#and judging by the smile on emily’s face it healed something in her too to play jet again

[onegiantmeep]

we’ll be best friends forever and nothing bad will ever happen to us!

[elivanah-writes]

Gift of the gods ~2~

pairing: Paul Lahote x female!pagan!reader

Sum: y/n struggles with her feelings 

warnings: fluff, a bit angst

Yes there will be a part 3

masterlist   part 1

Ever since the day Kim and y/n had breakfast at Emily’s and had met Paul things had changed. She couldn’t really describe how but she felt it. Emily and the guys had been so welcoming to her and just accepted her into their group. It was nice, she had a harder time than others to trust people and she really felt like she could trust these people. She felt at ease like she belonged here. But she knew it wasn’t really the group that made her feel like that. It was mostly Paul. At the end of that day, Paul and she had exchanged phone numbers after they had sat on the beach talking while the rest of the guys played soccer. Even from those few hours of talking she could feel the connection between them like it just clicked between them. At first, she thought it was weird how quickly she felt at ease with him but then again not much surprised her anymore. And she had asked the gods for balance, who wasn’t to say that just like Kim had said the gods could have granted her wish in the form of a person?

The following few weeks she and Kim spend almost every day with Emily and the guys when they weren’t working. By the end of the first week, she really saw them all as friends. It was easy to say that she even had started to develop feelings for Paul, she didn’t know yet how strong those feelings were, but she had them. She knew he was interested in her too, he had even asked her on a date not long after that day on the beach. But she had to let him down, she really wanted to say yes but dating him would make leaving so much harder. And she knew a long-distance relationship was not something that would work for her. He understood, said that he’d be anything for her that she wanted, a brother or a best friend, he even kept the option of a lover open for her if she ever decided to give a relationship with him a shot. That only made her feelings for him grow. The way he talked to her, made her laugh or smile when she felt down. It was like he just knew what she needed, and he just gave it to her. 

La Push had always been her home, it seems that being back here only made that even more clear to her. Where she lived now she never had felt like she was home, even the people she had around her, her adoptive family never felt like real family to her, she only had a good relationship with her mother, she’d do everything for her. Being back where she was truly happy made her rethink everything.

It was her last week in La Push and she didn’t know how to feel, she felt torn. She wanted nothing more than to stay here and give in to whatever she was feeling for Paul. But sadly, things weren’t that easy. She had a job to go back to, her adoptive family. She couldn’t leave just like that. 

That’s how she found herself back at the beach at sunset, she had spent most of the day hanging out with Kim and Jared but she had felt like she was third-wheeling most of the time. She had muttered some lame excuse and walked the short distance to the beach where she found her usual spot and sat down. This time she wasn’t going to start a ritual, she was just going to pray to the gods. She tried to calm her racing heart as much as she could, took a few deep breaths, and cleared her mind before softly speaking.

“Make me strong in spirit, courageous in action, gentle of heart, let me act in wisdom, conquer my fear and doubts, discover my own hidden gifts, meet others with compassion, be a source of healing energy, and face each day with hope and joy” she repeated the mantra a few times until she felt completely calm and had a clear mind. She knew she could make decisions better with a clear mind. It had felt like only a few minutes had passed since she had arrived at the beach but when she looked up, she saw that the sun had gone down completely and made place for the dark night. She must have zoned out for quite some time because she could hear voices calling out for her. As fast as she could she got to her feet and slipped from behind the bushes and surely, she could see Paul and Jared walking straight at her spot calling out her name. It was like they knew she would be here.

“I’m here! Sorry, I lost track of time.” She spoke as she walked in their direction. “How did you even know that I was here?” 

“Kim told us you like to come to the beach to think so we figured that we would find you here,” Paul said as he scratched the back of his neck like he wasn’t completely sure of what he was saying. Kim never knew about her usual spot on the beach so she knew Kim couldn’t have told them, but she didn’t call him out on it. “Well, I’m taking Kim to dinner, so I need to get going if we want to be on time. See you guys later.” Jared said before taking off leaving her and Paul alone on the beach.

“Walk with me?” 

“Sure” she smiled as he held her hand and started to walk together along the shore. 

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said after a long comfortable silence “I don’t really know how to start. It’ll actually sound crazy, but I need you to trust me.”

“Of course, you can tell me anything, Paul. Whatever it is, I’ll promise that I won’t judge you.” She reassured him and softly squeezed his hand letting him know he could go on.

“I don’t know if Kim ever told you about our tribe’s legends?”

 “Her parents did, I think, back when we were little. I thought those stories were amazing, how some of your tribe members are supposed to transform into these giant wolves to protect the rez, right? At least that’s what I remember, it’s been a long time since I last heard them.” She smiled as she thought back to the times that Kim’s mother tucked them into bed and told them all these stories.

“Yeah, that’s the essence of the legend. But what if I said that those aren’t just stories, what if…?” 

“It was you, wasn’t it?” she quickly says when he didn’t finish his sentence. she knew that the wolf she had seen on her first night here in La Push had seemed familiar when she thinks back to it, the wolf’s eyes had looked so much like Paul’s. And in a way she felt like she had always known, he had been the wolf that had been watching her as she did her ritual. 

“What?” Paul asked a bit confused and stopped walking to turn towards her; this wasn’t how he thought she would react. Yes, he had expected her to take it better than how most people would but this he didn’t understand.

“The day I arrived, I came to the beach and I saw two wolves. You were one of them, weren’t you?”

Paul could only stare at her in amazement. She knew, she just knew and didn’t freak out about it.

“How did you know?” He asked softly

“When we met at Emily’s I already had the feeling that we’ve met before, your eyes just seemed so familiar, and then one day when we were talking you just looked me straight in the eye and I just knew where I had seen your eyes before. It was those wolf’s eyes, it was you,” she explains with a soft smile.

“So you’re not afraid of me?”

“No, of course not. Call it strange, but I knew you’d never hurt me from the first second that I saw you. I felt a connection like it was meant to be.” 

“I’d die before I’d ever hurt you. I promise you I’ll never hurt you,” he said as he cupped her cheek with his free hand looking at her like she had hung the moon and stars in his sky. Little did she know that was exactly how he felt. The moment was so intimate that neither noticed that they started to lean into each other until their noses touched. Before Y/n really knew it soft warm lips brushed over hers and for a minute she forgot all about why she felt like a relationship with him wouldn’t work. At that moment it was only him and her and nothing else mattered but them. If she had to describe it she’d say that a bomb of butterfly’s exploded inside her belly. If she wasn’t sure about her feelings for Paul, she was now, she was in love with him. Her mind was clear, no worries, no questions, just warmth and him. She let herself be selfish for once. Pressing her lips fully against his deepening the kiss into a passionate embrace of their lips. She doesn’t know how long they stood there with one of his hands on her cheek while his other hand was still holding hers as their lips and tongues danced with each other. 

The days following that kiss felt like she went through hell, it’s not like she regretted the kiss but it had complicated things. Leaving La Push, leaving Paul was going to be one of the hardest things she needed to do. That day after he dropped her off at Kim’s place she had cried herself to sleep, mourning a life she wished she could have with Paul here in La Push. For once in her life, she disliked the fact that she had a family and a job waiting for her to come back to. The following days she stayed inside her room, silenced her phone, and kept herself busy with packing her bags. Both Paul and Kim tried to talk to her, tried to figure out what was wrong but they were met with silence. That was until Kim had enough of her sulking and just used the spare key to open her bedroom door. Kim’s heart broke a little when she saw her best friend sitting in a corner of the room with teary eyes. She just sat down next to her, pulled y/n into her embrace, and cried with her like she already knew what she was going through. 

“ Whatever you decide to do, this will always your home too y/n,” Kim said later that night when they lay on her bed before the two of them fell asleep. 

Friday had never come this quick before, all her bags were packed and loaded into Kim’s father’s truck ready to drive her to the airport. Kim’s family had wanted to throw her a goodbye party but y/n shut that down as soon as they had vocalized the idea. Instead, she just wanted to spend her last hours in La Push with them as a family. Now she sat on the edge of her bed, taking in the room for the last time when suddenly there was a knock on her already open door. She expected it would be Kim or her father, but instead, she saw Paul standing there leaning against the doorpost. When their eyes met he gave her a soft smile that didn’t reach his eyes completely. He looked like he hadn’t slept more than a handful of hours in the last few days and she knew that it was probably because of her but still he smiled at her. 

“So you were leaving without saying goodbye?” He said. It was more a statement than a question.

“I’m sorry, I just thought it would be easier like that.” She softly says as she turns her eyes back to her hands.

“Why would that be easier? Please talk to me, don’t shut me out.” Paul asks as he makes his way into her room and sits down next to her. “Because it just makes leaving harder, I can’t say goodbye to you.”

“Then don’t, don’t leave. Stay here with me.” he pleads, takes one of her hands in his, and gives it a soft squeeze so she would look up at him.

When their eyes meet again he can clearly see the tears in them ready to fall. 

“ As much as I’d want to stay I can’t. Please don’t make this harder Paul,” 

As soon as she started talking the tears fell, her heart already starting to break.

“If you want to stay, then stay. We can work something out, we can work. What, what about that kiss? You can’t deny that it felt right, amazing even.” he spoke like he was getting desperate.

“Yes that kiss was amazing and felt right but it complicated everything. I really like you, a lot, but I have a life back home, people who expect me to come home.” 

“I know, I’m not asking you to give them up. I’m asking you to give me a chance, to give us a chance.” He says turning his body fully in her direction.

“Look I know this isn’t the way I wanted to tell you but there is another part of the legend that I haven’t told you yet. Every wolf has this ability to imprint. It’s when we find that one person and you look at her for the first time and suddenly it’s not gravity that holds you, it’s her. She gives the wolf balance, peace. The wolf’s whatever the imprint wants him to be, a brother, protector, a friend, or a lover. they’re soulmates.” He explains as he looks at her hopefully.

“I’m your imprint.”

It was something she already knew deep inside herself, it might not be in the same words but she knew, she felt it. He brought her balance and she had never felt more at peace and loved. That’s why it was that much harder. Soulmate or not, long-distance would never work, but then again staying wasn’t an option. She had too many people depending on her back home, she couldn’t leave them fending for themselves. She couldn’t be selfish even if she wanted to be.

“Yes, you’re my imprint.” He smiled weakly as she just cried a bit harder than she already was and without thinking he pulled her against his chest. He knew he couldn’t force her to stay so his heart broke together with hers. He understood why she was leaving and couldn’t stay. But you couldn’t fault a man for trying, he wanted what’s best for and if that was not here with him then he had to let her go.

“Can we at least stay friends, stay in touch?” he asked her while a tear of his own fell.

tags:

@its-la-push   @ghostmistwalker @bisexualcrazybeans @fatiguing-thoughts @pawfect-melody

[anxiousstark]

Gone with the waves | JJ MAYBANK

Request:  Could I please get an imagine w JJ where everyone knows that you’re his only weakness and then something happens so y/n gets hurt so we get protective and worried JJ🥺 maybe Barry or someone else hurts her

I wanted to be original, and I got this idea! I believe it is quite cool? Hope it’s up to the anon’s expectations and that you all enjoy it as much as I did writing it! I’m quite proud of this tbh!

Warnings: Mentions of severe injuries, shark-related content, blood, swearing (a lot). Angst, but really just protective JJ confessing his feelings.

Word Count: 2067

All Rights Reserved. The author, me, don’t allow any type of copy or adaption.

A/N: If you guys like Teen Wolf or Dylan O’Brien, I have a Teen Wolf Rewrite. I would be so happy if you guys check it out.

BIG MASTERLIST

People screamed, cheering on. Smirks decorated their faces while their eyes followed the waves of the sea and the people riding the waves as if they were controlling them. Plastic bags were everywhere, hoping that people would throw their trash there, avoiding more sea pollution while they enjoyed the tournament.

A cold object against the back of your neck made you jump, a tiny screech coming out from in between your lips. "JJ, you scared the shit out of me." The blond boy smiled, sitting down on the sand, next to you. His fingers gripped a cold water bottle, extending his arm and offering it to you.

"The sea it's going to be colder today." He brushed his hands together, trying to get rid of the sand as he wanted to take off his shirt. You tried not to make it obvious that you were glancing at his body. "Nervous?" He grabbed your bag, pulling his shirt inside.

Swallowing two big gulps of freezing water, you nodded. "Yeah," You gave him back the bottle, which he gratefully grabbed, taking some sips. "It's been so long."

A couple of months ago, you had arrived at the Outer Banks with your big brother and his soon-to-be wife. Sadly, your parents passed away when you were younger, but you were lucky to have someone like Scott, your big brother. Emily, your sister-in-law, was also marvellous.

Back where you used to live, surfing was what kept you from wanting to give up. The heat of the day against the cold water, both fighting to change the temperature in your body. The sound of the calming waves, elegantly getting bigger and louder. The way your fingers grazed the water, helping to get you deeper into the sea.

However, two years before you had an accident.

The day you arrived at the Outer Banks, you spent the night wandering along the seashore. For you, the sound of the waves at night was magical. You were completely sure it had healing properties. The calm of the night was interrupted by a storm. A storm rounded by pretty girls, trying to flirt with him. A storm with blue eyes and blonde hair.

Without noticing, you got closer to the storm, which is something no one in their right minds would do. His name was JJ Maybank, and he was telling the story of how a shark had bitten him. You snickered, and he noticed, asking what was so funny about something that almost got him killed.

JJ Maybank didn't expect seeing you rolling your pants up, showing a real shark bite. For him, it was cool and badass. He immediately wanted to get to know you. He was even more mesmerized when he knew you were new to OBX. He wouldn't have forgotten your face so easily if you were from there.

For you, it was terrifying. It made you fear what you loved the most. The sea. It also meant that you weren't able to get into the sea. The physical and emotional pain being too much to withstand.

Now, exactly 11 months after arriving at the Outer Banks, you were ready to participate in your first Surfing tournament after what happened. You had to thanks JJ, who walked beside you, helping you get over your aversion towards the sea.

"Where are the others?" You asked, fingers slightly grazing your surfboard.

"They went to buy some food and drinks." He closed his eyes for a moment, letting the breeze caress his hair. He completely ignored the people screaming, and the ones that were participating in the tournament. "Told them to buy you something for when you come out of the water."

You hummed. Your heart started beating wildly when some of the participants came out of the water, meaning that the next ones would have to start getting ready. It was your turn.

"We are here!" Kiara's mouth was full of french fries, hands tightly holding a brown paper bag, offering it to the blond sitting next to you. The others were back too, sitting behind you two, knowing that your anxiety was kicking, and knowing that JJ was the only one capable of soothing you.

"Please, from number 5430 to number 5440. Get ready." The voice sounded all around the beach, making you gasp, trying to breathe.

"Okay," JJ moved, now looking directly at you. His hands grasped your thighs, moving you, so you were staring at him. "Did you warm up?" You nodded. "Did you put suncream?" Nod. His hands went down to your ankles, fingers rubbing circles, massaging them. "Any pain?" This time you shook your head. "Alright. Did you have a good breakfast and long ago?" Again, you nodded.

"Please, from number 5430 to number 5440. Go to the seashore. You know how this works. Every surfer will have their judge. They will take into account the precision to ride the waves, the height of the waves, time taken by the participants to ride them, times you fall, and times you continue trying. Have fun and enjoy the waves."

Maybank got up from the sand, one hand helping you stand. His other hand grabbed the surfboard, without any trouble, placing it under his armpit. He walked with you towards the seashore.

The surfboard was stuck into the sand, he turned you around, pulling up the zipper of your neoprene suit. "You got this." He whispered. When he stood in front of you, his eyes examined yours, knowing you were anxious. He bit his lower lip. "What did the great white shark say to the surfer?" You gazed at him, confused by his words. "Don’t worry, I’ll catch you."

You gasped, not being able to hold your laugh. "JJ, stop!" You groaned, a smile still in your face. "Don't do jokes like that!"

"At least you smiled!" He grinned, kissing your forehead. "You better concentrate on how loud I'm going to cheer you up." His hands squeezed your shoulders. "I believe in you. Good luck."

When JJ went back to the others, he couldn't eat his food. His stomach was upset enough to make him bite his nails, no appetite. "Should I say it now?" Sarah voiced, glancing at John B, who nodded. "Topper is in the tournament."

The blond moved his head so fast that he almost got dizzy. "As in at the beach?"

John B shook his head, burger being left on top of a brown paper bag resting on his lap. "As in the tournament. He is participating."

"What number?" JJ asked, glaring at them.

"5433." A voice behind him sounded. When JJ turned around, he saw Rafe Cameron, a smirk decorating his stupid face. "Isn't Y/N 5434? Aw, they are going to be next to each other."

Blue eyes snapped to the blue sea. You were already sitting on your surfboard, like the other participants, waiting for a great wave to come your way. Topper was a couple of meters away from you, but still quite close, also ready to ride those waves. "I swear to god," He suddenly got up, pushing Rafe. "If Topper does anything to her I will drown you both with my own hands." His fists clenched as he saw how Rafe walked away, smiling to himself. JJ turned around, looking at his friends. "Why did no one told me about Topper before Y/N went into the water?"

"Dude," Pope decided to speak. "Even if we had told you, you can't forbid her to get into the water just because of Topper."

"I can." He was convinced. "I can if I know Topper is in there. You guys know he doesn't play fair. She doesn't need to go through any of his fucking insane jokes."

"She's going to be alright." Kie tried to calm down her friend. However, she was terrified of what Topper could do. He wasn't going to play fair. He would do anything to win, especially when money was involved.

You kept calm, remembering all the things JJ had taught you. You were so thankful. Not only had he taught you to enjoy the waves again, but also to keep calm. At first, it was difficult. The fear of something big swimming under you, ready to attack, being fascinated by the smell of your blood. It terrified you more than ever.

There was no time to get lost in your thoughts as you perceived a magnificent wave coming your way. "This is it." Your chest was immediately pressed to the surfboard, arms moving faster, taking you to your destination.

You could hear people cheering back at the beach. They were cheering for you. You were riding the biggest wave of the day. Smiling to yourself, you forgot about concentrating because you were enjoying it, which was better than focusing.

However, you felt your surfboard abruptly shifting. Thankfully, you were able to maintain your balance. "Yo, get out of my wave." You snapped your head quickly, looking behind you. Then, concentrating on your balance again. Topper was so close to you. He was in YOUR wave, the front of his surfboard hitting the back of yours.

You could hear the commotion on the beach. Not only the judges had noticed that Topper was getting too close to you, breaking the rules. Not willing to follow the rules. "Stop," You screeched, your entire body tensing as you felt him hitting your board again.

Everything happened so fast, one minute you were telling Topper to get away from you, the second you were falling out of your board. The fins of Topper's board slicing your left shoulder. The sea consuming you.

Back at the shore, everyone fell silent, gasping. JJ held hands with John B, eyes wide open, dry mouth, heart beating like crazy. You weren't coming out of the water.

His hands went to grasp his hair as he saw three red boats getting father into the water, hoping to find you. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." He gasped for air. "Oh my god." He aggressively rubbed his face. "I'm going to kill them."

JJ thought he couldn't feel as worse as he felt at that moment. However, when the boats came back with you, he almost passed out. You were violently sobbing, blood covering your entire left arm. One of the lifeguards was pressing as many clothes as possible, trying to cut the blood.

The blond boy didn't think twice, running towards the boat. He was scared of touching you, terrified of hurting you. "Oh my god." He didn't dare to ask if you were okay, you clearly weren't. "I-I-."

"Hey boy, who are you?" The lifeguard asked.

"She's my girl." He nodded, eyes not leaving your wet face. "Yeah, I'm her boyfriend." The man explained to him that he had to press the clothes tightly against your shoulder as he had to run back to the tower, getting what he needed to take care of you while the ambulance was on its way.

