#and like...the cops are gonna ask if he's suddenly alive later

[screamingwiththewolves]

HYDE IS GONNA USE THE TEMPORARY DEATH POTION SO HE CAN TALK TO JEKYLL IN THE MINDSPACE!

[petertingle-yipyip]

BIGGER PERSON - BILLY RUSSO

Pairing: billy x castle!reader (established relationship)

Word Count: 1,741

Summary: When Frank’s sister finds out that a) her brother’s alive and b) her boyfriend is supposed to kill him, the conversation quickly turns bad.

Your brother, Frank Castle.

Months had passed and his death still didn’t feel real. You had seen the headstone, found a church that was willing to give the infamous Punisher his last rites. Even though Frank didn’t really care for religion towards the end of his life, your parents would’ve wanted it done so you made sure of it. You sent them the blessed crucifix from the private ritual.

You were frozen in place as the news story played out on your TV. The job Billy was working for the senator, the one he claimed was to protect from the unknown bomber, was also intended to protect him from Frank. Frank, the alleged accomplice to the bomber, was being framed - yet again - as public enemy number one.

You paused the screen when the channel was playing video from a cop car that very clearly showed your brother’s face and pulled your phone to text Billy. But as your finger was finding the conversation, you realized he would very likely lie to you again. He lied about the job to begin with, so why would he owe you an honest answer now.

So instead, you paced your living room until he finally made it home.

When you heard the door open, your grip tightened on the remote and you felt the urge to throw it. Either at Billy or close to it, you didn’t care, but you refrained from either. He walked in and said his usual greeting, moving in to kiss your cheek but you shoved him off.

“Tell me you didn’t know.” You said tightly, hoping the anger in your stare was enough to burn him.

“What do you mean?” He asked, a slight nervous chuckle pairing with the words.

“The bombings. All of it is being blamed on Frank.” You continued.

“Frank?” His brows furrowed and you had the urge to shove him again.

“Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid.”

“No, I- I’m not.” His hands went up in surrender. “I want to finish this discussion, really. But honestly, baby, I’m too damn tired. Can it wait till later?”

“So my brother is alive and I find out by chance from some news story and you want to talk about it later?” You said angrily, gesturing to the paused screen that still displayed the photo captured from a police car’s dash cam.

“Can we not do this, Y/N?” Billy sighed and dropped on the couch, covering his eyes.

“No, I think we should.” You snapped. “That is my brother, Billy. If there was even a rumor that he was still alive, you should’ve told me!”

“It was just a rumor.” He enunciated, still not looking at you. “I hadn’t heard from him so how was I supposed to know it was true?”

“You still should’ve told me!”

“I’m sorry!” He shouted, standing suddenly and. pausing you to take a small step back. “What am I supposed to do about it now? What- What- What do you want from me?”

“Jesus.” You sighed and put your hands up in surrender. “Nevermind. It’s just my brother, right? Who cares? Not like I had a right to know but hey.”

You stormed off to the bedroom and ignored Billy’s muttering as you left. You didn’t even need Billy to confess that he knew or that he was helping Frank hide. All you wanted was an honest apology, but he couldn’t even do that.

The days went on and you still said very little to Billy. You still did your usual routine, breakfast and coffee ready before he went to work. Dinner either on the way or finishing on the stove when he got home. But outside of that, or answering a direct question he asked, you were busy with a book or a new TV show. Anything really that meant you didn’t have to say anything to him.

It was right before his TV interview about the attack on Senator Ori at the hotel, which they were attributing to Frank. He had came out and asked if his tie looked okay and you said “Sure, it’s fine” without facing him.

“Jesus, Y/N/N. How long you gonna act like this?” He complained.

“I shouldn’t have to be the bigger person.” You spat back, still keeping your back to him. “I shouldn’t have to bend to keep us on track. Let me ask you this, Bill. That guy with the- the eye thing. He having you go after Frankie?”

“Y/N…”

“I swear to God I will walk out that door.” You threatened and turned to face him. You watched his eyes dart between yours as he took in your expression. “Everything you’ve been doing lately, was it all about Frank?”

“Yeah...”

“Catching him?”

“Yeah…”

“Killing him?”

You didn’t even know how you managed to get that question out but you did. It felt as if your throat had tightened and the three short syllables were rung out of your voice box like water out of a towel.

“Yeah…” He answered, voice barely above a whisper.

Your heart grew heavy in your chest and it nearly felt

like it had stopped beating.

“And you wonder why I’m pissed off.” You said flatly, pushing past  and leaving him behind you.

“Baby, it's just business, alright? Nothing personal.”

“It should be personal!” You turned and shouted. “That’s my goddamn brother!”

“You want me to apologize for doing my job?” He asked sharply.

“Yes!” You threw your arms forward. “Apologize for trying to kill my brother!”

“It’s my job!”

“Well excuse me for thinking you cared about me more than a fucking paycheck.” You put hands up in surrender and turned away, back into the kitchen.

“C’mon, babe.” He sighed, hurrying after you. “It’s not like that.”

“It’s always up to me, even when it shouldn’t be.” You complained. “You want me to take the blame for a fight and I do. I do because I love you and I always think it’ll be the last time.”

“Y/N…” He said your name softly, confused even. As if he had barely realized what the routine with you had become.

Argue about something, sometimes petty and sometimes not. Then you’ll make up when you apologize, but nothing changes. It was a vicious cycle that Billy was completely oblivious to, until now.

“I think that maybe next time you’ll be the bigger person cause I’m sick and tired of carrying the burden of every argument.” You shrugged, tears forming in your eyes that you ignored. “Keep moving my boundaries so you don’t cross lines, keep quiet when you yell. All cause I thought I had to to make it last between us.”

“I… I didn’t realize.”

“Yeah, I know.”

He took a moment to think over his next words. It felt like a very defining moment for your relationship. He never meant to make you feel that way, and knowing he had was arguably the worst pain he’d ever felt. How did he not notice? How could he do that to you?

“Tell me how to make this right.” He said softly, gently reaching to take your hand. You looked up at him while you let your hand sit in his. He looked at you with wide, soft eyes that were begging for forgiveness. “I’ll do anything.”

“You think it’s that easy?” You countered with a small challenge. “Billy, you’ve been hunting down my brother for a man who doesn’t care about you. That guy will throw you under the bus as soon as he needs to, just like everyone else. But my brother? You know damn well Frank would’ve done anything to protect you. He never would’ve don’t this to you.”

“No… He would’ve.”

“Why?” 

He looked towards the ceiling and sighed heavily. Your stomach felt tight and your blood ran warm with anticipation while you took a step back, taking your hand away from his.

“What did you do?” You urged.

“The carousel.” He began and that knot in your stomach grew tighter.

“You were there?”

“No.” He looked back to you, a silent plea in his expression. To hear him out, to believe him, to forgive him. “No, I wasn’t, I swear.”

“You didn’t shoot him? Or Maria? Or the kids?”

“No, I wouldn’t do it.” He shook his head and you could’ve sworn you saw tears in his eyes. “I said no.”

You were quiet as things began to click and you knew it reflected in your eyes as Billy’s expression changed.

“But you knew… You knew they were coming after my brother and that’s why we went out instead of me going with them.” You realized and the thick weight of betrayal slammed into your chest so hard you thought the bones would break. “How fucking dare you stand in front of me.”

“No, Y/N, please. Let me-“

“Let you what?” You cut in sharply and your hands tightened into fists at your side. “Let you explain? What is there to explain when you just admitted to knowing that your worthless fucking friends were gonna kill my family and you did nothing?” Your voice grew to a scream as you rambled.

His eyes shot to your hands and he took a step back from you.

“My niece and nephew, Billy!” You shouted. “They were kids! And Maria, she loved you. And you just let it happen.”

“I couldn’t do anything.” He spoke quietly.

“You’re kidding, right?” You laughed in disbelief. “You could’ve warned him!”

“He wouldn’t have believed me!” He reasoned.

“Y’know what.” You took a deep breath. “Just get out.”

“Y/N..”

“Aren’t you late for your interview?”

He opened his mouth to speak but the glare you gave him kept him quiet. Instead, he collected his things and went to leave.

“I didn’t want all this.” He called from the door. “It wasn’t supposed to end up this way.”

“Yeah, you worked so hard to keep it from me.” You countered. “Good luck when Frank finds out.”

The door closed soon after and you found your phone. You scrolled your contacts until Karen’s name popped up. You had met the woman when her friends were defending Frank in court and you two had stayed decent friends. You texted and said you had seen the news about Frank and asked if she could help you get in touch with him.

karen (lawyer): just put flowers in the window

[icemavslastbraincell]

We got Godzilla Minus One Minus Color for a week so obviously I had to go and watch it on my day off. But the Icemav brainrot has completely taken me over and I simply can't stop thinking about the Icemav potential with this kind of AU.

Like Ice coming back from war, traumatized and wartorn only to discover that his parents (or siblings or whoever) are gone due to some horrific events. Trying to rebuild his life, trying to move past everything that happened to him in the war and suddenly in barges this short, chaotic, green eyed gremlin of a man and a small child that doesn't belong to the man but is his responsibility per his promise to his two best friends. Ice doesn't want them around at first; Maverick and Bradley are two extra mouths he can't afford to feed not to mention the fact that the reason they first was because Ice was in town and Maverick quite literally slammed into him and shoved Bradley into his arms before running off, cops chasing after him. Not exactly an ideal meeting.

But Ice has never been one to turn his back on children in need, even if it means he has to keep Maverick around because he and Bradley are a package deal. So Ice lets them stay. He finds a job, a pretty well paying one, and they rebuild their lives, bit by bit. Maverick finds a job in a nearby town and there's something budding between them, though neither man is brave enough to put a name to it quite yet. Ice starts to think that maybe, just maybe, he can start to move past everything.

And then disaster strikes. Suddenly, Mav is gone and with it, part of Ice's will to live. He knows he has to take care of Bradley, it's what Mav would've wanted him to do, but how is he supposed to do this without Maverick? How is he supposed to keep living with this gaping hole in his chest, this crippling sadness that hovers over him and suffocates him at every chance?

So he throws himself into helping after the disaster. If he can't bring Maverick back, the least he can do is make sure whatever that thing was pays for taking him from Ice. He leaves early on the day that everything is scheduled to go down, leaves an envelope with money for Bradley and a letter to their neighbor, Viper, explaining what's going on and to use the money for raising Bradley.

And then he doesn't die. He miraculously survives, the monster seemingly defeated, and when he gets back to shore, he finds Viper and Bradley. Viper gives him a stern look, one that definitely means that they're gonna be having a talk later, and shoves a telegram in his hand. He's confused for a split second then reads it.

Mav is alive.

Mav is *alive*.

*Mav is alive*.

He gathers Bradley from Viper and rushes to the hospital as fast as he can, trying desperately not to cry on the way there. Bradley is confused, not quite understanding what's going on but nevertheless willing to follow Ice wherever.

They rush up the stairs to Mav's room, Ice far too impatient to wait for the elevator, and Ice bursts through the door, the handle stopping just shy of slamming into the wall.

Sure enough, there on the bed is his short, chaotic, green eyed gremlin, bandages on his head and arm in a sling. Despite how much pain he's surely in, a soft smile rests on Maverick's lips when he looks up and sees Ice and Bradley.

Ice can't help it; the tears that have been stinging his eyes for the past twenty minutes finally slip out and race down his cheeks as short, hiccuping breaths leave his lungs, shattering them each time they escape.

"Is your war finally over?" Mav asks in a soft, barely there voice.

And Ice buckles. He has enough control over his body to not drop Bradley on the floor, instead placing him on the bed next to Mav's leg, and collapses against Maverick. He nods and buries his face into the meat of Mav's thigh. Hands come up, one carding through his hair and the other one running along his back. The touches are comforting, welcome, even if they make him cry more.

He doesn't care about anything else but this right here: his family, back together again, finally whole once more.

Anyway, I'll probably turn this into a full fic at some point, I just really wanted to get this out there bc it was literally all I could think about as I watched G-1 for the fifth time

[kaittalkstoomuch]

Hey! A new chapter is live! I hope you guys are doing good.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The War Zone

Tw: mentions of blood, mentions of guns, someone punches a prick that’s it

Nancy stands by my side and it seems we have a buddy system going on. Steve is with Robin, makes sense. Max and Erica are together, good. It was just Nancy and I. “You okay?” She asks as I look around wary. “Yeah, just.. What if Jason is here? With his idiot friends? He’ll know Eddie’s here.” Nancy grabs my hand. “He is not going to lay a fucking finger on you, or Eddie. I will not let that happen.”

We go check out everything. This place has a ton of things. I’m talking first aid supplies, guns, weapons, Molotov cocktails. I see Nancy eyeing the guns. “So, what’s in the bag?” She asks as I look at the Hunter green crossbody bag Dustin packed. “Clothes. I think… the anniversary gift Eddie made me… my camera, journal.”

Nancy seems to smile once I say “journal.” “Do you still write silly little entries about your adventures like you did with ‘Hawkins Angels’?” We continue looking and grab guns and magazines. I can’t help but to laugh. “I gotta keep the magic alive.” It was then we both started laughing, and I feel our friendship blooming again. “Do you write about being the ‘Dungeon Mistress?” “I do. I write about those nights.”

I remember the old times with Nancy and Barb. How it dissolved so quickly. How Nancy felt with me leaving, how Barb must’ve felt. There’s a bit of a pang in my chest. “I always look at my scrapbook with photos of the three of us, especially when I can’t sleep. I truly miss those times.” Nancy gives me a sympathetic look.

“Oh, Rox.” We hug. “I’m okay, Nance.” I say hushly. “I promise. I’m so happy we’re okay. I’ve really missed you.” “I’ve missed you too, Rox. It really hasn’t been the same.” I chuckle. “Obviously.” Nancy chuckles back. “Well, I mean, these past few years, they’ve been pretty intense.”

“So I’ve heard… Dustin would tell me about when Will went missing and the connection to Barb’s death. Then the recurrence a year later. Though, what really intrigued me was the Russians and of course, Billy. God, he was such an asshat, but he didn’t have to die… Poor Max.”

Nancy holds out a gun at the gun counter. We examine it together. “Yeah, the Mind Flayer got him. It was devastating watching him get killed. And then we can’t even say what the actual cause was. It sucks. I know Max is struggling with it. I think Vecna was using Billy’s death to torture her.” “Me too.”

I look to my right for a split second and see Vickie, Robin’s crush. “Holy shit.” I whisper. “What?” Nancy looks over. “Nothing, everything is okay.” I can’t blurt out Robin’s secret. That’s sacred. “How much?” “$129.” The clerk says. I sigh at the sight. “We should get guns for the guys, to be on the safe side. You know?” I say referring to The Hellfire Club. Nancy nods.

