc

(this entry contains: pining, yearning, slow burn, teen angst, unrequited love, childhood best friends, best friends, friends with benefits, sex, drugs, rock-n-roll, smoking, drinking, david bowie, vampires, potentially erotic soccer playing, dungeons, dragons, and the incurable desire to be known)

word count: 2.1k

series masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

from the diary of Sara Henderson: writer, actor, biter, striker, team player, good with kids

dedicated to her brother, Dustin, and her best friend, Steve. may they never, ever read this!

i might be in the library… 

November 7th, 1983

I can’t discern the sound that wakes me up. Realizing it’s a symphony of both my alarm and the phone, I hit the clock and drag myself to my desk. Mom is at work so I play receptionist in the mornings. I clear my voice before answering the phone. 

“Hel-” I am immediately cut off.

“Sara?” Joyce. My mind immediately runs away from me. It’s not unusual for her to call, but being almost frantic first thing in the morning? 

“Y-yeah?” Is all I can manage as I snap into the day. Her words are on top of mine.

“Did Will stay over last night?” Will doesn’t stay over here. I mean, he has before but it’s not exactly something that would happen on a whim.

“Oh, no. He rode his bike home from the Wheeler's. I saw him… he was with Dustin. He went right past our house…” Right?

“And you haven’t seen him?” She’s seemingly trying to keep herself together. 

“No. Didn’t he make it home last night?”

“I’m sure he just left before I saw him this morning.” This isn’t normal. I can tell she’s scared. I’d be worried, too. I’m like her in that way. Seems I have more in common with 40 year old mothers every day. Bummer.

“Ok, I’ll-”

“Thank you, Sara. Bye.” The line disconnected before I could say anything else. Huh. Business as usual? I put the phone back and haul myself to Dustin’s door. 

“Morning!” I knock loud enough to wake him and wait for a response. A loud groan tells me all I need to know. He’s awake and he’ll join the rest of the world shortly. 

What’s going on with Will? I don’t want to tell Dustin yet. It could be nothing so there’s no reason to worry him, right? For now, I’ll pretend everything is normal. Nothing I haven’t already been doing so what else is new?

Just go through the motions as usual. Make breakfast, get ready, make sure Dustin leaves for school on time.

I grab some bowls of cereal, put them on the table and- no milk. Shit. Just add it to the list and I’ll grab it later. Change of plans. I grab two muffins and throw some bacon on the stove. Be right back. Get dressed quickly and of course all my sweaters are dirty. I guess I’ll do laundry when I get home. Short sleeves. Just throw a jacket over and it’ll be fine. Bra, boots, bag, blush, books… bacon. I throw everything into my backpack and run back into the kitchen. Almost burnt. Good enough timing. 

“Come on, Dustin. Breakfast.” I call, pouring him a glass of juice and putting on a pot of coffee. By the time I set the table and take a moment to sit, I hear his door open, then close. He clumps to the kitchen and drops his things.

“Good morning.” He says, clearly still tired.

“Good morning. Did you get your homework done?” He nods as he bites into his muffin. There has to be something for us to talk about.

“I have some time this week to write a campaign for you guys.” No I don’t. “You could play it this weekend.”

“That could be cool. We just have to finish our other campaign first.” 

“Then I’ll have it for you next weekend.”

“Awesome.” He smiles 

That worked. Kinda how it used to be. Dustin and I actually have a lot in common. I’m not sure if that is more embarrassing for me or for him. We both finished our food quickly since it wasn’t much and we were on our way out. I hand him his hat and pour some coffee to go. Plenty of cream and lots of sugar. 

“Be safe.” I tell him as he gets on his bike.

“I know.” He says. “See you later.” 

“Later.” I wave as he rides off. Following his lead, I get in my car and make my way to school.

Sweetly reminiscent,

Something mother used to bake

Hawkins High has an unspoken rule about parking spots. They’re not assigned but they might as well be. My spot is the fifth down the second aisle, facing north. Steve parks on my left, the sixth spot. 99% of the time, I beat Steve to school. The 1% is the days I don’t show up. I leave a little note on his windshield every morning. Mostly meaningless, they are usually just lyrics or Shakespeare or drawings. 

“Thy sin’s not accidental, but a trade.”

I’ll explain it to him eventually. I won’t see him until class, but somehow I feel his lingering presence as I pass Nancy in the hall. She’s a little preoccupied reading some note so neither of us really acknowledge the other. She’s not quite my friend but we’re more than acquaintances. I don’t know what to call that. Well now she’s like my friend's almost girlfriend? Whatever, just keep walking to class.

