#all of you somehow made this year so less shitty than how it started out and fkflfldl

[cafelattaes]

afterglow | zcl

summary: in which you felt fed up with chenle and walked out after a fight, but you were uncertain whether he’d make an effort to save your relationship.

pairing: chenle x fem!reader

genre: angst, fluff

word count: 2.1k

you were having an argument with chenle. you tried to tell him that you felt a little uneasy about one of his female friends, but he downplayed your emotions and it irked you.

"don't you think you're being unfair?" you asked, frustration evident in your voice. "you're allowed to be jealous of every single person you think is hitting on me, but i'm not even allowed to feel upset that you have a close friend who obviously likes you?"

chenle responded dismissively. "it doesn't matter if someone likes me. all my friends know i'm head over heels for you. besides, none of my friends have openly told me they like me. i can't say the same to you and your so-called guy friends."

"i already rejected him," you countered, your voice rising. "how many times do i have to tell you that?"

"it doesn't look like you did because he's obviously still expecting something from you." he retorted, crossing his arms.

"i don't know how else to convince you. why do you always do this? every time i try to tell you how i feel, you always find a way to somehow turn it around on me, and it ends with you feeling more upset than i am."

"look, you don't need to worry about me. i couldn't care less about anyone who might like me. but you? you're too soft with that friend of yours. you might not see it, but it's obvious to everyone else how he hangs all over you. and you're not doing enough to stop it."

"but i don't like him, i never did and i never will. you also have nothing to worry about. why can't you let it go?"

chenle sighed, his eyes narrowing. "the same reason you can't let go of your concerns about my friend. no matter what i say, you're still upset and you're still jealous. that's exactly how i feel."

"so what do you want me to do?" you asked, exasperated.

"nothing. you can't do what i want."

"you want me to stop being friends with him? is that it?" you asked, incredulous. "will you do it for me if i ask you the same thing?" you challenged him. but chenle didn't respond; he just rolled his eyes and turned his back on you.

you felt so pissed off. chenle was always so unfair to you whenever you had a fight. you almost screamed at him to get out, but then you remembered you were at his house. you grabbed your things and turned to the door. you were about to leave when you heard chenle's voice.

"you're leaving because of something so petty? seriously?" he said with a scoff.

you gave him a dirty look, your hand on the doorknob. "you were about to storm off to your room and shut me out anyway. we obviously don't want to see each other right now, so what's the point of me staying?" you didn't wait for him to respond. you immediately left, slamming the door behind you.

you knew you were being immature, but so was chenle. you weren't about to let him slam the door on you again, making you feel shitty and guilty, when he clearly didn't feel the same remorse. somehow, even when the fight was his fault, you always ended up being the first one to apologize. that made your stomach churn with resentment.

you weren't always like this. during the first few months of your relationship, you and chenle rarely fought. even when you did, they were just small arguments and you would always make up immediately. but now, almost two years into the relationship, after the honeymoon phase had worn off, things had changed dramatically. you started getting into more frequent and intense fights, and the tolerance and understanding that you had at the start had also faded.

honestly, part of the reason why you're always the first one to give in is that, no matter how angry you get at your boyfriend, you can never stay mad at him for long. you fear that if both of you remain stubborn and no one's going to swallow their pride, the fight would escalate and break the two of you apart. chenle, on the other hand, always seems to have no problem ignoring you for a long time. it only intensifies your frustration and hurt, making you feel even more upset with him than you already are.

you've decided you won't give in this time, no matter what. you're scared that he might do the same, matching your stubbornness with his own. but if he can't even swallow his pride for you, the person he claims to love most, then maybe you're better off apart.

you don't want that though — not really. your relationship, despite its flaws, means too much to you. you just hope he does things differently this time.

after leaving chenle's house, you returned to your own place. you tried to sleep, but your anger and frustration had morphed into a gnawing worry that made your stomach tied up in knots. deep down, you weren't confident that he would do right by you this time. the realization made you feel conflicted. is it really worth staying with him if this is how he consistently makes you feel?

the thought sent a wave of sadness through you. despite everything, you loved him deeply. the idea of your relationship ending made your chest tighten with fear. you didn't want this to be the final straw.

tears welled up in your eyes, spilling over onto your pillow. as you cried silently in your room, a mix of emotions washed over you; love, frustration, hope and disappointment all tangled together. eventually, exhaustion took over, and you drifted off into a fitful sleep.

your last conscious thought was a small hope that when you woke up in the morning, you'd see his name on the screen accompanied by an apology you'd been waiting for.

chenle sat by the sofa, his eyes fixed on his phone, waiting for your call. since you had walked out after your fight the night before, you still hadn't come knocking on his door. this was the first time you hadn't talked for this long after an argument. fear started creeping up because of the prolonged silence from you. his chest tightened at the thought that you might have finally decided you'd had enough of him and realized you deserved better. he couldn't bear the thought of losing you. as the day was coming to an end, the setting sun cast long shadows across his room, signaling the passage of time and deepening his anxiety.

he could no longer sit still and wait for you to come to him. what was stopping him from coming after you anyway? he didn't know. but he realized he had been selfish for always waiting for you to mend things all this time. chenle felt like he could lose you easily to other people; you were surrounded by many who liked you and wanted to be with you. because of that, he always felt threatened. letting you come to him first after a fight somehow gave him a sense of security that you loved him enough not to let others steal you away from him.

but he realized now how dumb that was. instead, he could end up losing you because of his inaction. he snapped out of his reverie and grabbed his car keys, walking hastily through the door.

you heard someone ring your doorbell, and you checked to see who it was. your heart leaped in both happiness and relief at the sight of chenle standing outside your door.

if you weren't in a fight with him, you would laugh at how ridiculous he looked wearing sunglasses. you were pretty sure the sun had already set and it was dark outside.

you were feeling different kinds of emotions as you stood there. relief that he had come, nervousness about what he might say, and a stubborn remnant of hurt from your fight. you took a deep breath, mentally preparing yourself for whatever was to come as you opened the door, finally seeing him up close.

"can i come in?" chenle asked quietly. you didn't respond verbally, but opened the door wider, allowing him to enter.

you closed the door slowly before turning around to face him. chenle stood in the middle of your living room, looking uncharacteristically uncertain.

you leaned back against the door, arms crossed protectively over your chest, waiting expectantly for him to speak.

"i'm sorry," he said, his voice was soft and sounded a bit tired. "i'm sorry about everything. i was only thinking about myself and took your words lightly. i kept dismissing your feelings because i was blinded by my own jealousy. i didn't realize i was hurting you." he stepped closer, gently cradling your face in his hands. "please, forgive me. i don't want to lose you over some stupid fight. i know i haven't been the best at showing it, but i love you so much."

his words caused tears to well up in your eyes. for the past 24 hours, you had felt an uncomfortable tightness in your chest, each second away from him making you fear you were closer to losing him. you knew you both had much to discuss, and the way you communicated with each other needed improvement. but at that moment, you felt a surge of relief knowing that despite all the fights, chenle still loved you.

"thank you for coming to me, and i'm sorry too," you said, holding the hand that was caressing your face. "i have so many things to say... but first, can i take off your sunglasses? they're distracting." as you removed them, you felt your heart clenched at the sight. chenle's eyes were red and puffy, evidence of hours spent crying. the thought of him crying by himself made your sadness deepen, triggering your own tears as you immediately embraced him. "i'm so sorry for leaving you alone last night."

you didn't usually walk out during your fights, and your departure likely made chenle realize that this argument was unlike any other. he must have thought you had reached your limit. you now understood the depth of his fear of losing you, mirroring your own fear of losing him.

chenle encircled you in his arms, resting his head on your shoulder and burying his face in the crook of your neck. his embrace conveyed how much he had missed you.

"no, i am sorry. i deserved it," he murmured against your skin. "if you hadn't left, i probably would've done the same thing as before and not realized what i'd done wrong. you've been patient with me all this time. i'm sorry for all the times i ignored how you feel. i'll be better for you, i promise." he said, pressing a tender kiss on your forehead.

as you stood there in each other's arms, you both silently acknowledged the work ahead to strengthen your relationship. the warmth of your reconciliation filled the room, replacing the tension that had hung between you just moments before.

you and chenle were now cuddling on your bed. your chin rested on top of his head while gently running your fingers through his hair. the simple gesture made his heart flutter. his arm draped comfortably around your waist as he nestled against you, closing his eyes and basking in the peaceful aftermath.

as you lay there, feeling warm and loved, you felt so relieved. the tension from your fight completely melted away, and you felt even more in love.

chenle shifted slightly, tilting his head to look up at you. "i think i've figured out the secret to never fighting again."

you raised an eyebrow. "huh? what's that?"

"we just stay like this forever." he replied with a grin. "can't argue if we're too busy cuddling."

"tempting offer, but we'll get hungry eventually." chenle pretended to consider this seriously.

"then we take turns getting snacks while the other one guards the cuddle spot."

"guard it from what exactly?" he shrugged, snuggling closer.

"i don't know. cuddle thieves? it's a very coveted position, you know." you rolled your eyes in amusement.

"you're ridiculous."

"yeah," he leaned up to place a gentle kiss on your lips. "but you love me." he whispered against your mouth. you couldn't help but smile and steal another kiss from him.

as you snuggled back together, you felt calm and happy. in that moment, holding each other close, you both silently promised to stick together. you knew your love hadn't just survived, it had grown even stronger.

[leclercstars]

lando fic🙏🙏 size kink and pushing down on her lower stomach while he's inside!!?

Obsessed with this one. This might be my fave thing I've ever written so thank you to whoever requested this.

house of balloons.

Lando Norris x Reader

Warnings: 18+!! smut, hate sex, slight degradation and dom!Lando, cursing, size kink, unprotected sex.

“Get a grip,” you snapped as you strutted away from the bar. Now you had to wait to get another vodka lemonade. There was a viciousness to everything about you in that moment, from your facial expression to the way you sat and rejoined your friend group.

“What was that?” your best friend knew everything about your life, and you knew she was asking just to get a rise out of you.

“What do you fucking think? I thought him and his friends had stopped going here.”

“Well breaking news: that is not the case,” one of your other friends chuckled. 

“Ugh, I just cannot deal with this tonight,” you sat back in the the booth and groaned, pulling out your phone in hopes of avoiding more conversation about the topic.

“I should start making you that angry more often.” read the text that suddenly lit up your screen.

You hated Lando, and he hated you right back. Ever since freshman year you could not stand his “holier than thou” level arrogance and the way he always had to find a way to push your buttons in whatever setting you two were in. From class, to the bar all the way to the time you two ended up in the therapy waiting room together. 

“Okay Lando pls stfu. Dealing with you tonight was enough.” You had gotten into a heated argument with him in the bar, which you suddenly could not remember the subject of, pondering his last text in your head.

“I think I know how to fix our little problem”

What could he possibly mean by that. No way was he about to suggest sex.

“And what might that be?” you chuckled to yourself, noticing that your friends were peering over at your phone screen. Little snoops.

“Let’s leave.” Yep, there it was. He thinks fucking will somehow be the answer to your now four-year battle with each other. You had made each other’s lives a living hell. One time you fought so bad you both started crying, in public. Not the finest moment for either of you. But you thought more and more about his proposition. Sometimes he stared at you a little too long when you wore one of your skimpy going out tops, especially that lace corset, which of course you happened to be wearing tonight. He stood a little close to you to whisper insults in your ear, and occasionally slid a hand to the small of your back when you were standing next to each other. Maybe this was the answer. Besides, hate sex actually sounded kind of fun. 

“If you really want to do this then come over to the booth and I’ll get up and leave with you.” If this was really his master plan, you were going to make sure everyone knew about it. You weren’t gonna let him get away with lying about this little inchident later. It took him less than 2 minutes to appear at your table, hand extended towards you, a mischievous look painted all over his face.

“See ya around!” he waved to your friends as he dragged you out the bar.

“I better be getting a text about this later” you looked back at your friends' aghast expressions. They were looking at you as if you had just been shot through the head.

It didn’t take long to get to Lando’s shitty college house. You argued the whole way there. You almost shoved him in front of a moving car on accident. Maybe that would make the sex better.

He led you up to his bedroom, a surprisingly gentleman-ly gesture. The only light came from the dim glow of his computer monitor, casting a red ambiance over the entire room. How perfect, you thought.

“Let’s just get all that anger out, huh?”

“Worth a shot.” you smirked before inching closer and closer to him. The space between you two held so much tension, a pit of horniness, rage and frustration. He grabbed your face with both hands, his lips crashing into yours. You had never kissed someone with this much passion before. Neither of you knew how to keep your hands to yourself, but why bother. His hands explored every single inch of you, places that very few people had ever touched. He had already unhooked your bra effortlessly, your soft tits pressing against his chiseled chest. Fuck, he actually was kind of sexy all this time. He started gently biting your lower lip, causing you to moan into him. You could not be the only one moaning in this situation, so naturally you started palming his growing erection over his boxers. 

“Shit,” he whispered softly before groaning, his lips never leaving your face. There was a neediness, a hunger to the way you were touching each other. An intensity, a fury, and unfortunately one of the most erotic things you had ever experienced. 

He picked you up and threw you back onto the bed, the harshness of it turning you on even more.

You covered your pussy with your hands- giggling. You couldn’t help it, teasing him felt like the right thing to do in this scenario.

“Oh that’s not gonna work. I’m gonna fuck that little attitude right out of you.”

“I’d like to see you fucking try, pal.” your sly expression just making him angrier and angier.

He pinned your hands above your head as you laughed, loving that he was really taking it as a challenge. He slid his boxers off with his free hand.

Holy fuck. You had NEVER seen a dick that big. He was absolutely massive. Your confidence faltered for just a second, thinking that even though he was so much larger than you in stature, his dick could not have been that exceptional. But boy were you fucking wrong.

He gave you half at first, watching the way your face contorted as you adjusted to the feeling of him filling you up. He didn’t let you get comfortable for long, sliding the rest in as you shouted his name, probably waking the entire neighborhood up. Whoops.

“This might be the only time I ever get you to submit to me like this. Fuck you look hot when you’re being a good girl.”

You were going to fight back more- but those words made you want to listen to anything he told you to do for the rest of eternity. After two sickeningly slow thrusts, he started pounding into you. That attitude you had earlier had completely left the room, probably the stratosphere too. His dick felt like nothing you had ever taken before, nearly hitting your cervix with every pump in and out. It unfortunately was not going to take long for you to orgasm, as much as you wanted to hold out so you could keep experiencing this feeling. The feeling you never thought the guy you hated could give you. Pure and utter ecstasy. The alcohol flowing through your veins had you putting on quite the performance, moaning just as loud as Lando, tossing your head back and creating large claw marks along his back.

He thrusted deep into you- holding himself there. He made eye contact with you, his eyes low and filled with a fiery lust you had never seen before. He pressed against your lower stomach and holy fuck- you could not believe this was real.

“You feel that? That’s my fucking cock all the way inside you. You’re being such a good little slut taking me like this.”

You never wanted that feeling in your stomach to go away.

He pressed down again, shooting waves of pleasure through you that made your vision start to blur. Were you going to orgasm when he wasn’t even fucking you? 

“That’s enough of that, can’t make you feel too good.” he winked as he started fucking you again, bringing you right to the brink of an orgasm.

“Fuck Lando, you’re gonna make me cum.” He grabbed your throat.

“I’m gonna cum too. Look at me baby, I want us to remember exactly what we’re doing to each other.”

You never broke eye contact as you both lost control, his forehead pressed against yours as loud moans filled the room.

“That might be the only good idea you’ve ever had.” you laughed as he cleaned you both off.

“Of course that’s what you say right after I fucked the shit out of you.”

[atlabeth]

dance until we're bones

pairing: aaron hotchner x fem reader

summary: you and hotch both confront a lifetime of things left unsaid when a case forces your past into the light.

a/n: so i started this. two years ago. got 1k in and left it, came back now for some reason, wrote like a freak until it was done. lol. this is quite heavy and different than most things i usually write and it is SO much longer than expected but im very proud of it 🫶 i didn't really pay attention to the canon timeline so just know that reader and hotch were in their early and late 20s in law school (90s) and early and late 30s in present day (early 2000s). title from i lied by lord huron and allison ponthier

wc: 17.2k

warning(s): a lot of angst. typical bau case stuff, murder (familicide), implied/referenced past child abuse, reader and hotch go at it basically the whole time, character death, kidnapping, slight mention of drugging, injuries, mentions of blood. i wouldn’t say a happy ending but a hopeful one

Hotch can barely stay awake. 

He got the call thirty minutes to 4 a.m, and if he hadn’t already been up, he would likely be in a much worse mood. He can only hope that the rest of the team has gotten used to rude awakenings at this point. 

It’s poor planning on his part—he already got out late due to extra paperwork, and once he got home, he found himself staring at the wall, and then staring at the ceiling. If he’s lucky, he’ll get to sleep on the jet. If things go the way they usually do, he won’t be out until their first night in a hotel. 

He started making calls to the team on his way to the office, but to no one’s surprise, he was the first one there. He had time to wash down a shitty office coffee and get started on a second one by the time everyone’s there. 

Morgan, Prentiss, and JJ all have coffees—JJ comes prepared with her own thermos, but Morgan and Prentiss fall victim to the BAU’s supply—Reid is fighting back yawns as he tries to fix a hastily made tie, Garcia is slightly less energetic than normal as she passes out files, and somehow Rossi looks the same as always. 

Hotch just hopes he’s put together enough to make the team feel better about being here at an ungodly hour. 

“Welcome, welcome, welcome,” Garcia greets, setting down the last folder in front of Reid before taking her spot next to Hotch at the front. “As lovely as it is to see all of you this morning, I’m afraid that we’ve got a grisly one on our hands, hence the hour.” 

“Great,” Prentiss mutters. “How bad is it?” 

“Three married couples have been murdered in St. Louis, Missouri in the past two months, with the most recent one happening yesterday,” Hotch says, and Garcia grimaces as she clicks onto the pictures. “Mom and dad are killed, but the children are spared.”

“Awful lot of similarities between the parents,” Morgan says dryly as he flips through the folder. “Looks like our killer has some family issues.” 

Reid nods. “The unsub likely stalks these families once they see the similarities. I’m guessing he was abused as a child, seeing as they kill the parents but keep the children alive.”

“Probably has a grudge against his father,” Prentiss remarks. “They make it out the worst every time.”

“There’s no method to the torture,” Morgan says. “It looks like he’s just trying to make it hurt as much as possible.” 

“Our guy probably isn’t trained in anything, then,” Rossi says. 

Reid flips to another page in the file. “Serial killers like to see their victims suffer. If he’s not torturing the mom physically, then he’s likely making her watch.”

“He doesn’t kill children, though,” JJ notes. 

“Maybe he thinks he’s doing them a favor,” Reid says. 

“The unsub sees himself in the kids?” Morgan suggests. “He’s doing what he didn’t get the chance to do.” 

“Whatever it is, we have to keep a tight hold on this,” JJ says. “The press eats this stuff up, and the last thing we need is a terrified city making it harder to do our jobs.”

“Especially with families being killed,” Morgan murmurs. 

JJ sighs. “I’ll draft something on the jet and make some calls when we land.” 

Hotch nods and he closes his file. “Wheels up in thirty. I hope you’re all ready for a long day.” 

-

The jet is silent the entire way to Missouri, full of sleeping agents trying to delay the inevitable—save for JJ scribbling down notes on a legal pad for the first thirty minutes, but even she knocks out sooner rather than later. Thankfully, Hotch manages to fit an hour in himself, though it doesn’t do very much for him. He spends the rest of the time reading through the case file. 

The team settles in quickly at the city’s precinct, and Hotch takes charge as usual. The uniforms are just as tired as they are, but he makes it work. Soon enough, JJ is off to work with the local liaison to craft a narrative, Reid has situated himself in an empty conference room to get to work analyzing maps with Garcia, and Hotch and the rest go to check out the crime scene. 

It’s brutal—much too brutal for this early, but Hotch forces the emotions out of it and gets to work questioning the present officers. Morgan follows suit, with Prentiss and Rossi going to investigate the rest of the house. 

They don’t learn much from the officers that they don’t already know. This is the most recent crime scene—George and Marsha Springfield, undeserving of such a grisly fate. Their two kids, 8 and 9, were off visiting their grandparents in Nebraska when it happened, and though they avoided the same fate, they’re going to deal with a lifetime of guilt. 

It’s all Hotch can think about as he examines the first body. The six children left to deal with the carnage, about their past and future marred against their control. 

All he can think about is Jack, and the dreary fate that awaits him if his father falls in the field.  

Hotch swallows his doubt and his guilt all in one and forces every thought out of his mind. He has to be unshakable for the team, for what’s left of these families, for a city on the brink of hysterics. 

They’ll find whoever did this. That’s what gets him through it. 

They spent early morning at the crime scene, collecting evidence and gathering information from the officers and trying to make sense of the killer’s motive. Progress is slow, partially because of the hour, but they make enough that Hotch feels comfortable moving onto the next job.

Their four a.m. start time was too early to go knock on doors and get interviews, but now it’s a more normal 10 in the morning. After a quick stop back at the station to share information with Reid, Garcia, and JJ and down a few cups of coffee, they get right back on the road.  

Hotch and Prentiss take one van and Morgan and Rossi take the other, splitting up to get what they can from interviews. It’s difficult working with kids, especially with such recent trauma, so they hold off on it for now, allowing the local uniforms that have been with them for a bit longer to set things up before the BAU tries anything. 

First they go to a neighbor’s house, then an alleged eye witness. They don’t get much other than personality reads, but it at least gives them the beginnings of a profile. The third place they hit is their earliest idea of a suspect. 

“Lucas Hartford,” Prentiss reads off the file one of the local officers had put together. “Thirty-nine, born and raised in St. Charles, Missouri. High school degree, but never got to college because he was in and out of jail.” 

“What has he been charged for?” 

“Booked a few times for public intoxication and convicted three times for assault. Once was for third-degree assault, Missouri’s version of aggravated assault,” she says. “He got out of jail a little less than a year ago, and it looks like he’s been living in St. Louis for some of that.”

“Assault and drinking is a far cry from serial killing, even aggravated,” Hotch says. “What makes him a suspect?”

“Both parents are dead,” she says. “And from the looks of it, it was not a happy home while they were around. He’s got a sister, so it fits the initial theory of trying to replicate his family.”

Hotch lets out a loose breath and nods. “We’ll start there. Try and get a story from this guy, build a profile, see if it matches the one Morgan and Rossi have made for their guy.”

“And hope we pin something down before more bodies show up,” Prentiss murmurs. 

They’re at their destination soon enough, and Hotch parks in an open spot on the other side of the road. His eyes dart around as they walk up to the front door, filing things away in the back of his mind. 

The house number and last name—1432, Hartford—on the mailbox plagued with rotting wood. What there is of a yard is poorly cut, and a small garden of wilted flowers has their own corner, victims of the winter weather. One car is parked slightly crooked in a small driveway—there’s no garage, so at least he’s probably home. Two potted plants sit on either side of the door, thankfully alive. 

“Remember,” Prentiss says as they come to a stop together, “be nice.” 

“I’m plenty nice,” he murmurs, and she huffs the slightest laugh. 

Hotch knocks on the door as Prentiss fishes around for her ID, and thankfully, they don’t wait long. The door cracks open after a few seconds to reveal a woman—certainly not their unsub, but something a whole lot more surprising. 

You.

Your brows furrow at the sight of him, and Hotch has to hold back his shock. 

You don’t live in St. Louis. And your last name certainly isn’t Hartford. 

“Aaron?” you ask in disbelief, and he doesn’t even have to look at Prentiss to know the questions he’s going to get later.