I see Nancy holding the gun in her hands and giggle as I pull out my camera. I snapped a photo of Nancy, making her smile. “What’s that for?” I smirk. “My new scrapbook. I’m not sure what I’m gonna call it yet, but we’ll look back years later and see what badass people we are.” “‘86’ seems accurate. It’s what popping into my mind. It’s senior year, we’re kicking Vecna’s ass. It’s the year of big, big changes.”

Nancy grabs my camera for a quick second while I pose for the camera. We’re both laughing as she hands me the camera. “Nailed it, Foxy Roxie.” A chill suddenly runs through my spine and bile forms in my throat. That voice doesn’t need to register as I whip around beside Nancy, camera in hand. Nancy has the gun in her hand looking it over.

Jason’s holding a revolver and looking rather unhinged. “Jason.” Nancy breathes as I shudder. “Nancy Wheeler and Roxie Henderson. An unexpected combination.” I grip on my camera and slip it back into my bag. “Don’t you need to report me to the cops?” I manage to slip.

Jason tsks as if I said something degrading. Nancy tenses up and so do I. “They’re no use… besides…. Is your satanic worshiping boyfriend here? Or your brothers? Mike Wheeler and Dustin Henderson, right?” I ball my fist up. “Leave our brothers alone.” Nancy growls.

I look over to my right and make eye contact briefly with Erica, who is frightened and runs off. She’s gonna alert the others of our predicament.

Jason walks closer to us, we stay stern in our place. Jason’s eyes look insane. Pupils are dilated, wild. My fist tightens as I stare into his eyes. “Let go.” Nancy replies to Jason, who grabs the barrel of the gun. I instinctively slam the money on the counter for the cashier.

“She said let go!” I snarl as I throw my fist in his face, grabbing Nancy’s hand and running away. We got the goods.

Steve hurriedly opens the door to the RV and we all come charging in. “What happened?” Dustin asks. “Lucas’ old friends showed up.” Erica says as I crawl to Eddie, who takes my apparent bloodied hand. “Damn Rox, what happened?” “STEVE DRIVE!” Dustin yells as Robin hands us a first aid kit, of many.

“She finally gave Jason what he deserved.” Erica says proudly. Eddie returns the same expression while wrapping my hand. “You punched Carver?” “Yes. He was threatening everyone. I have to protect my people.”

Eddie grabs my face as Steve speeds. His kiss is electrifying. “As much as I wanted to see that, I’m so happy you did that. I bet you looked hot.” I laugh at his goofiness. “She was smoking!” Nancy says, making everyone laugh.

“He was so unhinged Eddie. His eyes were so dilated. He’s out for blood. Ours.” I shudder in Eddie’s arms. “We got him, baby, don’t worry. We will end this.” He kisses my injured hand.

I look over at Robin, somberly looking out the window. It’s Vickie, something must’ve happened. Dustin and Lucas interrupt my worry. “Does it hurt?” Lucas asks. “Did he look scared when you punched him?” I lightly smile thinking of Jason’s possible reaction. “Oh yes, yes he did.” I smile at Eddie, who smirks back.

“I bet he’s pissed.” Dustin sayas. “I took a quick look before running out. He has a black eye. It was gold watching Roxie punching him.” Erica says. “I would’ve aimed for his nose, but I was in panic mode. He just about hurt Nancy. My instincts kicked in.” Eddie kisses my hand. “And they were perfect.”

[jeeperso]

D&D Quotes Without Context

Revenge of CHAOTICA!, Episode 5

Tricking their way inside the Owlword factory fortress, the group located the imprisoned PRINCE FLAPJACK the Merciless. Freeing him they began slaughtering everything in their path until they came face to beak with the commander of the fortress and his cadre of elite guards. Appearing suddenly, without even an establishing shot, Moonpaw bursts onto the scene! "Don't worry [Moonpaw], tails grow back!” *leans to Robbins* “No they don’t.” "....Robbins, sweetie, cover your ears.” "Can't. I-have-knives-in-both-hands. Knives-and-my-ears-don’t-go-together.” Fiver glares at the commander "OH I AM SO STEALING YOUR IDENTITY AFTER WE KILL YOU. I'm signing your ass up for Horseporn.com after this.” Commander: “Those horses wanted it!” Fiver blinks. "You bastard.” Thunderchild: “She slices, she dices, she makes julienne owl.” GM: You look down the stairs to see Flapjack engaging the guards below, covered in gore. Fiver: "Pretty sure that's gonna work itself out.” Silvercat, the commander tries to back away from you, giving you an attack of opportunity. "GET HIS WALLET [MOONPAW]! I want his credit cards. I WILL invest all his gold in cNFT’s.” "Meowtal combat!” "ROBBINS! I'M OUT OF HEALING, YOU'RE ON MEDIC DUTY.” "I-AM-A-STABBY-DEATH-MACHINE! HOWDOIMEDIC!?” One of them yells, “Screw this, you’re a terrible boss!” And runs for the stairs. Fiver just steps aside and lets him pass. "Fair warning, it ain’t much better down this way.” Thunderchild calls after the owl: “If you're still alive once all this is over, I have a concept I'd love to share with you and any of your fellow mistreated workers!” “HE KILLED HOT CARL!” One of the remains guards lifts her shield, “OwlWorld! Forever!” And then the staff implodes behind her sucking the commanders body into a horrifying nether dimension. “Okay, yeah, we’re cool.” "Alright then. Katt, grab the eye of Lumbara and let’s get the Hell outta here.” Katt, as you grab the hatchet, a word echoes through your mind … lumber……lumber… LUMBERCATS! HOOOOOOOO!!!!! "Gotta say, Flannel is a good look for you. You pull it off.” Flapjack makes his way up the stairs, dropping an armful of arms into Fiver’s arms. “Okay. Had a good time.” "Likewise. Also I think Katt just became the queen of Lumbara or something. Like seriously is that normal? Should we be worried?” "I'm not sure weapons found in polluting factories is a good basis for government.” “Sound the can opener, we take back Lumbera!” Flapjack: “We did. Everone’s dead. Except that one.” He says, nodding at the last guard. Thunderchild: “Leave them alone, I'm instructing them on the finer points of unionizing.” "So, QnA time, what the Hell was this all about?” Katt: “They loved Hot Carl.” “No, I was fucking Hot Carl.” Katt: “There’s a difference?” “Yeah, I love my husband, I was fucking Hot Carl.” Thunderchild: “Wait which Carl was in the cells? I'm going to assume Dumb Carl.” Fiver: "Goddammit the commander imploded. I wanted his credit card.” Moonpaw: "What's a credit card?” Fiver: "Oh honey, I can't bring myself to tell you. I don't want to break your little heart.” “No one will notice one more body.” "Noted. Shutting up now.” "Did you ask them if they stole from you first, confirm before you acted?” “That’s kinda outside my paygrade.” "So... You're-now-an-axe-monk. Huh-Sis?” "Better than an axe-cop.” “Beware-the-axe-milk-man." "Questions for later, I'm going to enjoy my box, maybe get blitzed on catnip with Moonpaw.” Fiver: ”Yeah, remember, you don't have to outrun the dragon, you just have to outrun your slowest friend.” Thunderchild: “Fiver, I hate to tell you this but I'm pretty sure YOU are the slowest friend in this situation.” "Am I?” Rabbit hop 15 feet across the room. "My legs may be a little messed up but I can still move when I have too.” *winces* "Um, bartender, could I have some Ice, I think I pulled a hammy.” GM OOC: I kinda wanted this to be an encounter that requires tactics. OOC: Oh no! one of our weaknesses! Along with. Puzzles. Diplomacy. Memory. Table Manners. OOC2: As a battle nun, Katt knows manners. Maybe she'll use them someday. GM OOC: Next week: THE FURY OF COCAINE! OOC: I don't have anything to do, so I've got to go remedy that.

[determinedwriter]

Whumptober 2023: Day 29: Alt: 9: Drugged

(Part 1 of 2, continued in tomorrow's prompt)

Peter (ooo different!)

My eyes were only off of her for a moment but that’s all it takes for everything to go to shit. My best friend. The girl I love and could never admit those feelings to.

I don’t deserve to love her anyways. Not after this. It’s all my fault and she should have someone far better. Someone who can actually save her.

Ro. I first knew something was wrong with her when my Spider-Sense went off like crazy, the hair on my arms standing on end.

I search the party, weaving through crowds of people to look for her. It’s just a high school party. I know people can get a little crazy but I never expected anything bad to happen.

But here we are. I open a bedroom door, hearing muffled screams behind it. At first, I hadn’t even considered that it was Ro who was in trouble.

Because I can’t ever bring myself to think like that.

Behind the door, I find Ro half dressed and screaming with two guys overpowering her, pinning her to a bed. She struggles under their weight, looking dazed.

“No! Get off!” I scream.

They turn to me, dropping her suddenly, leaving Ro to writhe on the floor, not having the strength to get up. “Ro! Ro, can you hear me?!”

She moans, showing no signs of knowing what’s going on around her. “What did you do?!” I growl in anger.

“What’re you gonna do about it, Parker?” One of them taunt me. I don’t even recognize either of the guys.

“Glad you asked.” I reply, punching him in the face, easily fighting the second guy as he tries to get me off of his friend.

“What the fuck?!” He shouts, surprised by my agility and strength. I don’t care if they find out I’m Spider-Man. Right now, all that matters is Ro.

I don’t pull my punches, beating the two severely enough that they’ve become whimpering piles of blood on the floor.

“Fuckers.” I spit.

My fiery anger dissipates at the sight of Ro. She’s passed out next to the bed, disheveled. “Oh my God, Ro…”

I rush to her side, checking her pulse. She’s okay. It doesn’t seem unusual. “Ro? Ro, please wake up. Please, it’s me. It’s Peter.”

She gasps and whimpers, curling into a ball. “N-No…P-Pete…help…”

My stomach turns and I nearly puke. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. Let me get you outta here. It’s okay now.”

I find her shirt, helping her put it on. She has practically no strength to move at all. When helping her pull her jeans back on completely, I find that the button is broken off.

They tried so viscously to rape her that they broke the button on her jeans. I’m gonna be sick at the image in my head.

Ro. Helpless. Crying. Screaming. Begging. Begging for me to help her. And I was nearly too late. If I didn’t have my Spider-Sense…

I can’t think like that. She’s okay. She’s alive and she’s okay. And I’m getting her the hell out of here.

These fucking vultures did a real number in my best friend and I am fuming. But I need to put Ro first. No matter how much I want to kill those two guys, I have to worry about her.

Plus, those two are writhing on the floor right now. They won’t mess with her again. And hopefully they won’t touch anyone else.

I’d call the police, but I imagine that would leave the cops with a lot of questions. Two bloody guys beaten to a pulp and a drugged up girl with her seemingly lanky and weak best friend.

Her best friend who is definitely not Spider-Man.

I’ll deal with the consequences of showing the extent of my strength later. There’s no time to waste. Not with Ro still in this house.

I open a window and swing out of it with her in my arms, going to my Queens apartment to help her out in a more private place.

I crawl in through my window, placing Ro on the bed. She looks terrible. I should make sure she’s okay. What if she never wakes up?

I gulp. “May?”

Hearing me call her name, she pops her head in the door, seeing Ro. “Crazy night?”

I don’t have to say anything for her to change her tune. She just looks at my face. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

“Ro got drugged. I almost didn’t save her in time. I almost…” I tell her, letting the tears fall as the horror sinks in.

“Oh, Peter…” May gasps. She sits on the bed, putting a hand on Ro’s forehead. “She’s okay. She’s gonna be fine. We should call an ambulance. We don’t know what kind of drugs she was given.”

“I need to tell Mr. Stark.” I say. “I mean, this is his daughter. D-Do you think he’s gonna hate me? I hate me…didn’t save her…not fully. She was half dressed and barely conscious…”

May kisses my temple. “You saved her. You did. If you hadn’t been there, I don’t want to think about what would’ve happened to Ro. And if Mr. Stark is as smart as he says he is, he’ll understand that.”

I nod. “Yeah…okay. I should call him now. Just so he knows and so…so Ro has her dad. They’re really close. I mean…he’s all she has now. Like I have you.”

She smiles sadly. “And you’ll always have me, Peter.”

I pull out my phone with shaking hands, dialing Mr. Stark. He doesn’t answer, but I don’t blame him. There’s no good reason for me to be calling this late and he likely thinks it’s just me talking about lab stuff. More often than not, that’s what I call him about.

I decide to use Ro’s phone for the second try. He’s more likely to answer her. It rings a couple of times before his voice can be heard on the other side of the phone. “Hey, kiddo. You on your way home? It’s past your curfew, miss.”

His playful kindness towards her makes me both happy and sad. Happy that she has him, but sad at how he’s going to feel about all of this. It’ll destroy him like it has me. Probably even more so.

Ro is his baby, after all.

“Mr. Stark.” I say, voice shaking more than I thought it would. “It’s Peter.”

There’s a tense pause before he speaks. He knows it’s bad. I wouldn’t have called from her phone if it wasn’t. “What’s wrong, kid?”

My heart pounds. “If I knew something was happening I would’ve come quicker, I swear. I-I…”

“Pete, tell me what’s going on.” He gently presses. “Is Ro alright?”

“I don’t know.” I say. “I don’t know how this could happen but…someone drugged her. They must have slipped something in her drink. She wasn’t even having alcohol. I lost track of her and my Spidey-Sense went crazy and I…I found her in a bedroom with two guys trying to…to…”

I hear him exhale, his breath shaking fiercely. “Where are you right now?”

“I’m at my apartment. I brought her here so I could keep her safe. She’s passed out on my bed. She was half dressed when I found her there. They were gonna really hurt her, Mr. Stark. They almost did. If I hadn’t found her…” I explain.

“And the guys that did it? Where are they?” Mr. Stark questions.

“Back at the house where the party is. I beat the crap out of them. I don’t care if it looks suspicious or if they find out I’m Spider-Man. I had to save her.‘I had to.” I reply.

“I know, kid.” He says. “And you did. Is she hurt? I'm on my way.”

“Okay. And no, not that I can tell. She wasn’t really able to talk to me when I found her but she was crying out for help and that’s when I got those assholes off of her. She’s out of it now and I’m scared she won’t wake up. I don’t know what she was given. But physically…she’s just a little roughed up. I think she’s okay mostly…I hope.” I tell him.

“I’m on my way. If anything changes, you call me. Understand?” Mr. Stark urges me.

I nod. “Yeah, of course.”