I save a seat for Steve. I want to sit closer to the front, he wants to sit in the back. We sit in the middle. He walks in right before the bell in a manner that I would call oddly peppy. 

“She’s got you good, Romeo.” I whisper.

“And I’m gonna see her again tonight.” Almost jumping for joy in and out of his seat.

“You are a real winner.” I grab the notes from my bag and hand them to him. “Don’t let me down now that you have other prospects.”

“Have I ever?” Hand over heart, he looks at me. 

thy sin’s not accidental, but a trade

Hours pass by. I think about Will and my brother. It somehow makes the day go by faster. Soon, I’m walking back to my car with Steve. 

“I’ll let you know how it goes.” Please don’t.

“Oh good. Disgusting amounts of detail please.” I will throw up if you say anything weird.

“Yeah you wish.” He opens my door and nudges me into the seat. I should run him over.

“Gross. I’ll talk to you later. Don’t forget-” He cuts me off as I start the car.

“The notes. I’ve got it. Bye” He closes my door. Rolling my eyes, I wave to him and drive away. Off to my destined duties and to not think about him swapping spit with Nancy. 

By the time I’m home from the store, the sun is just about to set. Dustin is home, sitting at the kitchen table as I walk in. Usually he would be at Mike’s.

“Hey Dust, I didn’t think you’d be here. How was school?”

“The same as it always is I guess. Except for the part where the cops told us that Will is missing.” So it’s real and it’s only getting realer. He won’t be happy if he finds out I knew something was wrong.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know, I guess he didn’t get home last night. We answered their questions but we should be out there helping.” Absolutely not. There is a line when it comes to me getting into trouble and this would probably be crossing it. I especially need to keep Dustin out of it. I take a deep breath.

“Look, I am sorry that they can’t find Will but there isn’t much that we can do. If the police are looking for him then let’s not interfere. You’ve already helped by telling them what you know.”

“I was gonna go to Mike’s and…” Here we go.

“You know I can’t let you. Not until we know-”

“Please, Sara.” I kneel down next to him, really needing him to hear me.

“I have to keep you safe, especially now. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” He goes to his room without another word. I don’t try to stop him. At least he’s not in danger there. I’ll just try again later. 

Unpack groceries, start laundry, make dinner. Go team! Except that the team is me, myself, and I.

Dinner is quick. Just some spaghetti for tonight. I don’t have the time or the desire to make anything else. Dustin says he’s not hungry. I’ll try again a little later.

Not too much homework tonight. It’s mostly Latin, which is probably the most cerebral class I’m taking. Steve thinks it’s funny, but I’m not the one struggling in Spanish. Mom gets home, thanks me for the groceries, and goes to bed by the time I’m done. I check the clock and it’s already 9. Time to try appealing to Dustin one last time. I know that he’s worried, I am too. We really are similar, which is why I know what will work on him. I go to his bedroom door and knock.

“I got ice cream at the store if you want some.” Nothing.

“Dessert for dinner. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity you’re missing out on.” Still nothing. “Dustin!” I knock again. “Dustin?” Against my better judgment, I decide to open the door.

He’s not there.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

Immediately I looked for his bike. Easiest way to know if he’s home. Nowhere to be found. Now, unlike last night, I shoot out of the house and am flying through the neighborhood. I go straight to the Wheeler’s, getting there in record, and law, breaking time. It’s really raining. I loathe driving in the rain. Almost there and I see Steve’s car parked a block away. Subtle. 

As I approach the house, I notice the idiot in question trying to climb out of a window. Steve notices my car pull up. I don’t even turn the car off before getting out. I won’t be here long. He walks through the yard in a way that only he would describe as sneaky. Lucas scrambles out of the house right after. I nod him off, signaling him to get home. 

“Be safe.” I warn. He nods before taking off on his bike. Dustin comes out right after, first in a hurry, but almost freezes when he sees me. Slowly making his way towards me, but Steve beats him.

“What are you doing here?” Steve asks. I simply point at Dustin.

“Uh oh. Someone’s in trouble.” Steve says as he starts to walk towards his car.

“You’re not setting a very good example.” I joke. 

“Neither are you.” He shrugs, slipping me a pack of cigarettes he must have swiped from me earlier.  