"S-so I'm your girl now?" You continued whimpering, avoiding looking at the blood dripping down your entire arm.

"Always were." He offered a quick smile, swallowing hard. "Just making it official."

As the ambulance came and you were taken into the back, JJ held your hand tightly after telling the others to meet you two at the hospital. He sighed. "I-I thought you were going to die." He started crying, tightly holding your hand.

"You aren't getting rid of me so easily."

"I think you are too busy not trying to bleed out, but you won."

You groaned, whimpering a little due to the pain. "Did I win because of this?" You referred to the wound. JJ shook his head, letting you know that it was already decided before Topper threw you off your surfboard.

"You are bleeding out, I thought you almost died, I'm going to kill Topper and you are 100,000 dollars richer."

"50,000 dollars."

"No, the prize is-."

"I know." You turned your head to look at him. "My intention all along was to give you half of the money if I got a big prize. All if I got a small one." JJ's heart thumped painfully. "You deserve it, and you need it." He was going to complain, but you didn't let him. "Just a girl sharing her prize money with her boyfriend." You grinned.

"Well, at least it wasn't a shark this time."

"JJ!"

[whump-town]

See, How The Most Dangerous Thing Is Love

Where you go I'm going So jump and I'm jumping Since there is no me without you

She can’t stop running and, like an idiot, he keeps chasing. 

warnings: i don’t think there is anything to warn against which seems odd... considering... but I did use some weird fucking metaphors and I don’t know if they make any sense... 

Hotchniss

If the tension between Aaron Hotchner and Emily Prentiss wasn’t apparent upon their reunion following Elle’s leave, it was painfully clear after Tobias. Eggshells be damned. He inquires around her compartmentalization, tone dark, and judging where JJ had just meant to build a bridge. He had aimed to tear one down. To remind her just how out of place she is in this unit.

There can only be one lone wolf in the pack.

“You came off of a desk job--”

She narrows her eyes, feet shifting. He’d come out of nowhere, as she’s finding he often does, and that just aggravates her even more. She’s a trained spy and Interpol agent, he shouldn’t be able to sneak up on her. The shield she throws between them does nothing when he already has his own firm in place. Feet planted in preparation for her attack.

Her revenge is sweet.

It starts with the way her back draws tight as a bow.

“No, stop. Stop. All right everybody right now-- what’s my worst quality?”

The flip of her dark hair, drawing the limp branch of a tree towards her chest. Poised ready to strike out towards him and the tight coil of childish glee derived from mischief in her chest. Her words the fiery snap of its release, the edge catches his cheek to leave an open, jagged wound. “You don’t trust women as much as men.” The room’s attention lays in the silence of that lashing. Their eyes watching the dark crimson of his blood trickle down his cheek.

And he wipes it away. Unflinching as he powers on. He can see it in their eyes, the way they keep looking back at the wound on his cheek. Thinking about the words and their implications. How they each drew back and laid into him with their strikes.

He can see it in Emily, the way she awaits her second chance. She’ll draw that branch back again. There are more branches, he suspects, in her forest of mistrust and impatience with him. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t have a few branches of his own he’d like to hit her with.

It is only in the most fundamental way that they trust one another.

“Don’t get me wrong, Johnny.”

A drop of sweat runs along his hairline and down the back of his neck. The heat of Alabama in August is worse than Virginia and even stripped of his suit jacket, the weather is insufferable. The rickety old pisshole of a house groans under the weight of the four adults standing in the attic. With no draft and dust covering every visible surface, it smells like something’s crawled up here and died. He suspects, if he were to look hard enough, he’d find that to be true.

Johnny and Mark Wrights have been murdering and raping teenage girls from the local high school. Grown men covered in grim and old denim-- the epitome of the white trash that comes to mind when they set out to solve these kinds of cases. It makes Hotch feel a deep shame for being raised anywhere near the south. Now, as he stands pinned to Johnny’s chest, the heavy scent of pig shit and sweat covering the man, he feels deep condemnation for the south.

He wants to get as far from this town as possible.

Prentiss’ gun is steady. As far as agents to come to have his back, he’s lucky that it’s her. Her brows raise a fraction when she steps into the room, surprised that it’s him. It takes him off guard that she’s choosing empathy with these men. She repeats her earlier statement. “Don’t get me wrong, boys,” she shakes her head and her eyes flicker to Hotch. “That’s my boss you have there.”

Johnny digs the barrel of his gun into Hotch’s face, the metal biting his flesh. He’s antsy. Emily must see that… surely, she must know that she won’t be able to talk her way out of this.

“Now,” she smirks. Her inflection has risen to nonchalance as if talking to a friend. Her shrug of indifference makes his chest feel dangerously tight. “He’s a dick,” she informs them. “Makes my life a living hell.” His eyes glued to her index finger. She’s talking and moving and if she’s distracted him with her words then she’s distracted the Unsubs too. “He’s got a little boy at home though,” her eyes flick to him.

He’s hit with a sudden understanding.

“So…” he watches her back once again. A bow, bending to snap. He ducks, this time, when her branch comes flying back at his face. Throwing his weight to the side, he takes Johnny by surprise, and before he can blink there are two quick shots that ring the end.

For a stunned moment, he’s laid out on his back. His eyes are on the ceiling just breathing and shaking.

She comes to stand at his side, offering him a hand up.

He takes it.

“Don’t,” she says before he can thank her. Her eyes are dark. She’s displeased. Not only with him and the stupidity that got them in this mess, to begin with, but for the girls. Emily had wanted to bring those girls justice. To sit at Johnny and Mark’s court hearings. To drink herself numb and to see them thrown in jail so they’d never see the light of day ever again.

Executed in the attack of some rickety old house just isn’t the same.

He nods his head.

They part ways.

But he can see her back.

And she sees his hands.

She lashes out and he pulls scabs apart. He agitates old wounds. His thumb works across his finger, picking at a scab, and then he draws blood and she watches as he dumbly looks down at his hands. As if he’s confused at why it would bleed.

A serial arson typically leaves little room for emotional collateral but, of course, he makes an exception. He digs his thumb into his finger, rubbing back and forth, voice breaking, and attention split as he makes connections that no one else sees. Gideon steps to his side, calming Hotch and stopping the trickle of blood over his callused hands. Holds his own hands over the wounds.

She sees that day, the scars that litter his ledger. The scabs… Aaron Hotchner is an open wound. He can’t let anything go. Won’t let the wounds heal. He needs the pain the way she needs the bows. She hates that she’s starting to understand this man that she hates so passionately.

Hearing him shout, the pain in his voice as he tears viciously after Evan Abby makes her falter. There he goes again, picking at wounds that should have healed. Who exactly is he saving? It’s not Abby. The man is a walking corpse, riddled with cancer. Watching as Hotch sinks into Morgan’s arms, his dread and hopelessness bringing him to his knees.

The blood falls down his hands.

But he picks at a wound that makes her bow and all is right, once again, in their little world.

“I want you on that plane with me.”

She finds him on a bender a few days later. The case is solved but that doesn’t mean she feels any better about the way that they left things. A boy swept up in their carnage-- “the boy brought me this last one. Didn’t even ask him to.” She sits down one barstool away from him and wonders if he’s thinking about that too.

But he’s scratching. Not at his hands but at the tumbler he twirls lazily around, mesmerized by the amber liquid in it. He throws what little is left into his mouth and grimaces, not at the taste but at the scab he’s just pulled free. She watches the blood fall.

He gets good at stopping her attacks.

“There’s nothing we could have done,” he breathes, the hurt in his voice the only reason she doesn’t shoot him down with a scowl. For some reason, he takes the seat across from her and pushes a coffee to her. She looks at the mug and then at him. His head dipped, eyes on the sludge he’s calling a peace treaty.

She wraps her hands around the mug. The effect of the warmth is immediate. “I know,” she admits, sipping at the liquid. God, that pisses her off. He always makes the coffee perfect. She can’t even make her coffee the way she likes.

He hums, shaking his head. “I think…” he glances at her and looks out the window. “I think I’m still trying to convince myself that.” The soft admission is so… unlike him. Where is the gruff push? The fire in his eyes. She finds only hard truth. Standing rooted where he is, he frowns with something he can’t convince himself isn’t worry.

Where does she go? Tonight, he will go home and find it empty. Which is fine because he can’t be around Haley and Jack on a night like this. He is no husband. No father. He needs to remind himself of the emptiness that is Aaron Hotchner. The pain and the torture. He’s not meant to be a father and he pushes his father’s legacy a little harder each day he pretends his marriage is a happy one.

If she can not get lost in these faux realities… What does she do?

Him. She does him.

For a month he convinces himself that he can fix the little pieces of his marriage but finds his hands covered in the jagged wounds of the glass carnage. As it turns out, some things simply refuse to go back together. He bleeds and bleeds and Emily, of all people, comes to mend his aches. Moving him away from the fragments, forcing him to let go.

The sex is harsh. He’s rough and she lets him. Urging him on with the roll of her own hips, his hair gripped tightly in her hand. They’ve hurt one another gravely and to know his weaknesses makes her that much better at drowning out his pleasure. She’s surprised to find that his mouth isn’t just good for smart ass remarks.

It sparks something deep within them both.

“Garcia thought she heard…” JJ tightens her mouth, forcing her smile down. She glances over at Garcia, the two sharing smiles that can’t be hidden. For the first time in a while, Garcia came with them on a case. Meaning their usual splitting of the rooms didn’t work so Emily, instead of rooming with JJ, roomed with Hotch.

Garcia smirks at Emily, “I just heard someone up last night.”

Emily knows exactly what they heard. She feigns innocence none-the-less. “Late?” she asks. “I was in bed as soon as we got back.” Which is true because she had Hotch pinned to the wall with a hand down his trousers before the door could swing completely shut behind them. It didn’t take long for him to flip the script and have her on the bed. “I doubt it was anyone from the team, weren’t you all exhausted?”

Garcia accepts that as an answer. For now, that’s reasonable enough. It’s rather silly, is it not, to assume something is going on between Hotch and Emily, of all people. They really sell their pitch with the heated, just under their breath, argument that they have only an hour later. Though it isn’t to save face but because he’s an asshole sleep-deprived and she’s, truly, exhausted for the same reason. JJ and Garcia both feel rather stupid for having thought the commotion the night before could be them.

Six months later, it happens again.

“We were arguing,” Emily offers with hefty-sigh. She’s not just selling her role. Lately, they’ve had to repeatedly come to a heated, uncomfortable debate. Their relationship, what it is and what is really isn’t, is being questioned. Are they enough to power through the last year? Should they be something that makes it through the next?

She rubs at her eyes, careful to keep her hair brushed over her neck. While she’d checked and double checked this morning for any marks on her neck, Hotch has been rather nippy (in all sense of that word) and the last thing she needs is explaining some rogue hickey he’s placed. Unlike him, she doesn’t have a high collar to hide behind.

JJ raises an eyebrow but says nothing. The two of them are going through something, the whole team has noticed. Though, if they’re honest, they don’t suspect the rocks and tumbles of a relationship getting onto its feet. They’re waiting for one of them to snap. Whether it be Emily, who will likely pack up her belongings and leave. Regardless of her love for the team. Hotch… well, he’s losing his grip on his so solidly built and reinforced shields. His pain and discontent are slipping through his armor.

“Arguing?”

Emily sighs, nodding. “He’s an asshole,” she mumbles. “What do you want me to say?” Her tone, tense and defensive, raises a little more attention than she meant it to. Lowering her head, she digs her fingers into her temples. She’s not sure if it’s better or worse that Hotch notices immediately as he walks into the room. There’s a tense moment, the two of them just staring at each other, before he clears his throat and jumps right back into the problem at hand.

The case always comes first. Their relationship after every other conceivable thing.

It makes sense, for them, until it doesn’t.

“This isn’t what you signed up for.”

Up until that moment, he’d considered himself hiding fairly well behind his scowl. Aaron is safely nestled where Hotch can’t hurt him and, what scares him even more, is how protected he is from Prentiss. Because Emily might have tears streaming down her face right now but he knows he’s looking at Prentiss. From the steel in her dark eyes to the conviction that feels, and is, so misplaced.

He swallows around the stupidity that tries to come fumbling out of his mouth. Something sentimental, foolish. “I don’t understand,” he manages. It has taken him his entire adult life to admit to that. To find the courage to say when he doesn’t follow and all for what? To sit here, at her hospital bedside, and grit out the confession. He can’t fucking say I love you but he can consume the poison of letting go.

To succumb where he should fight.

“Please,” she whispers, softly. But she hadn’t been the other half watching. Unable to do a damn thing while her screams, the muffled sounds of her body hitting the walls, had filled his head. He’d listened as Cyrus beat her. In a way, no he didn't sign up for this. No one in a relationship wants every thought about their partner to be about the end. Will it come soon? Leaving one partner to grieve the other longer than they knew each other? To answer to that mourning call-- what is left when all you are is taken? What parts of him are really her?

“If it’s what you want.” he rasps.

She turns her head, barring to him the sight of the bruise that takes up the right side of her jaw. That’s answer enough.

Dave takes her home from the hospital that evening, wondering what exactly it is that’s happened. He noticed the two of them today. He’s not stupid. “How are you feeling?” he asks, looking over at her on his passenger seat. Getting hurt happens but this is the first time she’s ever had to call someone to pick her up. Dave knows, in that way a parent knows that the silence of their children spells encroaching doom, who was supposed to drive her home tonight. One might call it, also, parental intuition.

She doesn’t lift her head from the window. Doesn’t even look at him. “Fine.”

Dave knows Hotch will answer with the same answer Monday when they return from the office.

Calling the two of them tense is an understatement.

Emily returns to work and they steer clear of her. The whispers follow her weary body around like a cloak. That she can manage. That is nothing.

It’s his absence that she feels.

Her coffee tastes odd. She’s grown used to the way that he makes it. Too strong and with no creamer but no matter what she does it just doesn’t taste the same. He’s even ruined tea. His mouth always tasted of Earl Grey or the bitter remnants of his coffee. Now, even smelling Earl Grey twists a knife within her. One she buried herself.

He’s fucking everywhere.

It’s driving her mad.

The worst part is that he’s not there.

In her bed, she rolls over. Throwing a leg over where his hips would usually be. She finds nothing but soft, used cotton. Not even the pillow carries the lingering scent of him.

His sweater hangs over a chair in her room but it’s absent of his warmth. She’s worn it too often and now she can’t even bring it to her face to pretend he’s here.

Nightmares plague her sleep and she wonders if this is penance for breaking his heart or if he’d just kept them away.

She watches, one night, as her nightmares crawl out of her ears sneer right back at her.

“Where’s Hotch?” Emily falls into step with JJ.

The blonde shrugs, “I called him twice. He’ll just have to meet us here when he wakes up.”

Though she falters, body stiffening and pausing, she tries to carry on unbothered. Seemingly unbothered by this progression. Hotch never lets his phone go to voicemail.

She’s the one that finds him four hours later. Lying supine, unresponsive in a hospital bed. The doctor’s words roll right off her, she takes in only that he will, eventually, be okay. And she wonders what it would have been like to really lose him. Not to just yearn for him but to not even avoid his eye in the hall. To hover with her finger over his contact and for there to be no possibility that he’ll answer.

Dead.

He could have died.

Stupidly, foolishly, she takes his hand. His eyes crack open and she pretends she doesn’t see his immediate relief followed far too closely by the pain. Physically brought on by the wounds of both her hands and Foyet’s.  “I almost lost you,” she says.

He closes his eyes when she kisses him but when they pull apart he grimaces. Consciousness is painful, miserable. Her hand clutched by his, he manages a few weak breaths. Each one builds the strength to speak. “You can’t lose what you never had,” he answers, a moment later. By the time the cruelness of his truth has hit her, he’s slipped back under the drugs. His hand limp and clammy.

He’s right, though.

They both knew where he was coming in. The ins and outs of his embrace. That he’d pull her in and push her away in the same breath. Afraid, too afraid, to try at this again and, yet, he’d tried. He might not have had the strength to manage love but he’d held her through the nights. He knew her favorite foods and was never shy about tearing her apartment apart for missing the heating pad if she needed.

And what had she done for him?

She’d tricked him. Lured him in with the lies that she could do this. But she’s still drawn tightly. A bow that lashes out. Hurting others before they have a chance to hurt her and, as a result, she’s killed him more than Foyet could have dreamed.

Mostly, what he means is that she never allowed herself to have him. She never had him and, yet, she misses him every step of the way.

They have one another one last time.

She settles her hips over his and looks everywhere but the agitated, raised scars across his chest. He’s not cleared for strenuous activity but if he can’t have her, can’t feel her lips moving up his jaw and her fingers snaking up his side he’s certain that will kill him far sooner than any strain to his body. He’d rather die by her hand anyhow.

After that, there is no more, but it lingers thickly in the air.

She’s still Emily when her name comes out of his mouth. She still watches his lips, wondering if she were to capture them with her own if they would still taste the same. He looks for her first when things get dangerous and it’s his name she wakes up crying.

Haley dies. Emily puts distance between them but he still looks for her first.

“Please,” she places her hands on his chest. Forcing his body away even though just the feeling of her palms pressed to his chest sends yearning straight down her spine. “Aaron,” his name comes choked. “Please, if you knew me, if you had any idea of the things that I have done you’d run. I need you to run, don’t you understand that?”

He looks down at her, mouth open. Can she not see him? That he is a man made up of scars and scabs. A wound that bleeds. He picks and pokes and he bleeds all over everything. “I don’t run,” he says. He hadn’t run from the carnage of his marriage. Can’t she remember picking him up after that whole affair. Digging the glass from his hands where he’d stabbed and ripped himself to shreds to catch the falling debris of a life he thought he still had.

She deflates, sinking into the realization that her love is the worst thing for him right now. It’s a drug to him and she’s given him far too much. “I know,” she says, a tear slipping down her cheek. “Because you never know what’s good for you.”

His fingers ghost over her cheek and holds her face in his hand. “You let me decide what’s good for me,” he whispers. “I can protect myself, Emily.”

Not against this, she thinks. Not against her. He’s never known when to pull away and when to fight harder. It’s going to get him killed.

But it’s her laying on the ground, impaled, gasping for breath.

Hotch sees her blood all over Morgan’s hands. The hitch in the younger man’s choked breath as he recounts what happened. Attempting and failing to keep the details straight as he tells Hotch, in great detail, what happened. The way she’d lost reality for glimpses. Asked for him. Called out for Aaron, not Hotch, but Aaron. And Hotch doesn’t know what to say when Morgan rises to his feet and challenges-- “What the fuck was that about? What did you two do?”

But it’s fine because JJ comes out and places Morgan right back into his chair, silencing him with seven words. All hitting a little harder, too solidly across his shoulders. “She never made it off the table.”

Emily Prentiss never let herself love Aaron Hotchner but that never stopped him. And, in the end, she’d been there. Through Foyet, she’d been there. Where was he when she needed him?

He sends her to London with JJ, his goodbye rushed, and guilt.

She’s in London. He goes to Afghanistan. Neither make it home entirely alive.

She should have known. 

Admittedly, she is a little wine drunk. Tipsy, really. Inhibitions lowered in the warmth of Dave’s living room. She’s missed them all so terribly that the ache of their absence being lifted has left her exhausted. She’d been in a near daze when she’d taken her wine and moved to the couch. Leaning into Dave’s side when he’d taken the seat beside her. While Jack and Henry recount the events of every day she’s missed according to their greatest accuracy.

Their silly little stories are well worth the soft laughter it draws from the others.

“Where are you going?”

So now, as she stands and leaves Dave’s side cold-- she’s not sure what she was expecting to find in the depths of his eyes but the fear is startling. “Water,” she says, holding up her empty glass. “Water and to pee, I’ve had way too much wine.” She tips the glass and winks at Jack. Trying her best to lighten the mood she hadn’t realized she’d tank just by standing.