He says your name, able to control his surprise with only the slightest crease of his brows giving it away, then corrects himself just as quickly. “Miss Hartford. My name is SSA Aaron Hotchner, and this is SSA Emily Prentiss. We’re here with the FBI.” 

Your frown deepens as they show their IDs, and you actually take it from Hotch, skeptical eyes scanning over it for much too long. You glance back at him as you hand it back over. “What is the FBI doing here?” 

Emily clears her throat as she puts her credentials away. “We’re here investigating the latest murders in St. Louis. Can we come in?”

“The murders?” you ask with exasperation. “What— what murders? And what do I have to do with them?” 

Aaron notices the way your grip tightens on the door just the slightest bit, and a shred of sympathy strikes him before he speaks up.

“We’ll be able to explain everything if you let us in,” he says. 

You swallow thickly in your throat, your gaze darting back to Aaron before you finally nod. “Okay. Sure. Why not?”

You move and Hotch and Prentiss walk inside, gesturing with a hand towards your living room as you shut and lock the door behind them. “Take a seat. Uh— do you guys need anything? Water, or coffee, or…” 

You trail off, and Prentiss shakes her head. “Thank you, but that’s not needed.” She takes a seat on the sofa, but Hotch can’t stop himself from looking around the house. 

It’s a small place, one story—likely rented, seeing how paintings sit on countertops and mantels rather than hanging on the wall. It has a certain charm to it, but something is off about it all. 

Two styles clash—decorative pillows at odds with a filled and painted-over hole in the wall, an attempt at neutral tones ruined by dark articles of clothing scattered around, one person’s mess barely being held back by another’s cleaning efforts. You lived with someone else. Likely Lucas Hartford, possibly their unsub. 

“Are you gonna sit down, Aaron?” you ask, snapping him out of his profiling haze. “Or do you want to look around some more?” 

“I’m sorry,” he says, clearing his throat as he walks over and sits down in an open chair near Prentiss. “Just curious.” 

“That makes two of us,” you say, and you cross your arms as you look at him. He notices that you don’t sit down yourself, and there’s still a coldness in your eyes. “You’re FBI now?” 

He nods. “I had a change of heart.” 

You huff a laugh. “Thought at least one of us would be a lawyer by now. I guess not.” 

Hotch frowns, but Prentiss takes over before he can continue on that particular thread. “Miss Hartford—”

You interrupt by saying your first name, and it spurns something strange in his chest. It’s been over a decade since he’s heard your voice. “You can skip the formalities.” 

Prentiss nods and repeats your name. “As you know, we’re investigating the murders that have been occuring in the St. Louis area.” 

“And you think I have something to do with it?” you ask, the accusatory edge to your voice not lost on him. 

“Not you,” Hotch says. “Do you know a Lucas Hartford?”

“He’s my brother,” you say, and your frown deepens. “You’re not saying—”

“No,” Prentiss interrupts, “we’re not saying anything. We’re just asking.”

And just like that, your entire stance, your visage, it all changes. Hotch can sense the walls slamming up around you, and he immediately realizes two things: 

Getting information out of you is going to be much harder than planned, and you’re not anywhere near the same person you used to be. 

Hotch doesn’t know what he expects, really. He graduated with the intent to prosecute for at least a decade—now, he’s with the BAU. It’s not fair to assume you’re that same girl he met in law school. 

“My brother is not a murderer,” you state clearly.

“And we aren’t accusing him or you of anything—” she starts. 

“Me?” you interrupt, and you let out a harsh laugh. “I’m a suspect too?”

“If you would allow Agent Prentiss to finish her sentences, you would be less upset,” Hotch says. 

You glower at him, but you stay silent. 

“We aren’t accusing either of you of anything,” Prentiss finishes. “We’re just trying to gather information with what little we know.” 

“I know my rights,” you say, unflinching gaze still meeting Hotch’s. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

Prentiss looks at him as well, but his eyes don’t leave yours. “That’s unfortunate to hear, Miss Hartford.”

“You know my name, Aaron. Use it.”

He does, and the letters feel strange on his tongue after so long. “This is a serious matter. This isn’t an accusation—we’re in the early days of this case and we need all the information we can get.” 

“Ask away,” you say. “Doesn’t mean I’ll answer.” 

“Lucas Hartford,” Prentiss starts. “He’s your brother?” 

You nod. “He lives with me.” 

He lives with me, not we live together. Makes him think that you pay for the place, he came knocking, and you didn’t have the heart to turn him away. 

“Why is that?” Hotch asks. 

You look at him, those scrutinizing eyes attempting to peer into his soul the same way they did all those years ago. But Hotch has changed since law school, and he’s much better at guarding his emotions. It seems you are, too. 

“He’s a student,” you finally say. “He goes to community college. I’m giving him a place to live while he gets his associate’s.”  

“Community college and living with his younger sister at 39?” Prentiss is trying to get information out of you, even if it isn’t in the kindest way. Your jaw clenches, and he knows her words have some effect. You’ve probably heard it more than once, the way things are going. 

“He’s getting his life back on track,” you say defensively. “I’m the only one left that can help him, so I am.” 

“What about your parents?” she asks. “Surely they’re a better option than this.” 

“Both dead,” you answer. “And no one else cares enough to help him. Are you here to do anything other than dig up my past?” 

Hotch feels Prentiss’s eyes on him, likely because it’s a step in the right direction for a really shitty reason, but he can’t look away from you. 

“Really?” 

He knows your parents are dead—it was in your brother’s profile, and by extension it applies to you—but it still hits him. 

He met your mother, had countless lunches and dinners with her. Helped her move out of her old house. Spent two Thanksgivings and a Christmas with her. 

And he didn’t even know when she died. 

You shrug and wrap your arms around yourself, and for the first time you look something other than defensive or standoffish. You look— well… sad. 

“Mom went a few years after you graduated,” you say, looking at Hotch. “Dad went last year.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Prentiss says. 

You nod your thanks, the notion a bit numb. 

“You never told me,” Hotch says with a slight frown.

“We haven’t talked in ten years,” you say. “Sorry that I didn’t know you still wanted updates.” 

Hotch tries to think of something to say in response, but Prentiss starts getting a call and she stands up. “Excuse me.” 

His jaw clenches for a moment as Prentiss ducks into a nearby bedroom, but he’s recovered by the time you look at him again. Your arms are crossed, but your expression is even. 

“I take it this was as much of a surprise for you as it is for me.” 

Hotch nods. “We came here looking for your brother.” 

“Does your team know about our history?” you ask simply.

“No.” 

“Do you want them to?” 

“…No.” 

You huff a laugh, your eyes narrowing a bit. “‘Course not. Probably counts as conflict of interest.” 

You wait another beat, then ask another question. “How’s Haley?”

“Good, last I heard,” he says, and then he hesitates. “We’re… divorced.”

Your eyebrows shoot up. “Really?”

He nods. “This job isn’t easy for anyone.”

You look like you want to say more, but once again, Hotch is saved by Prentiss as she walks back in. Her phone is closed in her hand and she looks at him. “Morgan and Rossi have a lead. The chief wants everyone back at the precinct to go over everything we’ve found.” 

Hotch nods again and stands up. Prentiss takes her card out of her pocket and holds it out to you. 

“Thank you for your time, Miss Hartford. If you find out any information, or want to tell us anything else, please give me a call.” 

“Pass that along to your brother, too,” Hotch says. 

You reluctantly take the card, but you don’t look at it. “You can see yourselves out.” 

Prentiss nods. “Thank you again. Have a good day, and stay safe.” 

She leads the way, and Hotch follows after her. He fights the urge to look back before he shuts the door. 

Prentiss looks at him as they walk back to the car, and he can only imagine what is going through her mind. But eventually she just shrugs and pulls out her phone again. 

“Garcia?” Prentiss asks after she picks up. 

“You’ve reached the office of all that is holy.” Penelope’s voice comes out through the speaker, and Hotch can’t help the smallest twitch of his lips. “What’s up?” 

“Dig up everything you can find on Lucas Hartford,” Emily says, and her glance at Hotch does not go unnoticed. “And throw in his sister, too. He’s one of our only suspects, and we need to know if she’s in on it.” 

“On it,” Garcia says. “I’ll call you back when I’m done.” 

“You’re the best,” she says, and then she hangs up. They get back to the car, and it only takes Prentiss all of five seconds after they get in for her to start drilling him.

“Alright,” she says, buckling her seatbelt with a click before she sets her attention on him. “What was that back there? You two know each other?”

Hotch busies himself with his own seatbelt and starting the car, answering as casually as possible as the engine revs to life. “We were friends in law school.”

“Sure,” Prentiss nods. “The way you were around her, that’s not just ‘law school friend’ stuff.”

Hotch is once again reminded of how, sometimes, it was a downfall to constantly be around profilers. It was nearly impossible to keep anything a secret. 

“It’s nothing,” he says as he pulls back onto the road. “We knew each other, we fell apart, we’re here now.”

Emily hums. “Is it too far to ask if you were together?”

“Yes,” he says sternly, maybe a bit too hasty. “It is.”

“Fine,” she says breezily, and she looks out the window. “But that tension was thick.” 

Hotch knows what she’s thinking. Hasn’t he been with Haley since high school, what kind of history did you and him have, were you together, would he be okay to work this case— 

He doesn’t really want to answer any of them. You were a part of his past he hadn’t expected to resurface any time soon—if Hotch is being honest, he didn’t know if he would ever see you again once he graduated. Not after the way he broke things off.  

You’ve changed a lot. So has he. 

And now your brother is a murder suspect, and you could be covering up for him. 

That’s the only thing that should be on his mind. 

-

“For the last time,” you huff as you storm down the stairs, “I don’t want to deal with this.” 

“Because you know that Mia is a lying bitch!” Cleo exclaims, following after you. “I’m sick of you stealing my clothes!”

“I’m not stealing your clothes,” Mia scoffs in your wake, just behind Cleo. “They’re too ugly for me to want anyways. I bet I wouldn’t even fit into them.”

“You are! And you’re stealing my fucking jewelry, too!” she yells. “All of my shit is going missing, and I know it’s not Little Miss Law School, so it’s got to be you!” 

Mia draws out a mirthless laugh. “You are not accusing me of this.” 

“I don’t have anyone else to accuse!” Cleo shouts. 

They both look at you, and Mia says your name. “You have to settle this before I kill her.”

“Oh, I’ll kill you first!” she hisses. “At least I’ll get all my stuff back!”

You clench your jaw as your nails dig into your palms, and you’re about to bite back when the doorbell rings. You don’t even try to hide your sigh of relief. 

“That’s Aaron,” you say as you grab your coat and your bag from the table. “I’m leaving. If you kill each other, don’t get blood on the furniture.”

You don’t give them a chance to say anything before you rush to the door, open it, and shut it behind you. 

“You have no idea how happy I am to see you,” you breathe. 

“What’s going on in there?” Aaron asks, amused. 

“My roommates are fighting again.” You roll your eyes. “It doesn’t matter. You’re much more interesting.”

“You know this is a study date,” he says wryly, and you cut him off with a kiss. 

“Still a date,” you murmur against his lips. “And something seriously needed.”

Aaron chuckles as he wraps an arm around you, pulling you into his side, and the two of you walk to his car. “You’ve gotta get out of this house, honey.”

“I know,” you grumble. “But I can’t afford a place on my own.”

“Doesn’t have to be on your own,” he says as he opens the door for you. “It just has to be away from the girls that are making you miserable.”

“The lease ends at the end of the semester,” you sigh. “Just have to make it until then.”

“You know,” Aaron boxes you in against the car when you lean against the side of it, smiling softly at you, “I do live alone.”

“Oh yeah?” You ruffle his hair with your fingers and grin. “What are you proposing?”

He shrugs, letting his hands linger on your waist. “Just that you hate your roommates, and you don’t hate me. You could spend your time somewhere else.” 

“Careful,” you warn. “You keep saying things like that and we might not make it to the library.” 

“You keep saying things like that, and I might not mind,” Aaron muses. 

You grin as he leans in and kisses you again, once, twice, three times as your back hits the side of his car and you card your hands through his hair. Mia and Cleo are probably killing each other inside, but you don’t really care at this point. They’ve made your life hell for a semester and a half—they can bother each other for once. 

“Aaron,” you whisper against his lips, and he gets one more in between words, “I’ve got a test on Tuesday.”

“And today’s Sunday.” He nips at your neck and you laugh, your eyes falling shut as you lean your head back. “You’ll be fine, honey.”

“You have one on Monday,” you remind him, and he sighs. You feel his hot breath against your neck. 

“Ruining our fun in the name of schoolwork,” he says. “No wonder all your professors love you.”

“Everyone loves me,” you correct. “Including you.”

You steal one more kiss before you open your door yourself and get in, and Aaron lets out a breathy laugh.

“You’ve got that right.”

He closes your door then gets in the other side, and you’re already rifling through the glove box full of cassettes. You pull out the mixtape you made for him for your six month anniversary and pop it into the player, and Aaron smiles as the first few notes of Stairway to Heaven come on. 

“You’re a threat to my grades, y’know.”

“Maybe it’s all part of my plan,” you say. “Distract you with kisses to make sure I’m a shoe-in for this fellowship.”

“A dastardly plan,” he says with mock austerity. 

“I’ve been told I have to be more of a shark,” you muse. “Consider this me taking down my competition.”

Aaron laughs, and you find yourself smiling just at the sound of it. You love the way his eyes crinkle at the corners, how they soften just so, how he acts like himself around you, and not some perfected or stoic image that he thinks he needs. 

Falling in love with Aaron Hotchner has been the easiest thing in the world. 

“Don’t let anyone know,” he says, and he reaches over to intertwine your fingers together. “But I’ll happily fall to you every time.”

“As long as you don’t tell everyone how whipped I am for you,” you tease.

“Looks like we’ve both got reputations to keep up.”

“Looks like it.”

You share a smile, yours just on the edge of a grin as you try to bite it back. You hold hands the rest of the way, just soaking in each other’s presence with songs from bands you introduced to each other floating through the air. 

(It is a goddamn struggle to get any work done at the library with that face across from you the whole time.)

- 

You had sky-high aspirations when you were younger. 

Ones that would make your teachers offer a smile and tell you to shoot a little lower, that would make your friends’ eyes widen, that your father would scoff at and your mother would humor you on just to get you to move past it. 

You didn’t listen. You’ve wanted to be a lawyer since you went on a class field trip to a courthouse in elementary school and saw all the attorneys hustling about, dressed to the nines, making last-minute deals outside the courtroom.  

They were just… so confident. So smart, so stoic, always knowing the answer to everything. The good ones had money, sure, but more importantly they had the power to change lives for the better. And as a kid that had to cover up bruises before the school day, nothing sounded more appealing. 

All you’ve ever wanted to do is help people. 

And as you sit in a cold, empty interrogation room, you can’t help but wonder where the hell you went wrong. 

You don’t want to be here, obviously. But you know the FBI won’t stop bugging you until you give them answers—you know Aaron Hotchner won’t stop bugging you. 

Because god— what are the odds? 

What are the fucking odds of your ex-boyfriend from a decade ago showing up at your door with a badge and an attempted case against your brother? 

It’s ridiculous, and it’s such bad luck that you think it could only happen to you. You’ve thought about Aaron Hotchner more than you’d like to admit over the years, especially when you found your old GW crewnecks, and the box of school supplies you used for a decade, and those photo albums from what should’ve been your golden years. 

It’s not like any of it matters, though. You only agreed to come in and talk because you want them off your back and you don’t want them poking around your house. You saw it in Aaron’s eyes—he was profiling you and your place the entire time. 

If the cops want to invade your privacy even further, they can get a goddamn warrant. 

Your thoughts are interrupted when the door opens, and you hold back a mirthless laugh, because of course it’s Aaron. He greets you with your name, and he has a file in his hands. You wonder if it’s on you or your brother. “Thank you for taking the time out of your day to come in and talk with us.”

“Well, you seem to think my brother is a murderer.” You cross your arms as you sit back. “I’m not really gonna let that stand.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t asked for a lawyer,” he says as he sits down across from you. 

“I don’t plan to be here for very long,” you respond tartly. “But don’t worry—that can always change. I know my rights.” 

“I’m the last person you need to tell that to.” Hotch sets the file down and looks right at you. Though he’s obviously older—more grizzled, more hardened; harsher, sharper lines that define his face; lips set in a taut, unflinching line—you still see that young man from law school. The passion, the care he puts into everything, the penchant for striped ties. 

You wonder what he sees when he looks at you. 

“Your last name wasn’t Hartford when I met you,” he says. “Why is it now?” 

“Not one for small talk,” you remark. 

“I never have been.” 

“I remember.” You hold his gaze. “It’s my mom’s maiden name. I changed it to put some distance between me and everything else.” 

You can practically see the gears of his brain working, neural pathways branching off with every word you say to make sense of it and reason a thousand different meanings from it. Aaron’s always been like that, but it’s tenfold now. 

You suppose one has to be like that, to try and get anywhere with the types of criminals they face. 

“How long have you been living in St. Louis?”

“Seven years. I’ve had that house for three.” 

“Rent or own?”

“Rent,” you scoff. “I don’t make enough for a down payment, and I don’t want a place tying me down.”

“What inspired the move?”

“Close enough to home to be familiar, far enough to not be.” 

“And home is?” 

“St. Charles,” you say, and you purse your lips. “Shouldn’t you already know all this?” You nod at the file in front of him. “It’s either on me or my brother, and we share a lot of the same info.” 

“We prefer to get our information from the source,” he says. 

“Sources can lie.” 

Aaron doesn’t waver. “And we can charge you with obstruction if it harms our investigation.” 

Your lips twitch for a moment, not entirely without heart. “Ask your questions, Aaron.” 

He opens the folder and slides the first picture over to you—your brother’s first mugshot, taken when he was only twenty-one. You still remember riding your bike to the station in the sweltering August heat to drop off his bail and pick him up. 

You had to catch the bus home together, you had to pay his fare, and his bail drained everything you’d been saving from your waitress job. But your dad refused to pay it, and you refused to be alone in that house any longer than you already had. 

You swallow the memory. It still tastes as sour as the day it happened. 

“Lucas Hartford is our main suspect,” he says. “He matches our initial profile—in and out of jail since his twenties, his parents are dead and he has an unstable home life, and he’s got a sister.”   

“None of those sound like questions,” you say. 

“Where is your brother?” he asks firmly. He’s given you a bit of leniency, but you can tell he’s getting tired of you. Some things never change, you think to yourself bitterly. 

“I don’t know,” you admit. 

“You don’t know,” he repeats. 

“I let him stay with me, and my only requirement is that he goes to his community college classes and stays out of jail,” you say. “He’s done both, so I stay out of his business.”

“And you’re telling me you haven’t questioned it?”

“I called him the other day after you left,” you say. “He didn’t pick up, and I didn’t get a call back until the next night.” 

Aaron’s eyes sharpen. “What did you say to him?” 

“I called to see where he was,” you say evenly. “I think you all are wrong, but I wanted to make sure he was okay.” 

“You didn’t tell him—” 

“No,” you interrupt, “I didn’t tell him about your investigation. If I think you’re wrong, why would I need to let him know?” 

He still has that look in his eyes, and you know you’re getting on his nerves with the constant interrupting, the constant backtalk. But he probably deals with much, much worse. 

“Good,” he nods. “You could be putting lives in danger if you do—including yours.” 

“Please,” you scoff. “He won’t hurt me. He never has.” 

“Why do you let him stay with you?” Aaron asks. “You’re straight-edge, he’s a borderline alcoholic that’s been in and out of jail for years. You’ve got a law degree, he never made it past high school. You’ve got your life together, his is falling apart.” 

“That’s why I do it,” you say. “Our parents are dead. I’m all he has left, and he’s all I have left. I want him to get better, so I’m trying my best to help him get there. How can Luke put his life back together if he’s got no support?” 

“That’s an awful lot of faith to put in someone who hasn’t earned it.” 

“I’ve gotten good at that over the years,” you reply. 

Aaron stares at you, and you stare back. You let the moment linger. You hope it stings, even fleetingly. 

“And you’re wrong, by the way.” 

“About what?” he asks. Again, unshaken. 

“I don’t have a law degree,” you say. “I dropped out.” 

And for some reason, that is what gets him. He frowns, and you wonder what it means that this is the most unexpected thing he’s gotten out of you. 

“Why? You were only a year out. You had stellar grades.” 

“My mom got cancer,” you say. “Luke was serving his second stint, Dad fucked off to some corner of the country to drink himself to death a couple months before. I was the only one left to take care of her, and I couldn’t do that from DC.” 

“I had no idea.” This is the first time he looks taken aback since you’ve met him again. “And she’s—”

“Dead,” you supply without waiting for an answer. You know he already knows it, but it still seems to have some effect on him. “Went a couple months after I was meant to graduate.” 

“…I’m sorry for your loss,” he says. He’s just repeating what his agent said at your house, but it feels genuine, at least. 

“It’s been a decade,” you say. “I’m just sorry it was her instead of my dad.” 

Aaron’s brows knit together again, and less work goes into covering it up this time. “You seem to have something against your father.” 

You huff a mirthless laugh. “Excellent profiling.” 

“Child abuse is common for serial killers,” Aaron says. “We find it’s typically the root of their problems later in life, or plays a part in their MO.” 

You stare at him again. This isn’t just an interrogation with Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner—it’s revealing parts of your past that you never told your ex-boyfriend Aaron. 

“Yeah,” you finally say. “Our dad beat us. Is that what you wanted to hear?” 

“You know th—” 

Aaron cuts himself off before he can finish whatever he wants to say, and he lets out a short sigh with a nod. “It’s valuable information for the profile.” 

The room feels a lot colder all of a sudden. “Sure.” 

He still looks like he wants to say more, but he bites his tongue as he takes the picture back and closes the file. 

“I’ll be back,” he says. “Would you like anything? Water?”

You shake your head and remain silent. He takes the folder and stands up, and you watch him the entire way to the door. Just before he can open it, you find words escaping without you thinking. 

“Look, Aaron,” you blurt out. He pauses, and he turns to look at you. “I know this is your thing, and this is your investigation, but I’m telling you—my brother and I don’t play any part in it.” 

“The profile—” 

“I don’t care what your profile says,” you interrupt. “He didn’t do it. He couldn’t have done it.” 

“He’s rough around the edges, I know. In and out of jail isn’t good for anyone.” You hold onto the edge of the table as you continue rambling, needing something to do with your hands. “But he’s working to get better, and he is not the kind of person to do something like this. If you believe anything I say, believe that.” 

“I suppose we’ll find out,” he says evenly. 

He leaves the room, and your hands fall into your lap as your nails dig into your palms. You don’t mean to be desperate, but you feel it. You’ve been defending Lucas at every chance, but you’re terrified of being wrong. You’re terrified that Aaron might be right—that he might be behind all of this. 

For his sake—and your sake, honestly, because you think you deserve to be selfish when he’s all you have left—you hope you’re right. 

You have to be right. 

The room feels even colder. 

Your stare drifts to the one-way mirror, where you know his team is watching. You saw the way Agent Prentiss watched Aaron when they came to your house—he said he doesn’t want them to know, but you think they already do. 

You wonder the kind of things they’ve come up with about you and him. 

-

Morgan whistles when Hotch walks out of the interrogation room. 

“She does not like you.” 

“Did you gather anything else?” he asks placidly. He sets your brother’s file down so he can fix his tie. 

“Abusive dad, dead parents, criminal background,” he says. “Lucas is looking like a stronger suspect. Oh— and she really doesn’t like you.” 

“If you don’t want to go back to building a file on your suspect, move on,” Hotch demands. 