“See you later” And he’s off. Just in time for Dustin to take his place.

“What do I always tell you? Don’t do anything stupid, don’t do anything dangerous, and don’t be like him.” I gesture to Steve and turn to open my trunk for his bike.

“Are you mad?” I really want to be.

“I’m just glad you’re safe.” I take his bike. “Get in.” And he does.

This is the first night we drive home without music. 

He seems pretty shaken up and I can’t tell if it’s because he got caught or if it’s something else. What happened tonight, and where is Will?  It’s not quiet for long.

“You’re not in trouble.” Let’s get that out of the way.

“Are you gonna tell mom?” And get us both in trouble?

“I won’t. Unless you want me to.” Clearly a joke. That is the last thing either of us want. He laughs a little.

“Good idea.” He says and I grin.

“But I will tell you that what you did tonight was a new level of stupid. You completely ignored everything I’ve told you.”

“I know… what do you mean by ‘don't be like Steve?’” I’ll tell you when you’re older or whatever parents say.

“Just that… he does stupid things and you, Dustin, are not stupid. So I don’t want you acting like it.” Stellar big sister advice if I do say so myself.

“Do you think Steve is a douchebag?” Yes.

“Yes.” Honesty. Without hesitation. 

“So why are you friends with him?” Well. What do I say to that? Because he’s Steve. That’s it. There’s not a way to explain it that would make sense. The closest I’ve got is because I think that I’m a douchebag too so it’s a birds of a feather thing. But I won’t say that to Dustin. Instead…

“He’s a good guy, I think.” A little rough.

“You think?”

“‘I think’ as in that’s what I believe. I believe that he is a good guy. That is why I’m friends with him. I always thought you liked Steve.”

“I don’t know, you just seem mad at him.” Not far off but just another thing I can’t explain.

“I’m not. It doesn’t matter.” Deflect. “What you did was stupid regardless of Steve. What were you guys even doing?”

“Nothing.” He snaps and the car is quiet again.

“You don’t have to tell me, but if you want to, you know?” 

“Yeah, I know. No secrets.” He says. 

“No secrets.” I say.

And it’s clear that neither of us mean it. 

said you’d give me light

[youcouldmakealife]

SOTM: David/Jake; unilateral move

For the prompt: David and Jake re-discussing marriage and kids post-retirement

David has never wanted children. Not when he was a child himself, not when he was a teenager, and not as the years went by, no matter how many well meaning remarks have been made about him changing his mind and wanting them some day.

Strangely, not wanting kids had offered a strange sort of comfort when he was younger. Sure, he was — he couldn’t even think the word at the time. But at least that meant children weren’t going to be something to worry about in his future. He’d be alone forever, and that wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t the worst thing either.

Obviously things didn’t work out that way.

Anyone who’s met Jake for ten minutes knows he’s the sort of person who wants marriage and kids. David knew he’d be good with kids before he ever saw the gentle way he has with them, careful but not ginger. And not careful because he’s afraid of them, the way David is, especially when they’re small, impossibly fragile.

Every time the topic came up — and it did, every so often, after time with the Lourdes, or meeting a teammate’s newborn, or someone said ‘you two thinking about kids?’, offhand, like that wasn’t an insultingly personal question.

Every time it came up, Jake would say something like ‘we don’t have to decide yet’, or ‘can’t do anything until retirement anyway’, over David’s ‘no’, and David never knew if he said that hoping that David’s mind would change by then, or if he was giving a deadline, but letting David know there was still time. A stay of execution before they both had to admit, with their parallel careers behind them, that they wanted to walk different paths, and that maybe it would be best to part ways.

David doesn’t want to part ways, but he doesn’t want to walk the path Jake wants to walk either, and he doesn’t know how to reconcile those two things, isn’t sure that he can. So he took delay as a reprieve, with gratitude.

When Jake retired, it was delayed again, ‘we don’t have to talk about this until you retire’, and that lasted longer than David thinks either of them expected, his body holding out, his skills remaining relevant, until he was the only one remaining from his draft class, then his draft class and the two draft classes following.

But now David’s retired, and the offseason has cycled into a new season, the first one he hasn’t been a part of in over two decades, and Jake hasn’t brought it up, but David knows he wants to, is just waiting for what seems like a good time, and David doesn’t know what he’s going to say, but he knows whatever it is, it’s not going to be what Jake wants to hear. Whatever he says is going to be the wrong thing.