“If things take a turn and I’m not there, you swing out of there in all your spider glory and take her to the hospital, alright?” He continues. “I’m not losing her. Not tonight. Not ever.”

“You’ve got it, sir.” I say. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep her safe. I promise.”

He pauses before hanging up, seeming to have trouble leaving like this. I’ve just told him some earth shattering news, so I can’t blame him.

“Kid?” Mr. Stark asks.

“Yeah?” I reply. “I'm still here.”

He gulps. “Don’t leave her side. P-Please.”

Hearing him so vulnerable shakes me up. “I won’t, Mr. Stark. Not for a second.”

“Good.” He mumbles. “If she wakes up, tell her I’m coming.”

“I will.” I say.

Mr. Stark hangs up after that and I wait anxiously for him to arrive, not leaving Ro for even a moment just as I promised.

I’ll never leave her side again.

(Second/last part of this tomorrow)

[dhampiravidi]

in--noctem​:​

Ronnie knew what he was doing. He didn’t intend to hurt her, much less kill her… unless it was necessary. But he wasn’t sure how well trained she was, and he was, perhaps, underestimating her. In part, that was a product of his own hubris talking, convincing him that, while she had training, she didn’t seem to be quite as well trained as he was. It left gaps in Ronnie’s defenses. Small mistakes he might not otherwise have made.

For one, he hadn’t yet noticed the blade she had hidden in her hair. In fact, he wasn’t even considering it. He was, instead, thinking of all the other places she might be hiding weapons. How quickly she might be able to get to them and whether he’d have enough time to react. How well prepared was she, though? The girl had been, he assumed, been interrogating the target that Ronnie had killed. She was, of course, armed just in case, but had she planned to kill the man, too? Or just work information out of him? In fact, Ronnie wasn’t certain of what she had been doing at all. All he’d known was that he had someone to kill… and he’d done it. And then he’d gone and been soft hearted enough to let this woman live- obviously a poor decision on his part. 

When she called a truce, he didn’t really believe her. Why should he trust her? He had no reason to, and Ronnie wasn’t naïve. Least of all naïve enough to trust a woman like her. Besides, she seemed suddenly almost too calm- either a sign that she trusted him (doubtful) or a sign that she had a plan (more likely).  “Ya gonna tell me what a girl like you was doin’ around a guy like DeForge?” He asked, not yet loosening his hold. He knew she was unlikely to tell him who she worked for or who she was- if she was in this business, she was likely the type not to give up information under any circumstance, and he didn’t give enough of a shit to try to torture it out of her. This was more… curiosity than anything. Was it possible they shared a common enemy? 

He pressed her harder against the wall, but ultimately took a half step back now to give her space to breathe (though, again, he didn’t drop his hold on her- he’d need a second to aim his gun if she broke free and tried to attack him. As such, he was playing cautious- if only mildly so).  @dhampiravidi​

Jas worked on slowing her breathing and calming her heart rate. The man didn’t let her go when she called a truce, so she knew he felt like there was some reason to keep her alive. He hadn’t gone into the club with a partner, meaning he wasn’t a regular cop, and he hadn’t been working for DeForge (given his unfriendly welcome to the building), meaning he wasn’t a dirty cop, either (as far as she knew, most of those had connections to the guy, at least in this city). Jasmine was fairly sure that the man pinning her to the wall was an assassin like her. Maybe he thought she was just one of DeForge’s lovers, angry but otherwise harmless, who’d come to seek revenge. She wouldn’t kill him if that was what he’d been. (Then again, she was rarely in the position to cut off loose ends similar to her present situation.)

“H-he...he invited me up,” Jas mumbled, words betraying nothing but honesty. DeForge really had invited her up, once she’d caught his eye and made him think that the idea was his. But everything else--her insinuation, her nails, her hair, her eyelashes--was fake. All part of the job.

As soon as the man holding her took a step back, ultimately loosening his grip on her, Jas slammed the heel of her left foot into his foot. She didn’t hear much of a sound from him, but she didn’t need to. She was actually hoping he’d drop his gun. Instead, his free hand was what weakened, and that was good enough for her. The wig-wearing assassin pushed back on the wall with her other foot and tilted back, using her momentum to headbutt her opponent in the lower face. It wasn’t her most graceful move, and it’d probably sting her later in the evening, and yet, she didn’t care. 

Once she was free, Jas snatched the slim knife out of her hair (careful not to cut herself on its blade). She stabbed the man in the shoulder as hard as she could, trying to force him to drop the gun farther down in his hand. She didn’t want him to get a shot off in case DeForge’s men were after them, and she really didn’t want him to shoot her. Jas had accumulated a variety of scars over the years, lovingly accented by a prismatic collection of bruises. She could do without another injury, especially since she was on mission for the rest of the week.

[softholand]

“You make me feel alive. For the first time ever, I feel like I can breathe.” With Harry ❤️

𝐨𝐧𝐞 ���𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐢 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮

⤷ mob!harry holland x reader, cursing, fluff

prompt: “you make me feel alive. for the first time ever, i feel like i can breathe.”

words: 1k

It was the perfect spring day. The sun was shining, the flowers were blooming, and the light breeze that kept the temperature at bay made the perfect combination for a picnic in the park, even more after a week of torrential rain.

You and Harry sat on the towel you had laid on top of the grass, a bottle of champagne and a basket full of half-eaten goodies sitting beside you, the lake in front of you perfectly complementing the scenery. “I didn’t know I could miss the sun this much.” You mumbled, laying back with your eyes closed. “Well, after a week of constant rain, I can’t deny this feels pretty good.” Harry agreed, copying your position.

It was much later when the sun was starting to set, that the few people scattered around the park started to collect their stuff and leave, making Harry whine beside you. “I guess it’s time to go.” Your friend mumbled, starting to get up. “We don’t have to.” You said, to your friend’s complete surprise. “Won’t your mum be mad?” He asked, knowing how much your mom disliked your friendship. “I sent her a text saying I was at Tiffany’s.” Harry’s brows shot up at that, a smirk taking place on his lips. “Look at that!” He exclaimed, to which you rolled your eyes. “Shut up! I’m doing this for you.” You mumbled, playfully hitting his arm.

Copying Harry’s position, you sat beside him, your knees touching with the close proximity. “Seriously though, I don’t want you to get in trouble because of me. You sure you wanna stay?” Harry asked, “Yes, Harry! I’m sure! Now shut up I’m trying to watch the sunset.” You joked, not being able to contain your smile. Your best friend laughed, jokingly zipping his mouth and throwing away the key.

For the next few minutes, you and Harry watched as the sun disappeared behind the mountains, the moon swiftly taking its place, along with thousands of stars that together illuminated the sky, while the lake created a perfect reflection of it. That gave you an idea. “We should go for a swim.” You announced, getting Harry’s attention. “What?” He asked, completely taken aback by your statement. “Yeah, let’s go!” You exclaimed excitedly, already getting up.

“Wait! Isn’t it like… illegal?” Harry asked, making you suddenly stop your movements. “You’re literally a mobster, everything you do is illegal.” You furrowed your brows, “Fair.” Your friend mumbled, watching frozen as you started to take your clothes off. “y/n, I really don’t think we should do this.” Harry tried to stop you one more time, but you simply weren’t having it. “What? It’s the little mobster afraid of the cops?” You teased, already knowing you’d get a reaction from him. “Oh, you’re gonna regret that.” Your friend smirked, starting to take his clothes off.

You started running to the lake, letting out a squeal when you felt Harry picking you up and drag you to the water. “Harry, put me down!” You screamed, his laugh reverberating through your ears. “If you insist,” He mumbled before dropping you into the water. “You asshole!” You exclaimed as soon as you poked your head above the water, playfully splashing some onto his face. “Hey!” Your best friend shouted, initiating an epic water fight that ended a few minutes later with you surrendering yourself.

As you tried to squeeze some of the water from your hair, you noticed Harry’s stare fixated on you. “What?” You asked, feeling butterflies in your stomach the longer he kept his gaze on you. “I love you,” Harry said, a small smile present on his lips. “I love you too!” You quickly said it back, just like you did every time he told you that. “No y/n, I’m in love with you.” You felt your heart stop at his words, breath getting caught in your throat. “What?” You mumbled, voice barely audible. “I’m in love with you, y/n. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You make me feel alive. For the first time ever, I feel like I can breathe.” Harry exclaimed, while tears built into your water lines. “Harry…” you mumbled, a sob escaping your throat. “No, please don’t cry! It's okay!” Harry approached you, hands going to your face to dry your tears.

You took the opportunity to finally, after all these years of yearning, connect your lips in a passionate kiss, catching Harry completely off guard. His hands went to your bare waist, dragging you even closer, while you threaded your fingers through his ginger locks, earning yourself a moan when you tugged at them.

When both of your lungs pleaded for air, you pulled away, lips flushed and chests heaving. “What?” Harry asked with a smile, his expression a perfect mix of shock and confusion. “I’m in love with you too, dumbass!” You admitted, feeling like a weight was lifted off your shoulders. “You are?” Your best friend asked, making you chuckle. “I am! Have been for a very long time, actually.” You smiled, wrapping your arms around his neck.

“Why didn't you say anything?” He asked, to which you shrugged. “Why didn’t you?” Harry also shrugged at that, “I don’t know, I was afraid of ruining everything, I think.” You nodded, “Yeah, me too.” You said, before adding “Why did you say it now though?” Harry smirked, “I don’t know, you just looked so fucking beautiful, I felt like you needed to know.” You smiled, leaning in to capture his lips. “You’re so cute!” You mumbled between kisses.

When you pulled away, Harry was looking at you adoringly, “What now?” He asked, hugging your waist. “I’m in the mood for a burger.” You said, Harry bursting out laughing. “Of course you want a burger.” He laughed, squeezing your sides. “What? Those croissants didn’t do much to my stomach.” You let it out, feeling your cheeks grow hot. Harry just laughed, pecking your lips before helping you out of the water, “Let’s go, I know just the place.”

—don’t forget to reblog and leave your feedback ♡

[cocobeanncteez]

ATEEZ Hongjoong: Tame (Part 3)

Genre: Fluff, angst, smut, mafia au.

Pairing: Mafia!Hongjoong x OC (written in 2nd person)

Word Count: 17k in total, 5k in this part. (Part 1, Part 2, Final Part)

Warnings for all parts combined: Mafia themes such as torture, abuse, violence, human auctions, murder, drugs, guns. Mentions of rape, human trafficking, sex slavery, organ trafficking, unprotected sex, pulling out, facesitting.

Three weeks later, you could pretty much call yourself a member of a mafia gang. Well, that's what you were now even if you were in slight denial.

You spent a lot of time with Ateez. Hongjoong taught you how to shoot like a pro, Jongho taught you how to defend yourself if you don't have a weapon, and Yeosang and Seonghwa taught you medical related stuff such as removing a bullet from a body and treating a gunshot wound. Yeosang also taught you the basics of hacking, but you sucked at it. San, Wooyoung, and Aeji taught you how to seduce a target, and you nearly died of embarrassment when you had to practice with Wooyoung as the target. Jiwoo pretty much gave you some of her bubbliness while she and Yeoreum taught you a bit about illegal international business deals. The three girls also told you a hell lot about their sex lives when you all had a girls' night a few days ago. On the other hand, Yunho and Mingi were just playing 'tossing Kiah' (as they call it), which was literally just them throwing and catching you like as if you were a ball. The giants found it extremely fascinating that you were an entire foot shorter than them. Sometimes, they would use the top of your head as an armrest.

Hongjoong bought you a phone, but unfortunately, you couldn't log into any of your social media accounts, or even your email as your cousin and uncle were searching for you and the culprits who made your cousin unconscious the night he was going to sell you.

"Kiah, do want some orange juice?" Mingi asked you from the kitchen while he poured himself a glass. You nod your head and he poured some for you too. Yeosang was there as well, busy eating fried chicken.

"Hey, Kiah?" Mingi called out, making you look up at him. "You never really told us about your parents." He handed you your juice.

"My mother died when I was a newborn," you replied, sipping on your juice. "My father... well, I rarely saw him after he made me live with my uncle. Now no one has seen him in months." Both the boys noticed how sad you were when you spoke about your father. You really wanted to see him; you didn't even know whether he was dead or alive.

"What's your father's name and age?" Yeosang questioned. "I could track him or at least find out if he's all right."

"Moon Dongwoo and he's 49 years old," you answered with a small smile. "Thank you, Yeosang." 

~

After about three hours, Yeosang approached you while you were talking to Aeji and some of the boys. He sat on the couch adjacent to you after briefly greeting everyone.

"So I tried to track your father, Kiah," Yeosang stated nonchalantly. "And I found absolutely nothing."

Your eyebrows furrowed. "Huh? What do you mean?"

"There are zero records of him," Yeosang explained, "Like no bank or property details… To put it in simple words, it's like as if he doesn't exist."

You frowned. "So he's… d-dead?"

"Don't know," Yeosang shrugged. "There are no death records either. There were a couple of men with the same name as him, but no one was 49 years old."

You pondered about it for a while. Why would your dad erase all traces of his existence? Even if he didn't, someone else did. But why?

"Wait," you blurted out. "Did you check with the police station? My dad is a cop."

San, who was listening to the conversation, nearly chokes on the sprite that he was drinking. "Your dad is a cop and you're here, living in a mafia gang's house?!"

"I know right?!" Yunho said from beside him and you only shrug in response.

"I checked the police station as well," Yeosang remarked. "Still no records."

Your eyebrows furrowed. "That's just strange. He's a cop, there has to be at least something about him at the police station."

"Hey, don't worry about it, Kiah," Yeosang said in a soft tone, giving you a reassuring smile. "We'll find him."

-

The next day after you woke up, you found everyone seated in the living room, lost in deep thought. You quietly sat beside Jiwoo, wondering whether you should ask why everyone is so quiet.

"That's not a bad idea, actually," Wooyoung said after glancing at you while you stared at him in confusion. What idea was he talking about?

"Yeah, it's a terrible idea," Hongjoong retorted, glancing at you as well.

"Kiah," Mingi starts, grabbing your attention. "What do you think about attending a masquerade party?"

"You mean a mafia masquerade party?" you emphasized.  

"Of course," he replied.

"Ah, it's cool, I guess?" you said nonchalantly; you were getting used to the mafia life, and you'd be lying if you said that you didn't like it.

"It's settled then," San stated, getting up from the couch and stretching his arms. "Kiah is Hongjoong's date for the party."

"Knew it," Jongho murmured.

"No," Hongjoong protested. "A lot of people saw her face at the auction. It's a terrible idea."