Morgan shrugs, clearly unfazed, but he keeps his mouth shut. Reid, meanwhile, is still staring through the glass at you. You haven’t exactly relaxed, but you’re not as tense as you were while talking to Hotch. You pick at a loose strand of thread on your sweater, and when you pull it out, you let it fall to the floor. 

“Her brother feels like a prime suspect,” Reid murmurs. “I feel like I could just figure it all out if I could talk to him.” 

“I told Penelope to keep an eye on him,” Prentiss contributes. “She’s tracking his cards, the car registered in his name, even called the person in charge of the AA meetings he goes to to keep an eye out—everything. We’ll know if she gets anything.”

“Serial killers want to see the damage they’ve done,” Reid says. “Things are falling apart here—the whole city is terrified. He’s gotta be in St. Louis still.” 

“You’re sure that he’s still in the running.” Hotch glances back at you, and he knows he has to at least ask, for your sake. He doesn’t want to put you through anything more than he has to—not after what you’ve told him. 

And Hotch knows your past is your business—he just can’t believe you never told him. 

He’s turned over your relationship in his head just as many times in these past few days as he did the months after he ended things. 

“I’m sure, sir,” Reid says. “I’ve read over both their files, and Lucas matches with our preliminary profile. His stressor could have been his father dying.”

Morgan frowns. “Explain.”

“Family annihilators typically go after their own family for a myriad of reasons,” he says. “Paranoia, to cover up their lies, to free themselves from what they see as oppression, sometimes just pure jealousy.”

“He’s killing the parents but leaving the children alive,” Hotch says. “Sounds like a liberator to me.”

“That’s what I think,” Reid nods. “If Lucas has been banking on killing his father for that attempt at freedom, and then lost the chance?” He shrugs. “That could be why he started going for other families.” 

“Other fathers to take his place,” Morgan realizes, and he nods again. 

“You should talk to her, Spence,” Prentiss says. “You’ve got a handle on the profile, and you’re pretty good at conveying info. She seems like a reasonable person—just can’t accept her brother doing something like this.” 

“It’s typical for someone to deny their family member’s involvement,” Reid says. “No one wants to think their sibling is a murderer.” 

“If you lay it all out for her like that, with facts and the profile, I think she’ll listen.” Prentiss looks at Hotch. “She’s too closed off with you.”

“That’s how she is,” Hotch claims.

“Maybe,” she shrugs, “but it’s much easier to hate you than it is to hate Reid.” 

Hotch glares at her, and Reid clears his throat to insert himself back into the conversation. 

“I’d be happy to talk to her,” he says. “I know what it’s like to be in this kind of position—I can put her at ease, sympathize with her.” 

They all look at Hotch, and he wants to say no. He wants to be the one to get this out of you—some part of him wants as much time with you as possible. But he decides to swallow his ego. 

“Fine.” He nods, and he hands the folder to Reid. “I trust you to handle it.” 

Reid nods too, far too many times, and he takes the file. “Thank you. Uh— sir. I appreciate your trust.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, but it has no bite to it, and Reid walks inside. 

He says your name and sits down across from you. “I’m Spencer Reid. I know we’ve already said it, but thank you for talking to us. It may not seem like it, but it goes a long way towards figuring out this case.”

You nod. You already seem more at ease than you were with him, and it makes Hotch… 

Not jealous, because that would be insane. But it makes him upset that he doesn’t understand you the way he used to—that he doesn’t hold that key to you anymore. God, it feels like he doesn’t know you anymore. 

Hotch doesn’t get why a side of his brain still thinks this way about you. 

“They sent a new one in,” you say. 

“You looked like you needed a break from Hotch,” Reid says. “Don’t worry. We all do sometimes.”

You huff a slight laugh and your posture eases, your expression softens just so. Reid was right, as usual. 

“I can imagine.”

He starts talking to you about the case, laying out all the facts, and though you don’t look happy, you don’t cut him off like you cut Hotch off. 

“She’s pretty,” Morgan offers, glancing at Hotch. “And stubborn. I see why you like her.” 

“Shut up, Morgan,” Hotch mutters.

He chuckles and holds his hands up, and focuses back on the interrogation. 

The rest of it passes in silence, save for the occasional input from Prentiss or Morgan to elaborate on a point. You talk much more with Reid than you did with Hotch, and you don’t stare daggers at him the entire time. 

Time doesn’t always heal all wounds, he thinks. 

When Reid is finishing up inside with you, Morgan glances back at Hotch. “You think she’s part of this?”

He shakes his head. “No. She has no reason to kill, nothing to gain. She talks about her past too plainly—it hurt her, obviously, but it hasn’t taken over her life.”

“What about her brother?” Prentiss asks. 

“The more we learn, the more I suspect him,” Morgan says. 

She nods in agreement. “We just have to find him.”

Hotch isn’t sure yet. 

But for your sake, he hopes his gut feeling is wrong. 

-

Spring has finally sprung in DC, and you couldn’t be happier. 

It’s hard to feel down on your walks to class when the birds are singing and the sun is beaming down on you, when you see students sitting on blankets reading and talking and actually enjoying life for once. 

You’re two years into law school, and it feels like you’ve spent 90% of your time studying in either the library or your room. A bit of a sad existence, but it’s made better with Aaron. 

You’re laying down on a blanket—one you crocheted yourself in undergrad—resting your head on Aaron’s chest as he reads a book, the spring sun shining down on you. It feels like the first moment of relaxation either of you have had since classes started, and you chose to spend it together in the University Yard. 

You should probably be studying or doing some kind of homework, but you don’t care. It has been too damn long since you’ve gotten to just sit around and exist with Aaron, and you’ve got at least a couple days until your next quiz. That’s far enough away for you. 

It’s been a rough semester for both of you, between classes and endless homework, between your internship and your endless family issues—Luke is two years in, and his parole was denied, and your dad still insists on being the reason you stay on campus year-round. 

You don’t think you’re pushing it when you say Aaron’s support has been the only reason you’ve gotten through it, your grades—and your mental state—relatively unscathed. 

Aaron says your name, and you hum. 

“Are you listening?” he asks. 

“Of course,” you say. 

“Your eyes are closed.” 

“I don’t need my eyes to listen,” you say wryly. “What’s up?” 

You feel him tense for a moment, feel him adjust his position slightly. 

“I got a call from Haley,” he says carefully. 

Your eyes open and you frown. 

You know the name, but only in the way that you talked a bit about your past relationships while you were still getting to know each other. She was his high school girlfriend, and it was a big deal then, but they broke up before college because they both wanted different things.

It shouldn’t be a big deal now. But he’s treating it like one, and that makes you hesitate. 

“Yeah? What’d she want?”

“…She’s in DC for the weekend,” he says. “Some conference for school. She asked if we could grab a coffee or something and catch up.”

You finally sit up, his hands falling from where he’d been playing with your hair, and you look at him.

“Your high school girlfriend wants to catch up.”

“An old friend wants to catch up,” he corrects. “I haven’t really talked to her since we graduated high school.” 

“…Okay,” you say slowly. “Do you want to see her?” 

He shrugs. “I thought it would be nice.”

“Do you think she thinks it’ll be more than nice?” you ask. 

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I don’t even know how she got my landline. I think my mom might have given it to her.” 

Your eyebrows rise. “Your mom gave your ex-girlfriend your number?” 

“It’s the only way I can think of her getting it,” Aaron shrugs. “Like I said, I haven’t talked to her since graduation.” 

You chew on the inside of your cheek, trying to think as you look at Aaron. 

You’ve met his mom a dozen times. You’re insistent that she doesn’t like you, despite Aaron’s assertions towards the opposite—it wouldn’t surprise you if she gave this girl his new number in an effort to push him in a new direction. 

But that train of thought feels a little crazy. You’re confident in your relationship with Aaron—you love him, and he loves you. God, he made an off-handed comment about marriage the other day. You’re not threatened by a girl from his past wanting to catch up. 

“Go for it,” you finally say. 

He frowns, like he was expecting the worst. “Really?” 

“I trust you, Aaron,” you say. “You say she’s just a friend, I believe it.” 

You lean forward to kiss him, your eyes fluttering shut, and it lasts much longer than it should. When you pull away, Aaron’s smiling softly at you. 

“Thank you,” he says. 

“‘Course,” you say, tipping a shoulder. “I’m known to be rational from time to time.” 

He chuckles, and you smile as you lay back down on his chest. Soon after, you feel the weight of his hand on your shoulder. 

“I love you,” he says. It feels more like a reminder than anything. 

You entangle your fingers together and press a kiss to the back of his hand. 

Sometimes you need reminders. 

“I love you too.” 

-

“Four more bodies,” Prentiss mutters. “God.” 

“You can say that again,” Morgan murmurs. 

Hotch is silent as he examines the father’s body. They’ve been so busy the past few days trying to nail down the profile, both on their unsub and geographically, that this happening again hadn’t been at the top of their list. There was a month between the first two, and two weeks between the second and third. 

No one expected this to happen so soon. 

The entire family was killed this time, and once again, the parents look similar to the other victims. It’s the work of their unsub, no doubt. 

Hotch and the team had already been at the precinct for an hour going over all the information they’d found when they got the call at 8 in the morning, the bodies discovered by the family’s maid when she arrived for work. 

An entire family, parents and children, senselessly slaughtered for one man’s deranged quest for liberation. 

Hotch has been in this business for a long time, seen things that most people only imagine in nightmares, and he still has to take a step back when children are involved. 

He sees Jack in every single one. He can’t help it. 

Hotch took Prentiss and Morgan with him to the crime scene—JJ has a kid, Rossi had a kid, and he just didn’t want Reid to see it. They’ll all be more valuable working together back there anyways, and it’s imperative that JJ controls the narrative before this can break to the press. 

Again, Prentiss talks to the officers at the scene and Morgan helps him examine the bodies. After all, there are double the amount. 

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Morgan says as he stands back up. “Our guy is killing surrogate parents to get back at his own, fine. Dad was tortured again, mom was killed with a bullet. But bringing the kids into it isn’t his thing.” 

He uses a gloved hand to gingerly lift the father’s arm away from his body so he can examine the underarm. “Look at this. He’s been stabbed at least ten times, and his arm’s nearly severed from his body.”

“And his neck,” Morgan mutters. “He’s half decapitated.” 

Hotch sets the arm back down. “The unsub always wants the father to suffer, but this is a new level.” He looks up at Morgan. “I don’t think he has a reason for killing the children. I think he’s getting sloppy—he’s getting overwhelmed by his anger.” 

“You think he’s devolving,” he says, catching on. 

“Something tells me we’re coming to the end of the line,” Hotch says. “Whatever he does next, he’s going out with a bang.” 

-

The mood in the precinct has fallen dramatically since the last hit. The uniforms aren’t happy that they’re working around the clock, the chief isn’t happy that the BAU hasn’t figured everything out yet, and the city isn’t happy that ten murders have been committed with what they think is no end in sight. 

JJ and Rossi have gone out to bring in the suspect that he and Morgan found together for the sake of covering their bases—they still haven’t been able to find Lucas, despite Reid calling you every day to check in and upping police presence around the city. 

The rest of the team sits around a conference table, over a dozen coffees between them, going over everything and racking their brains for information. 

“This just isn’t matching up,” Reid complains. “Lucas has just been at home for the first two, but for the third and the fourth he’s got alibis.” 

“What are they?” Hotch asks. 

“He was on the road all night when the third happened,” Reid says. 

“And how do we know?” Prentiss asks. 

“Garcia picked up his debit card being used a couple times from Des Moines back to St. Louis when the third set of murders happened,” Morgan contributes. “Must’ve been a road trip, because there are stops at a gas station, a restaurant, and a rest stop.” 

“The last one happened during an AA meeting he was supposed to attend,” Prentiss says. “I called the leader and she said he was there.”

“Do we have footage from any of those places?” Hotch asks. “We need to make sure.” 

Reid nods. “I asked her to check it all this morning, including the AA meeting. She must still be going through it—I can’t imagine it’s easy to get all that access.” 

“What about a second unsub?” Morgan suggests. 

Hotch shakes his head. “These are all meant to be personal for liberation—catharsis. Involving someone else would take away from the feeling.” 

“What about your suspect?” Prentiss asks, looking at Morgan. “Could he be the unsub?” 

“Patrick Fenton,” Morgan says, and he shrugs. “He fits it—dead parents, jail time, child of abuse. But he’s got two sisters, and his parents died when he was in his twenties from a car accident. I don’t see why he would start killing almost twenty years later.” 

“Maybe we’ll figure something out in questioning,” Reid says hopefully. 

Morgan’s phone suddenly goes off, and he hits the button to answer. “You’re on speaker, babygirl.” 

“I found the security footage from those three places, the ones that Lucas was at on his supposed road trip when the third family was hit,” Garcia says, voice slightly tinny through the phone.  

“And?” Hotch asks. 

“I was getting there,” she says. “Lucas wasn’t there. He wasn’t on any of the footage—his sister was.” 

Hotch frowns. You? 

“You’re sure?” he asks. 

“I’m always sure,” Garcia responds. “And I don’t know if Spencer is there, but he also wasn’t there at the AA meeting—I combed through the whole meeting, and he didn’t show up at any point. Just another guy that looked like him.” 

“And you’re sure about that, too?” Hotch asks again. 

“What is with this questioning of my abilities?” she asks, offended. “Yes. I’ve stared at so many pictures of Lucas Hartford over these past few days that I’ve got him burned into my brain.” 

“Thanks, babygirl,” Morgan says. “We’ll call back if we need anything.” 

“And you’re always welcome in this house of miracles,” she muses. Morgan chuckles before he hangs up. 

“Lucas gave her his card,” Reid realizes. “It’s an easy alibi, but it falls apart when you look into it even a little bit.” 

“Probably seemed solid to him at the time,” Morgan says. “He doesn’t seem like a detail oriented guy.” 

Prentiss frowns. “That means he’s back on the chopping block. We can put him at the scene of every murder.” 

Hotch leans over the table and grabs Lucas’s file, and he pulls out the page compiling his family. “His father died a year ago from liver failure. Hartford got out of jail nine months ago after a six year stint.” 

“If he’s been plotting some elaborate murder of his father for years, just to get out of jail and find out he drank himself to death?” Morgan shakes his head. “He’d snap. It doesn’t feel like justice.” 

“He thinks he’s saving the kids of these parents that he kills,” Reid says. “He sees himself in them—he can’t look past his own childhood, and he assumes those kids must want their parents dead too.” 

“He’s trying to get back at his dad,” Prentiss says. “We know that.” 

“But that’s not his main goal,” Reid insists. “If his dad died when he was a kid, the abuse would have stopped. His mom wouldn’t be the battered wife anymore, and he wouldn’t be the battered kid.” 

“His goal has always been protection,” Hotch realizes. “Yes, he’s getting his revenge by killing his father over and over, but ultimately, he’s trying to save himself.” 

“But he didn’t anticipate the kids being home this time,” Prentiss says. “He had to kill them too.” 

“If he‘s seeing himself in these children, recreating what he never got to do, then that means that he effectively died in this scenario,” Reid says. 

“He didn’t get what he wanted,” Morgan says. “That’s gonna take a toll on him.”

“He’s coming to the end of the line,” Prentiss nods. 

Hotch’s brain is working overtime as they work information off of each other. They’re so damn close—they just need the last piece of the puzzle. If they find Lucas’s next victim, they find him. 

“His next crime will probably be his last before he goes out himself,” Reid says. 

“You think it’ll be a murder-suicide?” Morgan asks. 

“It’s common with family annihilators,” Reid says. “Hell, it’s common with anyone who sees no future beyond their murders. It’s their way out.” 

And then the answer hits Hotch like a ton of bricks. Reid is still rambling next to him. 

“If his dad was still alive, I’d say he would be the target. But the only one left—”

“—is his sister,” Hotch grits out, and he’s dashing out of the conference room before anyone can stop him. 

“Hotch!” Morgan yells, and he turns to Prentiss with wild eyes. “Where the hell is he going?” 

“The last victim,” she says as she starts following him. “The one person he never managed to save.” 

“Goddammit,” Morgan curses, and he grabs his phone from the table, dialing Garcia as fast as she can while he runs. Reid is close behind him.  

“What’s up, sugar?” she asks. “Got anymore leads?” 

He laughs dryly. “We’ve got a big one, babygirl. Lucas has finally reached the end of the road — he’s going for his sister. I need you to call JJ and Rossi and—” 

“Send them the Hartford address and fill them in on everything?” she interrupted, and he could hear her fingers flying across the keyboard. “Already on it.” 

“What would I do without you?” he asks. 

“Be half the man and twice as sad,” she says. “I’ve got to call JJ. Be safe, my love.” 

“Always,” he responds, and he hangs up. 

Hotch distantly registers Prentiss stopping by the chief to alert him of what’s going on, because he’s in the fog of a rampage. He’s in the driver’s seat before he knows it, starting the car, and he sees Prentiss, Morgan, and Reid running out after him. 

Prentiss takes shotgun and Morgan and Reid file into the back, and they’ve all got Kevlar vests in their hands. He didn’t really think of that through his haze. 

“We’ve got an extra one for you,” Reid says, reading his mind. 

“Thank you. I— I know what you’re all thinking—” Hotch starts, but Prentiss shakes her head.

“Just drive.” Her lips set themselves in a taut line. “We’ve got a murder to stop.”  

And he does. 

-

You sit on the curb, surrounded on either side by a box of your things. Packing up everything made you realize how little you had at his place. You thought you’d integrated yourself into his life fully, but it really just took an afternoon while he was in a lecture to disappear. 

Summer has fully turned to winter, and you’re as morose as the weather. This side of town looks so depressing without the warmer months to pick it up—the sidewalks are lined with dead trees, the grass is shriveled up and yellowing, and you feel like you’re living in grayscale. 

A shiver runs through you, the weather only partly to blame. 

Amy is supposed to pick you up, but as usual, she’s running late. You don’t know if it’s a personal issue or DC traffic has just struck again, but it doesn’t really matter. Either way, you’re stuck here, and your bad luck seems intent on making it worse, because you watch a familiar car pull around the corner. 

It parks a distance away—there’s no space in front of the complex, and he always complained that they didn’t do assigned spots—and you have to hold back a scornful scoff. 

Of course you have to deal with this now. 

Aaron picks up his pace when he gets out of the car, surprise—and what you think is shame—painted on his face. He says your name when he slows down. 

“You’re already packed.” 

You shrug. “I’m nothing if not efficient.” 

“I could’ve helped you with all this,” Aaron says, frowning. 

“Why do you think it’s done already?” you ask. 

His throat bobs and he opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

“Let me save you the pain of chivalry,” you say. “I’ve got a friend coming to pick me up. I’ve already found a place. I called your property manager the other day and argued my way out of the lease, but I still paid my next month. You’re welcome.” 

“You didn’t have to do that,” he says. 

“You know what they say about a clean break,” you intone.  

“I’m sorry,” Aaron tries again. To his credit, he looks like he means it. Against his credit, it’s about the fiftieth time you’ve heard it from him in the past two weeks. 

“I shouldn’t have let you get that coffee,” you say with a grim smile, “should I?” 

His lips pull into a taut line. “I didn’t cheat on you.” 

“I know,” you say. It’s the one thing you do believe. “I just don’t think you ever fell out of love with her.” 

Mercifully, you see Amy’s car pulling up in the distance. She’s your only friend with an SUV, so at least your boxes will fit. 

“My ride’s here,” you say as you stand up, and you pick up one of your boxes. Amy throws on her hazards and she gets out to open her trunk. 

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” she breathes. “Traffic was awful, and Jake has been so annoying—” 

“Don’t worry about it,” you say with a slight smile as you put your box in the back. “You’re already doing me a huge favor.”  

“I want us to still be friends,” Aaron calls. When you turn back, he has your other box in his hands, his expression shamelessly desperate. Amy glares daggers at him. 

“Why?” you ask innocently. “So I can go without talking to you for ten years, ask you for a coffee when I’m in town, and then get you to leave Haley?” 

“That’s not what happened,” he says, but you’re already shaking your head. 

You take the box from him and smile thinly. 

“Have a good rest of your life, Aaron. I hope it doesn’t involve me ever again.”

-

You let out a noise of frustration as you struggle to get the key into the lock, gritting your teeth as you try to fit it in. It’s always been finicky, but you just don’t have the energy to deal with this tonight. Thankfully, just when you start getting annoyed, you get it open. 

You get a few steps in before your eyebrows rise, the sight of your brother at the kitchen table a surprise. He’s got his head in his hands, and your surprise turns to concern.

“Lucas,” you say with a slight smile, shutting the door behind you, “I didn’t know you were gonna be home tonight.”

His attention shoots to you immediately as he says your name, and he looks slightly out of it. “I was wondering when you were gonna get back.”

“Stole the words right out of my mouth,” you say wryly, and you ruffle his hair with your free hand as you walk past him. He swats your hand away in brotherly protest, and you snort. “This place has been quiet without you. Well— except for the cops. They were pretty loud.” 

“They haven’t been back, have they?” 

You look back at him and notice his leg is bobbing up and down insanely fast, and he keeps scratching at the soft wood of your table with his nail. 

Your smile fades. “Don’t tell me you’ve been drinking.”

“Of course I haven’t,” he insists, but you turn on the kitchen light, then move closer to peer into his eyes against his protests. 

“At least you’re not high,” you murmur, taking one last look before you pull away. “And stop ruining the table. I need it to last for the next ten years.” 

He huffs, and you can practically hear him roll his eyes, but he stops. 

“Did you go to class today?”

“You don’t have to act like Mom,” Lucas says, crossing his arms again with another huff. 

“And you don’t have to act like a child.” You roll your eyes as you set your tote bag on the countertop and begin unpacking the groceries you bought. “I’m asking you about your day—that’s definitely not acting like Mom.”

“Yes,” he mocks. “I went to class.”

“Good.” You glance back at him. “I’m proud of you, Luke. You’ve been making progress.” 

His smile is a bit thin, but he nods. “Thanks. How was work?”

You scoff and shake your head as you put a couple things in the pantry. “Don’t even get me started. I swear, Marie’s going to get me fired someday if she keeps her bullshit up.”

“She’s still on it?” Luke asks, and you can’t help but smile a bit. 

“Don’t act like you know what I’m talking about,” you say. “Just agree with me.” 

“I agree with you,” he says. 

“That’s it,” you muse. 

Your eyes fall back on your bag, and you’re reminded of what you meant to do next time your brother showed up. 

“Oh—” You go back over to the kitchen table for your bag and pull out your wallet. You slide a debit card out and hold it out to your brother. “Thanks for letting me use it while I was up in Des Moines. I finally got my bank to get rid of the freeze on my card.” 

“…Of course,” he says, and he takes it back. “Glad I could help.” 

“I’ll pay you back, obviously,” you say as you get back to your groceries. “I just have to wait to get paid again.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “And uh— you never answered me. Did the cops come by again?” 

You huff a mirthless laugh and shake your head. “You have nothing to worry about, Luke. I think they finally realized they were barking up the wrong tree.”

“…Good,” he says. “I can tell they’ve stressing you out.”

“Like that looks any different than my normal state,” you say wryly. “Besides, it wasn’t that bad.” 

You recall the shock you felt when you opened the door to Aaron, and how nervous you were on the drive to the precinct. It’s almost been a decade, and yet he still has an effect on you that he has no right to. 

“You remember that guy I dated when I was still in law school? Aaron Hotchner?”

“I think? I was in jail, so.” 

You roll your eyes. “I know I told you about him when I visited you while we were together.” 

“I remember you telling me how he broke your heart,” Luke says. 