David doesn’t think about the conversation they need to have often, truly; he tries not to, with the things that scare him, even though he knows that probably isn’t the way he’s supposed to deal with them, that bravery is doing it anyway, not turning away from it. But then, David’s never claimed to be brave.

He hasn’t thought about it in weeks, right up until he gets a text from Emily while he and Jake are lingering over a late breakfast, David half-heartedly pushing at the last of the fruit he took too much of, hoping Jake will notice and offer to eat it for him.

Max is grinning wide, a little too close to the camera, like he was crowding the screen. He looks like he’s about to do something that’ll get him trouble, maybe already did it, and David finds he takes after Emily more and more as he gets older, but in this picture he’s all Kiro. David possibly loves Max more than he loves Kiro, and that’s saying a lot. It burns a little, how much he cares about him, but a good burn, like a sore muscle after a hard day of training.

“I still don’t want kids,” David says aloud.

“Aw, come on, if there’s any kid that shouldn’t turn you off kids, it’s Max,” Jake says, looking up from his own phone. Em must have sent him the picture too.

“I’m not turned off kids,” David says. He loves Max, loves his nephews, always liked signing things for kids the most. Toddlers mostly no longer scare him, though he’s still anxious whenever someone hands him a baby. It’s not that. “I just don’t want them.”

Jake puts his phone down. “Okay,” he says, and David doesn’t know if it’s ‘okay, we don’t have to have kids’ or ‘okay, I hear you’ or ‘okay, I guess this is it for us then’, and he’s terrified.

“It’s not because I had bad parents,” David says. “Before you say that. It’s not.”

“David,” Jake says.

“I—“ David says. “I’m not denying they’re bad parents, but they’re not responsible for every single one of my decisions and preferences.”

“I didn’t say they were,” Jake says.

“I know,” David says. “I don’t know, maybe it’s just that I’m selfish, or—”

“You’re not selfish,” Jake says, and David doesn’t bother to argue with him, because they both know he’s lying.

“I don’t want my life to change,” David says. “I like it the way it is, and I’m not willing to turn my life upside down for someone I don’t even know if I’d love—“

“Of course you’d love them,” Jake interrupts.

“You don’t know that,” David says. “There is absolutely no way to know that. No one goes into parenthood thinking they aren’t going to love their child, because who would do that to themselves, let alone to a kid?”

Jake’s quiet, still.

“Kids know, Jake,” David says. “They aren’t oblivious. They know when something’s missing.”

“I think you’re underestimating yourself,” Jake says.

And maybe David would be if this was a matter of willpower, but he doesn’t think it is. He doesn’t think you can will yourself to love someone any more than you can will yourself not to love someone. And he loves Max, and Ian, and Cam, but they aren’t his children. If he hadn’t loved them, it would have been unfortunate, but it’s not the same.  

“It’s not a choice,” David says. “You don’t choose to love someone.”

“I think you would, though,” Jake says.

“You don’t know that,” David says. “And I don’t either, because that’s not how it works.”

Jake doesn’t say anything, and David looks up, but he can’t get a read on Jake’s expression.

“I know you want kids,” David says. “I know that, and I still — I don’t want them. I don’t want kids, and leaving aside whatever…issues I have, and everything else, I just — don’t. I don’t.”

The silence is unbearable. He’s been waiting for Jake to cut in, to say — he doesn’t know what, that David misinterpreted, that he doesn’t either, or that it doesn’t matter, or —

But he does, and it does, and that’s the problem.

“And I know that’s something you want, but I can’t provide it,” David says. “If I could, I’d do that for you, but I can’t.”

“David,” Jake says softly, and he’s been waiting for Jake to say something, anything, but now that he has, David can’t look up from his hands.

“And if that means we should part ways, we should probably do that sooner rather than later,” David says, trying not to choke on it.

Not that fertility’s a concern, the way it would be if either of them was a woman, and if it had been, it would have been a concern they needed to start talking about a decade ago. But babies and small children involve sleep deprivation and a lot of energy, and David imagines that grows harder as you get older. Besides, Jake probably wouldn’t want to do it alone, would have to find someone first, someone easier, though that won’t be hard to find, and maybe —

“David,” Jake says, and David jerks his head up, manages to meet his eye for a moment before he looks down again. “I’ve been gone for you since we were eighteen years old, what did you think was going to happen here?”

“I don’t know,” David says, and he watches his hands shake until Jake’s hands settle heavy over his, pins them still.