"Well, it's a masquerade party hosted by our ally," Seonghwa remarked. "No one will try shit even if they recognize her."

"Plus, we're all going to be there. We can't leave Kiah alone here," Yeoreum added and Jiwoo nodded her head in agreement.

Hongjoong sighed. "Fine."

~

"You look gorgeous, Kiah!" Aeji squealed after doing your makeup. Yeoreum just finished doing Jiwoo's hair and started doing your hair.

"Hongjoong won't be able to keep his hands to himself," Yeoreum remarked with a smirk, making you blush.

"I'm surprised he hasn't made a move yet," Aeji said.

"We all know he wants to," Jiwoo mumbled while taking a mirror selfie.

You chuckled. "Nothing has happened yet."

"Yet?" Yeoreum teased you, curling a strand of your hair with the curling iron. "So you want something to happen, huh?"

“I—”

"You obviously do."

You playfully rolled your eyes at her. "Don't accidentally burn my hair, Yeoreum!" The girls laughed at the sight of you getting flustered 

"Kiah, what are you planning on wearing?" Aeji asked.

"The black cocktail dress."

"No, you're not wearing that," she protests. "Wear the red dress Jiwoo got you last week."

You raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"You'll see," she smirked.

~

After all of you got ready and slipped into your respective outfits, you went downstairs where the boys were waiting.

As soon as Hongjoong saw you, his lips parted slightly as he scanned you from head to toe. You were wearing a short, strapless red dress that fit your body perfectly, hugging your curves and exposing your highlighted collarbones. You wore silver wedges that matched the silver necklace around your neck. Your long hair was curled and your makeup was simple yet elegant.

"Hongjoong's favorite color is red, by the way. Thank me later," Aeji whispered to you, giving you a wink before she ran into Seonghwa's arms. So that's why she forced you to wear a red dress. You snorted at Aeji's words before your eyes landed on Hongjoong. He looked absolutely ethereal in his black ripped jeans and white t-shirt underneath the leather jacket he was wearing. You expected to see the guys in suits, considering it was a masquerade event, but it looked like you all were going to a club instead. Oh well, maybe this is how the mafia rolls.

You heard someone clear their throat. "Um, if you're both done eye-fucking each other, can we leave? We're getting late," San commented and Jiwoo laughed loudly at her boyfriend's words. The other eight already left and you wondered how you didn't even notice.

Hongjoong doesn't utter a word; he only approaches you and takes your hand in his, leading you to the garage. You, Hongjoong, Jiwoo, and San were riding in the same car.

San begun driving and the car was filled with Jiwoo gushing about how she loved going for Stray Kids' parties. San told you about how Wooyoung introduced Ateez to his friend, Changbin, and that's how Ateez met the rest of Stray Kids.

After a while, you reached Stray Kids' mansion. The exterior was lit up with blue and yellow lights.

Jiwoo handed you a pretty silver eye-mask and you put it on; Hongjoong wore a red mask, Jiwoo wore black, and San wore gold.

"Alright, let's party!" Jiwoo squealed, pulling San along with her, practically running inside.

Hongjoong wrapped an arm around your waist as he led you inside Stray Kids' mansion, scanning the crowd to see if he could find any of his allies.

"Ah, Hongjoong!" you heard someone say, catching your attention. Hongjoong's arm leaves your waist to hug that person.

"Chan! It's been so long, yeah?"

"Very," he agreed before glancing at you. "I see you've got yourself a girl."

Hongjoong chuckled. "This is Moon Kiah. Kiah, this is Bang Chan, the leader of Stray Kids." Chan stretched his hand out and you shake it.

While Hongjoong spoke to Chan, Jiwoo dragged you away to get a drink. You wondered how hyper she would be when drunk, considering the fact that she was already pretty hyper when sober.

Jiwoo got a couple of tequila shots and you only downed three.  "Only three?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah," you answered with a small giggle. "I have very bad alcohol tolerance."

Jiwoo took her own shots before Wooyoung dragged the two of you to introduce you to the other members of Stray Kids. You were seriously shocked by how young and polite these men were, despite being in the mafia.

"So whose girl is she gonna be now?" Changbin asked.  

"She's Hongjoong's girl," Wooyoung answered, and you giggle at that, already a little drunk.

"Mhmm, yeah, I'm Hongjoong's girl, hi!" you squealed before realizing that Jiwoo suddenly wasn't there anymore. "Where's Jiwoo?" you pouted  

"Probably would've found someone to talk to or she's in some room with San," Wooyoung replied. "Anyway, let's get you to Hongjoong, little one."

"I'm here," you heard a familiar voice say behind you, making you jump a little before you turned around. "Kim Hongjoong, you…” you trailed off, admiring his face even though half of it was covered with the mask. "You're so fucking hot, like what the actual fuck?!"  Wooyoung and Changbin laughed loudly before they walked away, leaving you alone with a slightly stunned Hongjoong.

"How much did you drink, hmm?" Hongjoong asked, looking down at you with soft eyes. You gave him a loving smile while your arms moved to wrap around his neck.

"Three tequila," you mumbled before you suddenly squealed. The DJ started playing one of your favorite songs. "Dance with me," you whispered in Hongjoong's ear, pulling his body closer to yours.

Hongjoong danced with you for a little while, holding you close to his body so that you wouldn't trip and fall in your 5-inch heels. After the song ended, he pulled you to a less crowded area to sit on the sofas. Your heartbeat sped up when Hongjoong made you sit on his lap instead of the free space beside him. You wrapped an arm around his neck while your other hand ran through his soft hair.

"What's wrong with that guy?" you whispered in Hongjoong's ear, glancing at a green-masked guy who was sitting near you, all alone on the floor, staring at the ceiling with a huge smile.

"Probably took LSD," Hongjoong remarked after taking a quick glance at the man.

"Oh," you murmured. "He's a really bad boy. You shouldn't take drugs. Okay, pretty boy?" Hongjoong raised an eyebrow, amused by the tipsy side of you. He chuckled prettily in your ear, pulling you even closer to him.

"I don't do drugs, love." He places his cold hand on the skin right above your knee. "I'm a good boy," he whispered in a low tone. Hongjoong could clearly see how much he affected you.

"Liar," you whispered in his ear. You place a kiss right below his ear before trailing kisses along his jawline. You stopped at his chin and pulled away. When his eyes met yours, you leaned in, finally pressing your lips against his. He responded immediately, kissing you back like as if there was no tomorrow. You've never been kissed with such intensity before.  Hongjoong's hand that was just above your knee, began to move upwards. You weren't drunk, just tipsy, so you knew what was happening; you were starting to feel really excited as his hand went higher and higher.

You heard someone clear their throat. "Kim Hongjoong?"

Hongjoong halted his actions and pulled away from you to look up at the woman who interrupted him. She had orange colored hair and was wearing a dark blue eye mask.

"Oh? Royeon?" he got up from his seat, making you stand up along with him. He sounded a little excited, and that made you feel a little jealous. Who was she?

Royeon smirked. "New girl, huh?"

Hongjoong ignored her comment. "Kiah, this is my friend, Royeon."

She snorted. "Friend? I'm quite offended by that title, Joongie." she pouts a little before turning to you. "I'm his first love."

You kept a pokerface on. "That's nice. It’s a pleasure to meet you," you said nonchalantly, trying not to sound bothered about the fact that Hongjoong's first love was standing right in front of your face. She was giving you a bad vibe and you absolutely hated how she was undressing Hongjoong with her eyes. You couldn't deny that you had strong feelings for Kim Hongjoong and you were planning on telling him pretty soon.

You turned to Hongjoong with a small smile on your face. "I'm gonna go get a drink," you said, purposely giving him a kiss that lasted a little longer than it should before you left him alone with his previous lover.

You didn't get a drink. Instead, you went outside, exploring the lit up garden in Stray Kids' mansion. The mansion was a little smaller than Ateez's mansion, but was extremely beautiful nonetheless.

You walked to one of the trees that was lit up with blue lights, taking out your phone to take a few pictures of yourself.

"So Yang Daeyoung hasn't been spotted anywhere?" you heard someone say.

"No," another person replied. "He probably escaped to another country or died.”

"What about his child?" the first person asked.

"No one knows what he or she looks like. Anyway, we have to find Yang Daeyoung and his child before another gang does. I heard many gangs are still searching for him… especially Ateez and CIX. We need to get all that information before them."

You were suddenly really interested in whatever the two people were talking about. You mentally reminded yourself to ask one of the Ateez members about this Yang Daeyoung guy later.

"What's a pretty girl like you doing all alone here?" you heard someone say behind you, words slurred.

You turned to face the man who was in a green eye-mask. "Taking pictures as you can clearly see," you answered the clearly drunk man.

He smirked. "I'm Jinseop," he introduced. "And your attitude is really fucking turning me on, babygirl."

"I didn't ask," you stated, rolling your eyes.

He took a step towards you and you didn't move an inch. "You know," he starts, placing a hand on your shoulder while he towered over you. "I heard Stray Kids have a few spare rooms here. How about we go upstairs and—"

"Get your fucking hands off her."

Jinseop rolled his eyes, not even glancing at the person.

"Now," the person growled. He froze when he finally realized who was talking to him.

"O-Oh, I'm sorry," he apologized and quickly walked away, leaving you quite stunned.

"Wow, Kim Hongjoong," you remark in amusement after a few seconds. "You scared someone."

Hongjoong doesn't say anything. He only walked towards you, and you involuntarily took a step back, making your back press against the cold surface of a wall. Hongjoong towered over your short height and you could tell he loved how small you looked next to him.

He cupped your cheek with one hand and places his lips against yours, gently kissing you before trailing kisses down to your neck. Your hands immediately went up to grab his hair while he started to suck and kiss the skin of your neck, making you moan softly. He smirked against your skin, absolutely loving how he was the one who was making you feel good. He brought his lips back to yours, kissing you a little harder than before while his hands moved down to your ass, grabbing it through the fabric of your dress. You gasped at his actions and he takes that opportunity to slide his tongue in your mouth. He pulled away after a few seconds.

"You're all mine, Moon Kiah."

-

Hongjoong led you back inside and you immediately spot his ex-girlfriend who was trying to hit on an unbothered Yunho.

"Yunho," Hongjoong called out and the man looked at him. Royeon's attention was also now on the two of you. "Where are the rest? We have to leave soon."

"I have no clue," Yunho answered.  "Yeoreum just took Mingi to the bathroom. The man drank way too much."

You noticed Royeon glaring at you, her eyes flickering between your neck and Hongjoong's messed up hair; you realized that he probably left a nice mark on your neck. You smirked, loving her annoyed reaction. You wrapped your arms around Hongjoong's waist and he smiled at you, draping an arm around your shoulders. Yunho controlled the urge to laugh once he realized what you just did.

Royeon cleared her throat. "So Hongjoong, did you get any news on Yang Daeyoung?" You felt Hongjoong stiffen a little.

"No," Hongjoong simply replied.

She chuckled. "Oh well. That must really suck for you since all... that happened, huh?" You could tell Hongjoong was going to lose his temper. You were extremely curious about this person, considering the fact that you've heard about him twice in less than an hour. "I bet you're dying to capture him. You would've planned so much to—"

"That's none of your business, Royeon," Yunho stated in a cold tone, cutting her off.

She raised her hands up defensively. "What I'm trying to say is I'd like to help."

"We don't need your help," Hongjoong spat through gritted teeth and Royeon was taken aback. You wondered why she looked shocked; was Hongjoong a complete sweetheart to her or something when they were together?

She cleared her throat, clearly offended. "Alright… come over to my place whenever you want me, Hongjoong," she said with a smirk before she walked away. You scoffed at her words and tightened your hold around Hongjoong who was quite amused by your reaction.

He put a finger under your chin to make you look up at him. "Maybe I should take up her offer, hmm?"

You scowled. "Don't even think about it, Kim Hongjoong. You're mine."

"Say that again, baby."

"You're mine."

Hongjoong crashed his lips onto yours and you kiss him back immediately, loving the feeling of his soft lips moving with yours.

"Oh, they're finally doing something," you heard Jongho say.

"Yeah, I was so tired of hearing Hongjoong whine everyday about how badly he wanted to kiss her," Seonghwa remarked, and you smile against Hongjoong's lips. You pulled away from the kiss, smiling widely at a blushing Hongjoong.

You turned your head to look at Seonghwa. "He was whining about that?" you asked in amusement.

"Oh, yeah, all the time," he answered with a chuckle.

A drunk Wooyoung laughed loudly. "That's not all! Hyung was also complaining about how Hongjoong junior was aching for—" Hongjoong smacked his palm over Wooyoung's mouth, stopping him from exposing him.

"Hey, let him complete," you stated, amused by the whole situation. Hongjoong shook his head in disagreement.

"We have to leave," Hongjoong changed the topic. "Yunho, go get Mingi and Yeoreum. Seonghwa, call San and Yeosang."

"Yeosang's getting some upstairs after so long," Yunho revealed. "He'll be shit pissed if you guys interrupt him."

Wooyoung chuckled. "After so long? He got pussy last week! And he's with the same blonde chick upstairs."

"No wonder he was the most excited to come here," Jongho mumbled.

Hongjoong rolled his eyes. "Well, I want to leave now. Anyone else wants to come?"

"Hyung, you and Aeji can go," Yunho said to Seonghwa. "Aeji's really tired. I'll come with the rest."

Seonghwa nodded and the four of you leave first, walking to one of three cars. Seonghwa had to drive after losing a game of rock-paper-scissors to Hongjoong.

After he began driving, you wanted to ask who this Yang Daeyoung guy was, but you thought now didn't seem like an appropriate time; you didn't want to interrupt the peaceful silence in the car.

You were feeling quite drained out, so you rested your head on Hongjoong's shoulder, trying your best to not fall asleep.

“Sleep, Kiah,” he mumbled, bringing your body closer to his. “I’ll wake you up when we reach,” he said, although he had no plans of doing that.

“Okay…” you closed your eyes, sleep taking over your body within a few minutes.

Hongjoong placed a soft kiss on your head. “I love you…”

5 months later.

As soon as Hongjoong came back home from his mission and stepped into your bedroom, you ran into his arms. “I missed you so much!” you mumbled against your boyfriend’s chest while he embraced you.

You started dating Hongjoong around three months ago when he finally got the courage to confess that he fell in love with you. To his relief, you were just as head over heels in love with him. The boys sometimes refer to you as ‘the one who tamed his temper’ as Hongjoong didn’t get annoyed very often anymore. You had also grown used to the mafia life, and you often found yourself enjoying it more than you should. You knew almost everything about the boys and the world you were now a part of. They even let you go on missions, sometimes letting you go solo. Hongjoong was always a little hesitant as he was scared something would happen to you, but he was getting used to it.