“That’s not what I’m saying.” 

“Then what are you saying?” 

“That he’s with the FBI now. The BAU,” you enunciate, and you huff. “He’s one of the guys on this case, coincidence that it is. They came here—they even brought me in for an interview.”

He frowns. “What’d you say?”

“The truth.” You pull your cutting board and a knife out of a drawer and get to work washing your vegetables. “That I didn’t know anything, and neither of us are involved in either way.” You shake your head with a sigh. “They must believe it, because they haven’t come back.” 

“What have they said about me?” he asks. 

“I’m not supposed to say.” You roll your eyes. “I think you’re innocent, but I could get charged with obstruction, and I really don’t feel like dealing with that…” 

You trail off into a sigh as you finish washing the peppers and set them on a towel. “I hope they find whoever’s doing it, though. It is freaking me out that there’s a murderer out there.” 

You pick up your knife and start cutting them up—they’re not the freshest, but it’s all Kroger had after work—and you glance back at Luke. “You really shouldn’t be going out so often with this going on, y’know. I don’t want you getting hurt.” 

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m careful.” 

“I doubt that,” you say wryly. “Still, though. I worry about you.” 

“Shouldn’t it be the other way around?” he asks. “I’m your older brother.” 

“I worry about everything,” you say. “It’s my thing.” 

You hear him huff a laugh and you smile a bit to yourself. You get through your first pepper before you remember what’s been nagging at you your whole ride home. 

“Oh— can you get the TV?” you ask. “Channel 8, I think. Marcy is getting interviewed for something with her nonprofit, and I told her I’d record it for her.”

Lucas doesn’t respond, though you hear the scrape of the chair as he gets up. 

“Thank you,” you say. “I think they have a fundraiser coming up or something…” you trail off and shake your head as you scrape the cut peppers onto a plate. “God. I need to start paying attention in the break room.”

Another few seconds pass, and you don’t hear the television switch on. You huff and turn your head slightly. “Luke, I’m making dinner tonight. This is the least you could do.” 

“I’m sorry.”

The words come out as a murmur, but you can tell he’s much closer than he was before. 

You don’t even get the chance to turn around before something crashes against your head and your vision goes dark. You feel yourself fall to the ground, and your head hits the floor hard. 

Then, there’s nothing. 

-

Hotch has been breaking every speeding law there is. 

The station isn’t too far from your house, but it’s still too far. All he can see is your body, crippled and lifeless just like every other victim they’ve had to look at. 

It should never have gotten to this point. Lucas has been a suspect for the first day, but they looked to other suspects, got caught up in statements from neighbors and the kids of the victims. 

If Hotch just found him and booked him on the first day, this wouldn’t be happening. Your life wouldn’t be in danger. 

His hands tighten on the steering wheel. 

“I seriously think we’re looking at a murder-suicide if this gets to play out,” Reid speaks up from the backseat. “This is his way of ending this for both of them—the ultimate protection of his sister.”

“No one can hurt her if she’s dead,” Morgan mutters. 

“Hotch,” Prentiss starts, treading carefully, “are you sure you’re okay to lead this?”

“Yes,” he says, though he wants to say what kind of question is that?

You were together a lifetime ago in law school, yes, and he might still have feelings for you that he didn’t even realize were there, yes—but he’s an agent and a professional before all of that. 

It doesn’t matter that you have history. It doesn’t matter that you likely hate him. 

It doesn’t matter that he thought he was going to marry you one day, and then was watching you drive out of his life after he got back with his high school girlfriend another day.  

Aaron Hotchner is not going to let you die. It’s as simple as that. 

Hotch’s phone rings and he picks it up and flips it open immediately. “Talk to me, Garcia.”

“JJ and Rossi are on their way,” she says. “Are you headed to their place?” 

“Yes,” he says, and he puts it on speaker. “I’ve got Prentiss, Morgan, and Reid with me still.” 

“Do you think there’s anywhere else he could be?” Morgan asks. “If he’s going to kill her, he might not want to do it in this house.” 

“Already a step ahead of you, my love,” she says, and he can hear mouse clicks through the phone. “They grew up in a house in St. Charles—it’s abandoned, from the looks of it, some place on the outskirts. Never got another buyer after the past owners moved out. I’m sending the address to Emily right now.”

Prentiss gets a buzz on her phone and she nods in confirmation after flipping it open. Hotch immediately switches lanes and makes a U-turn, his jaw clenching. 

“Tell me how to get there, Prentiss,” he says. “He’s there.”

“You need to get on I-70,” she says, and then her brow furrows. “How do you know?”

“He’s killed everyone else in their homes because he sees it as the source of it all. His sister’s rented place isn’t personal enough.” Hotch shakes his head. “Why wouldn’t he want to go back to theirs to end it all?”

“Hotch.” Penelope’s voice rings out in the car, and he doesn’t even realize he forgot to hang up. 

“What?”

“Be careful,” she says, and he rushes to turn it off speaker and press it to his ear. “I… I know how important this is to you.”

Hotch’s throat bobs and his eyes burn with the beginnings of tears. He blinks them away—he can’t be weak now. He can’t let his team see him be weak now. “Dare I ask how?”

“I found an article about GW’s mock trial team,” she says. “Kind of went down a rabbit hole from there.”

Somehow, he huffs the slightest laugh. It feels like a lifetime ago—it honestly is, at this point. Before he saw carnage and gore on a daily basis and tried to solve it, when he thought the DA’s office was the endpoint, when he came home to your smiling face every night. 

And now… 

Hotch’s spine somehow stiffens, and he knows the other three in the car are watching him. He can’t decide whether he cares or not. 

“Thank you, Garcia.”

“No problem,” she says, and he can almost hear her blink in the pause. “Uh— for what, exactly?” 

For the memory, he wants to say. But he doesn’t. He can’t, not right now, so he tries his best to snap out of it. 

“Keep a watch on the patrol cars,” he says instead. “Update JJ and Rossi on our plan, but tell them to stay on their path. I’m sure I’m right, but we need to cover our bases.” 

“Of course, sir.” He hears her fingers flying across the keys. “I’ve got yours and the squad cars’ locations up—I’ll call them now.” 

“Thank you,” he says. 

“Good luck, Hotch,” Garcia says softly. 

Hotch hangs up before he gets too emotional. Penelope has a way of bringing that side out of him. 

“We’ll get him,” Prentiss assures. She’s been watching him this whole time, he can feel it—she’s been attuned far too keenly on this entire part of the case involving you and him. “And we’ll save her.” 

His knuckles go white around the steering wheel, and for once, Hotch can’t find the words. 

-

It feels like your head is slowly being cranked in a vice when you eventually wake up, a dull but insistent pain. Your arm stings too, but you don’t know why. 

You blink a few times as you try to figure out where you are, a low groan slipping out as you fully come back into consciousness, and you move to rub the grogginess out of your eyes. 

Your arms don’t move. You try again, panic spiking your heart for a moment, and that’s when you realize you’re in a chair—tied to a chair, your wrists bound together behind you and your ankles bound to the chair legs. 

Now the panic fully sets in. There’s a murderer in St. Louis, but you don’t fit the victimology from what you’ve seen, but does any of that fucking matter when you’re stuck in something out of a horror movie?

Lucas was the only one there with you. So either he’s in the same situation, or he—

“You’re finally awake,” a voice murmurs. When he comes into view and sits down across from you, your heart stops. 

For a moment, all you can do is stare at your brother with wide eyes. You see the gun in his hand through your peripherals, but you don’t look away from his gaze. 

“I was worried I was too rough,” he says softly. “But you’ve always been resilient.” 

“Lucas,” you breathe. “What the fuck is this?”

“It’s finally going to be over,” he says, ignoring your panic. “We’ve been hurting our whole lives because of that bastard of a father, and I can finally make it all stop.” 

Your brother is fucking crazy. He’s fucking crazy, and he’s going to kill you.

You’ve spent two weeks telling Aaron he was crazy and your brother was innocent, and now he’s going to be proven right when he finds your dead body. 

You try to tamp down on your panic. You don’t have a law degree, sure, and you never officially practiced, but you’ve been a good speaker, a persuasive one, all your life. 

And if there’s ever been a fucking time to be persuasive, it’s now. 

“You don’t have to do this,” you whisper. “We— we can talk if you want to talk.” You tug at your ankle restraints. “This is unnecessary.” 

He shakes his head. “I know you. You’d run.” 

“Come on.” You manage as much of a smile as you can. “I’ve always been there for you, Luke. Why would this be any different?” 

“…You’ve always been too nice,” he says, and he sets the gun down on his leg. At least he doesn’t have his finger on the trigger. “Anyone rational would’ve kicked me to the curb when I asked you for help.” 

“You’re my brother,” you whisper. “I— I love you, Lucas. I’d never do that to you.” 

“Family’s supposed to be everything, right?” He shakes his head. “You were the only one of us that understood that. You were there to pick me up every time my sentence was up.” 

“I’ve always believed in you,” you say. 

He huffs a monotone laugh as he stares at the ground. “You’re definitely the only one.”

You shake your head. “That’s not true.” 

“Mom didn’t care enough to stop anything,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “And Dad wished I was dead every goddamn day. He didn’t have the guts to do it himself, but he definitely tried.” 

You can’t defend your parents. Your dad’s a piece of shit, and your mom didn’t stop anything he did—but you could never find it in yourself to fully hate her because he hurt her too, with more than just bruises. 

“I’ve dreamt of killing our dad every day for twenty years,” Lucas says. “And that old bastard had to fuck me over one last time and die while I was in jail.”

You remember when you got the news. You were next of kin—your mother was dead, and your brother was incarcerated—so you got the call from the hospital. You deliberated for hours before you bought a plane ticket to Montana—apparently that was where he fucked off to drink himself to death—and you don’t know if you’ve ever felt more numb than when you were sitting in some lawyer’s office, listening to him drone on about his will and how his estate would be divided. 

“So you killed all of those people?” you asked. “Because you didn’t get to kill our dad first?” 

“I was saving those kids!” Luke yells, and you shrink in on yourself. “Saving them before their parents could fuck them up like ours did to us!” 

“You don’t have to do this,” you repeat. “You’re just letting Dad win. Proving every shitty thing he said about you.” 

“And that’s the zinger, isn’t it? Luke laughs and shakes his head. “He was right. We’re a whole family of fuck-ups. An alcoholic abuser, a battered wife, a nonstop jailbird, and you…” He shakes his head with a sigh. “You should be out there prosecuting people like me.”

“He ruined us,” Luke murmurs. “And I’m finally going to fix it.” 

All you can do is stare at your brother, wide and teary eyed. You can’t find the words, but you don’t have to. 

Police sirens begin to filter through the air as they get closer, and Luke huffs. “Of course.” He eyes you. “Don’t go anywhere.” 

“I wouldn’t dare,” you say weakly. 

When he leaves to peer out the front door, you take a second to look at your surroundings. It takes a second because they’re so decrepit, but you could never forget. 

Luke brought you back to your childhood home—the place in St. Charles, rotten down to its bones. It’s abandoned by now, but the atmosphere is nothing less than oppressive. There’s a reason you graduated high school a year early, why you never came back once you got to college—except with Aaron, to help your mom move her things out. 

You refuse to die here. Even if you have to claw your way back through the gates of Hell inch by inch—you will not die here. 

You hear footsteps, and when Lucas comes back in, he has a crazed glint in his eye. He shakes his head as his finger returns back to the trigger, and you can’t help but flinch. He won’t. Not now. 

“Looks like your friends the FBI are here,” he drawls. “You said you didn’t tell them anything.” 

“I didn’t,” you insist. “They’re profilers—they figure things out.” 

He shakes his head. “They don’t realize that I have to do this.” Luke kneels down in front of you and takes your chin in an iron grip. “This is the only way to end our pain.” 

He lets go of you then stands up, moving behind you—you want to protest, but you don’t get the chance. He presses his gun to your temple and then the door is broken down. Four agents rush in, guns at the ready. Aaron leads them, and he’s got fire blazing in his eyes.

“FBI,” he barks. “Hands up.”

Lucas doesn’t seem fazed, his breathing staying the same. You stare right at Aaron, unfiltered fear in your eyes, and you feel torn bare. He’s going to watch your brother put a bullet in your head. 

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he says smoothly. “This is a family matter.” 

“Put the gun down, Lucas,” Aaron says. 

“You know my name,” he says. “I know yours too, Aaron Hotchner. My sister told me you were with the feds. She also told me you broke her heart.”

“Put the gun down,” he repeats. 

“I don’t think I will,” Luke says. “You see, I don’t go around just kidnapping people for fun. I have a purpose here.” He tilts his head to the side. “But you know that, don’t you? You’re all profilers.” 

“You’ve been targeting families that look like your own,” he says. “You think that killing them will end the pain inside you, and protect those kids in a way that you never got.” 

“I don’t think it,” he bites, “I know it. If my dad had been shot thirty years ago, we wouldn’t be here right now.” 

“This isn’t going to bring you peace,” Aaron says. “Your sister has been the only person to stay by your side through every part of your life. Do you really want to lose that?” 

“Trust me,” Luke says. “I’m not losing her.” 

He flicks the safety off and you flinch. He’s going to kill you. 

“Put the gun down,” another agent warns. 

“If you all don’t leave right now, I’ll shoot her.” Your whole body stiffens as he presses the gun harder into the side of your head, your breathing going off kilter. “Except you, Aaron Hotchner. You can stay.”

“We’re not doing that,” the woman says. Agent Prentiss, you think. 

“Really?” Luke chuckles. “You think you hold the cards here?” 

“It’s okay,” Aaron says. “Go.” 

Agent Prentiss frowns, and the other two men look different levels of puzzled. They obviously doubt the decision, but they don’t doubt Aaron, because one by one, they leave. 

“Wow,” Luke muses. “They really trust you.” 

“Because I know you don’t want to hurt her,” Aaron says. “Deep down, you know you’re not protecting her. Not by hurting her.” 

“I’m not hurting her,” he says. “She’s always been the one to keep me safe over the years—I’m finally paying the favor back. I’m finally taking her pain away.”

“You were abused as children. Both of you.” Aaron looks at your brother. “Your sister always tried to protect you, but it never worked. It just made it worse for her, and it made you feel worthless. You’re her older brother. You’re the one that was supposed to protect her.”

“My sister said you’re profilers,” he says, and though his tone is lazy, you know your brother. You can tell it’s starting to get to him. “Is that what you’re doing right now? Profiling me?” 

“You would never be good enough for your father, and your mother would never do anything to stop it,” Aaron continues. “All you had was your sister, and even that wasn’t good enough—you hurt her just as much as your dad did. At least your dad didn’t think he was a good person.” 

Luke growls, and he puts a hand on your shoulder to pull you closer to him. “Shut up.” 

“Your sister has told me you can be more than this,” he says. “And I think she’s right. You’re better than this—better than living between the margins and jail.” 

“I’ve had a hole in my chest since I was born,” Luke mutters. “And I’ve tried to stop it, but it’s just grown and grown and grown. This— this aching pit of pain, and he caused it. You’ve got it too— I know it.” 

“I— I do,” you say. And you’re not lying. You’ve had a pit of despair in you for as long as you can remember. The only difference is that you’ve fought every goddamn day of your life to keep it from consuming you. “And it hurts, Luke. Trust me, I know. It took me so long to even be able to deal with it, but I know how to. I can help you—we can both walk out of here.” 

“No,” he whispers. “No—we can’t.”  

“Yes, we can,” you plead. “I love you, Luke. I’ll spend every day of the rest of my life helping you if that���s what it takes to get rid of that hole.” 

For a moment, he doesn’t say anything. For a moment, you think you’ve gotten through to him. Aaron never takes his eyes away from you. 

“I’ve never been able to protect her,” Luke murmurs. “Not from our dad, not from the world, not even from you, Aaron Hotchner.” He presses the gun harder than ever into your head, like he wants to bury the metal in your skull along with the bullet. “But that all ends now.” 

You screw your eyes shut. You don’t want to see Aaron’s face when your brother kills you. 

And then it happens so quickly you barely process it. 

There’s two gunshots, almost at the same time. You scream, first because of the gunshots, then because of the sudden roaring pain in your side. There’s a thud next to you, your eyes shoot open, and you see your brother’s lifeless body fall to the ground. 

You scream again—you can’t even control it, it just rips out of you at the sight of the hole in his head and the blood pooling beneath it—and Aaron drops his gun to rush forward. The rest of his team thunders in after him, all in guns and bulletproof vests, and they’re talking, but you can’t focus on a single goddamn thing because your brother’s dead body is right next to you. 

Aaron pulls out a pocket knife and begins to cut through your restraints, and the instant he finishes you collapse. He catches you without a second thought, and you immediately wrap your arms around him. 

Torrential sobs wrack your entire body as you bury your face in the crook of his shoulder, every part of you shaking as the reality of it all hits with full force. 

Your brother is a serial killer. He killed ten people, he tried to kill you. And now he’s dead. 

The only part you had left of your family—gone, just like that, with four other families ruined in his wake. 

Aaron’s soft voice in your ear is the only thing bringing you back from the edge of hyperventilation, his own hold on you the only thing keeping you from collapsing.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmurs and he shrugs off his windbreaker to wrap it around your arms. “You’re safe now. You’re safe.”

“He’s gone,” you choke out, voice muffled as you speak into his chest. “He’s gone, and he tried to—”

A fresh round of emotions hit you, unable to get the words out, and you fully break down in Aaron’s arms. 

“I know.”

Aaron’s fingers linger on your side and you feel some dull pain, but you feel his breath still for a moment. 

“You were shot,” he says with your name. “We have to get you to a hospital.” 

You don’t even feel it. God, you don’t feel anything. There’s a distant ringing in your ears, an insistent pain in your skull, and you finally realize Aaron is right when you pull away and see the blood on his fingers. 

But black spots start to fill your vision. You may not feel it, but your body holds the score. The pain intensifies in your side as your adrenaline starts to slow down, and you collapse against Aaron. 

“Get an EMT in here!” he yells, keeping an arm wrapped around you. “We’ve got a GSW— she’s losing blood fast!” 

You can feel Aaron’s rapid heartbeat, can feel his steady arms as he keeps you propped up. You feel the warmth of his body, feel the warmth draining out of yours. 

“Aaron,” you whisper, your strength fading. You don’t think he hears you.

He helps you up and you’re suddenly hoisted onto a stretcher, and he’s beside you as the EMTs run you out of your childhood home. The night is a blurry canvas of red and blue lights, and your eyelids feel like they’re made of concrete. 

“Aaron,” you try again, and you have enough left in you to grasp his cheek. “Thank you.” 

And as the world goes black around you for the second time, you see his lips form your name. 

It’s not a bad thing, you think before darkness overtakes you, for Aaron Hotchner to be the last thing you see before you die. 

-

You wake up in the hospital alone.  

You don’t know what you expect. You have few acquaintances, fewer friends, and the last part of your family is dead after he tried to kill you. 

The real surprise is that you wake up at all. 

Lucas is dead. 

He tried to kill you. You thought he succeeded. 

You let out a slow, even breath, accompanied only by the sounds of beeping machines. It still doesn’t exactly feel real. 

You’ve spent the last two weeks defending your brother against every accusation, and you ended it in the hospital—well and truly alone for the first time in your life. 

You look at the television. Some muted soccer game is playing, and you’re thankful. You were worried that you and your brother would be the topic of the day. 

Who are you kidding? You’re going to be the topic of the year. He killed ten people. He tried to kill you, and you think he nearly did. He shot you, after all. 

You let your head fall back against the pillow. All of your limbs feel insurmountably heavy, your side aches like hell, and you’ve got the worst headache of your life. 

And you can’t stop playing it all over in your mind. 

He was going to kill you. 

Your own brother, your flesh and blood, the only person you had left, tried to kill you and would have killed you had it not been for the BAU. 

Had it not been for Aaron Hotchner. 

The door opens and someone walks through, your eyes following the movement, and when he sees it, he pauses. And so do you—apparently the devil appears even when you think of him. 

“You’re awake,” Aaron says after a moment. It’s the third time he’s sounded surprised since you’ve met him again. Seeing you, finding out your mom is dead, seeing you. 

But there’s relief there, too.

He has a coffee in his hand and his tie is undone, the sleeves of his white undershirt rolled up to his forearms. It makes you realize his suit jacket has been slung over the back of the chair near your bedside. 

“How long have you been here?” you ask, your brows furrowing ever so slightly. 

Aaron closes the door and sets his coffee on the table before he answers you. “Three days.” 

“And how long have I been here?” 

“Three days,” he says. “You suffered head trauma, they discovered drugs in your system, and… you were shot. You had to go into emergency surgery.” 

You frown, and he answers before you can ask any of them. “…Your brother. After he knocked you out, he used something to… keep you out. And after I shot him, he still got one off—thankfully, as he was falling. The bullet hit you in the side instead of the head.”

“How bad was it?” you ask. 

Aaron glances away. “You died on the table. They managed to bring you back, but…” 

“I guess Luke did succeed,” you say absentmindedly. Aaron doesn’t laugh, and you glance away too. “Sorry. Bad time for jokes.” 

He shakes his head. “If anyone’s allowed to joke about this, it’s you.” 

Your lips twitch for a moment, but then you look back at him as he takes a seat at your bedside again. He looks— god, he just looks tired. Tired and ragged and downtrod, and you can’t imagine you look much better.  

“You were out for two days after,” he explains. “This is the first time you’ve woken up.”

“Why are you here, Aaron?” you ask quietly. “Why have you been here?” 

Aaron frowns. “Where else would I be?”

Your throat feels like it’s closing up, and you feel the telltale pinpricks of tears. You blink them away before they can start. 

“My brother was a serial killer, Aaron.” Your hands clench into fists as you stare at the wall. “He killed ten people while he was living with me and I— and I didn’t even fucking notice.” Your gaze moves back to him. “I went against all of you because I thought I knew him, and look where it got me.” 

“It’s not a crime to want to see the best in people,” he says. “Especially your family.” 

“It’s a crime to fucking murder people,” you huff, and it’s only slightly unhinged. “I— I thought I knew him, and I didn’t. And if I did, maybe none of these people would’ve had to die.”

“Don’t blame this on yourself,” Aaron demands. “Lucas was lost. Mentally ill. He was on a path for revenge, for his deranged idea of protection—nothing you could have said or done would have stopped him.” 

You shake your head. “It might be easy for you to say that, Aaron, but I— I can’t. He’s my brother. I gave him a place to live, I gave him easy access to families— god, I fought with you all for two weeks about his innocence, all while he was planning his next fucking murder!” 

“It is not your fault,” he repeats, slower and enunciating the words. “He was the only member left of your family, and you loved him. You were just stubborn, and that’s nothing new.” 

“I just don’t know what to do.” You’ve had these walls up for so long, especially this past week, and now that everything’s come to a head and you’re in the hospital and your fucking brother is dead, the floodgates have opened. “I have to plan a funeral because I’m the only one left to plan one, but— but does he even deserve one? He’s a serial killer, and he tried to kill me for god’s sake, but he’s my brother and even though he’s gone he’s still all I have left and—” 

You break off as you suck in a huge breath of air, the notion shaky as you clench your hands into fists to keep the rest of your body from doing the same. 

“And I just don’t know what to do,” you repeat, barely a whisper. 

You meet Aaron’s eyes, almost desperately. You feel like you’ll shatter into a million different pieces if you even breathe wrong and he might be the only solid thing in your life. 

“Whatever you do,” he says, “you don’t have to do it alone. Not if you don’t want to.” 

“Aaron,” you start shakily, but he continues. 