Garcia peels herself from the chair she’s sharing with Morgan, ignoring the way he seems to startle at the aspect of losing her pressed into his side. “I’ll join you on the bathroom run, pumpkin,” she says, collecting her glass and Morgan’s from the table at their side. “Another drink, my chunky hunky?”

Morgan smirks but shakes his head, “no thanks, Baby Girl. Someone has to be sober for the drive home.”

As good as that plan sounds, Hotch still grunts. The room’s attention shifting to their leader. He’s been startlingly silent, even for him, all afternoon. Seemingly tucked away from every encounter they’ve had amongst themselves. “You’ve all had too much to drink to drive home,” he says. “You should… calls cabs.” The strength of his interjection leaves his voice as Emily meets his eyes. He lowers his gaze and with it, the point of his statement.

Dave does not fail to notice this. Clearing his throat, he agrees. “I’ll go call your cabs.” He stands, rubbing a hand down his face. Fingers working into the creases of his lips. “Aaron,” he nods his old friend over. “Give me a hand?”

That sets about the motion of the room.

Emily’s making her way down the hall when Garcia catches her. “What is it,” Emily asks, playfully. She waits for Garcia to catch up to her, holding out her hand for what she’s expecting to be a trip full of the secrets of her and Derek’s relationship. Something good. A win.

“Can you make him stay?”

Emily desperately wants to pull from Garcia’s hold. Her grip is intense, desperate. She tries to pull away from Garcia’s hold. “What?” she asks softly, looking over her shoulder for some help. “Who? Who needs to stay?”

The desperation in Garcia’s eyes is unsettling. She lowers her voice even more pulling them closer. Her voice breaks as she says it. Tears swelling and running against the mascara over her eyelashes-- “Hotch.” She clenches her teeth, showing the most self-restraint Emily’s seen since they stepped foot in this hall. “He left us,” she breathes, sadly. “A month after you were gone. I went to his office--” her eyes dart as she speaks. “I started bringing him coffee every morning to cheer him up.”

Emily swallows thickly around the guilt that creeps up. Her death had broken them. She’d known that, of course. She just hadn’t considered Hotch. Brave and strong and it’s so hard to tell when he’s hurting. Then to bare her lie? Another cross on his back. More weight on his shoulders.

“I went in--” the tears fall as Garcia’s voice shakes. “He wasn’t there. He’d cleaned his office up and you know how he is.” That big oak desk is always littered with paperwork. One side to the other. He stacks it everywhere. Leaving pens from one end of the room to the other. You can’t even sit on that old couch of his without getting stabbed in the ass by a pen he’s lost. “Clean,” Garcia whispers. “He just left, in the middle of the night. By the time we came in, by the time we could find him he was already over there. Afghanistan.”

The word makes Emily’s chest tighten. What the hell could he be doing over there? That station is always looking for profilers but it’s a death trap. Hotch had said it himself, warning her when they’d sent her the special request. They’ve been operational for five years and gone through seven profilers. All of which have died. No one makes it out of that station alive.

And he’d gone.

“Why would--” she doesn’t even want to finish the question. Doesn't want to put the truth into action. Admit that she knows exactly why he did it.

At least over there he’d die a hero. Leave his son a flag and another parent to bury.

It’s faster than anything he could swallow over here.

Garcia squeezes Emily’s arm, bringing her back to the present moment. To the thing in question. “Can you bring him back,” she whispers frantically. “Can you make him stay?”

Emily doesn’t honestly know. Has she ever been able to make him do anything? “Garcia, I--” Her mouth snaps shut as the man in question steps into the hall. His eyes dart between them and Emily feels rather like a mouse caught in a trap.

He clears his throat and scratches uncertainly at the beard he’s let grow back in. “I was just…” he looks at Garcia and then back at Emily. Clearly caught off guard. “Dave-- I… You’re, ah, the hotel is close to me. I thought I’d save you the cab fare if you wanted to ride back--”

“Yes.” Emily nods, far too quickly. “Thanks,” she says, looking anywhere but at him. “I’d, ugh, I’d appreciate that.”

Hotch looks between Garcia and Emily, before nodding and ducking his head. He leaves the hall, with a slightly awkward nod and steps out. Hands going to his pocket. Hiding.

“Will you try,” Garcia whispers.

Emily watches him walk away. The apprehension in his hesitant movements. His hand scratching at the back of his head until he can hide behind the shield of Jack’s eager talking. Sinking down beside the boy on the couch and hiding himself there. “I don’t know,” she admits, honestly.

The only person that can pull him from the ledge is Hotch and she’s seen him toe it once before.

Packing things up is simple enough.

Hotch stands towards the edge of the hall, Jack slowly falling asleep in his arms.

“Sleepy,” Emily asks Jack, running her fingers through his soft brown hair. Jack shakes his head but doesn’t raise it from Hotch’s shoulder. Hotch has wrapped him in his jacket rather than choosing to fight the boy into it. It’s more a blanket. She pulls it up around him a little better. “You’re not tired,” she asks. “I am. I can’t wait to get to bed.”

Jack smiles but doesn’t admit to the exhaustion weighing his little bones down. “Are you gonna sleep with us?” he asks. He looks down at her with the soft of his father’s. Same impossible depth is hidden behind light brown iris’. It breaks her heart to see the turmoil within him.

Emily frowns but she’s not forced to tell the little boy no. Instead, Hotch’s hand comes to the back of his head. Cupping his neck as Hotch turns to face her. “You don’t have to do anything,” he clarifies with an all too familiar look in his eyes. Mischief. A plan. “We do have the guest room. With clean sheets. You could come home with us.”

Home.

To a real bed.

“I…” she can’t force out the polite no her mother has solidified in her mind the answer to be. No because that’s not fair or right or-- she really wants to sleep in a normal bed.

He bumps her shoulder, “just say yes.”

She looks at him and then at Jack. It’s not a hard thing to want to go home with the two of them. After Foyet, she’d spent many nights camped out on their couch. Waiting for father or son to wake in a panic. He’d done the same in the hospital after Doyle, sleeping on an uncomfortable little cot just so the first thing she saw each time she woke up was someone she knew.

Now it’s different. The dynamic has changed. While he might not know the course of the night has changed, she does.

She just doesn’t know it’s a futile battle.

There is no use fighting over stupid things like sleeping. He tucks Jack into his bed and meets her in his room. She’s already pulled on his shirts over her head. Refraining, forcing herself from burying her face in the material.

It doesn’t stop her from curling into bed beside him. Pressing her face into his shoulder and focusing solely on his hand slipping under her shirt. “You tired…” he asks. She shakes her head. He hums as he thinks. Dragging his thumb over her hip bone, stroking the soft skin. “First crush,” he whispers, ghosting his lips over her neck.

She laughs at that, twisting in his grip to tilt her hips across his. Settling closer to his chest. Drawing her hand up she draws against his skin. “This girl named…” she taps at his chest as she fails to remember the girl’s name. “I can’t remember her name,” she admits, faintly. Blushing. “Does that surprise you?”

Hotch’s eyes have slipped shut, his face turned into her hair. He hums, scrunching his eyebrows. “Surprised about what,” he asks softly. “That you can’t remember her name or that it’s a she?” He pulls her closer, wrapping an arm around her hips.

Emily just… looks at him. He hasn’t even opened his eyes. He’s not even going to comment? She bites her lip and lowers her head back down. “What about you?”

“None. It’s… I’ve only ever--” he blushes, averting his eyes. “Only Haley and you.” He clears his throat… “That’s why I always tried,” he whispers. “Why I tried so hard…”

“It’s not like I didn’t try,” she defends, pulling away from his embrace. “I was trying to protect you from this whole mess. You’re the one who didn’t know when to stop.”

“I don’t know where you get off blaming me,” he says, pulling himself away. He sits up in the bed, turning himself so she can sit and stare at the wall of his back. Little scars marking up his back as he places his arms on his knees. “You ran, Emily. Every single time, you run. Not me.”

Neither look at the other.

“I’m sleeping on the couch,” he announces. “Stay. Don’t make me explain to Jack why you’re not here in the morning.”

She stays where she is. She turns this over in her mind. His words are an open palm slap to the face. She sleeps in his bed, holding onto his pillow and burying her face into the scent. She doesn’t leave but only because she doesn’t want to have to walk past him. This feels like winning so she stays. She eats breakfast with them in the morning, playing and laughing with Jack like she always has.

Like she always does.

“I leave Thursday, if you care.”

She says nothing which is perfect because he’s not sure he can handle anything she might think of.

She knows, without having to be told, that they blame her for not being to keep him here. And, maybe it’s her fault, because she didn’t really try, did she? She did what also does, she hurt him. Now she’s sitting here all alone, wondering what she could have done differently.

Everything.

“We’ll see you when you get home.”

She stands at the back of the group, watching the other’s pull him into hugs. Dave holds Hotch for a long moment, speaking softly so only the two of them can hear what’s being exchanged. Hotch pulls away from that hug with tears falling down his cheeks. “Don’t make me bury another son, Aaron. Please be careful.” And that’s when he sees her.

Derek pushes her forward and she feels all of them watching as she makes her way to him.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” he confesses. He doesn’t care that the others are watching. They know enough. They’ve always known.

She feels guilty and she should. “You told me goodbye,” she reminds him. He’d kissed her right before they sent her to London with a packet of new names and passports. To be someone other than Emily. For a second chance. “It--” she looks away. She’s running, again, she knows. And she has to stop running. “It was the only thing that kept me alive, Aaron. I couldn’t let you leave without having told you the truth--”’

He glances up and back to her. Just for a moment, he wonders if the others should be hearing all this but--maybe they’re past all that. Pretending is how people get killed, they learned that with Emily, and he really doesn’t feel like being their repeat.

“I love you,” she confesses. “I know you love me, you always have. I’m sorry that I keep--” fucking it up. “I love you and I need you to come home, okay? So I can stop running.”

He doesn’t believe her. He wants to believe her but everything about Emily Prentiss always hurts and he knows it’s stupid to trust her. “Okay,” he says, afraid anything more will send her for the hills before he can even leave the country. And like an idiot, he bends his neck into her touch. Letting her rise up on her toes to kiss him. “I promise,” he whispers.

Jessica gets the call at midnight. The Bachelor finale had ended hours ago but she’d been sucked into some History channel rerun about ancient Mesopotamia. It’s the haze of the light hour, the warmth of the undertones of sand, the steady deep voice narrating, and the blanket curled around her shoulders that puts her to sleep. She doesn’t stand a chance after the day she’s had.

The call comes at 12:34 and the urgent ringing of her cell-phone makes her heart kick painfully at her chest. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes with one hand, she accepts the call without looking to see who it is. Not that her tired eyes would have recognized the caller anyway.

Not serving as a soldier, the process for notifying the family of any health changes requires a different take. For Aaron Hotchner, it’s put into the FBI’s hand. He’s their tool after all, not the US Army’s.

“I’m sorry to wake you, ma’am,” the voice offers.

Jessica scowls at the formality, sitting up on the couch and desperately searching for the remote. She kills the screen and the room is bathed in silence, aiding her ability to understand and think about what’s going on. “Ugh, can I help you?” She pushes her hair up out of her face, searching the ground and coffee table for a spare hair tie.

“I’m calling in regards to Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner. I understand this number is supposed to be the personal line of Jessica Brookes? You’re his emergency contact--”

He deployed in October. Giving her only a week’s heads-up. He’d had the decency to look ashamed of himself, of the state of being he’s caused for them all. She’d understood his situation. Losing his friend had broken him irreparably and he’d wanted to talk about that even less than he had Haley. At least he’d warned her, she knows he hadn’t extended his team the same courtesy.

The man on the line goes on. Something about moving bases and a promise to get back to her as soon as possible.

“Thank you for your service,” the man concludes.

Jessica blinks, frowning at the phrasing. Aaron wasn’t serving. He was punishing himself. This was penance.

“Goodnight.”

She sits back on the couch, eyes vacantly taking in the wall in front of her. He’s on his way home. That’s good but she can’t help but… he’s hurt. Hurt enough for them to discard him back here. How bad is it?

Emily can’t deny her horror.

His eyes move to the blanket. To the empty space of where his limb once was. “It’s… It’s just a leg,” he whispers. He blinks heavily once, twice, and sighs softly as he fails to keep his eyes open. Humming, he parts his chapped lips but can’t find any more words. He’s too tired. “Could be…” his voice slurs and he exhales a heavy breath. “...worse.”

Emily wants to hit him but she’s done being defensive. She’s tired of being the first one to pull away. For once, she just needs to be the one that holds onto a hug a little longer. That lingers. “You could have died,” she whispers thickly. Gently, hesitantly she touches his hand. To her surprise he is the one to move, intertwining their fingers. She sits by his side, eyes glued the empty part of the bed. The nothing of where his leg is supposed to be. Does it really matter that much, though? A single leg?

Not to her. She’s had months to pretend. Every night she has escaped to a new reality with him. Come up with every variety of reality that might occur. What she’d do if he’d come perfectly fine and how they’d have kids and he’d never wake in the middle of the night with nightmares because she’d kill his monsters. How she would cope if he came home horribly disfigured or entirely different. Would it matter? They’d still be Aaron and Emily.  

“I’ll never walk again,” he informs her. His head is tilted into the pillows, casually watching his news wash over her. He wants to know if she’ll stay if he can’t go. If all these years were about the chase, would she stay if he can no longer follow?

She sits down in the chair pulled up to the side of the bed. People have been in and out all afternoon but she’s the first one to receive this news. The other’s don’t really matter because he knows the script, can imagine how each of them react. Garcia will cry. JJ will too but not until she’s leaving. Dave will take it well but he’ll utter something strangely sentimental and sober with the realization that walking was never the priority of Hotch coming home. Morgan and Reid are his wild cards and he doesn’t want to tell them at all. But that’s just not how this works.

“At least you won’t go running off on me.”

He knows what she means, the implication and the diversion. With a huff he raises an eyebrow, “I’ve never been a runner, Emily.”

Emily.

No, she supposes, he never has. “If you can’t run,” she says, heart skipping around in her chest. She feels it pulsing in her throat, tossing itself around in her stomach. “If you can’t run then I won’t run.” She stands, swallowing thickly around the swell of fear in her throat. He watches her, looking up at her as she hovers for just a moment. When she kisses him there are no sparks. Something cold, icy runs it’s fingers into the grooves of her spine but she’s not gripped by any startling realizations.

It’s too late for that.

But he tastes like Aaron and to a girl who’s never had a home in one place, she’s only ever running. Here, against him, she knows what people mean they say a person can be a home. Because she wants to curl into him and forget the edges of Emily. Aaron. It’s always been Aaron.

It surprises him that she stays. She waited until things got hard.

“I’m going to have to go to physical therapy every week.”

She shrugs, “I’ve got a library of books waiting for me to read them. I’ll tackle my reading list.”

“I can’t walk,” he reminds her.

She raises an eyebrow, “so? I didn’t love you before because of your ability to walk.”

“Emily--” he needs her to understand this isn’t as easy as she’s making it. Using the bathroom, showering, sex isn’t even going to be easy. She can’t just brush it off like it’s not going to bother her. It’s bothering him! “Emily, I can’t hold your hand when we go downtown. I’m going to need your help taking a shower and getting to the bathroom. I’m going to have to look for a new apartment because the one I have, there’s no way I can work a wheelchair around in it. It’s-- I’m not the same! We’re not the same!”

She knows. Yesterday she asked Morgan to rig up something in the bathroom. She spent hours with Morgan trying to put a handle or a rail in beside the toilet without ruining the wall. Ordered a shower chair last week that Morgan is probably putting together right now. Garcia and JJ are looking for apartments with larger floor plans because she doesn’t want to be presumptuous and assume he’d want to move into a house with her. But she’s waiting for the right time to bring it up.

“Maybe that’s for the best,” she says. “That we’re not the same. I’m different too.” Does she need to create her own list? Dedicating it all to words for him to comb over. She can’t sleep through the night. Even though it had been a wooden stake that had “killed” she can’t hold a knife. Her hands tremble, this weakness she can’t explain. Her abdomen is just scars, riddled with ugly skin hardened by trauma. Is he prepared to see that?

“Look at me,” she says, squeezing his hand. “It’s been me and you for years. You’re the only thing I really know. So, I’ll take you as you come. However you come. You loved me when I ran, I can love you with a little baggage.”

He frowns, trying to find an out. Not or himself but for her. But she’s unwavering. “Baggage,” he finally caves. He smirks, shaking his head. “Of all the words in the language you know and you pick baggage?”

She cringes, shrugging, “I didn’t really think about it. It just came out.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

She smiles, “you love it.”

He hesitates for a moment but nods, “I do.”

[ownworldresident]

We Are Our Own Heroes. Chapter 7: Cassandra

Book: The Royal Romance, seven years post-TRR

Premise: Six years after a tragic loss, Liam and his adopted daughter meet Cassandra, an artist with her own troubled past, and the three find in each other the friend they never knew they needed.

Disclaimer: Setting and some characters belong to Pixelberry. I am just borrowing them and will return them when they feel better.

Themes: found family, (power of) friendship, healing

Content Warning: flashbacks (signposted) include violence

The Master Masterlist (link)|  Our Own Heroes Masterlist (link)

Cassandra

Cassie messaged Liam before she got in her car. It was tempting to arrive unannounced and surprise them but given the levels of guards, labyrinthine palace halls, and fact they might not be home, she judged it best to let him know. It was a good hunch, too; she wasn’t able to visit until much later in the day. The result, it seemed, was the guard readily allowing her through the gates, the valet taking her keys without question, and the palace doors being opened before she had even retrieved what she had brought.

Only when her car had been driven away and she saw the impressions on the grass where the press and podium had stood, and the marks on the gravel where the news vans had parked, did the reality of where she was settle in. The surreal sensation of standing outside the ruling monarch’s residence was broken by a polite cough by the palace entrance.

Cassie turned to face an older, formally attired man standing in the open doorway. He nodded to her, then stepped back to welcome her inside. She had seen him before somewhere but couldn’t quite place him.

With bag and boxes in hand, she entered the palace, and without Liam and Emily to focus on was immediately taken by the rich décor of the huge front hall, which separated into four passages before and beside her. Tall paintings, stone busts, ornate furnishings and a heavy red rug leading up the wide staircase. On the high landing it split in two, one staircase reaching up left, the other right.

“Allow me,” the older man said when the door was closed. He held out a hand for the large bag, which she handed to him with a timid thank you.

Gesturing for her to follow, the older man started up the staircase. Relieved to focus on something other than the elegance of the palace, Cassie climbed the stairs with three boxes in hand, careful to keep them flat and so she focused on her steps. They took the left stair and wove through enough beautiful halls for Cassie to be certain she would not find her way back unaided.

The older man didn’t seem to be very talkative, and Cassie was more concerned with her intention than conversation, so was happy to let him maintain that silence. She registered light footsteps approaching and was grinning well before Emily sped into view.

“Cassie!” she called before she pulled up in front of her.

“Hey, Emily.” She smiled, but Emily’s attention was already on the boxes. “Hungry?”

Emily nodded enthusiastically. “You brought dinner?”

“I absolutely did.” She started forward again, glancing at the older man, who couldn’t suppress a smile at the excitement of the nine year old. Emily led them along the halls until Liam came into sight. He leant against the frame of an open door, arms folded over his chest with a small, tired smile.

“You can move now, dad!” Emily grinned, bouncing around them, then passing her father through the open door.

“Thanks, Panda.” Liam straightened. “It’s good to see you,” he said to Cassie, retrieving the bag from the other man before dismissing him. His voice was completely altered from the conference that morning. More natural, no strain.

“I hope you like pizza and ice cream,” Cassie said, lifting the boxes. Liam smiled, raising his free hand for her to enter before him.

This room was not so overtly grand, but even in its warmth couldn’t disguise the elegant fittings or rich furnishings. Emily was already pushing piles of things aside on a low table before a long couch.