“I was only gone for a week, love,” Hongjoong chuckled and you sighed.

“It felt like years.” You pulled away from his chest to look at him. You pecked his lips before moving to sit on your bed, your boyfriend mirroring your actions.

“I got you a lot of chocolates,” he said, reaching out to grab your hand, intertwining it with his own. “I’ve kept them in the fridge.”

You smiled, lying down while you played with Hongjoong’s hand. “It’ll get over in two days,” you stated, knowing the boys would finish it before you could even grab a piece.

“Then I’ll go back and get you more.”

“I’d rather you stay here with me,” you mumbled, arms reaching out to hug your boyfriend. Hongjoong settled in your embrace, burying his face in the crook of your neck. Your hand moved to his hair, playing with his strands. Hongjoong couldn’t help but place a kiss on your sensitive neck, causing a chill to run down your spine. He began placing more kisses on your neck, smirking when he felt you grab a fistful of his hair. He trailed kisses from your neck to your jaw and finally to your lips.

“I love you,” he murmured, moving to hover above you. Cupping your cheek, Hongjoong gazed at you with nothing but love and adoration, making your heart race.

You grinned at his words, wrapping your arms around his neck. “I love you too.” You pulled him into a kiss which he eagerly responded to. Lips moving with yours, Hongjoong took your bottom lip between his teeth, gently sucking on it before licking your lip as a way of asking for permission. You parted your lips wider, letting him slide his tongue inside your mouth. Your tongues danced in a slow rhythm while Hongjoong rolled his hips against yours, making you moan. You gently pushed him away, making him look at you with a worried gaze, thinking he went too far. But you pushed him further, making him lie down on his back before you straddled his hips. Your hands pulled your t-shirt over your head, tossing it onto the floor. Hongjoong’s eyes moved to your bra clad chest. You reached behind your back to unclasp your bra, letting it fall from your chest.

“Can I touch you?” he asked. You took his hands, placing them on your chest in response. Hongjoong gently squeezed your boobs, thumbs running over your hardened nipples. He sat up a little so that his face could reach your chest. He placed kisses on your sternum before taking one of your nipples in his mouth, gently sucking on it, licking the small bud. He mirrored his actions for your other nipple, and your back arched in pleasure. When he pulled away, you immediately crashed your lips onto his in a hungry kiss. You involuntarily grinded down on his hard-on, a groan leaving his throat. Hongjoong’s hands moved to your hips, helping you move faster on his bulge.

“I want you, Joong,” you moaned out, making him get harder.

“Are you sure, baby?” he asked.

“Yeah. I want you to fuck me. Please,” you begged. You weren’t a virgin, but this was going to be your first time with Hongjoong.

He only smiled, halting your movements on his bulge. “Let me prep you, baby. Sit on my face.” You got off his lap to take your jeans off along with your panties. Hongjoong also stripped out his clothes, leaving himself bare in front of you for the first time. You involuntarily bit your lip, taking in the sight of his thick, hard cock. He looked absolutely irresistible.

Hongjoong climbed back onto the bed, lying down while he waited for you to straddle his face.

“Are you sure about this?” you asked, a little hesitant to put your weight on his face.

“Don’t worry, baby,” he chuckled. “Sit comfortably.”

You lowered yourself onto his face, making sure you didn’t put all of your weight on him. Hongjoong's hands gripped your ass, pulling you closer to his mouth. He wasted no time in lapping at your slit, collecting your wetness on his tongue. He moaned at your sweet taste, tongue dipping into your hole, his nose pressing onto your clit. He moved his mouth to latch onto your clit, giving your nub a few sucks before moving back to your hole. “Fuck!” you moaned, hands reaching down to grasp his hair while he fucked you with his tongue. You felt the familiar knot forming and you warned Hongjoong that you were close. He licked up and down your slit, lapping at your clit, pushing you to your high. You moaned out his name while you came on his face and he wasted no time in licking up your juices, a drop rolling down from his lips. When you moved your pussy away from his face, you got wetter at the sight of his lips glistening with your juices.

You moved down his body to return the favor, but he stopped you. “I’ll let you do that another time, babe. But now I really need to be inside of you.” Hongjoong sat up, piling pillows behind him before leaning back on it. “Are you on the pill?” he asked while pumping his cock.

“No…”

He groaned. “I don’t have condoms on me right now. They’re in my room.”

“It’s okay, you can just pull out,” you stated.  

“Are you sure, my love?”

“Mhmm.” You moved to straddle his lap, aligning his cock with your entrance. You sank down on his length, the stretch making you whimper. Once Hongjoong was fully inside of you, you placed your hands on his abs, slowly moving yourself up and down on his cock, coating it with your arousal. Hongjoong bucked his hips up to meet yours half-way. You leaned down to kiss him while you rolled your hips against his. You pulled away and smiled at him before you increased the pace. Your hands reached back to grab his thighs while you rode him. Hongjoong watched your boobs bounce along with you, the sight making him groan. When Hongjoong felt himself getting close, he switched positions, slipping out of you, making you whine. He only giggled, leaning down to peck your lips before he gripped your waist. Without any warning, he slammed his cock into you, making you gasp, your walls clenching violently around him while he fucked you hard and raw.

You gripped the bedsheets beneath you, feeling the knot forming in your lower area. “J-Joong… I—”

“I know, baby, I’m close too,” he groaned out, his thrusts getting sloppy. “You’re taking me so well, fuck.”

Hongjoong moved one hand down to your clit, his fingers rubbing your nub in circular motions. You screamed his name when your second orgasm washed over you. Hongjoong pulled out immediately, spilling onto your stomach. You reached out to pump his cock, milking him dry. Hongjoong collapsed beside you, body coated in a thin layer of sweat, hair sticking to his forehead. He pulled you into a sweet kiss a few seconds later.

“That was amazing,” he murmured against your lips. You smiled, placing a soft kiss on the tip of his nose. “Let’s clean up, hmm? Shower with me?” You nodded, letting him carry you to the bathroom.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

I decided to watch the Walker pilot so you don’t have to. #1

I don’t know why I’m doing this, but I’m doing this and the more I put it off the less I’ll want to do this. So. Let’s start.

The fist thing we see is Jared Padalecki, em Walker, driving. He’s vaguely smiling and there’s the sun behind him. He seems happy. He’s driving a truck, for some reason my mind goes to Twilight. I’d rather watch that. At least there are vampires (not dressed like clowns) there. Anyway. Walker is meeting someone. He’s meeting his wife! “Look at you!” she says. The camera makes us look at him. He looks like this

I am unsure whether we’re supposed to see this as sexy or cool. It looks frankly ridiculous. I don’t know if I’m just not American enough to appreciate the aesthetic of this. But I didn’t go through 15 seasons of Americana-in-British-Columbia for nothing. If a character appeared like this on Supernatural, it wouldn’t be presented seriously. It would be played for a chuckle or in a light-hearted way at least. Not even Dean Winchester would find this hot.

The Padaleckis tell something to each other. Apparently he needs to go home with the kids and his parents because it’s game night. My mind immediately goes to Game Night the episode and I am sad now. But Walker lifts my mood in its own weird way.  He doesn’t know the rules because every time she tells him the rules, he blacks out. I would make a fun quip about this, but the truth is that I relate to him a lot right now because I blacked out during the entire scene. I’m not sure what they said other than the game thing because I wrote it here. I already forgot the rest.

Anyway. What we’re supposed to get from this scene that they’re Very In Love (see that soft warm light?), and that he’s anxious because he’s not great at being a father because he’s shit at games apparently, but his wife is like ~don’t worry so much~ because she’s a kind, understanding wife. He tells her to be safe, because the Texan countryside is dangerous or something. She needs to stay on a route he approved for some reason. Is she traveling with supersoldier serum in her car? Is Hydra going to murder her? [cue the Marvel snipers shooting me to death because they don’t want Marvel to be associated to this]

Later, everyone is having fun playing fake monopoly, but Walker (whose mannerism is just Jared, he’s not even trying) is apparently too stupid to understand a game for kids. Plot twist, this is anti-cop propaganda because it says cops are dumb.

“Et tu Brute” Jared says when the kids point out he broke a rule so they get an extra turn. I thought I was safe from hearing Jared speak Latin! I thought I was safe! I am never safe!

Emily (Gen) suddenly texts him “SOS. Answer” which is OMINOUS! Oh my god! Aren’t you feeling the tension. The rest of the family keeps playing fake monopoly. Someone throws dice. Are we supposed to go “oh! The dice are ~symbolic because someone’s playing dice with her life” or have I been watching too much good tv.

She is running somewhere in the countryside, wearing a white shirt (is this the cowboy lady equivalent of the Wife Nightgown?). She says something is not right. He’s worried. Then he hears gunshot and her scream. He does the Alarmed Jared face, presses lips together and does a Upset Jared face.

Then he goes out, tries to call her again, and again, does a Jared Upset Sniff--

Oh! We actually see her! She’s alive, but she’s been shot in the stomach. Her white shirt is definitely the cowboy lady equivalent of the Wife Nightgown! Ah the blood coming from the stomach! How terrible! Her phone is ringing but she cannot reach it. She is definitely alive right now, though. She’s breathing heavily because of the wound, which is breathing, which is the opposite of being dead.

He decides that she’s dead, and lets out the already infamous manly scream of anguish.

It would be sad if it wasn’t that literally one second ago we saw her wounded but alive. Her turning out alive in the season finale or so will shock everyone. Nobody will have seen it coming. Who wrote this? They should have just shown the ringing phone and her bloody hand/side, making the audience assume she was dead, instead of showing her breathing. Now the audience is gonna assume she didn’t actually die, and wonder “why didn’t he call someone or went looking for her” but apparently Jared’s characters have forgotten that, like, ambulances are a thing. Jared’s manly screams of anguish are more important than common sense.

I’m not going to say anything about the manly scream of anguish. I’m not going to say anything about the manly scream of anguish. I’m n

We’re just 4 minutes in, guys. Why am I doing this?

Eleven months later, says the screen.

It’s night, outside a house. The son is waiting for him. The daughter doesn’t think he’s coming. On the porch there are two men, one is his brother and one is apparently his former partner, now new boss. He’s dressed like you’d expect a normal person to be dressed in a casual Texan night, hat and tie and all. If you are law enforcement in Texas and don’t wear a cowboy hat at any moment, you will be executed. That’s what the death penalty in Texas is for.

Somebody arrives, but to the kids’ disappointment is some dude whose function is to tell us the men’s names. The brother is Liam, the cop dude I forgot.

Walker is being sad on the back of his truck and drinking alcohol, which is the only way television can express a man having trauma. Holy shit - he reminisces of his wife like this is some emotional Lord of the Rings scene in a place where Elves live except this is not the Lord of the Rings and is just ridiculous, look

She’s seen running towards the gazebo, then she turns

This is exactly shot like the scene where Arwen has a vision of her son. Flowy hair and all. I cannot take this seriously.

He smiles sadly. Then a cop car arrives.

Mexican Lady Cop(TM), whose function in the story is to be a Mexican Lady Cop(TM) asks for his licence since he’s drinking alcohol in a public place.

“You ask so nicely” drunk Walker says. Ew. “Yeah, they train the girls special” Oh! Can you see? She is the Feminist Icon who Takes No Shit from the Dude! I’m so excited. I am slowly losing the will to live.

She drives him home on the police car. His legs don’t fit. At least this is realistic.

He does exposition in the car, including “I needed to visit a ghost instead”. There-there was no need to say it. What’s the demographic they’re aiming for? Five year olds? Do they have to spell everything out loud?

“It’s been a while since I had an actual conversation” he says, which supposedly explains why he’s making awkward exposition, but it’s just bad writing. At least they acknowledge it’s bad writing.

She figures he’s law enforcement coming back from an undercover mission from some drunken ramble he makes. This is worse than the Sherlock phone cable port thing.

She says she just got promoted from state trooper, ehe she will work with him wink wink nudge nudge. Is she going to be a cop-buddy-character slash love interest except when they’re almost about to realize they’re into each other, his wife comes back and draa~ama? I can already see it.

He goes home, makes some Jared grunts, and falls asleep on the couch.

Next morning, he goes out and jogs to where he left the truck. He puts on a cowboy hat which is supposed to be an artistic shot.

I’m slowly dying. He makes some Jared Deep Breaths, at least this made me laugh.

Wait, he’s now wearing a black hat. He’s in mourning, see? What.

He drives to his father’s ranch. His father is Super Not Impressed. It’s awkward. They took about horses. Mitch Pileggi is thinking that at least the other show was more exciting and there was Jensen Ackles in it.

He gets into his parents’ house and the dogs run to him, he does the Jared Dog Chuckle. He hugs his mom. He hugs his son - “August, my boy!” he says, like a normal person his age says.

He hugs his brother and they joke-wrestle and he says “I’m still the big brother” and did I mention I’m dying inside. I just can tell this is SUPPOSED to be reminiscent of Dean and Sam’s first meeting at Stanford in the pilot except Jared is the big brother now. Ew.

We learn that the brother is a DA and gay. All pilots suffer from Forced Exposition Syndrome but it’s like this isn’t even trying.

He goes to work and hugs (very manly hug of course) his friend-now-boss, who is called James. James asks him if he’s good and he’s like yeah I’m good, which our I’m Fine Lie Moment #1. Some things never change.

Enter the case of the week - a cop offered roadside assistance but he was assaulted. We’re already starting with a “Oh No Poor Cop :( Someone Doesn’t Like Cops And Gets Violent” plot. Yay.

Ta-da! Mexican Lady Cop appears, cowboy hat and all. James says she’s Walker’s new partner. My heart cries while Walker says “figured you’d be a guy” and she replies “so did my mom”. The feminism is so strong :’) She’s such a strong female character :’) I’m so happy :’)

Then Walker makes such a quintessential Jared thing with his mouth that I need to stop this here and take a break.

It’s been 13 minutes. So much still to go. I’m bored. Why am I doing this.

[spacedikut]

my all ; spencer reid

pairing: spencer reid (criminal minds) x f!reader

summary:  “hey could i do a fic request for an x spencer? could u maybe do something with really touchstarved spencer (bc germaphobia) and him being at first too awkward to go n cuddle and then as he gains more confidence he gets much more touchy and huggy and stuff? and reader being shocked by how cuddly he is? plzplzplz? its totally ok if u dont write it but just wanted to send in the request!” 2689 words

a/n: i hope i did this justice! i love spencer reid!!!!!!!!!

masterlist

Spencer first realised how much he loves your touch after a case where he put himself directly in danger.