“I know what you think, and that’s not what I’m suggesting.” Aaron pauses for a moment, and it’s obvious how carefully he’s crafting his words. “I’ve… always regretted how we left things. And I regret losing touch with you. This isn’t the way I would’ve liked to meet you again. But I’m thankful I have.”

He pulls a card out of his shirt pocket and holds it out to you. You realize it’s his business card, and it’s got his number. 

“I’m sorry for the formality,” he says dryly, “but I don’t exactly go around prepared to give out my number for purposes other than work.” 

You take it without giving yourself the chance to think about it. You run your finger around the sharp edge of the cardstock, pressing the pad of your thumb against the corner. 

“Years ago, you wished me a good life, and that you didn’t want to be involved in it,” he says, still treading carefully. You can’t believe he remembers the last thing you said to him. “But— but a lot has changed since then, and I hope that has as well.” 

“I’d like you to be a part of my life again,” Aaron finally says, “if you want to be a part of mine.”

For a moment, all you can do is stare at him. Two and a half years of law school flash behind your eyes—coffee shop dates and endless hours spent studying at the library. Movie nights cuddled on his couch, hauling boxes out of your house at an ungodly hour to get away from your roommates. An unhealthy amount of all-nighters immediately followed by going out to celebrate a miracle of an A on an exam. Getting through every soul-sucking part of earning a J.D. together, falling apart before either of you could make it to the other side, and somehow…

Somehow, you’ve ended up on a completely different side together. 

“My life isn’t going to be easy,” you say faintly. “Especially… moving through this.” 

“My life isn’t easy either,” he says. “I’m divorced with a kid and I try to solve murders every day.” 

“It’s not a contest.” An attempt at a joke, but it falls flat for you. Aaron’s lips still quirk at the edges the slightest bit. 

“Getting through this certainly won’t be easy,” he agrees. “But I have more experience than most in these sorts of things. So if you ever need anything, call. Please.” 

“I imagine you’re pretty busy,” you murmur. “Unit chief and all.” 

Aaron shrugs. “I make time for the things I care about.” 

Thankfully, you don’t have to figure out how to respond to that, because there’s a knock on the door, and a nurse walks in after you call a come in.

“It’s good to finally see you awake, sweetheart,” the nurse says with a smile. It warms you from the inside out. 

“It’s nice to be awake,” you say. Her smile widens and she moves over to the computer in the side of the room—to add some things before she makes her checkup, you assume. 

“I’ll give you some time alone,” Aaron says.

Before he can stand up, you grab his hand. It’s fully on instinct, and he looks just as surprised as you feel.  

“Don’t go,” you plead, and it’s almost a whisper. “I— just— please.” 

Aaron stares at you for a moment, that shock glinting in his eyes before it transforms into something a lot warmer. He nods and sits down. 

“Okay.” 

And he stays. 

This time, he stays.

[kremlin]

@wikwalker hi sure yes anything to give me an excuse to procrastinate the post i should be writing right now. here are all teh drugs and how to manage them. you can trust me, a drug addict

first of all: https://www.erowid.org/ , erowid always

don't be afraid of drugs, if they're the right drugs, you should do them since they will be a blast regardless and overcoming fear is also good (but outside the scope here)

OK to do as much as you want: alcohol - social benefit greatly outweighs health effects, no reason to avoid if predisposed to abuse since that'll happen sooner or later. what can i say? don't be a fucking dork. when you start drinking, really overdo it as much as possible without dying and get a few real nasty hangovers under your belt so you know how much is the right amount to drink.

weed - innocuous enough to be fine but will make you stupid in the long term. make sure to only buy from a real drug dealer and never some legal institution. cut it out when you're a "real adult". don't smoke weed and watch TV routinely, go out and do things so you naturally grow to hate it. good to go through this as early as possible to minimize the time you spend as a cringe weed enthusiast

i guess those are the only two.

ok to do infrequently (annually): "lsd" - or whatever it is, probably not lsd, blah blah blah, if it works and is sold on blotter its fine and won't make you go nuts or whatever. opt for a better psychadelic imo. see psych rule at bottom of section

mushrooms - better than acid since you know what they are. rule of thumb is to always do more than you think you want. minimum 1/8oz. see psych rule at bottom of post

dmt - if you somehow have a dmt hookup you don't need to be reading any of this. lasts 10 minutes which leads to tendency to way overdo it, don't do this, my favorite webcomic artist is permanently crazy from exactly that. using a crack pipe is also not the uhhhh most dignifying-feeling thing to do either. it's harder than you think.

mdma - for use at electronic music event or rave. overuse causes brain lesions or something.

coke - wait until you're in your 20s, have maxed out your roth IRA for a couple of years in a row, and havent missed a car payment in a similar timeframe. better still if you've worked a very shitty low paying job and know the value of a dollar. if you still find yourself buying candy you're not ready. too expensive to be worth it to get hooked on. know that you are VERY ANNOYING to anyone who also isn't high. don't fuck around with the guy selling it to you. avoid discussing or thinking about business ideas. you can't afford to make it a habit + kinda turns you into a piece of shit after a while, but at least a very interesting one

ketamine - another sick drug that rules, but save it for a special occasion. don't try and go into the k-hole your first time

rule for psychedelics - you get one good strong trip a year and that's it, make it count, always opt for doing a bit more than a bit less. but don't make it a habit, otherwise you turn into a very stupid very annoying "hippy" style cliché and believe in ghosts, aliens, crap like that.

ok to try once prescription opiates/benzodiazepine (xanax), valium, this kind of shit - worth trying so you can go "holy shit, this stuff is way way way too good to ever use responsibly" and then never do again. especially if you're white. for some reason we just can't handle this shit. if a doctor prescribes it to you, idk, that's your call to make.

ayhuasca - this is just dmt in a different form. do some other psychadelics a number of times before you do this. once you realize the whole "substantial visual hallucinations" thing is made up, its time. do exactly this: -buy root online (legal). receive box of dirt -boil dirt into "tea" (read erowid for exact recipe) -take over-the-counter anti nausea medicine or anything that will give you a stronger stomach -drink tea (its nasty as fuck, get it down quick) -have someone bigger than you keep an eye on you for the next five hours. -have the experience, which is absurdly intense, has no bearing to the real world, etc etc. don't be a bitch and throw up, if you do it'll only last an hour or so. again there is no way to provide a consistent description of the experience except that you will meet god. you only ever need to do this once and never again. trust me

peyote/salvia/etc - try em if you want, you'll never ever want to again afterwords. these are drugs for idiot teenagers too lame to get real drugs. imagine being very very sick from poison and utterly terrified at the same time. No good

whippets/nitrous oxide - just find a dentist that uses it and don't bother creating hundreds of pounds of trash on your floor for this crap that lasts ten seconds. you have to understand the extremely short timeframe coupled with the cost makes zero sense. go to a phish concert parking lot and do some people watching -- you do not want to be these people. only use is as a motivator to get routine dental exam. also if you somehow manage to make it a heavy habit your fucking legs stop working, no shit, but they start working again once you quit.

don't ever do heroin/meth/pcp - is is truly a mystery why you should never do these 🙄

synthetic weed/k2/shit from the gas station - it is so funny that they sell this as "weed that won't pop you on a drug test". its not weed. it is some dubious chemical sprayed on yard waste. smoke it to have a terrible time and go nuts. only buy drugs from legitimate drug dealers!

kratom - anyone's guess as to why this is legal but it's heroin for pussies. its still heroin

dxm/cough syrup - do you ever wonder why it is exclusively teenagers robotripping? it's because it sucks ass. is like a cheesegrater on your brain in terms of health effects with repeated usage. you're better than this king

inhalants - these are at the bottom of the list for a reason. do not huff gas. don't huff paint. do not consume computer duster. not fun + fastest way to make yourself a complete, uh, (word i can't say anymore) and then dead

not listed quaaludes- unavailable due to no longer being manufactured. these ruled apparantly

sincis2c - unavailable due to not existing, i just made this up

amphetamines - cannot provide objective take here. they're my albatross, lifelong (posted 4:55am natch)

[bigoltrashpile]

It's my good pal @skelsobug 's birthday today!!! Go show them some love!!!! I wrote this because I know how much they love Sans being a nasty gremlin man, so hopefully this fulfills that! Happy birthday!!!

------------------------------

The front door shut heavily behind you.  Groaning, you slid down the door until you landed on the floor.  You were…exhausted.  Work was terrible, your coworkers had been extra bitchy today, your feet ached, and just to add insult to injury, you were sick.  Not having the energy to move, you just let your head thud against the door and shut your eyes.

“hey babe, how you-ooooh, not good.”  You let one eye flit open.  Your shoulders immediately relaxed, and you felt a small smile creep onto your face.  Even though you were feeling terrible, just the sight of Sans made everything feel a bit brighter.

Sans tilted his head.  His ever-present smile seemed quizzical.  “shitty day?” he asked.

“Yup.”

“damn, ’m’sorry.”  He sat next to you, his own back against the door.  One of his hands found yours.   He laced his fingers in between yours.  “will some cheesecake make ya feel better?”

Shit, you loved cheesecake.  Almost like it was listening, your stomach rumbled at the mention of food.  “.....Yeah.”

Sans hopped up, still holding your hand.  “cool, cool, ‘cause i worked my tail bone off makin’ it for ya,” he winked.

He started walking into the kitchen, and you had no choice but to come with him.  Well, that or you could make him drag you.  Or teleport you there.  Oh well, it’s not like it was far.

Sans opened the fridge, and triumphantly pulled out a pan of cheesecake with his free hand.  “Wow, you actually made it yourself,” you said, impressed.  You half expected him to have a store bought one.

“well, it’s your birthday, thought i’d actually put in some effort,” he winked.  He started cutting the cake, but he was clearly having trouble since he refused to let go of your hand.

“Oh my god, just let go!” you laughed.

“eh, too much work,” he winked.

“To let go of my hand??”

“yeah, i’d have to use like, three muscles, that’s way too many.”

“You don’t even have muscles!”  Despite your protests, you didn’t let go of his hand either.

As Sans tried to move a slice of cheesecake onto a plate, it slipped off the knife and fell to the counter.  “oops.”  Sans simply grabbed the slice with his bare hand and plopped it on a plate.  “that one’ll be mine.”

A soft laugh escaped your throat.  “That’s nasty, dude, it’s all fucked up now!”

“so?  still tastes just as good!”

“You’re still gross.”

Thankfully, your slice made it safely to the plate, mostly intact.  You grabbed your respective slices and as Sans pulled you closer towards him, he teleported the two of you to his room, right onto his bed.

“Jeez, warn me next time,” you muttered.  His “shortcuts” always made you dizzy.

“sorry,” Sans grinned.  “but hey, we’re here ain’t we?”

“Yeah, good point.”  The less walking the better, according to your sore feet.  You sighed happily as you relaxed into the mattress.  Sans had the best mattress, just the right amount of support, while still being squishy.

Now if only he would wash his sheets more often than once a year.

Sans settled right next to you, pressed right against your side.  “how’s the cheesecake?”  Somehow, his “slice” was already gone, and he had cheesecake smeared on his face.

Kicking off your shoes, you took a bite.  It was surprisingly good, a little too gooey, but the taste was great.  “Pretty good,” you admitted.  “I didn’t know you could bake.”

“got some help from tori,” he admitted.  “just wanted to do somethin’ special for ya.”

“Well, that’s really sweet of you,” you smiled.  “I would kiss you, but you’ve got stuff on your face.”

“oh, what, you don’t wanna kiss this handsome mug?” he grinned.  He had a mischievous glint in his eyes, and you could almost sense what was coming.  You tried to roll out of bed, but before you could-

Sans’s arms wrapped around you tight.  He pulled you, squirming and yelling, towards his face.  “Nononono you’re all gross!-”  Faster  than you thought was possible, Sans pressed his teeth against your cheek, less of a kiss and more just rubbing the cold cheesecake batter against you.  You yelped and pushed him away.  “Dude, that’s so cold!” you squeaked.

“no worries, i’ll get it off.”  His blue tongue lolled out of his mouth.

“Don’t you d-”

Sans used his blue magic to pull you closer.  You could only yell in exaggerated despair as Sans licked the cheesecake off your face.  His tongue was cold and slimy and felt very gross on your face.

“I hate you,” you groaned.

“nah, you love me~”

You pouted, but couldn’t deny it.  Even though he was a gremlin, you had to admit that you loved it.  His smug face pulled away, and settled back next to you.  Now freed from his blue magic, you used your uniform shirt to wipe the feeling of Sans’s tongue off your face.  You tossed the uniform shirt away, leaving only your undershirt.

As you did, you noticed Sans’s eyes watching you.  “damn, didn’t think ya wanted to jump my bones tonight,” he winked.

“Shut up, I’m just getting comfortable,” you grumbled.  You grabbed one of Sans’s shirts from off the ground.  It was a t-shirt with a cartoon hamburger on it.  You pulled it on, and couldn’t stop yourself from breathing in the scent of pine and ketchup, the scent of Sans.  A weird combination, but one that you loved anyway.

As you turned back to Sans, he coughed and tried to hide his blush.  “Oooooh, does seeing me in your clothes do something for you?” you teased.

“oh shut up,” Sans mumbled.  He turned away, fumbling with something before turning back.  He was holding a bag from the grocery store.  “a-anyway, i got all your favorites, figured we could watch some dumb reality tv or somethin.”

You took the bag.  Sure enough, all your favorite snacks and drinks were inside.  “Wow, thanks!  But, won’t Papyrus get mad at us for being so lazy?  Or not having a ‘real party’ or something?”

“nah, he’s out on a date tonight.  we got the house all to ourselves,” he grinned.  “we can be as sedentary as we want.”

You had to admit, that sounded amazing.  You grabbed a drink from the bag, and handed Sans the bottle of ketchup he had gotten for himself.  “Let’s watch Kitchen Nightmares, I want to watch Gordon Ramsey yell at dumbasses for a while.”

“sounds awesome.”  Sans grabbed the remote and turned on the show, before he curled into your side.  You did the same, holding onto him like he was a teddy bear.  Sans didn’t seem to mind, only leaning his head against your chest as you pulled him partially onto you.

Sans pulled the blankets onto the both of you.  You let your eyes drift shut, before kissing Sans on the top of his head.  “Thanks for everything Sans, I really needed this,” you mumbled.

“i know, that’s why i did it,” Sans chuckled.  “just relax, ya deserve it.”

“I love you, Sans.”

“and i love ya too, starlight.”

[captain-azoren]

I want someone to tell me what "non-evil" thing Azula was supposed to do when Aang was going into the Avatar State that wouldn't have been incredibly incompetent or out of character or made no sense in general.

How would you have written Azula in a way that makes her less evil but keeps the story the same? Just make her smirk less?

I see a lot of talk about Azula's agency and the choices she makes, but if she's trying to win, why would anyone expect her to anything differently?

And before anyone starts, this is not making excuses, this is trying to understand where the character is coming from.

Azula sees Iroh as a traitor and a disgrace. She legitimately hates him. Of course she's going to do a lethal sneak attack on him. Zuko betrayed her, their family and their nation. He also hates her. Azula had no reason to like him, so why is it so hard to fathom she wants him dead by the end of the series?

Azula isn't going to feel remorse because she believes she is the good guy, or at least that the Fire Nation winning is for the greater good. And newsflash, so does the vast majority of the FN. If any other loyal soldier in the FN had to make those choices, they likely would have done the same.

Nearly every single FN soldier had been trying to kill these kids. That includes Zuko. Zuko was literally RIGHT THERE fighting Aang and Katara in the crystal catacombs, but he doesn't get called evil or heartless all because he was too incompetent to strike a killing blow on Aang while he was powering up and then later expressed regret.

Except Zuko only regretted betraying Iroh. Need I remind people Zuko hires a damn ASSASSIN to kill a 12 year old in the next season? If you think Azula coming the closest to killing Aang somehow puts her at a higher grade of evil than 99% of the villains who attacked the Gaang, you have moral myopia and are full of shit.

Azula isn't going to bat an eye at killing Aang because Aang being a child is secondary to Aang being the single greatest threat to her goal. You cannot reasonably expect her, within the circumstances, to politely ask Aang to surrender. You cannot expect her to just lay down and accept defeat when her level of skill, her tactical cunning, and her upbringing under Ozai all point her towards shooting Aang in the back.

Why shouldn't she try to kill Zuko and Katara? She's the enemy and he's a traitor. She hates them and she's pissed. This isn't some moral event horizon.

Azula hates Ursa because she felt neglected and that Zuko getting more attention was unfair. It might be a misunderstanding, but as a child it isn't Azula's responsibility to sort things out.

Azula has arguably the least agency due to her age and having the most oversight by a powerful adult, so yeah I'm not letting that go.

I'm not saying Azula isn't bad. She has a pretty unpleasant personality and dies some shitty stuff. But it's only some, and on the whole she isn't even particularly bad compared to the other villains in the franchise. Is the smirking bad? It is only if you consider having nasty thoughts to be a crime. A bad sign, but just a sign.

But that's all it really ever boiled down to, isn't it? That damn smile of Azula's that shows you just how much she enjoys hurting people. Well the fact is, no matter how much Azula seems to enjoy her actions, no matter how little remorse she shows, it doesn't make her actions any worse than if she had a cold, emotionless or angry frown. It makes her unpleasant, yes, but ultimately you have to judge people on their actions and less on their thoughts and feelings.

No matter how conflicted Zuko was, he still stole that girl's horse when he could have kept walking, hard as it was. No matter how jolly or enlightened Iroh was, he still waged war for decades.

If you expect me to forgive Zuko and Iroh for all their wrongdoings just because they turned things around, then I'm going to hold Azula to that same standard and say that, smirk or no smirk, her actions are, not excusable, but forgivable.

And yes, I do sincerely believe that Azula caused less harm to the world than Zuko and Iroh in the months she was actually active. I understand that conquering BSS was bad and burning down the EK would have been an actual atrocity, but I also understand that conquering BSS was something the FN as a whole was aiming for and burning the land have zero objections by any of the FN military.

Azula also suggests it to keep Zuko from saying something stupid and to get on Ozai's good side. I do not believe she suggested burning the land because she sadistically wanted to kill thousands of people. Azula probably thought it was a brilliant tactic for stampings out the last few rebellions for good.

Is it bad? Yes, it's very fucking bad, because Azula doesn't understand the sheer gravity of what she's saying or the devastation of Ozai's escalation. But that's true for everyone in that room but Zuko. It isn't JUST Azula, it's the whole damn Nation.

You know what Azula does that's just plain mean? Destroying a sand castle. Taunting Zuko about Ozai going to kill him is pretty cruel. Azula probably could have found a nicer way to get Ty Lee on her team.

But don't give me any bullshit about Zuko being Azula's abuse victim. It was a toxic rivalry. And I guarantee you if Zuko had gotten the upper hand on Azula sooner he would have done what he could to humiliate her, because he hates her out if envy, not just because she's mean.

And why should Azula be nice to Zuko, who is always belligerent and angry towards her for being better? That is how she sees him, in her eyes Zuko is the bad sibling who needs to be humiliated and taught a lesson because he's stubborn and entitled and spoiled by their mother who loved him even when he failed, unlike their father who gave attention when it was deserved and earned.

Yes, that's a fucked up way of seeing things, but that's how Azula sees it, that's what she believes is right, and you shouldn't expect her to know otherwise because she IS 14 and has no exposure to anything else.

Azula DOES regret some things, she regrets always having to use fear to control people, but as the series itself spells things out, it's literally all she knows, it's all that she thinks she's even capable of from her failed attempts at being normal in the Beach.

Azula doesn't think she has a choice,band if you don't think you have a choice, then THERE IS NO CHOICE. There is NO opportunity or chsnce to change without guidance, and what so many dumb casuals and antis just don't GET is that Azula really doesn't know right from wrong. That these supposed second chances she's getting to change her ways are utterly pointless if she lacks the wisdom to see them as choices.

None of us are excusing Azula, because that would defeat the purpose of wanting her to finally understand for herself what she did wrong and to get better, but we can't blame her for everything either.

Just because what she did wasn't right doesn't put her beyond forgiveness. The right thing to do would be to trying and actually guide her and help her, not just throw second chances at her and be shocked when she makes another bad decision.

This is a hard pill to swallow for some of you, but a victim is a victim, and no matter how bad or abusive they are, a victim NEEDS HELP. So get over your hangup and do something useful, and if you can't do that, then stay out of the way and let someone else help.

I'm sick of people trying to convince me to forsake a kid, no matter how cruel or messed up she is. Stop telling me to give up hope, stop telling me to keep fighting to save that one little kernel of goodness buried deep down.

I've been doing this shit since I was a teenager, both for myself and for actual people who made bad choices. Even if Azula laughed at Zuko's pain or was willing to kill, she deserves to heal from her abuse as much as she needs to right her wrongs. Fuck anyone who thinks it's okay for her to suffer.

[you-are-my-king-now-cariad]

Discord Thoughts

So basically this is room for me to talk about things in the Discord that inspired/reminded me of certain things, that I wanted to say but the conversation moved on, etc. In other words, I’m just rambling here. But y’all seem to like that, so here. No particular ordering of anything besides the order they came up-and some of them might be from my irl friends, I’m not actually sure.

Alice as Regent/Squire

Staying Close

Root Will Save Him

Willark VS Brelwyn

This might be my Brel Glasses, but it seems like William and Lark are intentionally the opposite of Bree and Sel. We don’t see them much, but we do know a few things: William is unquestionably good and pure, neither of them seem like they’re going to make a move, and Lark is remarkably perceptive about Brel.

1. William and Sel are surprisingly accurate foils. (Is it still a foil when they’re kind of opposites?) One is lawful good (and is proud of that) and the other is chaotic good. One is human, one is demon. One is never going to hurt anyone unless he absolutely has to, the other is… uh, Sel. Obviously both are generally ‘good,’ but Sel is fighting off an internal chaotic evil demon-not exactly going to blame him for being less than angelic. Also considering William has always been a safe space for Bree, particularly when Sel’s actively hunting her, and that they’re friends? It starts to feel intentional. Am I making any sense at all?

2. Both Lark and William are the definition of incredibly adorable gay panic.

Instalove VS Devotion

Okay, this is the first one I’m actually typing out bc I have the most to say about it and it’s probably the least coherent. Thanks @paigeagainstdamachine for making a vague comment that started this whole train-

I’m not saying instalove is ‘bad,’ or that her relationship with Nick is somehow fake because it was fast. Let’s get that out of the way. You can absolutely have a fast romance that is still incredibly real and long-lasting-see my parents, who were dating for 6 months before getting engaged and are still married after ~25 years.

But I will say that as someone currently in high school… I’ve seen this movie a lot. It’s true love with the boy who just moved in next door, until he’s not new and shiny anymore and you start seeing all the shitty parts of his personality. He’s not a bad person, either-just one too many red flags or negatives, but it’s not like he’s abusive or cheating or anything.

This doesn’t have to echo in Legendborn. I do believe that Nick genuinely loves Bree, and that it’s mutual. (At the very least, whatever they have is more than just friendship.) I’m just… if they’re endgame, they shouldn’t feel so immature. Yes, they’re adorable (especially in LB), but it feels like a high school romance-and it is. It feels like my brother’s senior relationship-they were going to different colleges and both agreed that they probably wouldn’t be able to manage long-distance, so there was a time limit from the beginning. I can’t actually explain why Brick feels so… young? It just does.

Brel, on the other hand? Yeah, ofc it’s also a high school romance, but like… there is so much trust and devotion and it feels natural. They have the kind of relationship where you actually can stay friends when you break up because you just fit together. Then again, I’m just a sucker for well-written edgy demon boys, so I could be a little biased. They fight, but a healthy relationship isn’t defined by ‘we don’t ever fight.’ It’s defined by ‘we can forgive and forget.’ It’s defined by ‘no matter how angry I might be towards you, whatever mistakes you’ve made, I don’t want you to suffer.’ And that’s exactly what Sel and Bree have found.