“We were doing a puzzle,” she announced as Liam closed the door. “Dad is terrible at puzzles. Can you help?”

“Of course.” Cassie set down the boxes as Liam put down the cooler bag. “Do you have a fridge for that?” She nodded to the bag.

“We do.” Liam nodded, and left the room to one beside the large TV, emerging a minute later with plates and napkins for the three of them and a smirk.

“So sophisticated,” Cassie said, grinning. Liam shook his head as he joined them. Emily already had a huge slice in her hands, mouth full of pizza and sauce on her face.

“Comes with the territory.” His eyes fell on Emily, who was pointedly not looking at him, and he added, “most of the time.” Cassie laughed, then slid the open box toward him.

After a short discussion between Liam and Emily, a movie was chosen, and they fell back on the couch to watch it. Liam turned to Cassie as Emily’s attention was absorbed by the TV and food.

“Thank you,” he said gently. Not wanting to send the wrong message, despite their proximity, Cassie refrained from any contact in response, instead nodding.

“Any opportunity for pizza and a movie.”

Liam’s eyes crinkled as he glanced at Emily, engrossed by the animated movie. He sighed. “I’m still grateful.”

“I know.”

The three of them fell into a comfortable silence, enjoying the movie, with Liam and Cassie exchanging the occasional smirk at the jokes written for adults. This was easy, Cassie reflected, even relaxing, and it didn’t take long to quiet the awe at her surroundings.

When the movie ended and the puzzle was half done, Emily started drifting off, and Liam encouraged her to go to bed, leaving several minutes later to say good night. Cassie piled the empty ice cream bowls and remaining pizza out of the way and curled up on the couch, closing her eyes and way too comfortable to move.

“I thought she would be up all night,” Cassie said when she heard Liam coming back. She opened her eyes when he collapsed on the couch as well.

“Hit a wall.” He smiled, and the room was quiet again. After a while, Liam spoke again.

“Thank you for coming tonight,” he said. “I really needed this.”

“That was clear enough from the TV.” Cassie turned her body to face him. “That question caught you off-guard.”

“Not off-guard, exactly.” Liam pressed his palms briefly against his eyes. “It’s not the first time, but it never gets easier. I don’t have much control over what they speculate on, but this was the one thing I hoped to…” He sighed. “It’s not fair on her. As for the rest of it…”

His expression darkened, but he didn’t continue, and Cassie’s curiosity won out. “The rest of it?”

“I had a difficult choice to make,” he paused, then the tension released. “But I found another option. It’s dealt with.”

“Good.” Cassie answered, hoping that was the correct response. She hugged herself tighter. “I wished there was something I could do to help.” As fruitless as it was to try control the media.

Liam turned to her. “Cassie, you are already doing so much. This…” he gestured to the low table, with the remnants of their dinner. “This is perfect.”

“Whenever I was a kid, and I was upset or hurt myself,” Cassie explained, “my mother would bring pizza and ice cream, and we’d watch a movie together. It worked every time.”

“That’s a good tradition.” Liam folded his arms across his chest and stared at the ceiling. “Does she live in the capital?”

“In Portavira. Where I’m from.” Cassie felt herself drifting off, and blinked back. “So you’re going to Spain next week?”

“For a few days, yes. If it was much longer I probably would have asked Emily if she wanted to come, but as it is I’ll have a full schedule and wouldn’t have much time free.”

Cassie bit her lip, wondering whether they were close enough for this, then asked anyway. “Did you want me to keep her company?”

Liam frowned, focusing on Cassie again. “Would you mind? Just for a while during the days. She loves spending time with you.”

Cassie beamed. “I would love to. I can bring her to my studio, and show her a few more things than those easels we used the other day.”

Liam reached out and squeezed her hand. “Thank you.”

A little taken aback by the contact, but not discomforted, Cassie only smiled, and drew back after a moment. If Liam suspected it was a wrong move, he didn’t show it.

The two talked for a while after that, about nothing profound, and eventually Cassie departed, with a plan for the following week and a shot of coffee to keep her alert on the drive home

Cassandra

“Alright, Em. Show me what you’ve got.”

Cassie sat cross-legged on the floor of her studio apartment, drenched in the sunlight that flowed through the window. Beside her was a limerick and two rough verses quickly written on lined paper. Emily sat in front of her, similarly in the light. She knelt, frowning, pencil between her teeth as she stared at the lined page she held. They had been sitting with the exercise for about half an hour, after talking about limericks over lunch when Emily arrived.

“I don’t think I like it.” Emily glanced from her poem to Cassie’s. “It doesn’t rhyme properly.”

“Every word you write is practise. You’ve improved your writing by writing that poem. That means it can’t be bad.” Cassie grinned, then softened. “You don’t have to, but would you like to show me?”

Emily seemed to deliberate for a moment, then handed it over. She sat back and pulled her knees to her chest as she waited for Cassie’s response.

“Thank you,” Cassie smiled, then turned her attention to the page, keenly aware of Emily’s focus on her, and read the words:

There wasn’t much things in the room I can’t see outside or the moon I think I saw mom She was crying then And she never came back from the room

Cassie looked up at the young girl, who seemed to be trying to make herself as small as possible, and met her frightened, tear filled eyes. For a moment she couldn’t think of what to say. A lump rose in her throat, but there was a vulnerable child in front of her, who needed her. Her own reaction could wait.

“Is this…” Cassie cleared her throat. “Emily, is this one of your memories?”

Emily didn’t confirm it, but didn’t deny it either. Cassie put down the poem and moved onto her knees, reaching her arms forward.

“Come here, Em.” She smiled, swallowing the lump. After some hesitation, Emily rocked forward and approached her, and Cassie wrapped her arms around her. For a while she just rubbed the girl’s back gently, holding her securely and drawing in long, even breaths. Emily’s small hands balled the fabric at the back of Cassie’s shirt.

“That was very brave,” she said softly, stroking Emily’s hair. “Showing me your poem. You’re very brave.”

Still the girl said nothing, but Cassie registered the growing dampness on her shirt where Emily’s face pressed against her chest.

“Please don’t tell dad.” The girl whispered. Cassie frowned.

“Are you sure? He would want to know.”

Emily shook her head. “He’s too busy, and he gets sad when he remembers.”

One Year Ago

Cassie threw her bag on the back seat and slammed the door, jumping into the front passenger seat a second later and dramatically putting on her sunglasses.

“Gods Cass, is driving really that terrible?”

“Pfft,” Cassie turned to Lucy and shrugged, lowering her sunglasses to peer over the top of them. “If it was terrible, I probably wouldn’t have got us all the way to Portavira and half the way back.”

Lucy rolled her eyes, smirking and strapping herself in on the drivers seat. “Fair enough. Would the lady like to decide on the soundtrack?”

“Oh generous one, I would be honoured.” Cassie fiddled with the radio and turned the volume dial up as Lucy pointedly checked the mirrors and adjusted the seat, then pulled out of the small car park alongside the spectacular ocean view and started back toward the city.

“Can’t fault your choice,” Lucy said as she moved her shoulders in time with the music.

They chatted and sung most of the journey back to the capital. Cassie expressed her excitement at the full sketchbook in her pack, and Lucy teased her about extending their journey over an hour to draw a tree.

It was peak traffic when they got back to the city, and the journey had been long enough that their conversation wasn’t so lively. The music had been turned down, the trees had thinned, and the buildings rose around them. Cassandra sighed, closing her eyes as they reached an intersection, just too late to squeeze across before the red light.

“Gonna have energy to come out tomorrow night?” Lucy asked as they pulled up.

“You know I—”

A screech of braking tyres cut her off and the car jerked forward. The dash flew at her, Cassie’s seatbelt strained, and they were no longer behind the light

---

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[spyritevesta]

i am nobody (are you nobody too?)

Jack mourns. He lives and laughs and does his duty, all while he grieves for a life lost and his joy burns all the more strongly because of it. But the intangibility is still there.

The Guardians treat the intangibility as a disease. They try to heal it, to cure it, to fix him. 

She knows better.

This isn’t something they can fix, because there’s nothing wrong with him. Well, nothing other than the silver strands of celestial energy that tie him to that body. But even now the winter of his soul is breaking through it, no matter how much binding they rewrap. (no matter how big you build your snowman, spring will always come.)

Emily sees how this will end. Jack will return to the past, to his family, and finally be happy. The Guardians will worry, and panic, and finally have their flaws shoved straight into their faces.

Good.

Besides, it’s not like they won’t recover. Historically, they’ve been incredibly good at supporting one another in times of crisis or emotional distress (excluding jack of course, because if his core is joy, of course he must be fine. ugh). They’ll be alright.

The Seven Brightest Lights will notice him leaving, of course. But again, they have each other. They have their own goals, a common purpose to work towards. And they’re Jack’s kids; they know how to find joy despite pain.

So all the loose ends tie up.

Emily sighs a little and leans back on her hands, idly kicking her feet back and forth. She’s craving something sweet. Maybe a crepe. The question is, does she really want to go to the effort of making herself visible?

“Hey Rapunzel. What’s got you looking so mopey?” Cold wind curls against her face in a hello, as blue appears in the corner of her eye. Jack sits himself down next to her, legs swinging out into open air as he peers down at Tokyo.

“What makes you think I’m mopey?” She looks at him from the corner of her eye, raising a thin eyebrow 

“C’mon, you’re sitting in the highest spot you could find, you’ve been sighing--more often than you usually do, that is--”

“Ha, ha.”

“--and you’ve got that look on your face. The one where you’re sort of scowling, but more sad than angry. All… somber-y.” Speaking of looks on faces, his has that dumb look where he gets all concerned and his eyes start shining.

“I don’t.” She can see him deadpan and start to retort, so she groans and finally turns to face him. “Look, if I do look mopey, I dunno why. It’s not like I can think of anything to be sad about. Honest.”

His mouth twists, but he takes her at her word. Out of the two of them, she’s always been the one who’s found it harder to deal with negative feelings. As soon as she feels bad, she starts isolating herself and pushing people away. And then it just ends up being a vicious cycle of her feeling alone and awful and like everything is horrible.

But hey, at least now she can acknowledge that and stop herself from continuing to do so. Jack just never tells anyone that he’s feeling bad, and buries the pain underneath laughter and smiles, until someone finally sits up and notices.

Sometimes no one does.

Not anymore. She thinks, feeling her lip curl to reveal teeth. I won’t let my anger stop me from reaching out.

A cold finger touches her cheek, making her flinch back reflexively. Jack is looking at her with fond amusement coloring the arch of his smirk.

“Cold!” She snaps at him, shoving his shoulder (but not very hard. he’s made her soft, the little shit).

“That’s better! Now your scowl is back to normal!” He laughs and flutters his eyelashes exaggeratedly. “Filled with rage~!”

“I’ll show you rage, you little shit--!” She grabs for him, and he lets himself fall forward into the open air, laughing. She jumps after him, warm wind swirling around her form, propelling her after him. He’s faster than her, barely, but he’s still laughing far too hard, so she catches up easily.

“Tag!” She cries, and immediately dives down into the buildings below, to try and lose him. They both know this dance, and they’ve spent hours like this before. Just chasing one another across a city.

She loses him near Harajuku, and doubles back to hide near the cherry blossoms that are beginning to bloom in Naka-Meguro. Gods, she’s going to miss this once he’s gone. Laughing as she flies above the trains, she feels something wet on her cheeks.

Rain?

Pausing in midair, she looks up, even though she can feel how clear the sky is. Touching her face, she looks at her fingers, and yeah. They’re wet.

What?

She sniffs her fingertips, smelling salt.

Wait.

Is… is she crying?

Touching near her eyes, Emily realizes that yes, she’s crying. And she has no idea why. It’s not like anything is wrong. She’s not an expert at emotion, but she’s pretty sure this isn’t happy crying. Unless it is. Jack would probably know; he may not cry often, but he’s almost constantly on the verge of tears.

“Emily!” He almost slams into her, but pulls up at the last second. “Wind sounded worried--are you crying?!” He places his cold hands right on her face, wiping away the tears with his thumbs.

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know.” She says, the words coming out small. “I just started crying without realizing it?”

It comes out as a question, but she’s confused. And feeling kinda shitty now actually, now that she’s been crying for a minute or so.

Gods she could really go for a crepe now.

“Ok. Do you want to talk about it, or do you want a distraction?” He asks her, shoving hands into his hoodie pocket. He rifles for a second, then comes back with a tissue.

“Distraction.” She takes the offered tissue, scrubbing the tears off her skin. It’s getting close to sundown, which means Tsar Asshole’s ship will be visible soon, ugh. Concentrating slightly, she gathers some of the water vapor into clouds. She feeds a little power into them and they rapidly begin to expand over the city.

Try to spy on us now, bitch. She thinks, not a little vindictively.

“Emily.” Jack lightly scolds, but there’s too much buried amusement for her to take him seriously.

“What? You know I don’t like Tsar Asshole.”

“Look, Manny has his flaws--”

“I mean, he completely left you--”

“--but the pressures of his position--”

“--completely alone, without a word--”

“--so we can’t judge him too unfairly.”

“--three. hundred. years.” She finishes, jabbing her finger into his shoulder with each word for emphasis.

“Alright, alright. Let’s not argue about Manny again.” He grins at her. “How about we sneak into a karaoke place, and have some fun?”

“You had me at karaoke.” She grins back, and follows him as they flip through the streets towards their destination.

She’s gonna miss him.

…

Oh.

Oh.

She’s gonna miss him. Because Jack is her best friend, and without him… she’s alone.

Shit.

[bucky-at-bedtime]

Buddy Pt. 2

Summary: Bucky tries to save a dog when it is involved in a car accident, only to discover his cute neighbour is a veterinarian. A series of meet-cutes occur and with the help of a certain dog, the two end up tangled together.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Vet!Reader

Warnings: Mention of animal cruelty and FLUFF.

A/n: Chapter two guys!! Thanks to everyone who supported chapter one! I love you all so much. If you want to be tagged please let me know!  I wasn’t going to post this so soon, but I couldn’t leave you guys hanging with that ending 😫

Let me know what you think!! 

Words: 2560

Part 1//Masterlist

It had been almost 2 hours since Bucky had stumbled onto the doorstep of your clinic, dog in his arms and panic in his eyes. He had been sitting in the waiting room anxiously, pretty much tearing out his own hair. His mind kept flicking back to that moment - to the light that flooded the road and the terrified eyes behind that wheel. He was taking short breaths and could feel the tears brimming in his eyes. He just wanted to go for a drive, but it felt like danger followed everywhere he went.

Meanwhile, you were stitching up the final few cuts along the dog’s left leg. You were finally able to breathe again after 2 hours of surgery, taking a heavy breath into your lungs in relief. Your scrubs were smudged with blood and you peeled the gloves off of your hands, giving the pit bull a final look-over before walking out into the waiting room, your eyes surveying the room for your neighbour.

“He’s gonna be okay.”

Bucky’s head shot up from his hands and he looked up at you, eyes lined with the red strings of exhaustion.

“He’s okay?” his voice was shaky and full of hope. You could see how much he cared instantly.

“Yeah, James, he’s alright.”     

He nodded, squeezing his eyes shut and leaning back in the chair, a heavy breath escaping his chest. You took a sharp intake of breath when you finally got a chance to look at him, noticing his torn black t-shirt and the scrapes along his torso.     

“Oh my god, did you jump in front of that car or something?!” you yelped, rushing forward and falling onto your knees, reaching out towards his bare skin. You noticed the shards of gravel that were still littered in the dry cuts.     

“...yes?”     

When the world fell from his lips you looked up at him, a disbelieving look on your face. This man threw himself in front of a car to save an animal that wasn’t even his, and now he was acting like it as no big deal.     

“Oh my god, come with me.” You grabbed his wrist, pulling him up from the chair and leading him back to an examination room.    

“Sit on the table” you directed, pointing at the table in the middle of the room and rummaging in a few draws to find some disinfectant.

“You really don’t have to do this, I’m fine,” he mumbled, pulling gently at the tattered t-shirt. “I’ve had far worse than this.”     

“I’m sure you have, but I’m still going to insist that you let me clean it because I’m pretty sure you have bits of road in your skin,” you mumbled, pouring some alcohol onto a cotton pad. “Now, sit.”  

You didn’t see the smile that tugged at his lips at your direct tone, but when you turned around he was sitting on the bench, his shirt in his hand as he pulled at the torn material anxiously. You tried to avoid looking at his bare torso, instead, focussing on the gashes along his ribs.  

“Alright, this is gonna sting,” you murmured, surveying the shallow scrapes.

“S’alright, doll.”   

You dabbed the alcohol-soaked cotton across his ribs, your other hand resting on his metal shoulder to keep him still.     

He winced slightly in contact with a sharp intake of breath, but when you looked up at him with worried eyes, he sent you a tight smile to let you know he was okay. 

“So why are you still here? Its 3am, shouldn’t you be at home, in bed?” he wanted to fill the silence and was curious as to why you were still at work at such a ridiculous time.     

“I had to finish some paperwork and then I was watching ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ on my laptop. I didn’t realise how late it got.” you chuckled to yourself, glancing over at your open laptop. “Plus, there are some really cute kittens I’m taking care of right now and I just didn’t want to leave them here on their own”     

He chuckled at that, “I guess we’re both suckers for cute animals then.”    

You laughed as you finished cleaning the scrapes on his torso, agreeing wholeheartedly. “You probably don’t need any bandages, you’re healing really quickly.”     

“Perks of being me,” he laughed. 

You threw the used cotton balls away and lead Bucky through the halls, into the room where you had left the dog, head still resting on Bucky’s denim jacket. You rustled through a few shelves, finding some scrubs that would fit Bucky and throwing the light blue shirt at his chest, allowing him to cover-up and cutting off your own temptation to stare at his fucking perfect abdomen.    

“He doesn’t have any tags or a chip, so I can’t identify him. Unfortunately, judging by these older scars and his malnourishment, it looks like he came from an abusive home.” Bucky’s eyebrows knitted together at that and he brought his fingers up to gently trace along the old scars on the dog’s skin. “The only thing he had on him was this.” You held up a thin metal chain that had been around the dog’s neck.    

“So what now?” Bucky mumbled, eyes still on the unconscious dog in front of him. You watched as they glistened with a tenderness you could’ve sworn you had never seen before.

“Well, I could keep him here for a few days and look for someone to adopt him, but unfortunately there’s a stigma around pit bulls and I don’t know if I could find anyone,” you said, running a hand through your hair and glancing at Bucky. He was still staring down at the animal, eyes full of worry and care, flesh hand gently grazing over his ears. “...or you could adopt him.”   

His head shot up at that, eyes wide. You tucked your hands into your pockets, leaning back onto the bench behind you and feeling your lips stretch into a genuine smile, shrugging your shoulders.   

“You seem to really care about him - I mean, you threw yourself in front of a car for him - I don’t think anyone I found would do that.”   

His eyes flickered between you and the dog with surprise and curiosity.    

“You don’t have to decide right now, I want to keep him here for a day or two, but I think it’s a good idea.”   

“I– I don’t even know how to take care of a dog, I–”   

“Hey,” you stepped forward and rested a hand on Bucky’s arm. “jump that hurdle when you get there. It’s not too hard, and I’ll be around if you have questions.”

He nodded lamely.      

“Anyway, it’s almost 5am and I would like to get some sleep before I have to be back here at 10.” 

“Oh my god, I’m so sorr–”  

“It’s okay, James,” you reassured.

The two of you made your way out of the building, not before Bucky helped you carry the dog into a more comfortable, blanket-filled enclosure. When you reached the car park, Bucky began to walk back to his bike, but stopped short a few feet away.

“Hey, could I– could I give you my number? Call me when I can come see him?”

“Of course.” you reached into your bag and pulled out your phone, handing it to him. “I’ll probably call you tomorrow.”

He nodded gently, sending you a smile before throwing his leg over the bike and peeling off in the opposite direction to you, heading towards the Avengers Compound.

You drove home, your eyelids heavy, and finally fell into your the grasp of your warm blankets, falling into a deep sleep almost immediately, completely exhausted from you unexpectedly wild night.

Meanwhile, Bucky was at the compound at the break of dawn, switching the scrubs t-shirt for some workout gear in his locker, he made his way towards the gym immediately, wanting to blow off some steam. He couldn’t get his mind off the dog and really needed some sort of distraction.

“Hey! Tinman, what ya doin’ here so early?” Sam jogged across the gym, jovially punching Bucky’s arm when he reached him.

“Had a weird night.” He mumbled, wandering towards the reinforced punching bags and beginning to strap up his hands. “What do you think of pets?”

“Pets?” Sam raised an eyebrow, leaning against the wall behind him. “I’m gonna need some more specifics.”

Bucky pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, gesturing to the punching bag. Sam moved forwards, leaning his shoulder against the opposite side of the bag and holding it still for Bucky.

“I uh– I guess I’m thinking about adopting a dog.” he mumbled, “Again, weird night.”

“Well, it’s not a bad idea. I mean, there are heaps of studies done on how dogs help with PTSD. Could help with your nightmares.” Sam mumbled, grunting slightly in the middle of the sentence when Bucky threw a punch.

“Yeah, maybe.” He threw another punch.

“So, you gonna tell me about this wild night of yours?”

Bucky chuckled, but nodded anyway, beginning the story.

When you woke up to your alarm a few hours later, you could hardly convince your own eyes to open, weighted down with such exhaustion. When you finally managed to roll out of bed, have a quick shower and grab a bite to eat, you pulled on a fresh pair of scrubs and stumbled out the door.

“Emily, you’re a lifesaver,” you mumbled as you entered the clinic, grabbing the coffee cup off of her desk and taking a long sip of the caffeinated beverage.

“Why so tired?” You missed the cheeky look on her face as you continued past the front desk. “Could this have anything to do with the pit bull in exam room 3?”

You turned on your heel and raised an eyebrow at her. “What do you know?”

“Well, when I got here I noticed the new, injured animal out the back and was extremely curious,” she stated slyly, smirking in your direction “so, I looked at the security footage from last night and found something very interesting.”

“Ok, you can shut up now, Em, I need peace and quiet and to check on that dog.”

She cackled loudly at your words, turning away to answer the ringing phone as you escaped to the back, putting your stuff down and going to check on the new dog.

“Hey there, pup,” you whispered, reaching into his cage slowly and letting the now-conscious dog reluctantly sniff your hand. You gently scratched behind his ears, but he stayed laying down, seemingly uninterested in any interaction.

You figured he had anxiety from his previous owners and decided to just check on his stitches and leave him be for a little while. You made a mental not to call James when you got the chance.

The day passed without too many hiccups (you only fell asleep at your desk once) and you managed to make it to 5:00 without majorly injuring yourself or anyone else. Finally, the place was empty and you pulled your phone from your bag, scrolling until you found his number.

The phone only rang 3 times before there was a clattering sound and Bucky’s voice rang out from the other end.

“Y/n?”

“Yeah, it’s me,”

“Hi, how’re you?”

“I’m good, I’m tired, but good” you chuckled. “You wanna come see him? He’s been awake today, I took him for a very slow walk but he hasn’t been very lively. I’m sure he’d like to see you”

“You think he’ll remember me?” Though he tried to hide it, you could hear the smidge of insecurity in his voice. He was worried that this animal was going to hate him before it even really met him. You sincerely doubted that.

“Only one way to find out.” you murmured, tapping a pen against the bench with a hopeful smirk on your face.

It was silent on the other line for a moment, but you heard a sigh as Bucky made his decision. “Alright, I’ll be there soon.”

You felt a smile stretch across your face at his words and had the urge to roll your eyes at yourself. “See ya soon, James,” you said, pulling the phone away and hanging up. You still couldn’t wipe that smile off your face.

Around 20 minutes later, you had managed to usher Emily out of the clinic and were waiting patiently for Bucky to arrive. Your head was resting in your hand, your eyes desperately trying to keep themselves open when there was a rattling knock on the glass door. You lifted your head and smiled welcomingly when you saw Bucky standing at the door, holding a coffee in his hand.

“Hi, come in,” you unlocked the door and allowed him to walk inside.

“This is for you,” he mumbled, holding the large coffee cup towards you. “I wasn’t sure what you liked so I just got a normal latte and a bunch of sugar packets.” he pulled a handful of little brown sugar bags out of his jacket pocket and your eyes widened at the gesture.

“If I wasn’t so tired I would tell you ‘you shouldn’t have’ or something,” you mumbled, taking the warm cup from his hand and practically inhaling half of it.

He chuckled. “I guess that’s a no to the sugar,” and stuffed them back in his pocket.

“Alright, follow me, let’s go see this dog.”

He followed you through the halls once again and you led him into the free examination room where the dog was still laying in a mountain of blankets. The dog hadn’t noticed your entry yet, still deeply asleep.

You turned to look at Bucky, watching the creases in his forehead appear. He was worried again, losing his confidence. You reached out and gently placed an arm on his shoulder, sending him a gentle smile of reassurance. He looked up at you, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth and then turning back to the dog. He took a few cautionary steps forward, and then finally fell to his knees beside the bed.

“Hey, buddy,” he whispered.

It was like magic. The minute those words left his lips the fuzzy grey ears perked up and the dog lifted his head, searching for the source of the noise. He struggled to roll over, sitting up and surging towards Bucky, pawing at legs and immediately licking his stubble-covered chin.

Your mouth fell open at the interaction, shocked that the dog suddenly had so much energy. You felt your breath catch in your throat when your eyes found Bucky’s face and caught sight of the show-stopping smile that stretched across his lips. He gently scratched the back of his ears turning his chin up and allowing the dog to lick his jaw.

“Oh my god, he loves you,” you whispered, walking towards the two boys, and crouching down next to them. Bucky simply laughed in response, staring into the dog’s grey eyes.

“He’s barely moved all day and now he’s all over you,” you chuckled, gently patting the dog’s back. “He must remember.”

Bucky’s eyes flickered between you and the dog. “I want him. I want to adopt him.” The words tumbled out of his mouth as if escaping a cage and he pressed his forehead to the dog’s. “I’m gonna take you home, buddy.”

part 3

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[dontshootmespence]

Broken Homes Fix Broken Hearts

A/N: Will @veroinnumera and I ever stop being mean to our Juliet? Maybe soon.

Chapter 29

How long had it been since the door had slammed close on her relationship with her mother? For good. She wasn’t sure, but Derek’s arms felt heavy around her body. Their heartbeats and breathing were in sync, and she had no tears left to cry. They had dried in their rivers on her face. She still felt the same, but nothing else came.

For a moment, she just sat there - not crying, not talking, just breathing, staring off into the distance and hoping that if she closed her eyes to the world, when she opened them again this would’ve all been a dream.

Standing up felt like she had cement in her shoes.

“Juliet, I-” Derek started. He wanted to make this all disappear for her.

She spun around, ready to snap and then stopped herself. “I can’t, Derek. Just…”

When Derek decided to confront Alana, he assumed this is how it would end - with Juliet getting her heart broken. Alana’s facade was transparent as hell to everyone that wasn’t clouded by familial ties. He also wasn’t surprised that Juliet was now trying to keep him at arm’s length. Who wanted to have their heart shattered more after going through something like that?

But he wouldn’t hurt her. He wouldn’t do anything to harm a hair on her head. It didn’t matter though; he could see in her eyes she was still scared. “I’m here,” he said softly.

Turning her back toward the stairs, she slipped her hand lazily over the banister. “I know. I just...can’t talk right now. I can’t.”

                                                            -----

It’s not like she hadn’t felt like this before, but she hadn’t wanted to be here again, and yet here she was, walking through the motions and hoping that somehow, someway things might start to make sense again.

The last time she felt this way was after she tried to kill herself. It wasn’t the same situation, but somehow...it kind of was. A little piece of her had vanished. With her mother in and out of her life so frequently, there was a part of her heart that hoped that one day things would change - she would have that relationship with Alana.

For one brief month, she had it.

And then Alana ripped it away.

It was as if the last year and change had all been for nothing. She’d taken so many steps forward, and now it felt like she’d had all her pieces sent back to the start in a game of Sorry! And while Juliet knew that dealing with mental health issues wasn’t a linear process, having a set back like this felt so fucking terrible.

And of course, Derek had been a saint the entire time. And she hated him more for it.

Juliet barely spoke to him unless it was important and yet there he was every morning when she rolled over in bed, looking at her with those kind, dark eyes, telling her that he loved her. No matter how much she ignored him or lashed out, he stayed.

It just wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he got to hurt her like this, by being the perfect boyfriend.

First he’d been right about her piece of trash mother and now he was walking around the house like some Mother-fucking-Teresa.

It should have made her feel good. But all it did was make Juliet feel worthless. He was so together and she didn’t even have a clue where to start piecing herself back together.

Besides Derek, the two people she knew that had stitched their lives back together over and over again were Spencer and Emily. Maybe she needed to talk to one of them. Juliet knew that feeling the way she was feeling about Derek - begrudging him for being so calm and collected in this shitstorm - it wasn’t right.

Objectively, Derek Morgan was the best thing that had ever happened to her, and she couldn’t lose him because her brain was twisting up the wires in an attempt to unravel them.

Spencer was wonderful, but somehow talking about her relationship with Derek seemed out of the question, but Emily would know what to do. At least she’d listen if nothing else.

J: Hey. Can we get together for coffee and talk? I need to vent.

E: Where and when?

                                                           -----

45 minutes later they were sitting in the corner at Java Jive.

“And it’s just so confusing, Em! I’m pissed off at him for not protecting me from my mother but then I also explicitly told him my relationship with her was none of his business so technically he did what I asked him to. But now I’m upset he listened to me. But I should want him to listen to me, right? And it’s good that he does, it’s healthy and shows he respects me as a person. But I also want him to just take care of me. And then when he tries to it frustrates me. What I’m trying to say is that I want what I want but I also don’t want what I want and I definitely don’t want what I don’t what, unless I do want it, you know?”

Emily just stared at Juliet in awe for a second. It felt like she had been talking for a solid two minutes - without breathing. It was fine. She was a fantastic listener. It was just physically astounding. “Are you done with your train of thought? I don’t want to interrupt if you need to get more out.”

“I think so. Honestly I started this train of thought the second my mother left and it hasn’t stopped. So you’d be doing me a favor by interrupting.” Juliet sighed rolling her eyes.

If anyone knew about not being able to identify their feelings after a tragedy, it was Emily Prentiss. “Well, I happen to be well-versed in dealing with fuckery. We need to get your true and honest feelings about everything so I propose a little game.” Juliet looked a bit apprehensive, but she nodded for her to continue. “I want you to clear your mind. Close your eyes. I mean right here. Close your eyes and focus on one sound.”

For about two minutes, Emily sat there waiting until it looked like Juliet might be receptive. “Answer without hesitation, okay?”

“Okay,” she muttered.

“Are you mad at Derek?”

“Yes, but I don’t like myself for it.”

“Are you mad at your mother?”

“Mad doesn’t cover it.”

“Good, good.” Progress. “Do you hate Derek?”

“No! God no.”

Also good. Derek was one of Emily’s best friends so that would kind of suck. “Do you hate your mother?”

“Big time.”

“Would you ever give your mother a chance at a relationship with you again?”

“When hell freezes over. And if that does happen, then still no.”

Ah, she knew the feeling well. “Do you still want to be with Derek?” She asked, her voice softening.

Juliet just nodded. “I love him, Em. I want him for as long as he’ll have me.”

“He’ll have you forever,” Emily replied. She could see without a shadow of a doubt that Morgan was in love. “I think you have your answer. You’re going to need to work through what happened with your mother, but you don’t have to do it alone. And it doesn’t seem like you want to.”

                                                           -----

“Somehow I get the feeling you aren’t as excited about dark matter as you sounded on the phone.” Spencer frowned, taking back a book from Derek who hadn’t gotten past the title page.

“I’m sorry kid. I just needed to get out of the house.” He sighed heavily.

Spencer’s eyebrows quirked. “You didn’t have to pretend to like dark matter to come over.”

“I know. I know. I’m an idiot.”

“You aren’t an idiot. You have a fairly high IQ. What makes you say you’re an idiot when it’s blatantly inaccurate?”

Derek couldn’t help but laugh into his hands. “Kid, I don’t mean it literally. I mean, I do, but not like that.”

“How then?”

Reid always took things painfully literally. “I mean when it comes to Juliet. Her mother broke her heart and of course she’s going to need time to heal from that. But I’m there, and I feel like I’m doing all the right things and she’s barely spoken to me. And then that makes me angry. But I shouldn’t feel angry! She’s the one who got her heart broken, not me. And then I feel guilty! What I mean to say is that for all the intelligence I do have, I have no idea how to handle my own girlfriend’s feelings.”

“I’m supposed to help, right? That wasn’t rhetorical?” Spencer clarified.

In spite of it all, Derek found himself laughing. “Yeah, Reid. If you can.”

“Oh. I definitely can’t.”

“Then how can you help?”

“I said I can’t. That doesn’t mean philosophy can’t.” His friend explained, straightening the collar of his sweater-vest.

Derek huffed, his lips turning upward into a smile. “You have some philosophical quote that can help me?”

“Possibly. I find them helpful. And at the very least if it doesn’t solve the problem, you’ve become better for it.”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re a little odd?”

“Yes, at least several hundred times,” Spencer nodded.

“Okay kid, lay the Socrates on me.” Derek chuckled.

“It’s the Dalai Lama actually. He said ‘love is the absence of judgement.’’

The kid looked pleased with himself.

“How is that supposed to help me?” Derek asked honestly.

Reid sat back against his chair and smiled. “It’s supposed to help because that doesn’t just mean not judging Juliet for her emotions after all this. It’s natural. But the thing is yours are too. You need to stop being so hard on yourself for the feelings this whole situation has brought up. They’re complicated, but they’re human. Do you love her?”

“With every fiber of my body, kid.”

“And do you think she still loves you? Despite the fact that you haven’t spoken for the past few days?”

Derek took a deep cleansing breath. “Yeah, I do.”

“Then that’s it,” Reid replied. “Next time you speak, tell her that you have a lot of feelings about this too. That you want to talk about them, but only when she’s ready. And that you’ll get through it together. If you love her and she loves you, then that’s where you need to start.”

“I’m gonna hug you now, okay?”

“Okay.”

                                                           -----

In trying to give the other time to get home, they managed to show up at the front door at the exact same moment.

“Hi.”

“Hey. Can we talk?”

She nodded, opening the door. “I’d like that. I’d really like that.”

@witchythorn​ @crimeshowtrash​ @literallyprentissstwin​ @jazz91121 @tommyhollandd​ @spencer-puppies-and-stuff​ @fl0werb0nes18​ @stunudo​ @spencerthepipecleaner​ @theofficeofsupremegenius​ @ultrarebelheart​ @lookwhatyoumademequeue​ @lukeassmanalvez​ @mentallydatingspencerreid​ @nobravery​ @criminal-anatomy @matthew-gray-reidler​ @remember-me-forever-silent-angel​ @original-criminal-fanfics​ @lovelukealvez @stories-you-wont-hear @speedreiding @marvelfanlife @butsomeofusarelookingatthestars​ @wonderboygenius​ @naturallytom​ @imagines-for-criminal-minds​ @acespence​ @sweater-vest-reid​ @criminalmindskeepsmealive @spenncerreiid​ @sam-carter-in-training​ @parker-hopper @spencerwreid​ @ssahotchner​ @profiler-in-training​ @were-skye​ @trollitis​ @heyboywonder​ @ficrecswithcassie​ @janiedreams88@gingeraleandcontemplation @cynbx @fortheloveofspencerreid​ @tippy06​ @cleocc @bestillmystuckyheart​ @ssaunitchief​ @xxm3xxj​ @xocriminal-minds-imaginesxo​

[annanuzlocke]

Chapter 2 - The First Fight

Anna woke slowly with a splitting headache.  She was laying on a small bed in a bright, white walled room.  Her head felt incredibly heavy.  She hissed as she slowly tried to sit up, only to have a hand lightly touch her shoulder.  She turned to see a young woman with long lavender coloured hair that hung down to her mid back, wearing a pair of light blue scrubs sitting next to the bed.

“Try not to move too fast, You’re body is still adjusting to the changes.   Congratulations are in order though!  You survived and luckily we know which type and species you adapted to!  I am sorry though.  You got a strong species, but one easily identified”  The woman patted her shoulder, sympathy and a little bit of humour on her face.

“What?  I don’t think I understand.”  Anna mumbled, still groggy and disoriented.  Her speech came out muffled and her mouth felt strange.   It was almost as if she just finished at the dentist.  The woman reached to the side table and helped up a small hand mirror.  Anna gaped, her had slowly moving up to her mouth.  Her Teeth.  Her lower canines had grown into sharp fangs, sticking up over her upper lip  “Wha...What?”  it was then she noticed her forehead.  Covering her head from front to back were a series of hard plates.  She lightly touched one, flinching slightly at its metal like texture.  “What am I?”  Setting the mirror down the woman smiled.

“You’re a Bagon! A Dragon type!”  She smiled and held out a hand.  “I’m Emily by the way.  I’m Doctor Oak’s granddaughter!”  Anna slowly reached out and shook it.  Emily Brushed some hair away from her face, revealing a small red gem beneath her bangs, and pointed ears with small lavender tufts of hair beneath them.  She continued speaking “I got my serum just a few months ago.  I’m an Espeon just like my grandpa!  I’ve been trying to get used to my new powers and help out my Granddad.”  She stood up and walked to a sink on the far wall of the recovery room,  She came back with a small glass of water and a straw.  

“Oh, thank you.” Anna sat up and flexed her lower jaw.  The new teeth were going to take some getting used to.  She sipped from the straw as she looked at herself some more.  “I guess I won’t need to worry about cutting my hair anymore...”  she trailed off as she knocked on the hard bony plates that made up the top of her head.  

“Dragon type transformations can be some of the most taxing, but you seem to be recovering well!  Most people are out for days if they get Dragon, you’ve only been out for a few hours!”  Emily washed her hands as she spoke, “Do you know what you want to do?  Are you going to go through most of the training?”

Shaking her head, Anna sat up and judged how dizzy she felt.   She hated sitting for too long. “I’ve always been Adamantly stubborn, but I want to go into rescue work.  Helping people stranded, or from natural disasters.” She hopped to her feet and was pleased there was no dizziness.  A voice sounded from a side of the room.

“That’s dumb! Anyone can do that, why not become a fighter on the circuits, or a pro sports player! You can get rich easily!”  A slim young man came around the corner.  He was wearing simple blue jeans and a black T-shirt.  A shell necklace hung from his wiry neck, and his short brown hair had a short yellow spike sticking out of it.  His skin seemed bumpy and almost suburned by its pinkish hue.  “I’m Keith, and I may have got stuck with a Wurmple morph, but i’m still gonna be rich!  If you want you can decide to be my gf now, to save yourself the fear of missing the opportunity.”  He walked forward and put an arm around Anna, trying to pull her close, a smug grin on her face.

Something took over for Anna and she twisted her head, biting hard on his arm.  Her new sharp fangs and he flinched away.  “OW!  What the hell bitch?”  as he backed away a few drops of blood hit the white tile floor.  “You're underbite makes you ugly anyway!”  he turned and walked out of the room.  Emily called out after him

“Wait, someone might need to heal that!” she sighed and turned back.  “Well, i guess that counts as winning your first fight!   Don’t listen to him though, you’re still quite pretty!”  She smiled brightly and held up a clipboard.  “If you don’t mind, I just need to do some routine tests to check your vitals.  Anna nodded, a weird feeling in the back of her mind as the tests were run.  Is that what fighting would be like?  Would it always be that quick?  Don’t people get severely hurt, or sometimes die?  That was just against another DIP.  Wouldn’t a wild Pokemon be much more dangerous?  It was too late to back out now, but she would have to see what the future held!

[littleredroseonthevalley]

Confrontation - Kaitlyn

Summary: After much thinking, Emily decides that it is time to face the past. She will meet ten people who were and are a part of her life. Is she going to find what she is looking for? Or all she will achieve is more heartbreak?

Rating: M -  Not suitable for children or teens below the age of 16 with non-explicit suggestive adult themes, references to some violence, or coarse language.

Notes: Hello, everybody! Thanks for joining me for yet another chapter of Confrontation. We’re nearing the end, having only three more chapters ahead of us. Without further delay, here it is!

After a good night sleep, she left Illinois, heading south, to Texas. Emily was very much surprised Kaitlyn would go back home after her music career was finished, especially because her home was Dallas of all places, but there she was, and there Emily would go.

She always thought Dallas was the place lesbian punk rockers fled from, not retired at.

Her conversation with Zack made her rethink this whole exercise. After Texas, she had only one more stop in her cross-country trip, and then she would return to Northbridge, free of the heavy weight of her past.

But would she? “I don’t know what you told James, but it really did a turn on his head” was a phrase that circled Emily’s mind for good part of the last twenty-four hours. When she convinced herself into doing this tour, she told herself she wasn’t doing it only for her sake, but also of her former friends. She didn’t want to be forgiven, necessarily, she wanted to be forgotten, in a sense. To be a memory from a distant past.

With Chris and Becca, she achieved her goal, and she was still on the fence about Zack, but James seemed to be a resounding failure.

True, her approach had to be distinct from what she had used with Becca, Chris and Zack, and she felt that James had committed a much graver crime than any of the other three, but making the man fear his own shadow was also far from her initial goal.

What made matters worse is that, if James has done a grander offence, Kaitlyn took the cake. If Emily’s life was a tragic opera, James is the playwright and Kaitlyn is both the composer and the villain.

After a shameful defeat for Natasha’s Loose Pins at the Battle of Bands on their Sophomore year, Kaitlyn’s band fell apart. Partially because Amara moved to Great Britain, but also because the Asian girl was able to alienate her other bandmates with her single-minded determination to destroy Natasha and Emily herself.

With the defeat and the abandonment, Kaitlyn decided that if she couldn’t beat Natasha, she would join her, and entered Loose Pins as a songwriter and frontwoman. As a supreme marriage of their combined hatred for Emily, their first single was unsurprisingly a vilipend song, unapologetically called “Treacherous Cunt”.

Despite its unsavory title, and perhaps because of it, the song was a hit thorough America and overseas. The Loose Pins arose to immediate fame and fortune, and like it was usual on those occasions, its members decayed in debauchery. There wasn’t a single day on her senior year Emily wouldn’t hear or read about something either Kaitlyn or Natasha had done which was illegal or otherwise immoral.

And they kept at it, even after the debacle they had operated on Emily on her graduation night. They kept at it until, two years ago, disaster struck.

Rachel, who had followed Kaitlyn into the Loose Pins, died of overdose. No-one knew what kind of drug it was, but Emily had a hunch it was something heavy and virtually unknown.

After what happened, the Loose Pins broke apart. While Natasha kept touring as a solo performer, the other musicians at the band, Kaitlyn included, retired into a quiet life, away from the spotlights.

A quiet life indeed. In fact, Kaitlyn was the hardest amongst their former roommates to find. Emily had to enlist Sebastian’s help to have any leads, and it took him over three months to be able to coax out of Madison and Becca anything useful.

As the pilot’s voice announces they would be landing in Dallas within minutes, Emily decided it was best not to dwell much on what-could-be’s. Her flight to California was six hours away, it would be best if she went to hear what Kaitlyn had to say and be done with it.

Reclaiming her small-sized baggage, she rushed her way through the Arrivals lobby and jumped into a cab. Emily was anxious, and the best way to deal with that emotion was to just jump into it and leave little time for thinking.

The address provided was of a coffee shop in downtown Fort Worth, by the Water Garden. She paid the cabby and walked over to the door.

The place was rather small, but cozy. The decoration was done in a light brown, the color of café au lait. The barista stood at the far back of the place, while the rest of the salon was dotted with wooden tables and mismatched armchairs and sofas.

It is after ten o’clock, the morning rush was gone, and it was yet too soon for lunch. The shop was empty, save for a rustling under the barista counter. Emily approached it, but the person made no movement as in to acknowledge her presence.

There is a bell by the register, which Emily supposed it was for that exact same purpose, so she rung it.

The person who rose to her feet was exactly who Emily was expecting, but, judging from her face, the feeling was not mutual.

“You!” She said, terrified. “What are you doing here?!”

“Hello, Kaitlyn.” She responded. “I supposed I couldn’t expect a warm welcoming, since last time we’ve met you ripped my hair with your bare hands, but that’s really pushing it.”

The Asian woman, however, seemed not to be listening a single word she said. Her breath has shallow, and she seemed to be hyperventilating. “This isn’t happening! It cannot be!”

Zack hadn’t prepared her to the possibility Kaitlyn would become a nutcase. The ruckus seemed to startle some employees back at the kitchen, as soon enough someone emerged from there to attend to the ailing woman.

“Kaitlyn! Are you alright?” She said, frantic, kneeling over to the crying Asian on the floor.

“Annisa!” Emily recognized the other employee. “What are you doing here?”

“Emily!” She seemed stupefied to see her. “Oh my God. Wait here, please. I’ll take Kaitlyn inside for a minute.”

About half an hour later, Emily sat on a chair by the front window of the coffeeshop. The blinds were folded, as the store had to be closed. Annisa emerged from the kitchen with a tray and two cups.

She offered her a cup. “She’ll be out in a second.”

Emily took one. “Thanks.” She breathed out and took a sip. “What… What happened here?”

“Kaitlyn’s been troubled since Rachel’s death.” Annisa said, softly. “About everything that happened, since you and then Natasha’s craziness, it all worked a number in her head. She improved a lot since then, but I guess seeing you in person is still a trigger.”

“That’s concerning to hear…” Emily mumbled, thoughtful.

“Excuse me for asking, but why are you here?” The brunette asks, in a low, apologetic tone. “I know you aren’t hellbent on revenge or something like that, but why? And why now?”

The redhead really didn’t want to answer this question, but she supposed that it was better to tell Annisa rather than to tell Kaitlyn in her fraught state of mind.

She slipped a pink envelope through the table. “I addressed it to Kaitlyn, but I suppose she wouldn’t be able to take the news. You can have it, and you can tell her whenever you feel she’s ready.”

Annisa looked warily at Emily and at the rosy paper on the table. “Okay… I’ll see to it.”

She, then, picked up her purse. “I better leave. I won’t be getting what I want from Kaitlyn, and I suppose that I already done what I came here for.”

“Are you sure, Emily?” The young woman asked, with pleading shiny eyes.

The redhead smiled sweetly at her. “I am, Annisa. Thank you for having me, I’m sorry for disturbing your work day.” She breathed out. “Thank you for taking care of her. You’re a loyal friend.”

“Good-bye, Emily.” She responded, with a brilliant smile of her own. “Don’t be a stranger.”

Said woman then left the store and hailed a cab back to the airport. When she was far away enough, that she was reassure anyone but the taciturn driver could either see or hear her, Emily cried.

She cried for Kaitlyn, who was impaired. She cried for her former friends, all with their own personal tragedies. She cried because she didn’t know whether she was opening old wounds or healing them. But, most of all, she cried for herself.

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Confrontation - Masterlist

[ourkarlanicoleuniverse]

Sweet Nothing (MHA Staff AU Fanfiction)

Chapter 17 

Warnings: None, swf. 

Pairing: Shouta Aizawa x OC (Mai Montoya, Pro Hero Zion) 

If you want to read of the events before this chapter here is the Master List 😊

"I want you to train me to use One for All, especially since Gran Torino can't." Midoriya's words rang through like a gong.

"I don't have a teaching..."

"A teaching license, I know. But Gran Torino told me that it would be best if you trained me because of how much you struggled to control your own quirk. Plus, apparently, you can reverse any injuries I might get from training." The boy mumbled the last part. His freckles a bright hot pink as he bashfully interrupted me.

"He told you I could do that?" I raised my eyebrows and crossed my arms as he nodded. I let out an annoyed sigh, "I don't use it often because it drains me the most. It's pretty much Recovery Girl's quirk. I've had it since I was fifteen. But why she let me have it isn't that important."

"It's because she was afraid that one day you would be in a situation like All Might's, and she didn't want to worry about you not being able to heal." I am going to kill Gran Torino because of his big mouth.

"Is there anything else the old man mentioned to you before I continue to tell you no to training you?"

"No, not really. He said that I would have to pester until you said yes. And to tell you that you were the same way as me in high school, so it's only karma that I am in your life now." He let out a breathy nervous chuckle while shifting between feet and scratching his head.

My mouth was left slightly agape, "I was not! I can't believe he said that! I was a very responsible kid." I folded my arms and started mindlessly tapping my foot.

"You know your reaction doesn't help you, Ms. Montoya..."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. I am not training you. I already told All Might that I wasn't going to, and Gran Torino can't think I am going to change my mind because he said so." I turned my nose up, trying to stand my ground.

"Is that a bruise on your neck?" I opened my eyes and realized that Aizawa's capture weapon fell a little from where it covered my hickey.

I quickly went to cover it, "Nope. It's a burn from using my curling iron when I was getting ready for my date."

"Date? With who? Mr. Aizawa?" Midoriya gave a little mischievous smirk and crossed his arms in a cocky manner. This was a different light this child normally stood in.

"No, not Mr. Aizawa." I glared.

"Could've fooled me. You guys seemed really close earlier." His smirk grew once he thought of an idea. "If you train me, no one will know about your 'burn,' and I will never bring up your date to the class."

"You're not going to sucker me into training you by blackmailing."

"Okay, then I'll tell the class about your hickey and have Mina pester you about it when you get back on campus." He shrugged and gave off an innocent smile. This brat is evil. "And on a final note, my mom trusts you a lot, so who better person to have train me than someone my mom knows won't have me in danger?"

I can't believe I am going to let this boy blackmail me... I sighed and gave him a playful shrug while making a mental note not to underestimate the kid. "Fine, I'll do it if it means that it keeps your mom sane. BUT you have to do as I say, and we train before or after school hours on campus, so no one finds out that you are getting extra help from me. I can't risk getting in trouble training All Might's successor."

The boy gave me a gleeful grin with excitement in his eyes, "Thank you!"

He went for a hug, and I simply patted his soft forestry hair, still slightly annoyed, "Yeah, yeah, you're welcome. For a nice kid, you can sure be evil if you want to be."

"Gran Torino said it was the only way you would respond with a yes if I had something I can use against you. But I couldn't think of anything until I saw the hickey. Don't worry. I wasn't going to say anything anyway. Can I write all the information about your quirk in my notebook while we train?"

He pulled back from hugging me slightly to look at my face waiting for an answer, "All Might and Gran Torino hinted a few times that your quirk was a touchy subject for you, so I wanted to ask before."

"Let's train first, and I'll see what I think after the first few sessions, okay?" I pulled his hair back out of his face to see his emerald eyes.

He brightly smiled and nodded while pulling me in closer to show his gratitude more. "Thank you again. I am going to go back to the room with Todoroki and Iida, okay?" I simply grinned and nudged him that way as we started to walk back. Now how am I going to tell Toshinori that he got his wish? I can already hear him saying, "I told you that it was the best thing for you to train, Young Midoriya. I'm glad you came to your senses." Ugh...

_________

"I'm glad we came to an agreement about Young Midoriya. He was pleased to have you train him, Mai." My old mentor smiled brightly and pridefully as he went in for a sip of his tea.

"Yeah, did he mentioned that Gran Torino told him to blackmail me," I grumbled on the couch in the teacher's lounge while munching on some cookies.

"You needn't pout, sweetie. And yes, he did. He also mentioned the hickey." I nearly choked. I looked at Toshinori, mortified how all the wrong people know about the stupid hickey Vlad left. I was met with a raised eyebrow with the side of knowing sunken blue crystals staring at me. "I am not judging. I am actually glad to hear that you and Aizawa made amends and moved past what happened in high school..."

"He said it was Aizawa?!" I half shrieked half coughed because of the cookie still lodged in my mouth.

"Was it not Aizawa?" The skeleton of a man before me scrunched his eyebrows. He then leaned over to pat my back lightly to help with the coughing.

"No, it wasn't." I grabbed hold of his arm to let him know I was okay and wasn't choking anymore. "I went on a date with Vlad. We've been having a thing for a little while, so we decided actually to go on a date, and it almost went further, but then I had to go to the hospital. The hickey was just..."

"I got the memo. You don't need to explain any further. Please." He grumbled the 'please' part, probably hating this as much as I do.

"Can we just agree to never, and I mean NEVER speak of my love life or anything like that? I was already embarrassed enough when Aizawa and MIdoriya mentioned it at the hospital." I puffed my cheeks out and mumbled.

"Yeah, no, never again." And queue the awkward silence.

We were avoiding eye contact. Suddenly our cups of tea became the most interesting thing ever. "So, I heard that Nezu wanted to revamp the final exam... I hope he's not planning anything too difficult for the students."

"The teachers are supposed to have a meeting about it later today, so I'll keep you updated about what happens. Do you want any help with how to train Midoriya?"

I shook my head, "No, I have a few ideas up my sleeve. But thank you. If Nezu or even Aizawa, try and make the practical part of the exam harder than it already is, please make sure that the counselors and parents won't be happy." Toshinori simply just nodded.

Suddenly my phone kept buzzing in my pocket. I looked at it, and luckily it was just a video call from my mom and not any unwanted callers. I answered and immediately was met with, "Wow que milagro that the great Mai Montoya finally answered her mother's calls." There she was, the curly-haired doctor, Mia Emily Montoya.

"Hi, mom. Sorry I've been really busy with my students." I sighed as the woman on the screen did nothing but glare. "I'm with Toshi, see!" I moved my phone to show Toshinori to my mom, to which he reacted with a small blush and wave.

My mom's glare didn't subside. "Mai, I called you to see you, not Toshinori Yagi. Please move back to your face."

"That's a little harsh, not even a little hello to him." I gave a little playful pout, which made my mom more annoyed, "Okay, fine, here's my lovely face. What do you want to talk about?"

"Oh, nothing much. I recently got a new tv for the living room... What do you think I want to talk about, Mai. I want to know what has my one and only daughter has been doing since she doesn't respond to me ever."

"Well, I am at work right now."

"You don't look busy."

"That's not... you know what, nevermind. I have been counseling a class of 20 wonderful students that are aspiring to be pro heroes. I have also been sightseeing in the city since I haven't been here for years."

"Is that it?"

"Pretty much. Nothing too scandalous sorry."

"How are my boys? I miss Hizashi and Shouta." Why am I not surprised that she would ask about them?

"They actually work at the school as teachers. Hizashi teaches English." I gave a tight lip smile.

"And my pretty boy? What does he teach? He's always been so good with children." My mom's eyes lit up, just mentioning Aizawa. It was a little sickening.

"He's one of the homeroom teachers for the first year hero course students."

"So that means you guys work together? Since you counsel the hero course students?"

"Yes, I counsel his class specifically."

And with that, my mom had a Cheshire smile all over her face. "That's good to hear. You guys were always the pair. I don't know why you guys stopped being friends, but it's good to see that you are back together. Tell him I said hi and that I miss him, will you? I would love to hear from him. Is he still as handsome as he was when he was a boy?"

"I wouldn't know, mom. But I'll let him know that you still like him a lot. I'm sure it will brighten the grump's day."

"You're not blind, Mai. I am sure you can see if Shota was good looking or not. You just don't want to say he is." She pursed her lips, vexing me.

"That's not true. I just don't pay attention to people's looks, and he's a coworker, so it's unprofessional nonetheless. Right, Toshi?" I looked over to him and silently pleaded for him to agree and switch the subject when the topic of discussion walked in.

"Ms. Montoya, Sero taped up Mineta again, and I don't want to deal with it, so can you go tell him to take him down?" The man walked past us and went straight to the coffee machine.

"Was that my boy?" My mom perched up, "Shota, come over here. I want to see your face!" Aizawa stiffened and then hunched over, slowly turning to look at me with an annoyed face.

I gave him an innocent smile, "My mom called, and I wasn't doing anything, so I answered."

He blinked a few times before taking a deep breath and walking over to the couch, and leaned over my shoulder. He masks his annoyance with a charming grin, opposite to the creepy, sadistic smile he gives the students. "Hello, Dr. Montoya."

"Hello, dear! How are you? I hope my daughter hasn't been giving you a hard time?" Excuse me?

"No, she's been treating me well. If anything, I'm the one giving her a hard time. She's always working with the students because of me." He admitted, "But she and my students adore each other, so I don't think it's a big issue."

"I see you still have your hair in your face. It got so long! And now you have facial hair! You look like a grown man." My mom clicked her tongue.

"He is a grown man..." I pointed.

"I'm just saying he looks old. I remember him having such a bad case of a babyface. So it's odd to see him look his age." She defended. "You also don't look like you get a lot of sleep. You better be sleeping, sweetheart."

"I get enough sleep, but thank you for worrying." I couldn't help but scoff. Aizawa then glared at me, "Did I say something that amused you?"

"Yeah, you saying you get enough sleep. Mom, this man teaches, but he does patrols at night, so he takes naps in a sleeping bag at work. I'm normally the one that has to wake him up." Aizawa flicked my forehead, "Ow, what was that for?"

"No one likes a snitch." I stuck my tongue out at him, "Stop acting like a child. You're almost thirty." He shook his head and turned his attention to my phone, "Okay, maybe she does give me a hard time sometimes."

From the corner of my eye, I saw Toshinori looking at us with a warm grin. Both Toshinori and my mom began to chuckle after a few seconds of silence, "I'm glad you guys can get along so well." My mom finally said after catching a breath.

"This is them on a daily basis, Mia," Toshinori spoke up. "Your daughter tries to act like she's a mature adult, but once she's with her old friends, she reverts to her fifteen-year-old self. And then the rest of them start to do the same. It's contagious."

"That's cute." My mom smiled. "Well, I am going to let you go since you're at work. It was nice to talk a little finally. And Shota, you grew to be a very handsome man like I suspected. But please dress less like a homeless man."

"It's..." I moved my left hand in front of his face and shook my head, motioning him to stop before saying anything because I knew that it wouldn't stop my mom from calling him a hobo.

"I'll talk to you soon, baby. Please be careful. I don't want to see you getting hurt like Shota and your other coworker did when those villains came onto the school. I am grateful to see you are well, Shota sweetie."

Aizawa gave my mom a tight lip smile and put his right hand on my head, "Yeah, that's mostly due to Mai being on my ass 24/7 during my recovery. I have her to thank along with the doctors and Recovery Girl."

"Like I said, Mai. Always the pair. Toshinori, take care of our girl, okay? Don't let a thing happen to her while she's there! Bye te quiero, mi Sión."

"Love you too, mom." I breathed out a content sigh once I ended the call.

"And you kept complaining about not wanting to talk to your mom." Aizawa patted my head and went back to the coffee machine.

As he left me, it finally dawned on me what he came in here for in the first place, "Mr. Aizawa?"

"Yes, Mai?" His tone was mixed with a sing-song voice and an exasperated voice.

"SERO TAPED UP MINETA AND YOU JUST LEFT THE ROOM!" The six-foot-nothing man's eyes widened while Toshinori just awkwardly sipped his tea.

Aizawa then activated his quirk for some unknown reason, "Why are you using your quirk?" I tilted my head and scrunched my face in confusion.

"You turned on yours first!"

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did, Mai. Your eyes were blue, and your hair was starting to glow." Toshinori calmly said, still drinking his tea.

"Oh." I shrugged calmly, deactivating my quirk, "Oh well."

Aizawa looked astonished, "Oh well? You should have a better handle of your quirk by now!"

"Well, I can't help it if someone pisses me off and I let my control go. Anyhoo, I'll go help Mineta out since you won't." I got up from the couch, smoothed out my skirt, and started to make my way over to the class. Not without a final word to Aizawa, "I don't feel comfortable being the one that has to deal with Mineta all the time. He's always drooling and staring. You should be the one dealing with him."

"I figured one of these days you'll blow up on him the way you just did with me. But I guess not." Aizawa shrugged and sipped his coffee while heading over to his desk. Yeah, sure. Like that will stop the little pervert.

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

Tag List

@multifandoms916​ @thatgirlwithcamera​ @inumorph​ @mel-sanch​

[overwatchochelp]

Overwatch OC Review: Phuong Nguyen, “Phuong”

Sent in by @kokizuki! @chiefpharah! Review under read more.

Appearance: Phuong is 5'3" tall with black hair and near black eyes. her default skin is her stage magicians outfit! she wears a dark violet jacket with tailcoats over a white button up, accompanied with dark violet slacks. her accessories include: a violet + red velvet top hat, a velvet bow tied under her collar, a yellow rose, pearl earrings, and a belt full of canisters.

Effective design! It certainly matches Overwatch’s charm for being thematic and detailed.

she got her gauntlets and leg prosthetics from her former circus to complete her stage outfit. her gauntlets are hard light compatible, and she uses them for her magic acts, including the production of her throwing knives (her standard weapon).

Full name: Phuong Nguyen (both common Vietnamese names)

Callsign: it’s just Phuong! she’s a performing magician, so unless you strongly recommend a stage name, i want her to be addressed by her first name

Judging by how she styles herself, I think she’d be suited for a bold stage name. Performing magicians always present themselves with an air of superiority and awesomeness- it’s how they win the audience. 

At least, that’s my understanding of performing magicians. “Phuong” is still fine too.

Age: 29 years old

Sex: female

Sexuality, romance: a lesbian very comfortable in her sexuality! :> i ship her with Tracer and Emily romantically, but it’s not canon in her lore because i simply can’t find a way to connect them story-wise?

Both at once? So it’s a polyamorous lesbian triangle. It will be difficult to pull it off since it’s not confirmed (according to my information) if they are open to polyamory, so if you want it canon you’ll have to push your headcanons on canon characters. The shipping is harmless though.

Nationality: Vietnamese

Ethnicity: Vietnamese, as well!

Language/s: Vietnamese, English, Russian (from her former work)

Base of operations: Saigon, Vietnam (but she travels frequently due to her work)

Occupation: Phuong’s a solo-performing magician! she built up her reputation from her former circus by making acts primarily with hard light, a new practice in the entertainment world. as a very well-known celebrity from both her talent and charm, she often tours to spread as much happiness and hope as she physically can.

Affiliations: Dove’s Eye Circus (formerly)

GAME WISE

Health: 200

Armor: 0

Shields: 0

Role: offense! i picture her as a ★★-difficulty fast-moving player who does well at close combat, due to her higher melee damage, and someone who can easily jump into the fight when a bulk of her team is already there. she’s extremely mobile at a level similar to Genji, especially with her passive. an effective Phuong playing style is using height advantage to use Clapperclaw and getting as close to use melee. (as a lil heads up though, most of my worry about her is her move set being too defense-y, so additional attention would be greatly approached!)

Weapons: her main weapon is knives she rapidly produces with her hard light gauntlets! her primary fire is Light Toss (left mouse), which is long range. its default is throwing 2 knives at a time, but it’s chargeable (like Zenyatta’s secondary fire) to have a set of 2/4/6 knives. the charge time for each stage is .2 seconds, output is 8/14/28 damage, and reload time is 1.7 seconds.

Secondary fire: none

Melee: she slashes with two knives, with an output of 60 damage (that might be too high though?)

Maybe so. I’m not sure about the usual melee damage range of Overwatch heroes, but I believe cutting it down to 45 damage should do it.

Abilities:

Review posted in your updated ability post!

- passive: High Jump (due to her prosthetics, Phuong is able to jump higher distances, accessing heights others may not be able to reach; can also grip walls for .5 seconds)

- shift: Clapperclaw (at a high distance in midair, Phuong directs her fall at her target, damaging them with her claws; 50 damage, 3 second cooldown)

- e key: Bullet Catch (can catch bullets/projectiles with her gauntlets, but does not direct them back, kind of like a half Genji deflect; duration 3 seconds, 8 second cooldown)

- right mouse: Dove’s Ditty (short range, healing for one ally (attaches to closest teammate, prefers teammate with lowest hp), heals 50 health per 3 seconds, 15sec cooldown)

note: i’ve listed three abilities, but i was thinking that the additional ability makes up for her lack of secondary fire (like Doomfist).

Ultimate: Phuong’s ult is Chainsaw Trick, which traps enemies in a radius within hologram boxes she creates with hard light. In the next sequence of her animation, she pulls a chainsaw out of her hat to attack her trapped enemies. The chainsaw has enhanced damage with 95 damage per swing. The enemies that aren’t currently being sliced by her chainsaw are stunned for a 5 second duration.

Signature quote: hostile, self ult line is “Ready for my showstopper?” and friendly ult line is “Tune in for the show!”

Skins: her rare skins are based off suits of cards! she also has two epic skins: Rock Dove (which is based on her dove/magic theme) and Lotus (the national flower of Vietnam).

her legendary skins include: Ao Dai (a traditional Vietnamese dress meant for the Lunar New Year Event), Skvader/Wolpertinger (not yet designed; based off the similar mythological winged rabbits), and Prophetess/Soothsayer (not yet designed; meant to be fantasy sorcerer kind of clothes).

I love the inclusion of Vietnamese cultural elements. Overwatch is a highly culturally diverse organization and it makes me glad to see people make use of that fact.

LORE WISE

Bio(short): i’m not very confident in my full bio, so i held off from making a short one!

Bio(full): she grew up in the first Omnic Crisis in Saigon, Vietnam. her parents were poor farmers, and she spent her childhood helping them + going back and forth from the city running errands for extra cash. as a young adult in her 20s, she found work in Dove’s Eye Circus after her enthusiasm for their work was reviewed by the ringleader. when she was taken in, she did some maintenance work helping the circus travel (Dove’s Eye performed in a route from Vietnam to Russia).

How did the first Omnic Crisis affect her in Saigon? You can also reason why it didn’t, but you better be good. The global omnic uprising isn’t exactly something anyone can sleep over. 

the circus carried and left cargo at certain pit stops which confused Phuong, but she paid no mind to it (the circus was kind enough to gift her a job so why question it?). after receiving a shipment of hard light tech, the circus taught Phuong to create magic acts with it. since hard light was still incredibly new to the public (i estimate this is around the time Vishkar introduced hard light), Phuong became a sensation w the circus’s already existing popularity.

How did a travelling circus acquire such cutting edge technology? If it is around the time hard light technology was unveiled the world, then I don’t believe Vishkar’d let any little bit just slip away from them.

she enjoyed her work immensely, making people smile as she did when she first saw the circus, and developed a very attached loyalty to the circus. in a stop to Russia, while dropping off shipments, her circus was violently attacked by a Talon branch to steal their cargo. in the fight, Phuong got blasted by a grenade and lost her legs from the knee down.

You can probably align this with my earlier point. Instead of a Talon team, it could be criminal mercenaries under the employ of Vishkar.

she had to stay in recovery for weeks under the medical care of the circus staff, and once she was given prosthetics, she fell even deeper in her loyalty to Dove’s Eye.

How so? What drew her closer to Dove’s Eye, seeing replacements of her loss? Or is it the realization of how important Dove’s Eye really is to her? Is it from reeling from the heat of battle did she understand her love for the circus?

when she recovered though, she couldn’t let go of the Talon attack and the shifty business the staff had when transferring goods to and from stops. after some snooping through logbooks and laptops, she learned that the circus was illegally distributing + selling, and even stealing, tech and weapons for money. page after page, screen after screen, she found herself horrified that she was associated with such a corrupt organization. however, her extreme loyalty to the circus made her reluctant to think of resisting. despite her newly-gained knowledge, she not only went along w their illegal activity, but also cooperated with them, as the staff knew of Phuong’s revelations. she helped them transfer their goods through strictly negotiations, though she sometimes got into physical fights in the name of self defense and defense of her coworkers.

Admittedly, it does take a lot for someone’s loyalty and trust in a group that feels like home to them to waver in the face of a terrible truth. However, it doesn’t feel like you adequately established her loyalty. How did she grow to love the circus? Her job? Did her fellow performers feel like family? Did she enjoy the constant moving? What made her so loyal?

What led her to cooperate with something she found so hideous? Did she figure she would get punished? Did the punishment weigh more to her than the morally upright path?

Phuong continued w her magic acts, which gave her comfort in the suddenly unfamiliar environment she placed so much trust in. when the Second Omnic Crisis broke out, Phuong had extreme guilt about how much her circus was contributing to the new war in Russia through their distributions of tech and weapons to both sides. with information she fought for and stole from the ringleader, she exposed the hell out of her circus and was an integral part to their shutdown. from then on, Phuong performed solo and rose to be an international celebrity from her experience and charm

Personality: Phuong is a very coolheaded person who is dedicated to her craft and life mission. her life mission? to spread hope and happiness to those around her, no matter the cause. and she takes it extremely seriously, making her a very altruistic and charitable person. she takes it to the point where her obsession causes her to neglect her own needs and wants (but i’ll save that for later! :>)

like i’ve mentioned before, Phuong’s a successful magician and entertainer, so she’s naturally a charismatic and people pleasing person. what kinda makes her stand out to her fans though is the extent of compassion and exhaustion she’ll push herself for her fans. she’s on tour often and is constantly trying to think of new tricks to satisfy her audience and is always trying to make her fans smile and laugh a lil. she tends to be hands on w her fans, frequently having meet and greets and runs past her own security to high five a fan. maybe two. she’s as involved as she is because she solely believes that her life purpose is to give people hope and happiness. (take note: she feels she’s FATED for this, it’s not just an interest) (also, the repetition of hope comes from her dove theme!)

Beautiful character ;-;

with company, she’s a good conversationalist with the right amount of snark and is pretty chill. she likes to flirt and tease and finds nothing in it, so she doesn’t get flustered by it when other people do the same. she will, however, be very grateful and almost shy if you tell her how much you respect her work and spirit.

Not too shy I hope! A magician’s best quality is their confidence!

Relationships: i don’t mention Overwatch in my bio? i think she could be recruit material due to her knowledge of hard light, so these are possibilities if i decided to add Overwatch to her bio! these would affect in-game interactions too, i suppose

- Tracer and Emily: Phuong very much admires Lena as the embodiment of compassion and determination she is! Phuong also loves Emily for her cheeriness, and the three are just a bunch of big ol lesbians

- Symmetra: Phuong’s paid attention to Satya’s hard light work through media (since Phuong also uses hard light for magician work), and although she admires Satya for her skill, she feels sorry for her. Phuong herself has been tied to a criminal circus she dedicated her life to, so she feels some sympathy to Satya’s misguided loyalty to Vishkar.

Looks like it’s a distant relationship. Which brings to mind: how would Phuong try to approach Satya? Knowing her own troubled past, what would she come up with?

- Zarya: she finds Zarya very admirable due to her strength and how she gave up fame for her country, and Zarya finds Phuong interesting due to her beginnings in a Russo-Viet circus. they could sometimes be found talking about the beauty of Russia or working out together.

- Lúcio and D.va: Phuong is also a celebrity, so she’s sometimes chatting it up with them!

i can list a ton of other interactions, but basically she gets along with most people. in her canon lore, she admires Overwatch for their core motivation to uphold peace (and has a little bit of a crush on Tracer since she’s the poster girl). she also has an opinion on Talon, but in that she absolutely despises the destruction and harm they cause wherever they go and also that y'know. they kind of demolished her legs

Strengths: as previously stated, she’s not only hardworking but also a huge people pleaser to those she respects. because of this, she’s willing to perform to her extent to complete any task given to her, and maybe a lil more if she’s eager. Phuong is also a charismatic person and finds it easy to get along with other people, allowing her to work in a team and to draw people to her. physically, she’s an alert person and is quick on her feet, ready to slice and dice anytime.

Weaknesses: she’s willing to work to her extent, but that commonly means beyond her physical extent. she drives herself to exhaustion if left unattended and can sometimes become paranoid, making her waste more energy and ammo spent on her fear. Phuong is also an easily manipulated person, in that she realizes she’s being manipulated but allows it to go on due to her obsession with pleasing people. though it’s easy for her to focus on tasks, she also finds it hard to commit herself to people themselves, due to her complications with misplaced loyalty in Dove’s Eye. she finds herself distrustful of strangers and coworkers alike at times, tensed for them to reveal some horrible truth harming others. to somewhat cope with this, she tends to tease to feel “unattainable” and play hard to get with people who want to know her past friendly coworkers.

Glad to see the terrible, two-faced aspect of totally giving to others made manifest in this character.

Likes: she absolutely loves birds, especially pigeons and doves! she finds them extremely charming and finds delight in the coincidence that their symbolism corresponds with her life mission. she also takes an interest reading up in modern technology, especially in the realm of hard light (though she isn’t picky). romcoms are also her thing, since she loves the idea of, well, love and how it can make people happy. she also appreciates the comedy and often stores it in her mind to spice up her magic shows.

Dislikes: she is not a fan of overly authoritative, bossy people. she gets that there needs to be order, but if the person in command doesn’t deserve the respect in her mind, she’s very passive aggressive. on a more material side, she finds dolls uncomfortable in that they’re always in one expression and look kinda fake. and wooden floors. she loves how they look but can’t stand the idea of walking on them and scratching them up with her prosthetics.

Hobbies: as predictable as it is, bird watching! she loves writing down the birds she sees in a lil logbook and feeding them if she can. even when she’s not on a bird watching quest, you can bet she’ll whip out her phone to take a pic of a parakeet in a bird store she just finds adorable. Phuong also likes to dance and collect little things. she just got off her button high and is now collecting rocks

Extra: her general theme is magic and doves, especially their symbolism, so i hope that was apparent in my submission! but other than that, i think that’s it! thank you so so much for reading this in advance!! <3

Verdict:

I find Phuong to be a beautifully fleshed out character! She is exceptionally well designed, especially with the gauntlets and prosthetics. I would recommend you add some gold accents on her suit and hat, because the abrupt change from the golden tech to her dark purple clothing can be a little jarring. Perhaps some gold stripes on her shoulders, pant legs, and hat brim ought to do it. 

“Recommend” is probably more in a personal taste here. The design stands on its feet well enough without further changes! (I just realized that might be a backhanded remark at Phuong’s... Uh.)

Her backstory stands well enough too, but some lack of detail makes it falter. See if you can try rewriting the climax of it, where Phuong finds out the Truth. You’ll find you’ll be able to sufficiently establish details this time around, I’m sure.

Her character is absolutely well done! The consistent inclusion of her general theme is a fine touch. Her quality of appearing perfectly amicable and peaceful on the outside while being perfectly not on the inside is quite well established too. It’s good if you put this detail into the conclusion (as it is) of her backstory. Perhaps it should go on to enumerate how her experience with Dove’s Eye changed her being.

Overall, Phuong is an excellent character. I recommend going over this sheet again and try rewriting some of the backstory. It has been the one I considered more thoroughly than the others. Good luck, and thank you very, very much for waiting. I know I’ve taken so much from your patience, and am very thankful you still hit me up after a long, long while. 

Cheers.

-Mod Jager

[fabulouspatsystone]

This is for @xfficchallenges “the fic you’d never write” challenge. I’m not a writer, I haven’t written anything substantial so far but I think those challenges are fun. So what would I never write? Since I’m not a big fan of the whole Emily-storyline (I know, I’m sorry...but I think it was unnecessary and that girl is giving me the creeps) that’s what I’m going for. Also, I’m not great in the angst-department so here we go...sorry for the mess, I’m always happy about feedback. Enjoy! Sacrifice

Emily opens her eyes with a barely audible sigh, looking around the sterile hospital room full of beeping devices and flickering green and yellow lights. Awoken by the slight movement of her little girl, Scully shoots up next to her already on full alert. “How are you feeling, sweetie? Are you ok?” Emily nods, fixating her gaze on Scully’s lips. Scully can feel the fear and uncertainty radiating from Emily’s whole appearance, lying next to her in bed, so tiny with a damaged body and soul. Smiling reassuringly, she strokes her hair and cheek whispering “I’ll be right back, don’t be scared.” As she gets up and walks to the door of the quarantine cell, she spots Dr. Vinet who is already outside checking on Emily’s data. “She seems to get better. Her latest blood levels look promising and her heart rate is decreasing to a normal level as well. We will have more data after the next MRI scan, that is if you agree to it Miss Scully.” “Yeah of course, but give her a few hours.” “Sure.” When she turns around, Emily has fallen asleep again looking displaced and helpless like the one living human left in a completely engineered colorless world of medical equipment and soulless surroundings. It breaks her heart, but she must keep hoping.

Outside in the hall, Mulder is waiting for her glancing up with tired eyes. Scully lets herself fall down on the chair next to him, looking down on her hands. Sometimes he gets it and knows when to stay silent and just be there for her. Wrapping his strong arm around her shoulders, he softly pushes her petite form into his side and she willing surrenders her body to his embrace. When she puts her head on this shoulder, he can feel her shedding soundless tears.

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

“She’s recovering, Mulder! The infestation of her nervous system and her bloodstream is retreating, her immune system is still weak but she is actually getting better.” “That’s great news, Scully. Do we know what’s causing the healing process?” “No, not yet but the lab is working on it.”“Miss Scully?” Susan Chambliss, the social worker, is making her way down the hospital corridor, “I just got off the phone with Judge Maibaum and he made his decision to grant you temporary guardianship over Emily until we’re through with the complete process of gaining full custody.” Scully is just staring at the woman in front of her, not being able to move much less say something. “What exactly does that mean?” Mulder asks moving closer next to Scully. “Well, Miss Scully is assigned legal guardian for Emily until a final decision is made whether the court sees her fit as parent for her daughter.” Turning her attention back to Scully she explains in a soft voice “Miss Scully, you are allowed to take Emily home if you wish to do so and you are entitled to make decisions concerning her medical treatment all under supervision of Child Protective Services. If you plan on leaving the jurisdiction of San Diego County with Emily and go back to Washington, you will get another social worker to support you during your custody trial.” “Oh my god I can’t believe it…” Scully is sobbing, visibly losing a ton of weight off of her shoulders. “Believe it Miss Scully” Chambliss states smiling “You can sign the documents as soon as you’re ready. Just give me a call at my office.” She softly touches Scully’s shoulder and leaves. “I’m so happy for you, Scully” Mulder’s voice sounds warm and a little exhausted. As she is looking up, Scully finds Mulder’s eyes, slowly puts her arms around his neck and breathes a hoarse “Me too” before she lets her forehead fall onto his chest.

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

On his way back to Washington Mulder already knows that this is the end. She hasn’t said anything and she may not even know it yet, but it’s over. She cannot stay with him! Admitting that to himself feels like the hardest thing Mulder ever had to do. Scully is now the mother of a little girl in desperate need of her full care and attention. She cannot go chasing monsters in the dark with him anymore. He knows this is a selfish-asshole-kind-of-thing to think about now but he’s unable to keep his gut from tightening painfully. His way home from the airport is nothing more than a blur of distant city sounds and nameless faces ending in his dark empty apartment. The cold and familiar leather couch welcomes his body but his mind is galaxies away. The pure shrillness of his phone is pulling Mulder out of his haze of self-pity and lack of sleep. It’s Scully! Of course it’s Scully, because she somehow always knows when to call him and talk him out of his misery. Emily is getting stronger and they will be able to fly home the day after tomorrow. The day after tomorrow – in less than 48 hours from now Mulder will have to accept that everything is changing. 

Mulder has picked them up from the airport on Tuesday; he even bought supplies and a bed for Emily before they arrived. He was really sweet with the girl, making her laugh the whole way to Georgetown. Once they were settled in, he left the apartment.Today is Saturday! He hasn’t called; she hasn’t called. Neither of them knows what to say, but they have so much to talk about. Scully is busy organizing her new life with her daughter, building a home for Emily where she feels save and protected. Still, her thoughts drift to Mulder and their work, their unspoken promise to each other to look for the truth together, to be by the other one’s side, to have each other’s back. She is not going to keep that promise. She cannot risk her life on a daily basis anymore, Emily needs her. And she has no way of telling him. How are they going to go on? Will he be a family friend who stops by every now and then with pizza and a movie? It’s too dangerous. They cannot become a liability to him, his Achilles heel in the fight against a dark conspiracy. She will have to step back; she will have to lose her best friend to keep her daughter.

It’s been over a week. The silence is gut-wrenching and painful in its emptiness. It has never been that long. Aside from her abduction, they have never been apart for more than a few days; physically and mentally. They have never been speechless; not big on talking about certain things either but never speechless.Emily is asleep in her room, when Scully hears a familiar knock on the door. Her heart starts pounding, her mouth suddenly being incredibly dry and she is having trouble breathing. She knows exactly who is behind that wooden barrier keeping her from facing a bitter truth she will never be ready to fully accept. She opens the door feeling like opening the gate to an unknown abyss. Scully looks into his dark eyes for what feels like a million years but it is still not enough. He is not moving. She is not moving. Countless words are drifting in the atmosphere - unspoken in the space between them; no way in and no way out. 

“It’s over”

“I know”

He is the first to break the bond of their eyes, turning around and walking away, down the hall and out of her life. She is slowly closing the door to the last four years; never knowing what might have been.

[strongwomenarethebomb]

The scene when Alex talks To Emily and the talk with Maggie (minus the phone call interruption)

Ok, so this took me a while to write, but I hope you like it!

Here’s the link to read it on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/10159067/chapters/23118498

Alex had always had a sense of needing to protect the people she loved. She had always hated to see the people she cared about get hurt. And, she saw how disappointed Maggie was when Emily didn’t show up, even though she tried to hide it, because Alex knew Maggie. She knew the subtleties in Maggie’s expressions. She knew the way Maggie hid the hurt with a smile, and it pained her to see Maggie like that. It broke Alex’s heart to see Maggie’s smile, usually so genuine and full of joy, fail to reach her eyes.

So, when she saw how anxious Maggie was the entire time they were waiting in the restaurant, she couldn’t bear to just let Maggie go without answers. She had to do something about it. And she did. She remembered how Emily had mentioned that she was staying at the Baldwin, and so, the second she was free from work, she headed over. She didn’t even know what she was going to do, just that she wanted- no, needed- answers. When she finally got to the Baldwin, she spent at least half an hour constantly reconsidering and rethinking her decision to show up at the hotel. It was pretty stalker-like of her to show up at Emily’s hotel without a word, after all. Maybe this hadn’t been as good of an idea as she had previously thought.

But, just as she was about to leave, she looked up and there she was.

 “Emily,” Alex breathed, trying to look as confident as she could, so as not to let Emily see how anxious she was to be doing this.

 Emily hesitated for a split second before answering, “Alex, right?”

 “Yeah,” Alex took a deep breath and continued, “I wanted to come see you, wanted to… talk to you, just to see if-”

 But, before Alex could finish her thought, Emily cut her off, “Look, if this is about dinner…”

 “Why didn’t you show up?” Alex asked, emboldened by Emily’s hesitancy.

 “I should’ve, but… the whole situation, it just brought up too many painful memories.”

 At this, Alex was taken aback. How could this woman talk about painful memories when it was her fault that she and Maggie had broken up in the first place?

 “What about Maggie?” she asked, “All the things you said to her back then, that wasn’t painful?”

 “Anything that I said to her, she had coming.” Emily retorted, and Alex could tell she meant it.

 “She dedicated five years of her life to you, and you bailed on her,” Alex could not believe her ears. How could Emily be so callous as to hurt a woman who spent five years of her life building a relationship with her, and then turn around and say she deserved it?

 “I bailed on her?” Emily scoffed, “Seriously? That’s what- that’s what she told you? She cheated on me.”

 Alex’s heart dropped. Her mouth went dry, and her mind was racing, trying to comprehend how Maggie- her Maggie, the woman that she loved, could do such a thing.

 “Sorry, I- I didn’t know,” She looked down, unable to meet the eyes of the woman who was looking at her with sadness in her eyes, who Alex knew was telling the truth, because why wouldn’t she be, and Alex couldn’t think, and she couldn’t breathe, and she just needed to get out of there, she needed to get answers.

 “I- I shouldn’t have said anything… but, the truth is, I just… really wanna forget about it.” Emily was smiling at her sadly, but Alex could barely hear her, could barely look at her, because how could she have been so stupid as to come here thinking she knew the whole story, when she didn’t. How could she have once again, made the mistake of being bold, and once again, being rejected.

 “Sorry, I’m- I’m gonna go,” she just barely managed to choke out the words before she started walking, walking, walking, away from Emily, away from the harsh reality of what she had just discovered, away from having her world shattered, because how could it be that Maggie- Maggie, the woman that just this morning was dragging Alex to her yoga class, who’d spent most of that same yoga class taking Alex’s breath away with how stunning she looked and how focused she was, who’d spent most of the time walking back home flirting with Alex, just for an opportunity to see her smile, to pull her close, to plant a swift, soft kiss on her lips- had cheated on a woman that she claimed to love.

 Alex couldn’t figure out how the Maggie she knew could be the same person that had cheated on Emily all those years ago.

 So, when she got to her apartment, Alex took a deep breath. She decided to give Maggie the benefit of the doubt, or at least to just hear her out, and she tried to silence the intrusive thoughts in her mind, because all her biggest fears were coming to the surface. All her insecurities, all her doubts about ever being able to be happy without anything going wrong, were all bubbling up and getting ready to overflow.

 But Alex just tried to breathe. Breathe, like she had done this morning at yoga class. She unlocked her door, and she leaned on her counter, where her trusty bottle of whisky was sitting. She knew she probably shouldn’t take a drink, but she was pretty sure that this situation warranted at least one glass.

 Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She couldn’t bring herself to pour one out alone, not just yet. So, she sent a quick text to Maggie, just six words; “come over, we need to talk”, and she sat down and she thought.

 She thought about all the reasons Maggie would cheat, and she was surprised to find, that whatever her reasons were, she wasn’t mad at Maggie for cheating. She was just frustrated that Maggie hadn’t told her the truth, because she should have known that Alex was going to be there to support her no matter what. But, apparently, she didn’t.

 The more Alex thought about it, the more she noticed a pattern. This wasn’t the first time Maggie had kept something to herself. And, Alex realized that though she herself was new to a relationship like this, so was Maggie. Maggie had never had anyone that she could trust enough to tell this kind of stuff, so when it came to Alex, she didn’t know how to. So, Alex made a decision. She was not going to judge Maggie on her past. Instead, she was going to make sure Maggie didn’t repeat the same mistake in the future.

By the time Maggie got to her apartment, Alex had carefully thought out what she was going to say. As she heard the lock clicking open, she poured out two glasses of whisky and steeled herself for what was to come.

 “Hey,” said Maggie, closing the door, “What’s so urgent?”

 Alex set the bottle down and leaned on the counter, steadying herself.

 “I went to see Emily.” She explained simply.

 “What, why?” Maggie asked.

 “Well, I wanted to go talk to her after seeing how upset you were at the restaurant,” Alex stated, “I went… to go stick up for you.”

 “Alex-“ Maggie sighed, “It’s not your problem to fix.”

 Alex paused and looked at her girlfriend. She wanted a second before she confirmed her fears, before she dropped a bomb on Maggie.

 “You were never gonna really tell me that you cheated on her, were you,” she finally managed to say.

 Maggie scoffed disbelievingly and looked away briefly before stammering, “That wa- that was a long time ago. I did a horrible thing,” she frowned, “And I already feel bad about it, you want to bring it up? So, I can feel worse?”

 Maggie turned around and started to walk away towards the couch, and before Alex could lose her, she rounded the counter and explained, “No, no, no look. This isn’t about the fact that you cheated. Ok? We have all done dumb things.” She approached the couch with the two glasses of whisky, setting them down on the table as she continued, “This is about the fact that you don’t trust me enough to tell me the truth.”

 “I wanted to.” Maggie asserted.

 “Listen, I’ve thought a lot about this. And, you have a pattern of keeping things to yourself” Alex said pointedly, “You hid the truth about Emily, you made her seem like the bad guy, and then before that, you didn’t tell me what really happened when you came out to your parents, and how badly they reacted.”

 Alex could see that her words were hitting home with Maggie in the way that she was trying to keep herself together, in the way she was struggling to keep her expression neutral, even while she was fighting back tears, and she continued, because she needed Maggie to hear what she had to say next, because she needed Maggie to know that it was ok, and that she could trust Alex to be there for her no matter what.

 “You don’t like to talk about you.”

 “I know,” Maggie interjected, because she was not prepared for another girl to give up on her, and she was just so exhausted of having to explain herself.

 “So, I think that when your parents didn’t accept you… you stopped trusting people that are closest to you, and… I totally get that.” She could see the relief flooding onto Maggie’s face as she went on, “But Maggie, you don’t have to be guarded with me, okay? I’m not here to judge you for things that happened in the past I am here to help you heal.”

 Maggie finally looked at her and asked with a voice heavy with the weight of the world, “You don’t think I’m a bad person?”

 “No.” Alex said firmly, taking Maggie into her arms, wrapping her arms around her as she began to sob, and encapsulating her in her warmth so that Maggie knew that she was safe, that she always had a home inside of Alex.

 “Thank you,” Maggie finally said, after she pulled back.

 Her face was wet with tears, and Alex pulled her close, kissed them away, and traced her fingers along the lines of Maggie’s cheekbones soothingly.

 “Alex… I-” she paused, considering her next words very carefully, because she had never said them to anyone but her parents. She had always been too scared of being disappointed and abandoned once again.

 But sitting right across from her was the woman who had accepted her without asking for anything in return, who had shown her that she deserved love, that she deserved to be happy, the woman who she knew she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, and the words didn’t seem so daunting anymore.

 “Alex, I love you.”

 She held her breath, not sure of what was to come, before Alex responded, “I love you, too, Maggie. Always.”  

[dontshootmespence]

The Penrose Triangle

Part 2

Two weeks passed before he felt like he “came to” again. Apparently, he’d showered, eaten and drank enough to keep himself alive, done what necessary things needed to be done to live, but he honestly didn’t remember doing them. He felt like he was moving through sludge. 

Dilauded had been his escape early on during his time with Bureau, but he’d quit years ago and hadn’t craved since. He thought about using it when Emily had died, but he hadn’t craved it since he got sober – until now. Everything fiber in his body wanted him to contact his old dealer and see what he could do for him – give him anything to stop the overwhelming pain he felt. The only reason he didn’t do it was because Maeve wouldn’t have wanted him to, and despite having only seen her face for 4 minutes and 13 seconds, the idea of watching her face turn down in disappointment at his return to drugs kept him from picking up the phone. Even when he was using, he didn’t feel like this much of an addict.

Then he’d taken a flight to help the team on one case. He was going to go back. Of course he was. The BAU was and remained his home, but he nearly didn’t.

That morning. That morning just three weeks after the love of his life had died. Words. More words popped up on his arm. He didn’t see what they were, but he saw what looked like ink. Without a second thought, he stormed into the bathroom and grabbed a roll of gauze, angrily wrapping it around his arm so that he would never have to see them. How dare the universe tell him he had another soulmate waiting around the corner when Maeve was barely in her grave for a month.

After using nearly the entire roll, he went back to his room to get dressed, but as he pulled on the shirt, the sleeve got caught on the enormous mountain of bandage. He tugged and teared at the shirt so much, it tore, leaving him to rip the shirt off, ball it up and throw it into the corner of the room.

He collapsed back onto his bed and sobbed. After three weeks of numbness, he didn’t think he could cry anymore, but here he was, dissolved into a pool of tears.

***

Weeks went by without him talking to anyone, interjecting in cases only when asked. The long swaths of silence frightened the team. No one was used to Reid being so quiet, but they also didn’t want to disrupt his grieving process; everyone grieved in their own way and on their own time. Who were they to judge how he went about healing himself?

But it still didn’t make them worry any less.

One day as they were about to get out of work, JJ decided to approach him; she could never have expected the reaction she got. “Spence, can I talk to you for a second?” All she wanted to do was assure him that he wasn’t alone.

“Not if it’s about what I think,” he said, snapping his head up from his desk. “I don’t want to hear how everything is going to be okay. I don’t want to hear how someone else will come along. I don’t want pity from someone who gets to go home to the person they love right now.” Spencer’s eyes stung with thick tears, in sadness, guilt for snapping at JJ, jealousy that she go to go home to Will when he’d never have the ability to go home to Maeve – all of it made him want to crawl out of his skin.

More than anything, he wanted to throw a tantrum – kick, scream and cry at the universe and how unfair it was, but instead, he’d snapped at JJ, and his mouth just kept going. “You get to stare down at your arm every night and see the words he first spoke to you. I don’t. I look down and there’s nothing anymore. Because she’s dead. I just don’t want to hear any of it Jennifer.”

With practiced fluidity, used to turning away from people when he was overwhelmed, he spun on his heels, pulling on his coat and taking strides toward the elevator. He watched as they closed, separating him from all those people – the ones that had what he so desperately wanted.

As the months wore on, he never once had the desire to look at the words hidden under his bandage. Once every few days, he would take the bandage off to change it, doing everything he could to make sure he never saw those words. It had been nearly a year since Maeve had passed, but for him, there was still no one else. His showering routine had gotten to a point where he no longer looked in the mirror and had perfected the art of wrapping his arm without truly looking at it.

The snapping incident that had occurred with JJ didn’t happen again – with anyone.  Basically everyone had assumed that they shouldn’t try and talk to him about romance of any kind, so with the exception of having to step on eggshells in regards to Spencer’s romantic life, his relationships with his friends went relatively back to normal.

On rare occasion, he would go out with the team, but only if they were just going out to eat. Bars weren’t happening. He’d never go out with anyone alone though, because inevitably the conversation would turn to romance and those godforsaken words. If he was honest with himself, he hated the universe for the phenomenon now.

No. Solo outings didn’t happen anymore – which is why he surprised himself when he agreed to go grab a bite to eat with Alex. He wasn’t sure what it was about Blake. Maybe it was because he knew she cared, but she wouldn’t pry.

As they sat down at a hole in the wall Indian restaurant in a booth that barely held the two of them, the two found themselves slipping to a comfortable silence. “I’m here, you know,” Alex said, still looking at her menu. That was all she said; that’s what Spencer loved about her. “You wanna split some vegetable samosas?”

“Sure,” he said without missing a beat. The sentiment hung in the air; he knew what she meant by “I’m here.” It wasn’t a cry for attention, like she felt he was ignoring her, but a subtle and soft reminder that she was there and more than willing to listen if he wanted to get something off his chest. Though they’d only known each other for about two years, Blake knew him better than most, or at least in a different way.

The waitress came over the table and introduced herself as Kala, taking their orders for drinks, appetizer and their meals and quickly departed leaving them in silence once again. “Can I ask you something?” Spencer wondered. Not his words – he still needed to steer clear of those, but hers were another story.

He watched as a smirk ticked up the corners of her mouth, but that was all she allowed her face to show. “Of course. What is it?”

For a moment, he tried to formulate what he actually wanted to say. From the way she acted with him, to the locket she played with on cases where kids were involved (specifically boys) to the one time they were rooming together on a case and he’d heard her mutter ‘it’s okay Ethan,’ he’d assumed for months that she was a mother, but she never spoke of a son, so Spencer had guessed that Ethan, if that was his name, was no longer living – yet she and her husband James remained steadfastly dedicated to each other. “Were the words James spoke to you the first ones on your arm?”

“No,” she said, her voice in a far off place in the corner of her mind. “I was with someone else before James, but he died. His name was Michael.” She seemed to remember him fondly. “I loved him with my whole heart, but one morning I woke up to see that he had passed away during the night. Aneurysm. A ticking time bomb that took him away from me at the age of 25; he was way too young.” The fond smile turned somber for a moment as she mourned the loss of someone so young – someone she loved so much. “And before you ask, it was about two weeks later that a knew set of words showed up on my arm, and for a while…I hated them. Those words. Not only were they a cheesy pickup line, but they sprouted up out of nowhere two weeks after the love of my life died. I hated them, until I met him. Once I did, they took on a whole new feeling.”

While he wanted to know what that feeling was, he wasn’t sure if he was ready to confront it yet, so he asked the next obvious question. “What were his words to you?”

Blake snorted and pulled up her sleeve. On her arm, no lie, were the words, “I don’t have a library card, but do you mind if I check you out?”

“Noooooo,” he said, suppressing the urge to giggle uncontrollably.

Blake just shrugged. “Oh yea. Go ahead and laugh because it’s funny. But he said them so badly I found it endearing. My obvious reaction was ‘what?’ so that’s what’s written on his arm.” She went on to tell him how a few years after Michael’s death, around the anniversary actually, she found herself frequenting her local library for some solitude. Over and over again, she eyed a tall, built, slightly tanned man with a beautiful smile, but she hadn’t had the guts to go talk to him, until one day he approached her and said those words. “After I said what, James stumbled over his words so badly, I had to reassure him that he hadn’t just blown it and we went to get dinner.”

It seemed like only a few minutes later that Kala came back with their appetizer. While they ate, the conversation went toward linguistics, specifically endangered languages and the work being done to preserve them. Once the meals actually came they’d talked so much that their mouths were dry and they were both beyond hungry, so nothing was said until they were at least halfway done with their meals. “Can I ask you something else?” He didn’t even look up from his plate, because although the words had slipped out of his mouth, he wasn’t sure he was ready for the answer.

“You know you can ask me anything,” she replied, her eyes soft as she took another bite of her food.

Spencer placed his knife and fork at the sides of his plate, swallowing hard and composing himself for her answer. “When James said those words, you said your feelings changed. How?”

“Well,” she started, picking up her fork as if she was starting to get a little anxious and needed something to do with her hands, “As I said, I hate those words. They popped up and I was pissed that the universe wanted to put someone else in my path when the love of my life had just died.” She’d lived his exact circumstances, just years earlier. “I hated those words until the first time I saw James. There was something about him – the way he looked at me, the way he smiled at me, just the small things – they were the first romantic encounter I had after Michael and it made me start to wonder if the words belonged to him. I found myself simultaneously hoping they did and hoping they didn’t, and then when he said them, it was like a weight lifted off my shoulders…I don’t know how else to describe it, which as a linguist, really bugs me.”

Spencer smiled softly, wondering if he’d ever feel that way. He couldn’t imagine he would. More time had passed since Maeve’s death than they had spent together, but he still missed her every day. The sweet sound of her voice was still one of the last things he heard at night. “Look at the words when you’re ready, Spencer,” she finally said.

He wasn’t sure how she knew that he even had a second set of words, no less that he hadn’t looked at them yet, except that she was a brilliant profiler and linguist. “How will I know?”

“You just will.”

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