You ran up, flung your arms around him and pulled him against you so tightly he felt winded.

He was shocked, stunned, and everything in between, but the most important thing is that he hugged back. It felt natural, the right thing to do, and his arms felt so snug and perfect around you his heart stuttered.

You pulled back, noticed his expression, and winced despite his reciprocation, “Sorry. I just. You could’ve died, you moron. You scared me.”

All he did was give you a breathless smile and with a squeeze of his shoulders you let go, allowing him to get checked by a medic.

Spencer struggled to sleep on the jet home, plagued by the thoughts of you - you with your arms around him, how much he enjoyed how it felt.

It felt… wrong to like it as much as he did. Like, in theory, enjoying your physical touch went against his moral code – as a germaphobe, the thought of having to come into contact with anyone in any way makes him want to vomit. But, with you?

You smelt so good, even after running for God knows how long. You were so soft, yet so firm, so warm and welcoming and dear God Spencer has never wanted to touch every inch of someone so bad in his life.

The case was a rough one, so Garcia was waiting for you all with loving eyes and a pitiful smile, arms wide open for whoever may need it. Spencer instantly decides no thanks, but you swoop in and cuddle up to Garcia within seconds of seeing her.

You even place a series of kisses against her cheek, and Spencer is transported back to your hug.

If he was more like Garcia, open to any form of love as long as it’s love, would you have kissed him like that?

His pulse quickens, palms get sweaty and he has to clear his throat to bring himself back to Earth.

He can’t afford to think like that.

But your lips…

No. Paperwork? Let’s do that and not think about a colleague’s lips.

+++

You’re furious.

You told Spencer to wait for backup, to not do anything stupid or irrational and definitely do NOT go in there alone, genius!

And what did he do?

He didn’t wait for backup, did something very stupid and irrational, and definitely went in alone.

And now he’s dealing with a hefty concussion and flurry of other injuries; cuts, scratches, and bruises alike all dotted over him like he’s a connect-the-dots drawing.

The second he wakes up, you’re gonna kill him.

For the time being, you’ll gently thread your fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp, and watch his chest rise and fall to ensure he’s alive and breathing.

“Mmm,” A groan, “That feels nice.”

His eyes flutter open. You lean towards the table next to him, pick up the bottle of water and the jello cup, and offer him both.

“Thanks,” He says, hoarsely.

You sit back in your chair. Spencer doesn’t take his eyes off you once. Not when he drinks the whole bottle of water, or when he cracks open the jello and inhales it with one slurp.

Your brows furrow.

“You’re banned from work until you’re fully healed.”

“I’m suspended?!” He guffaws.

“No,” You shake your head, “I’m personally telling you you’re not welcome back until you’re okay.”

“I’m okay now.”

“Do a backflip, genius.”

Spencer giggles, “I can’t do that in peak physical condition, Y/N.”

“Sounds like a cop out to me. So, again, you’re banned from work until you’re fully healed.”

He considers fighting back, but then he remembers what you were doing when he woke up, what he felt when he woke up.

He was confused and, you know, in pain, but there was this tender and soft, repetitive touch that immediately eased him. His subconscious knew it was you, in all your glory and sweetness, that had stayed with him for however long, looking after him even when he wasn’t conscious to know it.

So he just keeps staring at you, spoonful of jello in his mouth.

+++

When you get to Spencer’s place, he looks around like it’s his first time seeing it – awe and wonder painted on his face.

Everything he’s doing, everything he’s going through, you’re putting it all down to his concussion.

On the way here, he told you the whole history of car air fresheners after taking a good five seconds to get a good sniff of the cherry blossom scent you have.

“Let’s get you settled in, huh?” You say quietly, guiding Spencer to his bedroom. He walks a little like a mummy, kinda stumpy and heavy, and he flops on the bed.

You give a lopsided grin as you watch him. He’s mumbling incoherently, shuffling up to the top of his bed to fall flat on his back.

He moans.

“Alright, alright,” You placate, “Let me go… gather some things.”

You don’t know Spencer’s place all that well, so it takes you a while to find even the simplest things like a glass, a flannel, a snack. You get lost in snooping around, trying not to profile him, and the one thing you deduct is his apartment is so him. So Spencer, so lovely and comforting and a little odd.

You can’t get enough.

There’s a weak call from his bedroom: “Y/N?”

“Coming!”

He hasn’t moved an inch from where you left him. He looks so pitiful, bruised eyes and a cut right through his lip, and you almost coo at him.

“I’m not a good cook, so I thought we could order some food later.” You hand him the water and gesture for him to drink. “In the meantime, you need to rest. Mind if I borrow a book while I keep you company?”

You turn to leave, but Spencer’s voice makes you pause.

“Could you play with my hair again?”

A part of you wants to say no, like this is some overly intimate thing he’s asking, but then you remind yourself that he’s injured, which has reverted him to acting like a sleepy child.

“Please?” He looks at you with glassy eyes and he looks adorable, “Only for a little while.”

You say nothing, sliding into bed next to him. He scoots over a little to make more room for you, curling into you before your back hits the bed entirely. One hand rests above the covers, naturally placed on his arm, thumb smoothing him back and forth. The other, the one wrapped around his head, cards through his lightly tangled hair, all warm and loving.

He falls asleep instantly and, not long after, you fall asleep, too.

You both dream of eachother and wake up blushing.

+++

Spencer’s back in work within four days. You’re working a new case the second you arrive.

There’s been a shift in your dynamic and everyone’s noticed it. No one questions it, however, because they’re all aware you looked after him while he was away, and they witnessed how worried you were when you found him, but they can’t help but ogle and whisper.

They might be federal agents, but gossip is gossip and they love it.

You’ve noticed it, too, obviously. JJ tried to tease you about it, after Spencer bought you your favourite coffee and morning muffin on the way to the precinct, but you shut her down (and yourself from thinking about it too much) by reminding her you spent several days caring for him. He’s repaying you, even though you’ve told him he doesn’t need to.

Ever heard of transference, JJ?

A shiver runs through you as you look into the interrogation room. It’s not because of the suspect, though, it’s because the AC has been turned up – a tactic Hotch promises will be worth it despite your chattering teeth.

Something’s wrapped around you, suddenly, light but cosy and adds some heat to you that you need.

It’s a cardigan. Grey, much too big for you, the sleeves falling way beyond your arms and length reaching your mid-thigh. There’s a little red heart with eyes stitched on the left breast.

It’s Spencer’s.

“You’re shivering,” Spencer chastises, seemingly appearing from nowhere, “You know, when we shiver, it’s our bodies doing the opposite of sweating – it tightens the skin and shakes the muscles, a process that conserves and generates heat. We shiver to get warm. Do you not have a coat?”

“Alright, dad,” You tease, “It’s in the conference room. I wasn’t prepared for Hotch to make the unsub an icicle.”

Spencer breathes a laugh, moving closer to reach an arm around you. His other hand presses against your bicep, his grip sturdy as he vigorously rubs up and down your arms to generate heat.

Whoa.

It certainly works. You feel hot, suddenly, but not because of the cardigan or whatever the hell he’s doing, because Spencer has voluntarily touched you and is standing so close you feel like you’re on fire from the inside out. You’re sure your heart skips a beat and you stare at him in bewilderment.

He shrugs, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world, “My mom used to do that for me when I was young and got cold. I thought you’d appreciate it.”

You give a shy smile, “Yeah, I appreciate it a lot, Spence. Thanks.”

When Hotch leaves the interrogation room, he half-halts when he sees you in Spencer’s cardigan. It’s the perfect Hotch reaction, combined with the rise of an eyebrow as he walks past you to reconvene with the team.

You don’t take it off when you all walk back to the conference room, and Spencer doesn’t ask for it back.

Everyone notices. A lot of eye contact is made with many questions silently asked.

You and Spencer pretend not to notice.

+++

There’s a knock on your door at precisely 10:12pm. You check because your first instinct is if I’m about to get robbed, I’m making sure the timestamps are correct.

It’s not a robber. It’s Spencer – frazzled, wrapped up all nice and warm like a pretty present, Spencer Reid.

His nose is slightly red from the biting cold outside.

Leaning against your doorframe, you say, “Hey there,”

“Hi,” He waves.

You stare for a couple of seconds, then remember the polite thing to do is invite him in: “Come in, come in! Do you want some tea? You look cold.”

“Coffee would be great, thank you.”

You move to your kitchen, not very far from your front door, but Spencer stays put and awkwardly glances around your place. He loves it, he decides. Very you.

You notice he hasn’t moved, “Make yourself comfortable, Spence. My cat is somewhere if you want to say hi.”

He slowly moves to your couch, removing his coat, scarf and satchel as he does it. Two drinks in hand, you join him and fling your fluffy sock-clad feet onto your coffee table.

“So what can I help you with?” You ask.

Spencer takes a sip of his burning drink, “What makes you think I want something?”

“Why else would you be here? You wanna watch Grey’s Anatomy with me?”

Spencer laughs lightly. You’re right. He’s here for a reason that isn’t to watch TV that he loves to correct with you.

He’s quiet, then, and does that thing where his tongue flicks out to lightly wet his lips in nervousness.

“Something’s been going on.” He starts, ambiguously, “And it’s left me asking a lot of questions.”

Your brows furrow. It’s not like Spencer to be cryptic like this.

“Did it mean anything?” He asks, finally, turning to look at you. “Any of it?”

“Did what mean anything?”

“The.. the playing with the hair, the over-all gentleness, the cuddling.”

Your shoulders tighten up and you hope he doesn’t notice.

He does.

“Spence,” You give a fake laugh, “You were hurt and I was comforting you. Looking after you. You know, like a friend does.”

“No one else did as much as you.”

“You wanted comfort, and I’m more than happy to provide that, Spence. Everyone else was busy.”

“You took time off for me.”

You don’t have an answer for that.

You’re trying to keep the conversation light and breezy to not show your true feelings. You’re not ready for that kind of conversation, but he’s right. You used your vacation days to stay with him and care for him.. and you know you didn’t do it platonically.

“You’re my friend, Spence,” You say, voice soft.

“That’s it? That’s all it was?” He doesn’t sound angry, or hurt, maybe peeved. He won’t look you in the eyes, though.

“What else would it be?”

Spencer scoffs.

He moves away from you, hands running through his hair in exasperation when he lets out a breath.

“We cuddled, Y/N. I haven’t done that with anyone in-in years! The last person was my mother when I was ten years old!”

“That’s supposed to mean something?!”

“I-I don’t know,” He sounds exhausted, as if the complications of his emotions are taking way too much energy out of him, “But I really liked it. And I really like you.”

You look at him, then, and he’s staring back. He looks… hopeful.

“I really like you, Y/N.”

You swallow deeply.

“I tried to show you with the uh, the cardigan thing,” He scratches the back of his neck, a laugh to mock himself leaving him, “But I’ve never been good with that stuff.”

He moves closer, shifting to face you, eyes remaining locked with yours.

“Say something.” He whispers.

“I-I-“ You stutter, “Are you sure?”

“Of course I am. I’ve spent the last week thinking about it non-stop.”

“Really?” You laugh in disbelief.

“Yeah!” He gives a small smile, “I-uh.. wrote to my mom about you, too. She told me that if I’m this caught up on you, you must be special. Which you are, by the way.”

“I’m special?” You grin teasingly.

“Very special.”

There’s a moment where you think he’s going to kiss you, but instead he shyly asks, “Do you feel the same?”

You bite your lip. “I do. Really, I do. I’m just.. a little apprehensive, I guess.”

“Of what?”

“It’s stupid.”

“Nothing is stupid when it comes to you.”

God, he’s so infuriatingly sweet. You wish you could kiss him all over.

You might be able to, if all this goes well.

“I don’t want things to be weird if we don’t work out.” You admit, adding a shrug to appear casual. It’s not like you’ve worried about this since you realised you liked him.

Spencer tilts his head at you, “You’re already thinking about a breakup when we haven’t even gone on a first date?”

You giggle, which he returns with a smile, “I mean- I like you, Spence, and have for a while. I’ve thought about all outcomes.”

“All?”

You roll your eyes as he gives you a look, “Yes, all. I’d want us to work out but.. what if we don’t?”

He places a now warmed up hand on yours, “Well, we won’t know unless we try, right?” His hold tightens, “I’m willing to give it my all if you are.”

You look from your hands to his face, and decide yes, if there’s one risk you want to take in your life, it’s a risk that could possibly result in you spending the rest of your life with your favourite person on this planet.

So you nod.

“I’ll give you my all, and then some.”

He grins, “That’s quite the promise.”

You don’t reply, instead swinging your legs over his lap and leaning into his side to cuddle up to him. He reciprocates like it’s second nature, hand slipping from yours to wrap around your waist and tug you closer.

“Wanna watch Star Trek as a mini first date?” You look up at him through your eyelashes.

You really are perfect for me, Spencer thinks.

“Yes. Yes I do.”

[momoliee]

It’s probably too early for The Meta No One Asked For That I’m Gonna Write Anyway about XQC, alas…here we go

Dr. Xie Qingcheng, 32, male, straight (so far), 180 cm with only one current family member.

Xqc is introduced as a cold, aloof and apathetic retired doctor who has no passions, cares about nothing except for his sister, and unless he’s angry, you can barely get an emotional response out of him.

Through meatbun’s character notes on how he has no favorite food, no favorite color or animal, no personal preferences outside what’s most practical and how he’s very very responsible and rules abiding and honest and sober and serious, and through he yu’s POV that continuously paints him as this heartless cold blooded person, I dare say we were…deceived by this so far shades of gray picture we had of him.

Xqc was born into a finically stable middle class family consisting of two cops for parents and a younger sister that came into the world 8 years after him. When he turned 13, and his sister was only 5 at that time, his parents were fired from their job due to a case they shouldn’t have been investigating going wrong, and they had to move to a rural area. Not long after that, he witnessed both his parents’ deaths and saw their corpses with his own eyes, the site was bloody and there’s no way it didn’t traumatize a pre-teen like him. He then was tasked with taking care of his sister, becoming a doctor despite not wanting to, owing others favors and spending all his money on smth that’s yet to be revealed instead of enjoying it. He got married, not to a woman he loves but to someone whom he thought of as “suitable and appropriate”, got cheated on and went through a divorce before losing full interest in the marriage life. He was finally able to retire (we don’t know why yet) and live a quiet, normal, boring life.

I believe xqc loved his parents, I believe he loved them so much cause in chapter 20, he mentions how he thought he wouldnt be able to live past the grief, he wouldn’t be able to go on or move forward, how the grief completely overtook him. He also mentions how he used to play with knots and handcuffs when he was a child, which shows how close he was to them. So for a child who had a good stable life with two loving parents to suddenly fall from a class to a class, suddenly lose both parents and see their corpses with his own eyes, that must’ve fucked him up big time. I’m talking “when can I fully register all of this” kind of fucked up. But he didn’t have time to fully absorb all of this, didnt have the time to sit down and cry, he had a sister, she was only 5, where will they get the money from? What were they gonna do? How was he going to continue school while caring for her? He didn’t have the time to sit down and grief, to sit down and adjust. For a child who had a normal life and didn’t have to worry much about the money like every other middle class kid, he was suddenly burdened with poverty AND loss, and duty and responsibility. Good bye to the days of playing with handcuffs and knots huh?

You ask me, why does xqc not have a favorite food? I answer you, because many many nights, he didn’t know what to feed his sister, much less himself. Cause I bet that many nights, he would have to give up his portion for Xie Xue, to make sure a kid like her is full. Cause he couldn’t afford to be picky, couldn’t afford to choose; whatever was edible will be eaten, taste and flavor be damned. He had to start working from a young age, balance school, babysitting and working all at once. The last friend he made (I think) was that Chen Man guy whose parents were friends with his parents, back when they were alive and life was good. He didn’t have time to make friends, or go out, or have a favorite color or visit the zoo and decide on a favorite animal. No, he had to study, and study hard to become more financially stable and support Xie Xue, he had to raise his baby sister and protect her, he had to work or else how will he put food on their table? Yet he never lost his soft kind heart, cause when his sister asked for a laptop, he bought her one just so that she wouldn’t feel less than any of the other children.

Xqc had to SURVIVE, he had to make do with what he had and what he didn’t have. He didn’t have time to sit down and cry or process his trauma, didn’t even have time to think of adolescent love or his youthful days or do what kids his age did. And all of that carried forward into his adult life. He pushed his emotions back so hard and had his practical, business like mind take care of everything in order to make it through the days. He started to believe that passionate emotions such as love and hate and lust and desire were all a waste of time, a distraction from his duties, smth that will rock the delicate balance he created with his everyday busy schedule. Emotions will stunt you, emotions will delay you, crying and not going to work today means no food to feed his hungry sister with. That’s when he started thinking, strong emotions are a DISEASE, they will take up your time, cloud your judgement, have you make reckless decisions that you’ll regret later. And he couldn’t afford any of that right? Strong emotions are for the weak, they put you in crutches and disable you from moving forward. Wasnt that what he told his ex wife? If he had submitted himself to his grief back then, where would his sister be? Where would he be? How could they have grown up to be healthy and successful adults?

So this man taught himself practicality and duty and priorities. He stopped thinking about himself, about what he wants and what he feels, and instead started making sure that those around him are happy and content and safe and well taken care of. He no longer had desires or passions, he only had rules and regulations. If a person lost their sense of taste, would they still want chocolates and burgers? Would they still have cravings and foods they’d rather swallow medicine than eat? No. If so, how will they decide on what to eat every day? They’ll simply start following a “perfect nutritional plan” and “balanced diet”. They’d eat what they have to eat, when they have to eat, and in the exact portion they need. To them eating would be another chore they have to do every day to keep their bodies going. Similarly, with xqc, graduating, working, marrying, taking care of his sister and auntie, these all became “tasks” and “chores” that he had to abide by and follow. They became the dietary plan for his life till he dies, the outline he shall follow, the textbook rules he will carry out, no need to think of what he “wants” or “desires”, what will make him “happy” or bring him “joy”. He no longer listened to his emotions when making decisions. Even when marrying his ex wife, he married her cause she was “a suitable match”, not for her looks or personality or anything. Feelings are life’s taste buds, and once you remove them, everything becomes tasteless and mundane, and practicality/logic takes over. He stopped knowing what it felt like to choose based on your preferences, cause he stopped having the luxury of choice ever since that night when he was 13, and he no longer was able to re-teach himself the meaning of free will and choice.

So when he yu, in chapter 20, asked him how he would’ve acted if Xie Xue had died, and he said, “I would’ve continued living as I am today till my last breath,” he wasn’t being “cold” or “heartless” or “indifferent” as he yu likes to say. He was being practical and methodical and thinking with a logical approach, rather than an emotional one, just the way he taught himself to throughout all these years. His almost 2 decades of pure survival mode and severely repressed feelings spoke in the form of autopilot. “I would do what I have to do, what I’ve always done every day of my life so far cause what choice do I have?” Is what he meant to say.

But I believe that he’s a soft hearted, kind and loving person. He never says no his sister, never says no to his auntie, helped that homeless man as best as he could, taught he yu that he was normal and that he wasn’t a monster, believed in treating his patients with words instead of medicine prescriptions, believed that the mentally ill deserve to live normally instead of being locked up. I believe that underneath all the shit he has buried, there’s a lot of passion and love that’s been kept dormant for 19 years.

In conclusion, idk where meatbun is gonna take his character but I genuinely hope he gets to heal, and start having more color and flavor in his life. Start allowing himself to live, not just survive.

[jjmaybanksbaby]

number 4 with JJ please💕

u got it anon! :)

FLUFF: 4. “It was a joke, baby. I swear.”

•••

The North Carolina sun was beating down, warming your exposed stomach. Your eyes were closed behind the oversized sunglasses sitting on your face. Kiara’s head was resting next to yours as the two of you lay tanning on the bow of the HMS Pogue. You could hear the boys splashing around in the water next to the anchored boat. Their screams filled the air with a cheerful sound.

This is perfect. You thought.

The events of last summer lingered fresh in every one of the Pogues' minds. John B's obsessive need to find the gold he was so sure, in the end, would make them rich. But you all lost more than you could ever have gained. You could never forget the ghostly silence of the chateau in the weeks after John B and Sarah disappeared from the grid. The looks of pity in the hallway during the first weeks of school when you entered as four instead of five.

And then they were back as quick as they had left. The call from the unknown number in February and John B's voice echoing through the receiver. And JJ broke down because his best friend was alive. You all cried happy tears that day and then again two months later when the new Sheriff dropped John B off at chateau, clearing him all charges.

Everything was the same as when he had left, except as the four of you stood on the porch waiting for John B, JJ's fingers were intertwined with yours. When John B stepped out of the cop car, he glanced down at your hands and nodded with an approving smile.

Now it was summer again and the warm weather did its best to melt away the pain of the past year.

The boat lurched slightly as JJ pulled himself over the side, followed quickly by Pope and John B. Water dripped off the boys, leaving puddles in the boat. As JJ leaned over your body, droplets of water from his hair fell onto your face and drew out high-pitched screams that made him laugh. He leaned down and kissed your cheek and whispered the three little words in your ear that made butterflies take flight in your stomach again and again.

JJ turned around to face the other boys with a wicked grin. "Wasn't the water just delightful?" He asked, pitching his voice to mimic the Kook's that you all so fiercely rivaled.

John B nodded in agreement, the wheels in his own head-turning to keep up with JJ's plan.

JJ suddenly spun around and scooped you up, cradling your body in his arms. You let out a scream of excitement from the unexpected development. JJ walked over to the edge of the boat and your eyes got big.

"JJ," you yelled as loud as you could, locking your eyes with his. "Don't drop me, don't drop me, don't drop me." You flailed around but you knew freeing yourself from his arms would probably end up with you in the water. Though he might drop you into it anyway.

"C'mon JJ. Don't be an ass." You head Kiara say from behind JJ.

"Yeah, JJ don't be an ass." You repeated, your voice dripping with the kind of attitude that usually ended with you not getting your way. JJ looked at you with his eyebrows raised. Then he turned and set you back down in the boat.

"It was a joke, baby. I swear." He said glancing back at John B for backup.

A smile spread across your own face and you stepped forward to shove JJ off the boat and into the water for payback. As soon as your palms connected with his chest, he grabbed your wrist and pulled you into him. Your head naturally tilted upward as he placed a kiss on your lips. He dropped your wrist and moved his hands down to your waist, pulling you in even closer than before. You felt JJ's lips curl into a smile, pleased with himself. Your lips moved apart and JJ looked down at you with the same smile that had made you fall for him in the first place.

In a flash, before you could stop it, JJ had wrapped his arms around you, picked you up, and threw you into the water below before jumping in after you.

••• a/n: whoops that got a little longer and slightly more angsty than i planned it to but i hope you like it anon! season two wrapping has me thinking a lot about what’s gonna happen with the pogues without john b.

[thejadecount]

Fight! Wirt Headcanons

Y’all know from my reverse! Wirt Headcanons that I was gonna do one for Wirt in Fight! Falls

So here we go

He’s Wirt, but more emo and dark

His favorite poet/writer is Edgar Ellen Poe no doubt

His poems are constantly about death, nightmares, forests, ‘beasts’, and all that good stuff

Even Kill is kinda creeped out from them

He’s much more quiet and serious than regular and reverse Wirt

Like he barely talks

I’m talking a few yes’s and no’s and maybe a sentence or two each day like Ferb (Phineas & Ferb) shit

He wears much more darker colors and a lot more black

He has the classic e-boy aesthetic: dark t-shirts with a long sleeve under it, tight black ripped pants, occasionally dark camo pants instead, black plain turtleneck long sleeves, black long sleeves with a white collar

He has dark eyeliner and eyeshadow, a chain or two on his pants, maybe the occasional ring that has a skull or looks like a vine with leaves, a cross necklace or cross earrings, one bar earring on one ear.

He is a True Neutral. No one is more neutral than him. He cares about Kill, Tyrone, Gregory, Fight! Mabel and all of the rest too much. If you hurt them, he kills you. But otherwise you’re okay. He’s not going to get in a fight they’re (Kill, Gregory, Tyrone etc.) in unless they’re seriously injured.

He’s the peacemaker of the group and prevents them from all getting killed/caught by the police from their crazy schemes.

But not like peacemaker and prevents them from getting killed in a motherly, ‘don’t do that again way’

But more like *loads gun* “God damnit you little shits you know, I was having a good day why do I keep saving you little fuckers��….

A few hours later, currently shoveling dirt over the body: Seriously I should just let the cops get you by now, I was having a real good fucking day until you bitches had the audacity to ask me to help you AGAIN especially after since you still own me a favor after I saved your asses from the FBI last time….”

But everyone knows including him that he would kill himself before giving up them.

He regularly has a weapon on him. Some kind of weapon. A small gun, pocketknife, taser. And no, not several weapons and it’s that meme where it takes him forever to unload said weapons from his body (that’s Fight! Mabel and Tyrone, definitely) but the meme where he’ll a pull a weapon from somewhere that’s physically impossible to have one.

He regularly has to knock one of the twins (or both of them, in some cases) out to prevent them from following Kill into some crazy-ass suicidal plan.

If you need a body hidden or someone poisoned, he’s your guy. No one knows how Wirt knows so many poisons and ways to hide a body.

He’s very sarcastic and officially Tired With Everybody’s Shit™️

He has the miraculous ability to pass out on command, watch *his head proceeds to slam down on a table as he goes unconscious*

He needs approximately a gallon of coffee each morning to stay awake (no one knows how he’s still alive)

When was the last time he’s ate or drank water? No one also knows! (Seriously Fucking Kill is considering bringing this man to the doctor)

He’s a Fucking Cryptid™️

Does he sleep? No one knows!

This man needs help.

In a situation where him and the Gang is in prison or a dungeon or something he’ll suddenly pull a knife out of no where and he’s like, “Well no time like the present for a suicide pact, am I right guys?”

He isn’t suicidal. He would be, but 1) he doesn’t want everyone on Earth to suffer with Kill and the twins unleashing their chaos with no restraint such as him and 2) his family really didn’t like him that much and kinda thought he was gonna end himself so now he has to live just to spite them.

And he has to take care of Gregory of course.

And he likes Tyrone and Kill, so there’s that too.

But seriously how is this man still alive?!?!!!?????

Also in addition: He’s the dom of whatever relationship: pinescone, cipherpinescone, ciphercone

And I know that seems unrealistic because Kill is the most violent and aggressive of the three Ciphers but also: he’s a sadomasochist, and Wirt is constantly tired of his shit.

He’s always wearing steel-toe boots, high tops or doc martens.

Anyways, like the last one, reblog/reply with any headcanons of your own!

And if y’all see any of these as different or wrong I really want to know why because I like knowing people’s headcanons and the reasons why they do/don’t agree with others.

[out-of-this-dimension]

Hypothetically Rewriting Assault’s Story + Some General Assault Opinions

There’s a game my husband and I like to play when we watch a movie, play a game, or read a book that has a story that we don’t really enjoy or we enjoy certain parts of but not others.  We look at things we’d keep and things we’d change and we build a story from there-- sort of like an AU but we don’t really go into the writing part, we just stick to theorizing and mapping a general story.

I decided to play that game with Star Fox.  Not because I think Star Fox has a bad story but because sometimes I think the stories could have been handled better.  Note: for the rewrite game, I only really look at story, even for video games, I don’t really look at gameplay mechanics, but I do understand those have a lot to do with story potential so I do take it in as a factor... I just don’t bother to “rewrite” the mechanics, if that makes any sense at all.  Some of my list today will include boss encounters but I wouldn’t necessarily say those are mechanic-related... more like “event-related”.

I’ve mused a bit in the past about rewriting Adventures and Command and I do have plans to do a mock up of an Adventures remake eventually.  However, today I was thinking about how I would go about handling an Assault re-write in particular.  Much like Command and Adventures, I don’t have any beef with the core story but I do think there’s a few things that could’ve been better about Assault’s storyline-- like they had good ideas rolling but they didn’t quite refine them.

Under the cut because SUPER long.

My basic feelings on Assault are pretty positive.  I think the game is generally just fun and I like that it feels like the natural progression from SF64.  I liked getting to see planets we haven’t seen since the N64 era in better graphics and I liked seeing Star Wolf return.  I also just thought the aparoids were neat enemies. 

Generally speaking, though, when it comes to Assault, I think it suffers from the thing it tries to push the most-- the story.  I think a lot of people get caught up in thinking the story is better than it is because it’s the first game since SF64 that really follows the same Star Fox vibe without retelling the Lylat Wars.  Don’t get me wrong, the overall plot is great but the execution and pacing are... wonky.  Certain characterizations also take a hit in some regards but no one really talks about that when Command exists. That’s something we’ll talk about later on with this post.

That being said, Assault really does have a lot good going for it.  An absolute banger of a soundtrack, some great dialogue, a neat story synopsis, the introduction of cool characters like Panther and Beltino (who existed but was always off-screen), and just good levels.  

So, here’s what I would add, I suppose, if I were to somehow have the ability to rewrite Assault.  Originally I had this in paragraph form, but I’ve made it into more of a list under topic segments with main points bolded for your viewing pleasure.  Some of these points might be considered nitpicky and while I do understand that yes, this is a game about space animals, I do hold the developers in high enough regard to make a game with a continuity that makes sense.

The Story Changes

- Reduce Pigma’s storyline in Assault.  This is the biggest one for me because a bulk of the plotline feels like a giant chase to just get at Pigma and it feels like it derails from the actual plot with the aparoids.  We only go to Sargasso because of Pigma.  We only go to Fichina and then back to Meteo again, because of Pigma.  That’s 3 levels in a 10 level game devoted to just tracking down Pigma and chasing him.  While it makes the build up to fighting Pigma kind of nice, I personally feel like the plot could be reduced to 2 levels.  If Assault overall was a longer game, I could see them making it 3 levels.  Overall, though, in its current state, I feel like the side plot overstays its welcome and the aparoids promptly get shoved to the side in favor of “Oh no, we gotta get to Pigma!” And I get the main motive here is to show how the aparoids affect people and because of the build up, it does a good job at showing how utterly terrifying the aparoids are.  But it’s still too long given the length of Assault’s story. The only alternative to this is make Assault longer, which... honestly, it should be.  

- Revise the scene with Tricky.  I’m obviously not well-versed in dinosaur biology but I’m pretty sure dinos didn’t grow that fast from what studying I HAVE done.  And why is he suddenly king now?  Did his parents die?  He seems not affected by this at all?  Like it’s a funny scene with him, Fox, and Krystal, but it’s odd if you really look at it.  Give us, as players, more context because I’m still not even sure what happened to make Tricky suddenly the leader and... big.  As a note, you’re gonna hear me gripe a lot about the Sauria level in this post.

- The Star Wolf + Peppy sacrifice is a low effort way to raise tension/stakes and then cop out.  Oldest trick in the book, imo, is to act like you’re going to kill off important characters only for them to be alive miraculously.  And let’s face it, as an audience we all know they aren’t going to kill those characters because it’s Nintendo and those characters are too beloved.  I would’ve forgiven them for only doing this with Peppy or Star Wolf, but when you tack them both together and throw in the fact they make it seem like you’re going to have to kill General Pepper too... yeah, it’s just a bit much of the same trope over and over again.  I wanted to put a note in here about how I’m fine with the Great Fox being “sacrificed” but overall, it needed to return to the series because of it’s icon status, but I think that’s more of a gripe at Command instead of Assault.

- Keep Pigma alive.  This will conflict with a point I have later on about the game consistently having characters cheat death for easy drama points but with Pigma, I would’ve kept him fully alive... but maybe with some physical damage from the aparoids.  I understand he’s semi-alive in Command and tbh I don’t know where I stand on that.  Why keep Pigma alive, you might ask?  I feel like his character has a lot more potential than being “just the greedy guy”.  Like he’s got good potential future villain material for future games and... if I’m honest?  I just don’t see Nintendo wanting to keep Pigma dead so why even bother killing him off?  They couldn’t even commit to him being dead in Command anyways so it seems very moot.

- Bring Bill and Katt back.  Assault is acts a bit like a big reunion of all of our SF64 favorites but our two favorite side characters are suspiciously missing.  Wouldn’t Bill be out on the front lines fighting against Andrew in the beginning?  Or maybe back in Katina?  And wouldn’t Katt inevitably show up in the midst of the invasion, maybe to pointedly check in on Falco?

- Bring Andrew back for the final fight. I think Andrew being defeated early into the game is fine overall but I think bringing him back in for a reunion final fight against the aparoids would serve to really solidify that it’s really everyone vs the invading aparoid force.  It would show that not only is Star Wolf willing to put aside their differences but so is basically everyone in the Lylat System in the name of survival.  Imagine the Venomians and Cornerians working together against an aparoid fleet, giving Star Fox and Star Wolf time to attack the queen?  I just think it’d be neat and it’d open up the potential for some fun banter mid-mission.  I do understand that quite a few people consider Andrew canonically dead after Assault but personally, I feel that his defeat left his fate questionable (I’m a staunch believer that unless there’s a body, they’re probably alive, especially for Nintendo games because, again, they never like to kill people off) so him returning in Command never really bothered me.  

- In general, reconsider some of the character portrayals.  Unfortunately, when a series has a different studio for each game, character portrayals will inevitably have inconsistencies.  While I give Namco a lot of credit for putting in oodles and oodles of detail into the game (particularly the levels), I think they failed in their portrayal of Fox, at the least, and Wolf is a considerable offender as well.  While it’s obvious that Fox in Adventures was effectively modeled off of Sabre even in terms of personality, Rareware was at least able to justify Fox’s newfound jaded attitude with the passing of many years and a distinct lack of steady income, resulting in the team being in disarray.  Assault’s Fox is a stark contrast to his cynical interpretation with seemingly no explanation other than maybe “Oh, I have more money and a gf, maybe I should behave myself”.  As if the sudden change in personality wasn’t random, Fox also just seems very blah, like a blank slate stereotypical shooter game protagonist dude with little to no emotion.  Wolf is less obvious but gets slated into a mentor-like role midway through the game and ends up in a respectful rivalry with Fox... which there’s nothing inherently wrong with that except for it happening abruptly (and, I mean, Peppy is right there).  But I take less issue with this and more of an issue with the fact that there’s an entire level establishing that Wolf now runs a crime den with effectively what seems to be an army and no one bats an eye at this.  He doesn’t even call on them to help with the aparoids.  Did they all die when the aparoids attacked Meteo?  Are they safe somewhere else?  Where do they go?  How was Sargasso able to operate without the CDF being on their doorstep with warrants for arrests?

- Don’t kill all the dinosaurs.  A bit of a dramatic statement but the ending screen that showed all the damage to Sauria really bothered me.  While I understand that the dinosaurs had less of a chance against the aparoids than a more technology-focused society like Corneria, I was a bit disappointed that the decision was made to just state that a lot of tribes had been wiped out.  I know this could easily be retconned in a future game and I feel like it should be.  “But why, Amalia?  Why are you disappointed by that?”  1) It’s a little too grimdark for my tastes.  2) The fact it all happened off-screen felt very hand-wavy.  And 3) It brings into question the entire point of Adventures.  Why did we bother to save this planet if it was going to be reduced to rubble and ash 1 year later?  Where were the Krazoa in all of this?  Why did they not make an appearance at all to try to stop the invasion with their alleged powers?  It just raises too many weird questions and I feel like Namco didn’t think it through too much.  Which I mean, sure.  Family, kiddo game.  I’m not asking for bigbrain plot and lore but I’m squinting at this bit because it does feel very contrary to the lore from the previous game.

- Make the aparoids more relevant.  As nice as it is to have a random bad guy from another galaxy, I feel like there was more that could be done with the aparoids in terms of their origins.  Tiny things, mind you, not huge revelations.  Off the top of my head, they could have been tied into Krystal’s backstory to help alleviate some of the complaints that she was too random to be added to the series’ main cast.  Alternatively, they could have been a product of Andross or even a weapon prototype from Corneria that fled the lab (I actually thought the game was leaning in that direction for a bit then just Nothing Happened).  I get that the vagueness of their origins leaves room for people to speculate and speculation is nice but... when you leave too many things unknown, it starts to feel less like giving fans room to interpret and more like just doing random things for the sake of it.  I think a lore tidbit here or there would work wonders for the aparoids instead of leaving them as just borg/zerg clones.

Level-Based Changes

- Add either Aparoid RedEye or Aparoid General Scales as a boss to Sauria.  Given that this level mysteriously lacks a boss, which is just weird compared to the other levels, I think that they had the opportunity to add something cool to go along with the cinematic feel they were going for with Assault.  Assault’s cutscenes do play in a movie-like fashion and it’s clear they’re trying to make the game as epic as possible.  It’s a shame they had so much fodder for a great boss here but they failed to go through with it.  Alternatively: Add a Krazoa-Aparoid fusion.  Why?  Because Star Fox is about cool epic sci-fi and that would be cool epic sci-fi incarnate.

- Add a boss to the Aparoid Homeworld Level, aka the penultimate level.  Another one I felt was personally weird that there was no “final defense system” to challenge the team.  Would be cool to do an aerial battle over the aparoid planet with some giant flying aparoid.

- Be kinder to Sauria.  The level had some good homages but overall was incredibly small and incredibly short.  It felt like a bone tossed to Adventures fans but was not entirely true to the setting built by Rareware.  I’m... not even sure where the Sauria level is supposed to take place?  I presume it’s Walled City but it doesn’t really have the same color scheme or aesthetic?  Also where is my revised Adventures music?  Why do all the other levels get it but Sauria doesn’t? 

- Put some of those funky items from the multiplayer into the main campaign.  I don’t know why some of these things, items especially, were omitted unless it was purely due to time constraints.  I remember having missile launchers and jetpacks in the multiplayer and was a bit sad that they were not in the main campaign.  Retuning the levels and adding those in would be a nice breath of fresh air for the more tedious on-foot missions.

- More levels.  Self-explanatory.  Still sad we didn’t get the Zoness or Titania levels in the single-player mode.  

I think all of the above changes would improve the game, though I recognize all of this is being said 16 years later after lots of time to contemplate Assault’s weaker points.  I’m not entirely certain how long Star Fox Assault took to develop but given that there’s obviously quite a bit scrapped from the game (an entire arcade mode was scrapped as well), I’m going to assume that the studio felt pressured to shove the game out the door and into the hands of customers.  It’s a shame, really, because I think a little bit longer in the oven would have done a lot of good.  Still, the product we got was good in its own right and a game that many people look back on fondly.  I haven’t gotten to replay it in years but I hope to quite soon.

You might wonder why I bothered typing this all out and I guess my point was this-- Assault was great but it wasn’t perfect, and while a lot of other games fall under a crushing amount of scrutiny, Assault seems to dodge it.  And don’t get me wrong-- I adore Assault.  But given that not many takes exist out there about rewriting it, I decided to give it a shot.  For variety’s sake.  

I do want to a mock up of a revised Assault story, which I think I will get to work on after completing this while all my ideas are still fresh in mind.  So stay tuned for that sometime in the near future.  I will also be doing my Adventures mock up at some point but probably not for a little bit as I do wanna focus some of my free time on actual fic-writing.

Anyways, if you stuck around this long, thank you for reading!  Have any changes you’d like to see to Assault if you could time machine your way back to the early 2000s?  Feel free to post in the comments, I’d love to read your ideas!

[hummingbird-of-light]

Post Tenebras Lux

PART 89 ~ Scotty

“The doctor was injured. But someone told me he’d be alright.”

That someone must have been Jim. Judging by the Lieutenant’s annoyed tone she must have known the cafe owner already. Which wasn’t much of a surprise to Scotty since the man obviously wasn’t a blank sheet. He had a criminal past.

But he didn’t have much time to think about that. He was just so relieved that Leonard would be okay but he still wanted to see him.

“I… I have to check on him. This is my fault.”

Scotty tried to get up but Lt. Uhura pushed him back down. She gave him a soft smile while shaking her head.

“No, Sir, you should rest. Can you… answer me some questions about Mr. Singh?”

The engineer swallowed hardly. Could he? He didn’t know. They had spent so many years together… could he just betray him like that now?

“I…”

He couldn’t find the words to start. Still he opened his mouth, when suddenly the door opened, revealing Nurse Chapel.

“Mr. Scott, how are you feeling?”

She stepped over to the other side of his bed and Scotty looked at her. Her eyes were filled with… pity. These days everyone seemed to feel the same for him. But he didn’t know if he deserved their sad looks. Why were they all caring so much?

“I’m… okay. But I want to see Leonard. Is he alright?”

Chapel smiled friendly and placed a hand on his shoulder, nodding.

“He is. And I think we can arrange that soon. We can move the beds together into one room if you’d like.”

Scotty nodded. Yes, he wanted that very much. He wanted to see it with his own eyes. But would Leonard want to see him again? After all, this was his fault. Because of him he got hurt in first place.

“Alright, Mr. Scott. I’ll leave you to rest. We can talk about my questions later. Maybe tomorrow?“

Scotty looked back at Lt. Uhura and was relieved to hear that.

“Thank you, Lieutenant. That would be very nice of ye.”

So eventually the cop got up and left the room. The engineer turned his attention back on Nurse Chapel.

“When can I see him?”

PART 90 ~ McCoy

Jim came in looking like he’d been dragged backwards through a hedge. He looked at McCoy like he’d break him if he stared too long.

“Get over here Jim,” McCoy finally had to tell him. “I’m gonna be alright.”

Jim slowly moved to the bedside. McCoy grabbed his hand.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” Jim asked as he sat.

“For all of it. For coming over. For going to Scotty’s. For going through this whole mess. For keeping me alive.”

“Can we never do that last part again? There’s a reason I quit the delinquent life.”

“Yeah, I’d really like to not do that part again either,” McCoy grinned, knowing it would hurt if he laughed.

There was silence between them for a moment.

“So why were the cops there before we called?” McCoy finally had to know.

“Turns out Scotty’s boyfriend is a real piece of shit,” Jim said. “He’s in pharma and the company he’s at has really been cutting corners or something on quality. It’s a whole federal case I guess. People have died.”

McCoy’s stomach tightened at the news.

“Did they get him? He didn’t get away…?”

“Oh they have him. He’s gonna be screwed for life, hopefully.”

“Have…” McCoy choked over the words. “Have you seen Scotty? How’s he doing over it?”

“They wouldn’t let me in, but Chris said he’s doing good. Was still out last she knew. I’ve been pacing the lobby or trying to talk up the lieutenant out there. You should see her Bones… gorgeous! Won’t give me the time of day, but just you wait,” Jim grinned.

McCoy shook his head at his friend.

Christine re-entered the room.

“So, sorry Leo, but you’re getting a roommate,” she said.

“Seriously Chris? Guy gets shot, can't have a private room?” McCoy scowled at her.

“You know how it is, hospital fills up, people have to share,” Christine gave him a strange smile. “It’s ok, I don’t think you’ll mind though.”

“Yeah,” Jim piped up, “just be yourself and they’ll be begging to be put somewhere else.”

“Shut up kid,” McCoy grumped.

“See!” Jim smiled.

“I really don’t think you’ll mind Leo,” Chris said again, with that odd smile.

“Why? Are they in a coma? Least they’d be quiet,” he said.

Christine just smiled and motioned out the door for the orderly to move the other bed in. The bed was pushed in head first, so McCoy couldn’t see the person. But he recognized the reddish-gold hair he could see on the pillow.

His heart skipped and his breath caught.