“We fought…”

“We’ll always fight, I think.”

They fight, and they move on. They forgive. They love the other no matter what. And not to be a Sel apologist, but uhh this is exactly the kind of relationship he’s needed for so long and as much as the “I can fix him” mindset is awful she literally is giving him a reason to be a good person. Both make really big mistakes, and they get mad, say and do things they shouldn’t… but they always, always come back together.

[crashdevlin]

Permission Granted 1- New Girl

Author’s Note: This is the first chapter of Permission Granted, the first part of To Have it All. This is Open...from Jensen's side!

Summary: Jensen meets Y/n, the new guest star on Supernatural. There's an instant connection, but a dozen reasons not to pursue it. 

Pairing: none yet, eventual Jensen x Reader

Word count: 4354

Story Warnings: none really, little bit of Y/n's shitty self esteem peeking through

~~~~

"They're replacing Ruthie quick, aren’t they?" I commented to Jared as I read over Dabb's email in the Hair and Makeup trailer. "Wonder why they didn't just bring Rowena back."

"Fresh face, probably. I dunno. You know Dabb's always looking for new female characters to kill off." Jared shrugged and took a drink of his froufrou iced latte.

"Oh, if we're lucky, maybe she'll be a lesbian so they can leave her broken in a bathtub," I said, rolling my eyes as they started blow drying Jared's hair.

"Or a fuckin’ love interest so they can kill her off in two episodes," he shouted over the sound of the dryer.

"Shoshanna got more than two."

"Barely, Ackles! She got two and then forty-five seconds of a death scene!”

I nodded and licked my lips. Yeah, they had to kill her off. Every fuckin’ time. “Well, maybe this one won’t go the same direction.”

I settled back and read over the rest of the email. Damn it. They’ve got Dean on the ‘Kill Jack despite the fact that the kid hasn’t done anything wrong’ track. Of course they do. Have they ever watched the show? Whatever.

It was a couple days later that I was sitting in the makeup chair and a short woman walked up the steps and stopped in her tracks. She's not the first guest to freeze when they see me the first time but she was definitely the cutest doing it. I didn’t call attention to her 'deer in the headlights' thing as she stood in the doorway, clearly debating leaving until she looked at her phone screen and determined that she had to stay.

She had to get herself comfortable with me somehow. As fun as it can be to tease the new girl, professionalism is the best way forward for most of these situations. I determined to tease her when she got a little more comfortable.

She sat down in the stylist’s chair and looked down at her phone, obviously trying to distract herself with something more than Jennifer doing her hair. It was pretty adorable. She was pretty adorable. But...I had to start the task of getting her okay.

“You must be our new witch,” I said. She made a little squeaky noise and I could see her eyes glaze over a little in the mirror. “I’m Jensen.” Normally, I would have offered my hand but we weren’t in the position for that.

“I know that,” she whispered, making me chuckle as she cleared her throat and turned a little to look at me as much as she could. “I’m Y/n. Big fan.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep. Uh, I used to watch Days with my mom, but I think I became a real fan with Smart Alec on Dark Angel,” she said and I smiled. Eric Brady and Alec McDowell. Two amazing characters. I really liked Alec. Jessica could’ve been less of a prima donna but I guess she could’ve been worse, too.

“That feels like a million years ago. That show was badass, though,” I mused. “Fox shoulda kept it longer.”

“Agreed,” she said, smiling all shy. She looked so fucking nervous, so I had to move the conversation along.

“So...fan of mine...have you seen much of this show or are we gonna have to give you context for scenes?” I teased. She seemed to relax a little, slumping in her chair.

“Might’ve been a fan of you longer, but I love the show. Seen almost every episode.”

Better than me. I haven’t seen half of ‘em. “Almost every episode? What kinda fan are you?”

“Do not question my nerd cred, sir,” she sassed me. “I’m a fan, big time. I even went to a Creation Con late last year, just to see you guys up close.”

I laughed a little at that. The cons are great, but I really don’t think we’re worth all that money just to see us in person. “Yeah? Gold?” I had to figure out how devoted a fan she actually was. It would determine my interaction moving forward.

“Silver. I was working retail at the time,” she responded, shaking her head a little. “Couldn’t reconcile dropping a thousand dollars on a vacation.”

I was happy to hear that she kept her crazy to reasonable levels. “Oh, so we met in the autograph line.”

“Yep,” she said, popping that ‘p’ like vocal directors hate so much and looking away from me in the mirror.

There was obviously a story there, so I pressed her. “What’d I sign for you?”

“A hat. A white hat...with a devil’s trap in the middle and SW and DW on opposite sides.”

Crazy as it is, I remembered the hat, but the conventions all blur together so I couldn’t tell where I met her. “Which con was this?” I asked.

“Atlanta,” she answered quickly.

A one-off con. That helped, because I only had one night of memories to sift through. White hat, shaking young woman who could barely speak to me and definitely couldn’t look me in the eyes. I remember my handler getting up after she walked away, came back a minute later to say that Y/n had almost passed out as soon as she got outside the curtain. “Oh, yeah, I remember. I tried to sign Jared’s side but you wouldn’t let me.”

Y/n turned to look at me, obviously shocked with those pretty eyes all wide. “You were doing it on purpose? I thought you were just tired and not paying attention.”

“Nah, I was exhausted in Atlanta, but you looked mortified. I was trying to make you laugh.” Obviously failed on that. I chuckled again as Jennifer started curling her hair. “You seem a lot more put together now.”

She scoffed and rolled her eyes just a bit. “I’m mortified now too, but I saw you and Jared were gonna be on Lot today so I took an Ativan before I got in the car this morning.” Always nice when people are honest and open about their anxiety problems.

“Well, that’s good. Take a double dose tomorrow,” I teased as Trisha pulled the makeup drop cloth and I stood, looking down at her as panic crossed her face.

“What? Why?” she squeaked.

I could tell she hadn’t been given the pages for our scene the next day. I couldn’t resist a little torture. I just laughed as I left the trailer. “You’ll see when you get tomorrow’s pages.” I met Jared on the Bunker set and he patted my shoulder as we walked up into the library. “First meeting with the new girl went well. She seems a little out of her element but nice overall.”

“Oh, uh, Y/n?”

“Yeah, she is a fan, actually. We met her at the Atlanta convention. She had that Devil’s Trap hat.” Jared shook his head. He didn’t remember her. “She’s the one that tripped or whatever right after I signed her hat.”

“Oh, the one that fuckin’ fainted?”

“Yeah, I think so. She’s still uncomfortable so we’ll have to warm her up.”

“‘Warm her up’, huh?” Jared raised his eyebrows suggestively and I laughed.

“Not like that, you dummy.”

Of course, Y/n was cute, but messing around with the guest stars was a bit of a no-no, and messing with fans was a big no-no. Especially considering that there’s almost nothing to keep a fan from talking...and the open marriage thing needed to stay quiet.

But I was curious about her. Can’t lie about that. So, I asked around. I went to a few other crew members before I went to Andrew Dabb.

“You remember that casting call we did toward the end of eleven? We got a few of the British Men of Letters off of it?” He leaned back in his chair and looked up at me. “We opened it up for a few folks without representation for a couple weeks. CW didn’t advertise it but we did a post on a few acting sites and there was a bit of circulation once the fandom got a hold of it. She sent a video in. She wasn’t right for the Brits, not posh enough, but her accents were good and she was a pretty great actress, so...”

“So, she isn’t an actor?”

“She’s been doing pretty well for the fact that she hasn’t acted in anything before.”

I blinked at him a few times. “Wow. So, she’s completely green?”

“Technically, yeah. But the second unit directors say she’s doing good.”

“Cool. Thanks.” I started to leave but stopped at the door. “So, what’s the track on her character? She stickin’ around?”

“She’s on for five episodes.”

“Is she going to bite it after those episodes?” I pushed.

“We’re not exactly-”

“Is she a love interest? Is she gonna disappear without a trace? Will she at least get an actual storyline?”

Andrew rolled his eyes at me and shifted in his chair. “I don’t know if she’s going to be a love interest. The writers’ room is in disagreement about that. She’d be a good match for Dean, but we’re not sure how the viewers would react. They never really like it when Dean and Sam have women in their lives.”

“So, you don’t even know. Okay.” I was not impressed with that answer so I left him in his office.

I went looking for her at lunchtime, a little after 1. She was sitting at a table in the Craft Services tent, in the corner by herself, looking down at a paper coffee cup. She was really good at making herself small and seemingly insignificant...but it had the opposite effect on me. It made me want to talk to her more. I grabbed a coffee for myself and a caramel macchiato for Jared from the coffee cart.

“So, I asked Dabb where we got you from and he said it was an open cast. You sent a video in but you’ve never done anything else. You don’t even have an agent.” I walked up and sat in front of her on the other side of the table. She looked up and her eyes went all wide. “So you just decided to become an actor in your twenties?” I guessed her age.

She bit her bottom lip for a minute before leaning forward. “No. I decided to become an actor in high school,” she disputed. She looked a bit disappointed as she continued. “I then graduated from high school and decided that it was a stupid dream and I’d never make any headway so I gave up on it and got a real job.”

She did say that she was working retail. “Retail. So where are you from, Y/n?” I took a drink of my coffee as she leaned back.

“Northwest Florida. Little town about fifteen miles from the state line.”

I smiled, remembering a Spring Break with Christian back in the 90s. “North Florida. I spent a couple Spring Breaks at PCB when I was...younger and unmarried.”

She gave a little laugh. “Panama City is about an hour and a half away from home.”

I took another drink, trying to think of something to keep the conversation going. “So you acted in high school, huh?” I asked as I saw Jared walk into the tent behind her.

“Yeah. School plays, Thespians, Forensics competitions, that kinda thing.” I heard about that competition shit from Jared. ‘Competition’ is the key word on that. Apparently, it’s harder than screen acting.

“You did Forensics?” Jared asked, his whole face lighting up. “I won Nationals with my friend Chris in high school.” He came over and folded himself backward into a chair. I handed him his coffee and he nodded at me.

“I did monos. Got second in State, but didn’t make Nationals.” She sounded a little disappointed, but shit, second in State is pretty damn good.

“I did monos, duos, and extemp, but I only placed in Duo. Jared,” he said, reaching out to shake her hand.

She looked a bit more comfortable with Jared and that made me feel a little bit jealous. I’m nice. I didn’t understand why she was awkward with me. “Y/n. It’s amazing to meet you.”

“Oh, he gets an ‘amazing to meet you’? I didn’t even get a handshake.” I covered the jealousy with a teasing comment.

Jared teased back before she could. “Well maybe I’m just more approachable, dude.”

“You? Giant muscley gym-bro?” I hit back.

“Honestly, I’m five-three so you’re both giants to me,” she joked with a laugh.

“So, Y/n, how long did they sign you for?” Jared asked.

“Five episodes to start. They said they’ll give me more or not depending on fan response. They’ll probably hate me, though, so I’ll be gone by midseason Hellatus.” ‘Hellatus’ made me smile.

“Why would they hate you?” Jared asked. “It’s not like your character is a love interest.” He looked between Y/n and me for a minute. “Wait, Tara’s not a love interest, is she?”

“Andrew said the writers are at an impasse on that one. No, the fans will hate her for one simple reason: jealousy.” I shrugged. “She’s a fan. Some of ‘em probably know her from, like cons and shit. They’re gonna be jealous that she’s here and they aren’t.”

She nodded. “Yeah. I’ve kinda tried to keep a lid on this from the fan groups. Haven’t told anybody except the family and my best friends about it. Unfortunately, had to stop posting in my Facebook groups when I got the job.” I cringed a bit at the mention of the Facebook groups. Fan groups are a subject best ignored as much as possible.

Jared laughed. “Man, you seem like a reasonable woman so don’t be offended when I say...some of our fans are crazy. You’re better off staying away from the fan sites.”

She smiled. “No, I know how crazy some of us can be. I’ve had some fights online with the tin-hat folks.”

I know I grimaced when she mentioned those folks. Jared did, too. “What is wrong with those people?” Jared shook his head.

She started laughing and it was such a cute, uninhibited sound. “They just...really want you to be gay for each other.”

“Yeah.” She was definitely comfortable and I wanted to take full advantage of it. “So, uh, you get tomorrow’s pages yet?” I asked, smirking. She looked down for a moment before hiding by drinking her coffee. “Yeah, she did. You gonna be okay? You’re not gonna freak out, are you?”

“I will…” She swallowed so loud I could hear it across the table. “...try my best...to not freak out.”

“You look like you’re already freaking out,” Jared said, smiling.

She took a deep breath and let it out as a scoff. “Totally. I am totally freaking out about tomorrow’s scene.”

Jared and I both laughed before I leaned forward a bit. “How about we run lines later?” That wasn’t a new thing for me. I often offer to run lines, especially with the guest stars. But the next words that came out of my mouth were new. “We could grab some dinner, meet up at my trailer, and get the nerves out of the way.”

I was just about to apologize for overstepping any bounds by inviting her to my trailer when she whispered, “That sounds...amazing.” It was this breathy, sexy voice coming out of this sweet woman and I just didn’t feel like I’d overstepped after that, even when she stuttered out, “I mean, it sounds amazing to get the nerves out of the-”

“6 o’clock. Don’t be late,” I said as Jared and I stood to get back to the Bunker.

“What am I gonna do? Go back to my motel to watch one of the ten channels that actually come through clearly?”

“They’ve got you in that Budget Inn, don’t they?” Jared guessed. We have heard a lot of horror stories about that motel.

“Yeah. It’s not so bad. Gotta sleep in the tub to avoid the bed bugs, but it’s cool. Livin’ the dream,” she joked and I laughed as we walked away.

"So...your trailer, Ackles?" Jared asked as we walked away, his eyebrow cocked.

"I'm just tryin' to be friendly, man."

"I know what your 'friendly' looks like and that was not just friendly."

"I just met her!" I argued. "And she's a guest...and a fan! I'm just trying to accommodate her nervousness so we don’t have to do a million takes tomorrow."

"Okay, well...I won't tell Dee, but you should-" I reached out and pushed his shoulder roughly and he laughed as he teetered a bit. "She seems nice, though. Don't scare her away."

I wasn’t planning to scare Y/n away. I wasn’t planning anything except hospitality. I really wasn’t. But she was cute and interesting and she was obviously incredibly attracted to me, so I couldn’t do anything anyway because that might get awkward quick.

No, I was just gonna make a new friend out of the new girl. I’ve done it a bunch of times before. I mean...look at Misha.

She showed up about half an hour early and watched us flub a few takes of this argument between Sam and Dean about Jack and it was fun to watch her expression get more awed with every take. Phil cut us for dinner after a while I jumped down from the soundstage, smiling at the look on her face. “Well, hello, Newbie,” I greeted. “I’m thinkin’ pizza. You good with pizza?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Pizza’s fine.”

I walked away from her, trying to keep everything casual as we went off to my trailer. She ran after me and I slowed down a bit. I was used to Jared and Misha following me around the lot, so I had to consciously slow myself to make it easier for Y/n’s short legs.

“Any dietary restrictions? Lactose, gluten, vegan?” I asked, just to make sure that I wasn’t going to poison her by ordering a pie with pepperoni or something.

“It’s not a pizza without cheese and meats and…” Y/n shook her head and laughed. “I’m a Southern girl. We don’t deal with crazy…gluten-free, meat-free, paleo-vegan...blah, blah, blah,” she finished, gesturing with her hands in the air. It was adorable.

“I thought you were from Florida,” I argued teasingly. “Not really ‘Southern’.”

“And I thought you’d been to North Florida. You should know that Northwest Florida is pretty much UCLA: Upper Corner, Lower Alabama,” she responded and I laughed. Never heard that one before. “That’s not my joke.”

“It was pretty funny anyway. So, you like pepperoni?”

“Look at me. Do I look like I’ve ever turned down free food? Well, except lasagna, but got a...thing with lasagna.”

That threw me so hard I had to stop and turn to her. “What does that mean, you’ve got a thing with lasagna?” I asked.

“There was a bad thing with some really horrible microwave lasagna when I was about seven. Couldn’t eat it for years, now I can only eat it if I make it.”

There was a story there, but I wasn’t ready to push for it. “Wow. Okay. Do not order lasagna. Check.” I opened up the trailer and let her in, grabbing my phone off of the counter as soon as I got inside. I pulled up the speed dial for the closest good pizza place and went into the bathroom to change. It was a mix of teasing her and preparing her that I drove me to change my clothes. Well, change my pants into shorts and take the wardrobe shirts off. I wrapped a towel around my waist and checked in the mirror to make sure the shorts weren’t visible before setting the phone on the sink counter and grabbing the door handle. “Okay, pizza will be here in ‘bout forty, which gives us plenty of time to run lines,” I said, to get her attention before I’d opened the door, so she could get the full effect of my outfit.

Which got me exactly the dumbfounded look from her that I was expecting. She stared. And when I say ‘stared’, I mean it. Her jaw dropped, her eyes went focused and unfocused and roamed over me like crazy. Usually, I start feeling shy when women stare at me like that, but not with her. With Y/n, it felt less like objectification and more like appreciation.

“See, this is why we need to practice,” I said to snap her out of it. I smirked as she cleared her throat and looked off toward the fireplace before closing her eyes.

“Sorry.”

“No, you have to look at me, kid. It’s part of the scene.”

She sighed and looked over at me. “I’m not a kid. I have a kid. I’m a woman.”

“Then act like one,” I challenged.

She licked her lips, cleared her throat again and sat forward. “Please, do keep both hands on the towel, Winchester. One never knows where you hunters have hidden weapons.”

I went into Dean mode like the second nature that it is. “Tara. What do you want?”

“World peace, a condo in Malibu, and a little respect would be nice,” she said, confidence that was definitely not her natural mode leaking out of her. “I mean, I did save your asses in Chicago.”

“Yeah, that’s not how I remember it.”

She laughed out loud and stood. “Of course not. You can’t possibly admit that a witch helped you. I mean, a witch other than Rowena Macleod.”

“Yeah, your mentor, right? Explain again why I’m supposed to trust that you’re a white witch?”

“She wasn’t my mentor. She wasn’t allowed to be. Olivette wouldn’t let me. Shit! ‘Olivette wouldn’t let her’.” Her face fell as she pulled out her pages, obviously upset that she’d blown a single word in her line. “‘Olivette wouldn’t let her. We had to train in secret, but that doesn’t mean I carry her ideals’,” she read frantically.

I smiled as soothingly as possible. “Calm down. It’s a lot better to fuck up here with me than out there on camera. Don’t wanna end up on the gag reel, do you?” She shook her head. “All right. From the top.”

We made it through the scene completely on the second try and she said her lines like she was completely immersed in Tara’s character. It shocked me a bit, actually. No wonder Casting picked her out of a pile of video submissions. She hit those facial expressions and the overwhelming sense of ‘trying to do right without the right tools’ better than I could have imagined. There was so much pain in her eyes when she said, “Don’t trust me. Don’t like me. I don’t care” and it wasn’t even in the script to be anything but pissy.

She asked how well she’d done and I smiled as I pulled the towel off and tossed it across the room to land on the counter. She looked relieved to see my golf shorts. “You did great. You think you’ll be able to stay focused in front of the cameras?”

“Well, if I can manage to not drool all over myself staring at you when it’s just the two of us, I think I can keep my shit together in front of Phil and everyone else.”

I smiled as she carried some of her Tara energy over into her real life. “Ah, so you’re one of those fans,” I teased.

She scoffed loudly. “Oh, come on. You know how sexy you are.” She scrunched her face up in a grimace and looked away. “That was not what I intended to say.”

“Can’t take it back now,” I said, chuckling.

“Oh, how I wish I could,” she said, shaking her head. “Okay, so have they told you anything about the Chicago episode ‘cause I have no clue what’s going on with that. They haven’t given me anything on that.”

They do that sometimes, where they’ll forget to tell folks what’s going on in the episodes before. It’s part of shooting out of order, but it usually doesn’t affect the guests too much...and they almost always told me and Jared in advance. “Right, I’ve got a first draft script round here somewhere.” I went looking around the counter near the kitchenette to find the script and handed it to her. I’d already read it but I looked over her shoulder as she went through it herself.

“Oh, she...is very flirty, isn’t she?” she said when she got to the part where Tara said ‘If we were doing what I wanted, we’d be in bed not a warehouse’. She seemed a bit uncomfortable about it so I smiled and knocked my knee into hers.

“You can handle that, right?”

“Of course I can,” she defended.

“Good,” I said, getting up to retrieve the pizza from the PA knocking at my door. As we ate slices of floppy pepperoni pizza, she pointed out a line where Dean tells Sam ‘Tara was kinda hot in a Khloe Kardashian circa 2007 kinda way’. “Which means…?”

“That’s when she was the ‘fat’ Kardashian,” Y/n explained, looking down at herself a bit self-consciously. “She was still hot, I guess…’cause she knows how to make herself look good with the clothes and makeup and all the stuff money makes easy, but she was not considered the prettiest one.”

It seemed like a subject that made her sad, and I guess I could see that Y/n was what Hollywood considered ‘fat’, but I thought she was hot...and I didn’t like her feeling bad about herself. “Oh, so a chick likes to eat, so she’s not hot? Never understand that.”

“Me either,” she said, smiling as she took a big bite of her pizza.

I made her feel a bit better and that was exactly what I needed at that moment.

The Kitchen Sink Tags- @flamencodiva @sacriceria @lyarr24 @440mxs-wife @nancymcl @mariekoukie6661 @alwayskeepfightingsweetheart @cosicas-cuquis @queenoftheunderdark @myheartbelongsintz @squirrelnotsam @akshi8278 @muhahaha303 @agirlwithdemonblood @this-is-me19 @mrswhozeewhatsis

[barry-j-blupjeans]

Day Two - Bet

Barry was eleven years old when he first met Lup. He and his moma moved from the great empty plains of Georgia into the bustling city of San Diego in California. It was a pretty drastic change, but Mama’s sister lived out here for them to stay with, so Barry was trying not to make a huge fuss about it.

Still, it was weird here. Living in the city was far too loud. Barry didn’t know how anyone could sleep with all the noise. Even at night, there were car horns and bright lights and just- too much, sometimes. Way, way too much. He couldn’t hear the crickets over all the noise. He wasn’t sure California had crickets.

And the kids here were different. Back home, they’d get into scuffles a lot, but they’d always make up after each other. Barry had known the kids there his whole life. Their school was small enough that he knew every face, and everyone knew him. Here, there was more than one classroom per grade. He had already been dreading middle school, but he felt like he could Barry breathe in the hallways with so many people around.

But Mama— or, now just “Mom”, because someone overheard that he still called her Mama and started picking on him- knew what she was doing. She worked a lot more now. Barry supposed that came with the new territory. He was trying to get used to it.

But it was very, very hard.

She was never late picking him up from school on purpose. Sometimes she just ran a little behind. And his aunt and uncle were gone this week for a holiday, so they couldn’t come pick him up. He was trying to learn his way home, but every street corner looked the same here. Barry didn’t remember which towering building their apartment was in, let alone which of the endless streets it was on.

And it was raining.

The line for student pickup was slowly winding down. Barry kept his umbrella over his head, his eyes trained on the parking lot. She should be here soon. Unless she got hurt somehow? Or got fired and she was too sad to pick him up? Or something absolutely terrible had happened—

“Hey!” said a voice above him.

Barry jerked back, nearly falling off the bench. Standing there was someone he just vaguely recognized— from orchestra, maybe? From orchestra, definitely. She was carrying a violin case, which she set on the bench next to him. The bottom half of her pants was covered with mud.

“Uhm,” Barry said. “Hi.”

“Bet I can make a bigger splash in that mud puddle than you,” she said, pointing to a puddle further away from the school doors.

“Uhm,” Barry said again. “Prob— probably?”

“That is not the response I wanted,” mud girl said, somewhat critically. “But I’ll take it. C’mon, I’m gonna prove you right.”

Lup was… wow. Lup was. And from that moment forward, she Was with him included. She didn’t fix all his problems- he had too many of those. But over time, the harsh words from the other kids meant less and the sound of Lup’s laugh meant more. Life wasn’t better, but it was something. She was something.

Barry wouldn’t say that Lup was perfect by any means, but she made it a lot easier on him. Any time he’d get an “anxious face” (which he didn’t know what the fuck looked like, but Lup said it was very obvious), she’d nudge him and say-

“I bet I can talk to our waiter more than you can.”

“I bet I can get dressed faster than you.”

“I bet I can do the solo better than you.”

And Barry’s responses began to build from blubbering excuses into laughter into,

“Yeah? I bet you can’t.”

Barry— man, Barry will admit it, he was not a smart guy. Sure, his grades were good and he got into a good college but, it was sometimes hard to see what was right in front of him. It took several people to make him realize that his affection towards Lup might kinda be crush behavior. And it took over a decade to realize that, oh! Duh! She liked him back.

“Hey,” Barry said, nudging her. They were sitting in the back of their friend Magnus’s shitty pickup truck, deep into the country. There were crickets chirping around them. Barry always thought it was wild how you couldn’t see the stars in the city. Lup said she didn’t get the big deal of it all until the first time Barry brought her out here. The expression on her face when she first truly saw the sky was one he’d never forget.

“Hm?”

“Bet I can propose better than you can,” Barry said. Lup raised her eyebrows, her mouth quirking up into a smile.

“Oh?” she said. “Is that a challenge, babe?”

“Maybe,” Barry said. “If you want it to be.”

“You are going down,” Lup said, winding her arms around his shoulders. “I am gonna propose to you so hard.”

“I look forward to it,” Barry said, leaning in to kiss her. 

[batsplat]

hi bat<3 i feel like you’re definitely not a die-hard fan of the big 3, but for someone like me who’s been watching men’s tennis since the early 2010s, they’re like everything.

so i wanted to ask: out of the big 3 (or big 4?) pairings, which duo do you think is more interesting? like which one feels more worth exploring in your opinion?

i just watched roger’s docu recently, and omg he gave novak a solo moment. not like a story about them, just a montage of novak yelling and screaming on court. then roger went, “this might not reflect well on novak.” it lowkey gave me vale/jorge vibes, not a perfect parallel, but within the big3/big4, they’re the duo that feels the least… connected. and yet, when it comes to tactical and technical richness, they’re at the top. roger’s obviously way more arrogant than vale, like he just doesn’t see novak as special or even interesting. meanwhile, novak used to be that guy who wanted everyone to like him, but now he’s completely over it. over the years, there’s just been this constant low-key, non-vibe-y energy between them. but their matches? they somehow deliver these insane moments at the most unexpected times. at the laver cup, roger said something to novak, and then novak cried.

i’m less into roger/rafa, partly because i’m not a rafa fan, but also because they suddenly turned into this ideal rivalry narrative, and honestly, that kinda freaked me out. i’m slowly starting to understand the feelings between them, though. like, i still don’t buy into the whole “greatest rival” thing because, let’s be real, on both the competitive and career-defining levels, it’s just not that mutual. but yeah, their pairing definitely had its advantages—sorry for saying this, but it’s true. the 2008 wimb F is obviously historic, but if you actually watch it all the way through, it’s not that great. it’s the unpredictable weather that gave it that epic feel.

and then there’s andy/novak, who’ve always been my fave because of their history and the emotional layers in their rivalry. like, when viktor troicki recently said novak was looking for a “big name” coach, my friends and i joked about it being roger, but none of us thought of andy. and then it happened. i still can’t believe it. from my very limited tennis perspective, andy’s kinda feels like a subset of novak’s. i don’t really know what qualities do coaches even need in tennis, and how do they maximize a player’s potential? so i’m really curious to see what they come up with together. their dynamic peaked in 2016, which was also the only time the big4 rivalries genuinely made me sad. so yeah, they totally deserve this heartwarming closure.

okay so first off, I have to confess I get a failing grade as a hater because I read this ask reading ?? eating breakfast with this on

I dozed off to the 2019 wimbledon final last night so idk. this isn't nadal retirement-prompted nostalgia, I actually failed as a hater there too and completely missed his last match happening so like. arrived to dance on the grave a day late. BUT the djokovic/murray coaching news DID awaken something suppressed in me. I'll probably watch the 2012 uso final next just to feel something

anyway, what this does go to show is that for all that I am obviously extremely not a fan of the big three, as a tennis fan it's also not like I can pretend to be completely immune. I grew up watching them!! I remember watching so many of their matches! often with my family! I would argue about them all the time as a fan, whether with my family or people at the tennis club or indeed my maths teacher. I was always rooting for SOMEONE, like I did have an order of preference. and... uh, it should be mentioned that I am also not a complete neutral who just intellectually hated the big three because I thought they were shitty sources of narrative tension. I was a massive murray fan as a kid so I did also just get my heart repeatedly broken by them. we're talking 'cried during murray's speech at wimbledon 2012'... I actually watched the wimbledon 2013 final at the tennis club where I trained and was EXTREMELY smug (and delighted) when murray won because EVERYONE including my coach thought djokovic would win and had been extremely annoying in my direction throughout the experience. but also I have never enjoyed a men's australian open final in my life, except 2012 I suppose. that venue holds nothing but pain and misery for me

so with my biases stated up front, where the big 3/4 rivalries are concerned, I'm basically in the 'anybody but fedal' camp. that one I feel nothing for and its popularity continues to absolutely baffle me. no hate to anyone who enjoys it but I do treat its continued dominance basically like a psyop. idk who's responsible for this or why they're doing it, but SOMEBODY is pursuing some kind of nefarious agenda. call me casey stoner because I've cracked the code. I understand they're both individually rather popular and I suppose in a detached unemotional way I do get how that could happen, but as a unit? idk man. also, EYE am a rivalry enjoyer, but I get very suspicious when too many fans are an enjoyer of a particular rivalry... (or y'know, sometimes you've got rivalries that have a lot of 'theoretical fans' but you can kinda tell they do basically hate one of the competitors involved and will immediately throw them overboard if they have to take a side, which also passes the test.) just shows to me that there's zero edge there. most partisan fans of an athlete hate anyone who is a threat to their athlete, that's just how people are. if there's this little hate then that tells me that there's too little threat which tells me the stakes aren't quite there competitively or emotionally... which tells me that there's no real reason to care. I'm well aware that federer fans used to be more likely to be nadal haters back in the noughties (david foster wallace coming through for me again on that front) and that nadal fans are more into that rivalry than federer fans and that they're both retired now... but still!! if it was a proper fun rivalry, more partisan fans would still be bitter. fundamentally the rivalry is good for both of them in terms of legacy and pr and all that shit and they both clearly agree so it's just... empty

which yeah, so full agree on the stuff you say lol. I HAVE watched the wimbledon 2008 final (and I... think?? must have watched it at the time, I was still pretty young and clearly it wasn't a defining enough experience it stuck in my mind lol) but it's been years by now. so I can't actually reallyyyy speak to its quality and I'm probably not going to rewatch it any time soon. I do also just think it's the most boring match-up tennis-wise... partly this is because my favourite big three playstyle is djokovic's - I love how he moves around the court, I love the compact backhand and the emphasis on counterpunching... the nadal/federer match-up was mostly defined by federer attempting to figure out ways to prevent nadal from bullying his backhand. which I do know is oversimplifying things lol but it's. kinda true. djokovic/federer is the best match-up tennis-wise even if it's a bit one-sided in the biggest moments (which, whatever, that was narratively engaging too)... federer's full artistry against djokovic's precision was just more exciting to watch. then comes djokovic/nadal which is a bit of a counterpuncher-off, like they are quite tactically similar in a lot of ways, extremely optimised baseliners... but that means they were always going to push each other the furthest - they were already half a step ahead of federer in the evolution of tennis and everyone now is obviously basing their tennis primarily on how they changed the game. and, y'know, nadal's biggest rival is djokovic!! I get why if you're a nadal fan, you'd want it to be federer, but well! tough!

and YES yes I ABSOLUTELY agree that federer/djokovic is the most interesting interpersonally because federer was SO arrogant towards djokovic. the worst thing that happened to federer is that he became a pr merchant, like at least being a cunt was INTERESTING. he used to be absolutely dreadful about murray too!! aggressively unpleasant!! but that one was also frustrating because... murray didn't end up surpassing him... (I genuinely have like. traumatic flashbacks to watching their atp finals 2014 match. I don't think my soul ever quite recovered from that day.) but with djokovic!! people used to be so unpleasant about him - and okay, by now unfortunately he's given everyone plenty of cause, but BACK THEN it was a completely different story. it was so much fun rooting for him when the crowds were being horrid to him and he stuck it in their faces... before he did all the boob throwing business - staring icily at them when he beat their hero? hot

and federer was so so snide about the guy... pepperidge farm remembers when he accused teenage djokovic of faking his injuries in 2006

The 19-year-old Djokovic called his trainer multiple times. He had hamstring issues, but Federer thought he was faking his injuries to disrupt Wawrinka’s rhythm. “I don’t trust his injuries. I’m serious. I think he’s a joke, you know, when it comes down to his injuries,” Federer said.

OR in 2009

Djokovic, the No. 3 seed, threw in the towel midway through the fourth set of his quarterfinal with Andy Roddick, trailing 6-7 (3), 6-4, 6-2, 2-1. But in pointed comments, Federer, the No. 2 seed, noted that it wasn't the first time Djokovic has withdrawn midway through a match in a Grand Slam. "He's not a guy who's never given up before ... it's disappointing," said Federer, who will face Roddick in the semifinals. "I've only done it once in my career ... Andy totally deserved to win that match." "I'm almost in favor of saying, you know what, if you're not fit enough, just get out of here," Federer added. "If Novak were up two sets to love I don't think he would have retired 4-0 down in the fourth. Thanks to Andy that he retired in the end. Andy pushed him to the limits. Hats off to Andy."

'if novak were up two sets to love I don't think he would have retired 4-0 down in the fourth' ...? what are you even saying

and like, on a moral level I do actually think this is pretty gross and have a massive bone to pick with federer on his whole 'look at me aren't I amazing for never retiring from a match' schtick, which continues to have lasting harmful consequences in this sport. this kind of record isn't heroic, it's just fucking stupid. but also, it's hardly the first time or the last time tennis players accused each other of playing up their injuries - it's very much part of the sport, we've all done it or at least thought it. I am also on the record as being pro beefing with children. and it's very strong set-up for that rivalry, especially given how bloody often djokovic went on to crush federer's spirit! it's better set-up than the payoff, quite frankly

that being said, perhaps my favourite match they played is us open 2011 semis - y'know, the match where djokovic saves two matchpoints in the fifth set en route to beating federer... oh, I suppose that doesn't completely narrow it down!!

ah well!

back to 2011, that match did lead to just some really strong snarking in the press:

Djokovic was honest enough to admit the shot was a gamble – but Federer was reluctant to give him credit even for that courage in a crisis, preferring to regard it as desperate. "Confidence? Are you kidding me?" he said when it was put to him the cross-court forehand off his first serve – described by John McEnroe as "one of the all-time great shots" – was either a function of luck or confidence. "I mean, please. Some players grow up and play like that – being down 5-2 in the third, and they all just start slapping shots. I never played that way. I believe hard work's going to pay off, because early on maybe I didn't always work at my hardest. For me, this is very hard to understand. How can you play a shot like that on match point? Maybe he's been doing it for 20 years, so for him it was very normal. You've got to ask him." Djokovic was in a more relaxed mood. "Yeah, I tend to do that on match points," he said, reminded that it was exactly what he did to Federer last year. "It kinda works."

IT KINDA WORKS jhgjhgjhgkf get him again from me

here's the matchpoint save in question ofc

"someday the little twins will grow up to hear about matches like this" well -

which, I mean, federer's being extremely annoying in press! 'oh I'm above taking risks when I'm down on the scoreboard' says the man who ended up with one hell of a reputation for choking. it's also silly!! sometimes it's worth taking a swing at it!! also psychologically, because you're making things less complicated for yourself!! in individual matches, you won't necessarily be rewarded for your diligence and hard work, just not how anything works you moron. but y'know, this was the REAL federer. by the following year he'd already completely clamped down on this kind of thing and it felt like really djokovic could have also been WAY more bitter about this stuff than he publicly was... but yeah, this I did enjoy

and yeah, I do kinda see the vale/jorge comparison! like you say, federer is kinda... more arrogant, more contemptuous towards his younger rivals, also just more of a sore loser until pr got to him? tennis is infamous for its frosty handshakes, but you compare some of those with how warm valentino generally was when he lost... federer's problem was that he lacked self-awareness and was just so committed to this image of the gentleman's sport, which is why he ended up shying away from all this stuff. the unpleasantness with djokovic was actually like... still fairly late in the game, all things considered, it wasn't even really like 2011!federer to say stuff like that. which does show djokovic was capable of really really getting under his skin! and on djokovic's end, where the jorge comparison very much applies is how much he wanted the people to love him (ik his fans hate this narrative but like,, obviously he did). and how they had all already decided he was the enemy for beating their beloved federer and nadal. I do find it a bit easier to stomach with valentino because he deliberately plays with this stuff, weaponising the crowd and all that, whereas federer and nadal just pretend like it's not happening. (also morally it might be worse to boo at a motogp event because of the danger they're putting themselves in, but practically booing at a tennis match is far far worse - you can actually influence the competitors in a way you obviously cannot in motogp.) but that WAS one of the most interesting storylines in the big three era... djokovic slowly catching these two greats who were always so far ahead of them, however much people didn't want him to, even though he didn't have the love of the people on his side, and eventually managing to surpass them altogether. I do think there's plenty of interesting stuff there!! good groundwork! it's just... nowhere near enough, given how bloody long these guys ended up dominating

on djokovic/murray - MY favourite combination of guys as well, just in terms of how much I actually like both of them. it's an interesting relationship where it's like... they knew each other quite well when they were young, then inevitably grew apart a bit when they were competing for big titles? obviously they were also born exactly a week apart from each other, which is narratively fun. I suppose it's the equivalent to jorge/dani which... actually wait, no, I realise that would assign nadal to casey and certainly not my god. it's a rivalry that's a bit tough to stomach from a murray fan perspective because... I mean, it's not quite 'this is not a rivalry, they always kick our ass' territory... but when I started following tennis as a kid, it felt completely plausible that murray and djokovic would have similarly successful careers. which obviously. did not happen. still remember that kind of controversial 2015 australian open final -

- and, y'know, it's a bit frustrating!! this was the tone of a lot of that era, where you kinda just wanted to take them all aside and tell them. my god. maybe a little bit of feuding is okay, no? but well, it is what it is, mostly they had a good relationship. 2016 was kinda the best of times and worst of times because murray was pouring his heart and soul into scraping all of his potential out of himself, got another slam, year end #1 etc... but it also probably did end up fucking up his body permanently, in the quest to fight djokovic. and there IS something compelling and sad about that, but yeah. still a bit of an old wound as an actual sports fan lol

and yeah, they're two closely related playstyles!! counterpunchers with particularly excellent backhands - and if a wing falters, then it's the forehand. it was lendl coaching murray and getting him to properly go after his forehand, be aggressive enough off that wing, that got him his biggest successes. djokovic's weaknesses are less pronounced and especially these last few years, he's often been lethal as a serve + 1 forehand merchant. roland garros 2023 is a good example of that... murray was the tactician, generally thought a lot on court and had a lot in his arsenal - ofc most famously his excellent lob. djokovic does also have more to his game than just baseline pushing, even if sometimes that involves just spamming dropshots when he feels uneasy. obviously, as can be seen from the slam count, his game ended up being just a bit better... but, well, these are very fine margins. murray's slam count is deceptive, he really was the one guy who could consistently hang with those three year-in year-out. whatever revisionism people try to do now, it really was a big four era

as for the coaching relationship, I'm very curious!! coaching can take a lot of different forms and sometimes there's a bit of a distinction between the... bread and butter coaching, the people who are working with you day to day, and these more high profile gigs where sometimes it really is just localised to specific tournaments. it's all very individualised, depends on the specific demands of the player - obviously, given where djokovic is at in his career, you won't be seeing particularly major adjustments, like murray isn't going to come in and suddenly suggest djokovic revamps his serve, right. (though sometimes players still tinker with this stuff late into careers, especially if they're managing injuries.) given the particular stresses of playing in a match, what an odd experience that is in its own right, sometimes you do just need someone to be observing you, give your game a critical once-over from a little bit of distance. now, admittedly from what I've seen of djokovic's coaching relationships, I do feel like one of the coach's roles in THAT particular camp is also just 'being yelled at continuously during matches'. which...? a little curious if djokovic has that same tone when murray's standing there lmao. also one of the reasons for the yelling is when djokovic feels like he's not getting enough enthusiasm from his box. which... ... uh. I mean. murray wouldn't have been top on MY list for that particular metric. but he can get passionate at davis cup from what I've seen!! so maybe it'll work out

anyway yeah I'll cut it off there lol. obviously I spent half my childhood thinking about tennis and inevitably that involved a lot of thinking about the big four and that means I have a lot of thoughts on them so. basically it's fedole > rafole > fedal as far as I'm concerned. good luck to djokovic/murray in their endeavours, I will be there no matter what

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

Oh no, what happened to Trickster? I'm not up on DC Comics.

Ooooh, boy, where do I start?

Original Trickster James Jesse has been largely missing since New 52/Rebirth/whatever latest continuity reboot. He was dead for quite awhile before that (having been killed protecting Pied Piper in the largely shitty Countdown event), and seemed to be non-existent in the new continuity, with Axel as the main Trickster. And Axel is a cute lil' guy, but James is my Trickster of choice.

He finally came back in Josh Williamson's run, in a story arc called "The Greatest Trick of All," which revealed that James had been locked up in Iron Heights for years, tormented by Warden Wolfe, who was basically using him to test their security measures. Then he escaped and has been building a little criminal empire, and somehow using the Sage Force to brainwash people. When he makes his big move, he brainwashes most of Central City into mindless happiness, while his select group of Rogues loot the city. Oh, and he was also dating a police officer while using his actual (stage) name James Jesse (which makes no fucking sense, even with Trickster long out of the public eye that name should have run some bells), and it is implied that she was also brainwashed, which means some serious consent issues if they ever slept together.

Williamson's version of James was generally MUCH nastier than he has been in the past. It can be partially justified by him spending so much time in Iron Heights alone and forgotten, but it's still taking the character to a shitty place. JJ was always an asshole, and his "reform" in the 90's mostly happened because he was afraid of going to Hell and meeting a certain demon with a grudge against him. But he still tended to be one of the less violent Rogues who never killed anyone to my knowledge. (If you only know JJ from the Flash TV show, ignore that, Mark Hamill is great but the show got JJ really wrong). Williamson pushed James into a dark and cruel territory, and had him doing things like shoving his abusive parents off a building (Flash saved them).

Williamson also added this new trait of James seducing women and using them as part of his plans. He did it with the police officer, he also recounts dating a lab tech from Star Labs to steal information to make his anti-grav shoes, and THAT is a retcon that DEEPLY pissed me off. James MADE the original shoes, both compressed air and anti-grav lift versions on his own, because he is very, very smart, despite acting like a silly little guy. AXEL is the Trickster who got his start by stealing someone else's tech, and while Axel has modified the Trickster gear and made some of his own stuff since then, James is the one who invented it all on his own, and Williamson basically took that away from him.

Going after women was also never one of James' character traits. He is an all-purpose con-man that fools everyone, but he never targeted women specifically prior to Williamson. In fact, 90's James arguably drank his Respect Women juice. He helped Catwoman with a job, developed a crush on her which he expressed by blurting out this long speech about how he thinks she's amazing, figured out her secret identity and kept quiet about it, and donated a bunch of money to a charity that he thinks she would approve of. All without necessarily expecting her to fall into bed with him, or getting angry when she doesn't. 90's James also flew across the world when he heard that his former girlfriend Mindy Hong was in trouble, and helped rescue her son (who also turns out to be JJ's son). James was not someone who went out of his way to mistreat women.

Williamson also wrote the Black Label Rogues mini-series, a depressing noncanon future story where Captain Cold gathers people for "one more job" and gets most of them killed. Future James in that one is performing a stage show, seducing rich old ladies to sponge off their money, and is portrayed as basically the worst out of the group - such a shitty dude that Golden Glider kills him and no one cares.

It's funny, in an interview Williamson said of James, "I love him," but that statement was immediately followed by "He's just a crazy asshole." Williamson obviously does NOT love James, or else hasn't read anything with him prior to Countdown, and his portrayal of the character seems closer to the serial killer Mark Hamill version. He strips away any kind of heart or likability from the character and makes him "just a crazy asshole," like a less interesting Joker. He made James significantly worse than he had been even in his pre-reform days, and the "darker edgier" Trickster isn't even particularly interesting. So yeah, I want Josh Williamson to never write most of the Rogues again, but especially keep his hands off James Jesse.

The James Jesse Trickster is definitely one of those characters where I'm like, "I love this dude, but only in these specific runs, and then he hasn't been written well in 20 years."

[checkoutmybookshelf]

The Start of a Grudging Self-Explanation

Ok, having made exactly zero bones about why I am pissed as hell with Jim Butcher and the Dresden files in general and dedicating this whole entire post to explaining why the books took a shitty ableist turn, I suppose it's only fair to explain how I got involved in the series in the first place, and why I was such a mega fan until Peace Talks and Battle Ground. Because I was, and frankly there is a reason for that. Admittedly, most of the reason is that Jim Butcher and William Shakespeare both have the ability to pull lore and extant texts into the blender that is their mind and spit out something that is somehow exponentially more than the sum of its parts (yes, I will explain this more). So let's start this Dresden journey, and let's talk Storm Front.

My original choice to pick up the Dresden Files was quite literally a case of exposure therapy. I was a library aide for my entire senior year of high school, and part of my job was updating the school's Library Thing account (literally I have no idea if this site sitll exists, I never used it after I graduated and uh...yeah). That was also the year that the school got all the Dresden Files books that were out at the time (and this was 2008/2009, so that was Storm Front through Small Favor), and not only did I spend an inordinate amount of time staring at the covers when I was updating Library thing but I also was shelving them on the regular, because they kept being checked out.

So I was seeing and holding and interacting with the physical book objects on the regular, and those early covers are legitimately eye-grabbing and I got curious. So the summer after I graduated high school and kind of didn't have anything to do while I was waiting to start college, I picked up Storm Front, the first Dresden Files novel.

I'm not gonna surgarcoat these books, especially the early ones. Storm Front is fine. Fine enough that yeah, I picked up the next book, and the next, and the one after that, but as far as debut novels go, there are WAY stronger ones out there (if anyone is interested, let me know, I will happily make a list but I'm not derailing this post for that right now). The writing is fine; it's grammatically correct, it has a strong voice, and it clearly and interestingly conveys the plot to me. But it's not any better than fine.

What hooks you for this first book, though, is Harry himself. Our little baby wizard is a hot mess, and he knows he's a hot mess, but that self-aware hot mess-ness is constantly and consistently at war with his self-professed chivalrous side.

I gotta say, that chivalrous side reads HELLA paternalistic and patriarchal, especially early on. It tones down--sort of--in later books, but it never goes away and it has a tendency to return with a goddamn vengeance in situations that lend themselves to Harry's idea of white knighting. I have dropped books never to return to them for significantly less paternalistic, patriarchal chivalry, so what made me keep reading here? Genre.

The Dresden Files, and the early books in particular, have deep, strong roots in pulp fiction, hardboiled detective fiction, and noir fiction. Misogyny, the male gaze, and paternalistic attiudes tend to be baked into the genre in the same way morally grey antiheroes are. So I didn't love it, but I was prepared to accept its presence because if you walk into a noirish detective story, it's kind of not fair to complain about the things that MAKE it noir. The series as a whole also does this weird thing where it starts really noir and detective-y, then that fades to the background as the world expands, but then it comes ROARING back in the later books. It's a weird arc, I gotta say.

Storm Front itself is a pretty straightforward urban fantasy noir hardboiled detective book, with a pretty straightforward plot. The world and characters were sufficiently interesting to hold my attention, and this is where we return to the "Shakespeare and Butcher are both phenomenal synthesizers" claim, which as a Shakespeare scholar feels both hideously accurate and exquisitely cringe.

Wizards aren't new to Dresden Files. Vampires aren't new to Dresden Files. Chicago gangsters aren't new to Dresden Files. Fairies are not new to Dresden Files. Butcher actually introduces very very little in terms of original ideas to the series--and believe it or not, this isn't actually a criticism. Lore, genre, and tropes exist and persist for a reason, and the skill comes in how you take a zillion disparate parts and combine them into a new whole. Shakespeare did this with all his plays, and as a result his plays are the versions of many much-older stories that are baked into our current pop culture. Jim frickin' Butcher has somehow managed to take Harry Dresden and do a very similar thing. It's a wildly on-the-nose parallel, and I kind of hate it on principle, but then we remember that Shakespeare was the pulpy pop culture phenomenon of his day and we cannot close our eyes to the parallel evidence. Even though we hates it, precious.

To bring a chapter of a much longer story to a close for now, I would tell you that what kept me reading this series after the first book was the synthesis of the lore, and Harry Dresden being a compelling character in his own right. I was half expecting this to be a gimmick and that I might not make it through the whole series, but I very much fell down this rabbit hole, to the point that I am furious and will die mad about the latest entries into the series. But for there to be that level of fury and betrayal, there had to be a deep love first.

Stay tuned, I will go through the series and keep telling this story.

[simmonsized]

Tell us more weird stuff you/your partner have said to eachother please???

LOL god we've been together for SO long that's so hard. i just went through our twitters i'm sorry it got out of hand i know no one else will think it's funny but i don't care at this point i'm like crying LOL

the one time i said "if i started walking around like this would you still love me" and he said yes without turning around to look and then when he did i was standing on the bed on all fours and he died laughing

that time i got my wordle on the second try because tony, next to me, said "shart wasn't in the dictionary :/"

when we were watching sing 2 and i said "i'm not a furry but i would FUCK that old lion" and tony, baffled, said, "you said that about the wolf too???" and i said "AND???" which made him laugh so hard he cried

that time i told tony his facial hair looked like shaggy and he ran to the bathroom and i could hear the beard trimmer through the door

that time tony asked if i wanted to cosplay klaus with him and when i asked if he wanted me to be the teacher he said (through tears) "i want you to be Klaus,,"

tony, to me: everything i've learned about your friends has been against my will

that time he came into the living room with a mountain of fishsticks on a plate and when i asked he had no idea how many there were so i took them away while i counted and he just kept crying, "don't count my fishsticks! don't count my fishsticks!!!!"

tony, out loud to me, in the car: do you not hold your breath when you get in the car so the windows don't fog up????

that time that tony didn't believe that the "what did the farmer say when he lost his tractor (where's my tractor)" joke was real and he legit thought i made it up to be shitty until we were watching some streamer and he told the joke and tony screamed

that time tony whispered "we can't date because there's an age gap..............." in my ear (we are one year apart)

that time we were watching the zombie episode of gravity falls and tony got really jealous of grunkle stan

tony, pointing to a stick: at first i thought that stick on the ground was a really big worm

that time tony saw a deer and said "why is that dog's neck so long"

"somehow getting back into homstuck is less bad [than getting back into supernatural]" - tony, circa 2018

when i told tony "sorry tony, i didn't mean to make both of us seem straight," and he said "it's okay it happens"

That time they were out of little packaged cherry pies and tony texted me like "there's a frozen marie callenders pie but you have to cook it" and i was like lmfao ya bring it home, thinking surely he would not, and he did???

"Nico Yazawa is my Bro Strider" - Tony, 11:02 am, 2/28/2018

These whole ass screenshots:

[streetslost]

   “EVERYTHING HE TAUGHT YOU...  you’ll be better off if you let your mind start to forget it.”  her voice was light, cautious, but somehow still direct.  strong, commanding.  the same tone she had always used when training cat back those years ago.  alone in a room or a clearing, sweat beading them both, BRUISES blooming across pale exposures of flesh, gazes sharp and challenging.  sweetie back then had been a woman of few words, so she corrected the younger’s movements with firm grasps or repeated demonstrations.  these days, in this place... she spoke more.  and it seemed she s t i l l had advice to give in a world outside the ring.            the brunette tilted her attention up.  sweetie was on the smaller size, but she was still taller than the teenager.  cat grimaced, clenching her teeth, inhaling, then releasing.  allowing her mind to ponder the words, mull them over, turning in her brain like an object to inspect... and feeling repulsed.  “...why?  shitty as it all was, it’s kept me alive.”    “you’re alive, but you’re miserable and angry and on the verge of exploding any day now.”                      a statement that cut with the sheer truth of it.  cat flinched, pulling away and folding her arms.  closing off, trying to restore the barrier around her that had crumbled to a shattered mess at her feet.  hackett had broken a c o u p l e things that not too long ago night.  hues of green scanned the carpeted floor below.  this place was strange... a house.  a home?  sort of.  not her home.  she felt like a chewed up piece of gum spat on the middle of a marble floor.  out of place, hideous, unwanted.  sweetie didn’t force her into anything, but that only made cat feel less apart of it.         elder woman maneuvered around her, slow and calm, stepping back into line of sight.  “you’re allowed to hurt.  to be scared and angry.  you’re allowed to feel things.  the world isn’t going to condemn you in the way you think.”                        “it already did!  what do you call running int’that FUCKER.  i let my guard down, i stopped being on top of it and in control of things like copper said...  it’s how i got arrested, it’s how vinnie...  it’s how that man... it’s why i’m here, practically begging you for help because i don’t know what t’do anymore!”  words spilled faster than she could comprehend.  too much too much-  she was still so vulnerable, and it was going to land her in misery again.  had to get it together, had to.  despite the fact throat felt raw, eyes stung.  she swallowed and breathed, but dry sobs slipped.  her entire body burned.

    “if i just... go back t’what i learned, i’ll be fine.  i can’t keep being weak.  look at me.”                         “you look like a teenager who went through hell.”       arms thrust down by cat’s side, a foot stomped below her, frustration energized.  “and it’ll get worse if i don’t get myself back together!  i CAN’T do this.  i can’t be here, i can’t be anywhere, i have one skill and one use and one bit of value.  being a thief... being a criminal.  it’s all he made me t’be.”  scratchy, shallow, chest heaving faster and faster.  anxiety, fury, fingernails dug into the skin of her palms.  dug, dug, dug.  stinging, feeling, focusing.  concentrating.  another inhale.  then it all came to a pause.  bottled up, a volcano, her eruption now trapped behind closed lips pressing together.  keep it together like you were taught.  maybe she could survive.                  “you’re a girl.  with hopes and dreams and feelings and needs.  you’re just scared of the possibility... of being outside what you know.  it’s easier to sit back and let that feel like all it can be.  because if you’re alone and angry and doing b a d things... then you can’t be hurt.  because then you think you deserve anything negative.  i know, cat.  i felt that way before.  it took a lot time before i found that i could have...”  sweetie’s calm expression would look all around, taking in the room, the building, the freedom...  “more.  and you can, too.  it’ll be scary and hard, but if you don’t try-”     “i don’t... want... to try.  even if... something good happens...  it will never last.  not for me.”                   attention returned to the younger.  sweetie finally dared to reach out, but cat twisted away from her, as though the touch would be acid against her scared and ragged skin.  she shrunk.  a child, she was only a child.  sweetie’s hands paused, hovering in the air just before her old mentee.  “this place can last... if you want to stay.  i’ll take care of you.  like i used to but... healthier.”         cat dodged around her, hurried steps carrying her to the entryway.  no intention to fully leave just yet, but she needed to split from the presence of her companion.  sweetie’s words were true but terrifying, and cat r e c o i l e d in a fear she had already admitted.  wouldn’t speak to anymore.  instead.  crumbling tone, shaky limbs.  “it won’t last.  it can’t last.”                             quick pace a flurry; she left.          sweetie once more examined the empty room, a reflection of the barren spot she knew was left in cat’s chest.

[mariposaortiz]

All the dreams were held so close Seemed to all go up in smoke you can't say we never tried.

Song/Skeleton: Angie

Name: Mariposa Ortiz

FC: Adria Arjona

Age: 29

Birthday: March 27

Gender & Pronouns: ciswoman, she/her

Sexual & Romantic Orientation: bisexual, biromantic. 

Occupation: Bartender at the Mint

Neighbourhood: Willowdale

Positive Personality Trait(s): adaptable, resourceful, charismatic, extroverted, bold, adventurous, protective

Negative Personality Trait(s): selfish, flighty, incredibly temperamental, impulsive, reckless, stubborn, self-destructive

Wanted Connection: nope!

Extras: https://www.pinterest.com/rachaelredridinghood/getaway-car/

BIOGRAPHY tw: alcoholism/addiction, mentions of drug use/abuse, rough childhood things (no abuse or anything like that, just more of what was mentioned in the skeleton!), infidelity, prison mentions/parent going to prison Childhoods were supposed to be a time of innocence.

Mariposa’s childhood was full of the rumble of a motorcycle and the scent of engine oil, the wind in her hair on the back of her dad’s bike. Her formative days were ones filled with cigarette smoke, leather and patches with no bedtime to speak of. Little girls were supposed to be soft and gentle, lace and silk, but Mariposa was all hard edges and grit from the day she was born.  Far from idyllic, home was the back of her daddy’s bike, because well, that was where he was the happiest. The four walls they lived in, a shitty apartment in the worst part of town, was never home for Mari. No, that apartment was a place where her father drank and despised her mother, where her mother just sat and where her siblings cried. Really, the formative days were brief. Just a few years, but she held those memories tight as though in a white-knuckled fist. Had to hold onto something, even if Mari wasn’t sure just how real any of it was anymore.

No, what was real was the crying baby and the two other siblings that needed baths and dinner. The arguments were real, too, before the door-slamming started. Hard to ignore, really. Those four walls were small, didn’t leave a lot of room for private conversation…not that they made an effort to keep it private. That was all very real, and Mari didn’t really have time to play the real or not real game with the few good memories of her childhood.

The only consistency was all of that leathes with patches and cigarette smoke and engine oil. That remained, despite all of the bullshit, and the seat of a motorcycle was really the only place that Mari felt free. A literal escape with a rumble around the corner, but also a way for her mind to have a break. The bike was still home.

Dropping out of high school was par the course, and really, it wasn’t unexpected. Mariposa had barely been there to begin with, skipping class to cause a little trouble or do some damage control at home. Mari knew she was going to fail out anyway, decided to cut her losses and split when it suited her needs best. Her teenage years were even more formative than the memories she still secretly held onto, but they were still somehow in the same vein: more leather, more cigarette smoke, more patches but these were her own. Her bike had always been more of a home than anything else, so it just made sense…especially when her dad was no longer a part of it, sitting in a cell that had been more or less waiting for him. It had just been a matter of time, truly, between the club business and the drinking and everything in-between. Still hurt, even if Mari didn’t want to admit it. The bike felt like home because she’d made it one, but he’d been the one to introduce it.

At eighteen, Mari took the kids and split - their mother was still just sitting, just staring, and Mari couldn’t stand it anymore. Those kids deserved better (she’d deserved better, too) than to watch her just waste away, and so they’d make it work. They’d made it work all these years anyway, just by sticking together and pitching in whatever they could. They had to move around a lot, had some outside help from friends of Mari’s that were cool with them couch surfing for longer than a day or two, and finally they managed to land an apartment. They made it work, just like always, and through it all Mari had a mantra: this was just temporary, this was her past, and she would never live like this again. She would never settle, like her parents, and would never live a lie. If and when she found love, it would be for love and love alone and none of the stupid bullshit she’d been subjected to for her entire childhood.

But then she met him, and he sucked her right into his gravity so fast that she really didn’t see anything else. Just saw him. That had to be love, right? Had to be, the way her palms would sweat and her heart would jump right to her mouth. Had to be love, the way she couldn’t stop thinking about him. And…yeah, the heat was a big part of it, and with that came some problems. Those problems were nothing in comparison to the way he made her feel, and that was what mattered. No bullshit could get between those feelings, that fire, and that had to be what her parents were missing - why her father looked for that in every pretty face he met at the bar while he drank his way down the bottle, why her mother felt so lost. Mari had something they never had, and that was where they had gone wrong.

Had to be, right?

She ignored the red flags, but soon there were so many that she felt like she was drowning. The first time he cheated she was able to piece it together, and she was too blinded by rage to think clearly. She got mad, and then she got even. Again. And again. And again.

She was too close to it to see anything clearly. No, they loved each other, even with the fights and the falling out and the cheating. They’d cheat, they’d fight, they’d break up but then they’d always fall back to one another. It was a pattern, but it was one they could break. Each time, that was what she told herself, that was what they promised. No one else made her feel like this, made her feel like she actually meant something, and they would figure it out. She was really good at figuring it out.

But then he skipped town. Disappeared. Completely fucked off to who knows where, and left her in the dust. The rage came first, overpowering in a way she’d never experienced even through all of their fights and the infidelity olympics. How could he? Why would he? The stages of grief came in a wave, though anger lasted the longest. Anger was easy. Familiar.

Left with nothing but to face the facts, Mari was able to look at her relationship in a way she never had before with him gone, and saw something ugly and familiar that sat like a sour taste in her mouth. Had she settled? Had she done the one thing she swore she’d never do? Maybe it was a good thing he left, maybe he’d done them both a favor. Maybe now she could set her sights on something real.

…. she really did miss him, though, underneath it all. A new quiet little secret, stored in the back of her head with the motorcycle.

[edierone]

I posted 2,707 times in 2022

That's 432 more posts than 2021!

34 posts created (1%)

2,673 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@baronessblixen

@ellivia

@enigmaticxbee

@cock-holliday

@basementskylight

I tagged 2,690 of my posts in 2022

Only 1% of my posts had no tags

#😂 - 51 posts

#why is she so - 42 posts

#😭 - 39 posts

#leiascully 5 evah - 34 posts

#help immediately - 26 posts

#ohohoho yesss - 22 posts

#these two assholes - 21 posts

#how is this a real person - 19 posts

#your honor i love her - 18 posts

#always reblog long ginger scully - 17 posts

Longest Tag: 124 characters

#10 yrs younger officemate who finall worked up the courage to ask what was in that heavy black bag i disappeared with 2x/day

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

I was just re-reading The Things She Carries and wanted to tell you how fantastic it is. You capture them and their dynamic incredibly well. Also I’ve been reading XF fanfic for 25 years and I think this is one of the best explanations for Mulder’s sometimes shitty behavior toward Scully in post-cancer-arc. Head cannon accepted. Thank you for your service. 👏

oh my goddy goddy godd, I have no idea how old this ask is, but whoever you are and whenever you sent this, I love and appreciate the hell out of you!!! Folks, if you're interested: The Things She Carries

13 notes - Posted July 14, 2022

#4

The Fox and the Wolf

Chapter 1 of 2

[AN: Y’all, this will not be everyone’s cup of tea. Inspired by a long-ago anon sent to someone else here that suggested Mulder had had his first sexual experience WAY too young, with a grown woman who absolutely and knowingly took advantage of his loneliness and need. It is in no way explicit, but please take seriously my tw: grooming tag. Read on AO3 here.]

He was fourteen that summer, and hungry — hungry all the time. He ate enormous breakfasts, scarfed any food anyone offered him, made himself stacks of sandwiches before lunch was served, took three-quarters of whatever was on the table at dinner, stood in front of the refrigerator grazing on cold brisket and drinking milk straight from the bottle when his growling stomach woke him at midnight.

His mother never said anything about it to him outright, but he got the sense that she thought it was unseemly, this boundless appetite of his; she’d never been, or raised, a teenage boy before, and he could tell she saw his literal insatiability as somehow tied to other ill-bred, unbound desires. It was common, base — as if he were an uneducated laborer, someone who hadn’t been raised to know which fork to use for the fish course (or even when the fish course should appear in the meal).

But he didn’t start hiding it until he overheard her tell a neighbor over coffee one afternoon, “My girl Elena barely gets the shopping brought into the house before Fox has emptied all the bags himself. It’s as if we’re running an indigent pantry out of our own kitchen.” The disapproval, the scorn, the hesitation and dropped voice before the words “indigent pantry” — he got the message, loud and clear.

After that, he made sure to cover his tracks: He’d have dinner at Paul’s house, where they ate earlier than most, then go home for dinner at his own; slip a $10 out of his mother’s purse to buy two footlong subs and a two-liter of Coke at the deli grocery down by the shore and eat them all himself on the walk home; go with Chrissy Edgar to her church youth group just for the spaghetti supper; lie and say that Elena must have only gotten one loaf of bread instead of three this week.

He just couldn’t help it — he’d shot up from 5’4” to 6’0” in less than a year, for one thing, and spent all his time playing basketball or running; he burned to make the JV team as a freshman this fall, with the vague idea it might impress his parents. And girls, too; Chrissy Edgar wouldn’t let him touch her, and unfortunately Cheryl Tiegs didn’t know he existed (although the poster of her on the back of his bedroom door saw plenty of him).

But he would try — ignored and filled with free-floating need, he would nonetheless try to rein himself in.

————————

One Tuesday in late June, sidewalks shimmering in the 90 degree heat and the sea breeze nowhere to be found, he ordered two double cheeseburgers, two shakes, and a family-size fries at the Burgess Farm Restaurant, planning to pay with another $10 he’d cadged from his mom’s stash in the linen closet. But maybe it fell out of his shorts on the run there, or maybe he’d already spent it? Either way, he didn’t have it, and the dead-eyed kid behind the counter was getting bored of waiting. His stomach grumbled loudly — a cute girl at a table nearby laughed with her friends and turned away. He was actually on the verge of tears from the humiliation and the hunger.

“Fox, dear, did you forget your wallet? Never mind, I’ll take care of it.”

A lady’s voice right behind him, then materializing next to him at the counter — Taffy? Tammy? He can’t remember — he’s only met her a few times, and that was years ago, when his mother was on the local parks board and he was in elementary school.

She was a vision in hip-hugging white pants and some sort of clingy pale blue top, long dark hair pulled into a sleek low ponytail, gigantic diamond ring glittering on her left hand. Her bright green eyes, full of good humor, looked him up and down. “Tabitha Welliver, darling — call me Tabby. Your mother and I … used to know each other.” Her look — wry, knowing — reminds him of why she hasn’t been around in awhile; the fight over park usage permits by “outsiders” had gotten pretty ugly near the end. “Heavens, though — you’ve certainly grown since then.”

“Oh, uh, thanks, thank you, Ta — uhhh, Mrs. Welliver,” he stammers, accepting the armful of food she hands him, feeling his cheeks tingle with an embarrassing flush; caught penniless, and caught fighting off a woody for no damn reason at all, he’s not sure which is worse.

“I can, uh. I can pay you back —” His voice cracks on the last word and he wants to die.

She laughs, patting him on the head; she has to reach up to do it. “You certainly will not! This is my treat. When my stepdaughters were your age, every boy they brought home was always on the verge of starvation — no matter how much they ate! Don’t you dare give it a second thought.”

He mumbles some thanks, desperate to get out before anyone else he knows shows up, but genuinely warmed by her matter-of-fact generosity.

“You know what you could do, though?” She’s gently steering him to the exit, apparently having forgotten her own order.

“Ma’am?”

“Come by my house anytime you’re hungry — I’m all by myself this summer, George is in Japan working on another deal, and his daughters are all in Europe doing god knows what. My housemaid makes more food than I could ever eat — save me from wasting all that, won’t you?”

He doesn’t know what to say, so he repeats, “Ma’am?”

“Oh, don’t call me ma’am, please, Fox! Tabby, or Tabitha if you must. It’s the big white brick house with the green trim, just on the far side of the hill — I spend the afternoons on the porch with a book, most days. Come by anytime, really dear, anytime. You need fattening up!” She laughs again, as if they’re both in on the joke.

He nods dumbly, knowing he will not at all ever do that. She touches his cheek with a fond, indulgent smile, then watches him go, calling after him, “Wonderful to see you again, Fox!”

He’s intensely embarrassed, later, when an unbidden image — Tabitha-in-the-blue-top — manages to blot out the lovely Miss Tiegs in the nightly round of what his mother calls “self-abuse,” but he hopes his mental apology to her, after, will be enough to clear his conscience — and that he’ll never think of her that way again.

——————————————————

The next Saturday is a bad one in his house. His mother sleeps late, then complains of a vicious headache and spends the day sniping at him: He needs a haircut, no he can’t go play basketball at the school and never mind why, that Chrissy Edgar girl is too fast and obviously headed for a bad future, how on earth can one person eat an entire pot roast, she wished she had at least one child who didn’t leave the bathroom looking and smelling like a livestock-grooming business.

Finally he says he’s going for a run and doesn’t wait for permission. It’s close to sundown as he starts out, going a little too fast on the fuel of the day’s anger and irritation. He runs to the shore, turns back on a different road, takes a big loop to avoid anyplace his friends might be (the two-screen movie theater, the ice cream store, their own neighborhood). He’s slowing, finally, as he leans into the long uphill of Center Street; his watch says he’s been running for an hour, which means probably he’s done somewhere around eight miles. And now it’s full dark and he isn’t sure how far he is from home.

He pauses by a wrought-iron fence in a rich-looking neighborhood, stretching his quads and calves, wondering whether to try to find a phone to call his mom, or just start walking and get there when he gets there. His sweaty shirt is starting to make him feel clammy in the night breeze, and all of a sudden the good exhaustion of the run is gone, replaced by the sadness he spends a lot of his time running from.

“Fox, is that you?” A voice calls from nearby.

See the full post

15 notes - Posted February 18, 2022

#3

ok if we’re doing thanksgiving, might as well throw this ‘un out there again 🫠

Until Tonight; Until tonight. (529 words) by Edie_Rone Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The X-Files Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully, Dana Scully/Other(s) Characters: Dana Scully, Fox Mulder, OC (mentioned Additional Tags: AU, what if Scully quit after she was returned from her abduction, Thanksgiving, Glenmorangie Summary: On Thanksgiving eve, many years after she'd quit the Bureau and moved on with her life, a widowed Dana Scully remembers the man she'd tried to forget.

18 notes - Posted November 23, 2022

#2

Appendicitis - 2022’s first gift to me! ☹️

18 notes - Posted January 2, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

out-of-touch show creators be like uuunnnhh eeunnnhh everybody hated my revival series my brother in christ you wrote that shit

43 notes - Posted March 14, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →