#and the amount of eye contact these past few days is insane! supposedly cause he can't hear me well with my mask on

[amarantoestrella]

The way this man leans in so close (but not close enough) to hear me when I talk to himmmmmbsjfkskflsjfjslw

[myheartrevealedocs]

Untouchable Ch 29: Amplification (S4E24)

Warnings: swearing (a lot of it), illness, hospitals

Ch 28 | Ch 30

~ ~ ~

“I’m picking you up from work. Now.”

Lydia sighed, glad that it was her break and she wasn’t in the middle of teaching class. But then again… Spencer already knew that. “Just once I’d like to get a case and be told ‘you can drop by when you’re done with what you’re working on.’ No worries. Sending out emails now.”

“Sorry. It’s local, if that helps.”

Lydia’s eyebrows knit together suspiciously. “Local? Local cases are never my cases. If it were, I probably would have heard something, right?”

“I don’t know anything about the case,” he admitted. “Hotch called and he said he needed everyone now, you included.”

Lydia shut her laptop, already stuffing it into her work bag. “I’ll meet you out front.”

~ ~ ~

Lydia had stuffed herself into the back of the elevator with Spence, Morgan, and Prentiss, so when the doors opened, she didn’t immediately see what made the three of them stop.

“What’s the army doing here?” Morgan said.

Lydia stepped to the side to get a better look at the crowd of people rushing through the BAU office.

“What the hell is going on?” Emily muttered.

Spencer was the first to set off for the conference room, Lydia joining him immediately if only to get away from the insane amount of people in the bullpen.

Inside were Hotch, Rossi, JJ, and a woman.

“Guys, this is Dr. Linda Kimura, Chief of Special Pathogens with the CDC.”

“Hello,” Emily said.

“Hello. I’m sorry to meet under these circumstances.”

“What circumstances?” Reid inquired, but Hotch stopped him.

“We need to get started.”

JJ cleared her throat, ready to take over the briefing. Lydia could tell it was going to be a quick summary, with no slides, few files to share, and no time to sit down.

“Last night, 25 people checked into emergency rooms in and around Annapolis. They were all at the same park after 2pm yesterday. Within 10 hours, the first victim died. It’s now just past 7am the next day, we have 12 dead.”

Looking over her boyfriend’s shoulder, Lydia could see large welts across the victims faces and necks. Purple rings lined the deads’ eyes.

“Lung failure and black lesions,” Morgan read aloud. “Anthrax?”

Spencer shook his head. “Anthrax doesn’t kill this fast.”

“This strain does,” Dr. Kimura admitted.

Lydia’s eyes shot to their expert. She could see why Hotch felt the need to bring her in, but a new strain of anthrax was far out of her comfort zone, especially in a time when people were dying quickly. This would take a team of people in a lab running trial after trial to find a cure. These poor people were doomed.

Lydia wouldn’t know anything about the strain, she could only come up with a vague idea about what sort of background a person would need to create this, and there were so many people already involved in whatever this was.

“What are we doing about potential mass targets?” Prentiss inquired. “Airports, malls, trains?”

“There’s a media blackout,” Hotch replied.

“We’re not telling the public?”

“We’d have a mass exodus,” Morgan explained.

“Psychology of group panic would cause more deaths than this last attack.”

“Yeah, and if it does get out, whoever did it might go underground or destroy their samples.”

“Or,” Emily tried to argue, “if they wanted attention and didn’t get it, they might attack again. Doesn’t the public have a right to know that?”

“If there is another attack, there’s no way we’ll be able to keep it quiet,” Hotch assured her. “Our best chance of protecting the public is by building a profile as quickly as we can.”

“What do we know about this strain?” Lydia interrupted, grabbing the files from Spencer to get a closer look.

Dr. Kimura answered, “the spores are weaponized, reduced to a respiral ideal that attacks deep in the lungs. Odorless and invisible.”

“A sophisticated strain,” Rossi reasoned. “Only a scientist would know how to do that.”

Lydia nodded.

“These lesions are doubling in size in a matter of hours.”

“It’s not the lesions I’m worried about,” Dr. Kimura warned. “It’s the lungs. We don’t know how to combat the toxins once they’re inside. And the reality is, we may lose them all.”

“Reid, Ambers, go to the hospital with Dr. Kimura. Reid will interview victims. Ambers, I want you in the lab updating us on blood tests and toxicology reports.”

They nodded, Spencer throwing his satchel over his shoulder.

“Morgan and Prentiss, there’s a hazmat team that will accompany you to the crime scene. There’s cipro. Everybody needs to take it before we go.”

Dr. Kimura grabbed a tray of pills from a desk along the side of the room. “We don’t know if it’s effective against this strain, but it’s something.”

Lydia picked up a plastic cup with two pills inside and glanced around. Everyone hesitated, knowing that for the rest of this case, they’d be risking a lot. This wasn’t chasing down bad guys with guns, but rather with immunity. Their kevlar vests wouldn’t protect them from the air.

“Jin dan,” Rossi said, raising his cup. “May you live 100 years.”

~ ~ ~

Spencer was fidgeting in the passenger seat of the car as they drove to Walter Reed hospital with Dr. Kimura. “What did you tell your students, Lydia?”

She shrugged. “What I normally do. Just that I was called into work by the FBI. They don’t normally ask where I’m headed or why. It’s strange. For the first time since I became a professor, I’m worried about them.”

“I guess you’re right,” he mumbled. “This is going to affect everyone in the DC area.”

“I mean, what would a cure for this even look like? The only person who has any idea how it differs from normal anthrax is our unsub. He’s got to have some kind of antidote, right?”

“Let’s hope he does,” Spencer replied. “For now, building the profile is Hotch and Rossi’s doing. Our job is to find out what we can about the victims and their symptoms.”

~ ~ ~

“How many more have died since this morning?”

“Five,” Spencer admitted. “We’re up to 17 dead.”

“It’s no good,” she sighed, having stepped out of the lab momentarily to call him. “The drug combinations are useless. We don’t know anymore about this strain than they did this morning.”

“Dr. Kimura says the strain duplicates every 30-45 minutes, poisoning the lungs and causing organ failure.”

“Extreme bacterial amplification,” she replied. “That’s insane.”

“I’m thinking whoever created this had to have gone through the trouble of testing it.”

“That would make sense, but who’s to say the park wasn’t his test run?”

“It’s too risky. Human tests are done on a much smaller scale. What do you know about illnesses that have similar symptoms to anthrax poisoning?”

“Not much,” she admitted. “I’ll talk to Garcia and do some digging about weird medical deaths in the area.”

“Thanks.”

~ ~ ~

“Tell me you got something good, Spice.”

“I rarely find myself giving out good news, Sugar,” Garcia admitted. “However, I did find some strange deaths for you. Two days ago, three people in the Baltimore area checked into 3 different ERs, slipping into comas and dying within 3 hours. The COD on all three was meningitis, but they were never tested for anthrax. Is that what you were looking for?”

“Possibly. The respiratory problems would be similar, but the lesions would have definitely signalled to the doctors it was something else. You said they died within 3 hours?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s fast. They likely had to have inhaled a high concentration of anthrax if that were the case. But, it would also make it harder to identify. See if those three were in the same place that day and contact Hotch.”

“On it.”

~ ~ ~

“Lydia?”

She huffed. “What’s up, Derek?”

“Don’t get pissy on me,” he teased.

“All I’ve done all day is answer calls and get told once an hour that someone else has died. My mood has limits.”

“I’m pulling you from the hospital. We’re going to the house of a Dr. Lawrence Nichols. Fits our profile.”

“Great.” As she spoke she slipped out of the hospital lab and towards the elevator. “What’s this profile?”

“Fanatical,” he summarized. “Dr. Nichols got booted from Fort Detrick after the Amerithrax case. He was afraid of anthrax being weaponized against the US and was preaching stronger protection from the government.”

“If he was against anthrax, what makes you think he’d use it?”

“A warning. He was told that we couldn’t spend billions of dollars to fight against an attack that may never happen. This is his way of saying, ‘You should have listened to me. Now it’s too late.’”

“Got it. I’ll meet you outside Walter Reed.”

“Good.”

Hanging up, she sent a quick message to Spencer to let him know she was leaving the hospital, then made a break for the front entrance.

~ ~ ~

“It’s quaint,” Lydia said, stepping out of the SUV and waiting for Morgan to walk around the car and join her.

The Nichols house had cute rose bushes around the front and all the windows had white trim. Classic suburban look.

“Nicer than a hospital, I bet.”

She huffed. “I cannot thank you enough for getting me out of there. I don’t know how Reid is able to talk to these people, knowing that they’re doomed.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Morgan countered. “To make sure they aren’t doomed.”

A team in protective gear had arrived before them to search the house. There was no one there, luckily enough, as Nichols was supposedly at work. And the team had yet to notify them of any contamination, but until they were certain, she and Morgan had to stay outside.

The two of them wandered towards the backyard, looking at all the greenery and sweeping for anything suspicious, but frankly, if Nichols was harboring anthrax, he would have kept it at his lab. As soon as the team inside was done, all she and Morgan had to do was the usual profiling stuff. Does this man have a motive to commit mass murder and all that jazz.

Lydia was so caught up in the difference between the well trimmed front lawn to the overgrown backyard that she didn’t hear Morgan’s cell start ringing, nor did she take notice of the fact that he stopped walking to answer it.

There was a small stone fountain, which was completely dry, in front of a decaying garage in the back. The shed was designed exactly like the house, but its paint was faded and chipping and the plants clung to it like it had been long abandoned in the weeds.

It didn’t look like anyone had been in there for years, and yet all the doors and windows were open.

As she crept towards the sliding glass door along the side, her hand went to the gun at her belt. He should be at work, but frankly, unsubs were never where you expected them to be. So, to be careful, she unclipped her weapon and kept a hand on it as she leaned inside.

“Hello? Dr. Nichols? It’s the FBI!”

Nothing…

Hesitantly, she stepped inside and didn’t take a moment to realize how bad of an idea that was. Directly across from the door was clearly a work desk, and yet, she didn’t take into consideration that he might have worked on his toxins at his house.

And so, as she stepped around the corner to find Dr. Nichols’s body with a shattered tube of white powder on the floor, it took her a moment to process what this meant.

Powder… anthrax… deadly. The AC was on, meaning the toxin was circulating the air and she had most certainly been exposed.

Deadly.

Her hand shot up to her mouth, quickly covering it with the fabric of her shirt to filter out some of the powder from the air. Funny enough, the dead body was the furthest thing from her mind. Her next plan of action was to cover the broken pieces of glass so that whatever powder was left on the floor wouldn’t be swept up into the air. She could worry about the AC in a second.

“Ambers?”

Fuck, Morgan.

She couldn’t let him inside. It was too dangerous. But if she left, the BAU might never get the chance to search the lab before the rest of the infected died. It would take too long to clear the garage. No, she had to stay, even if it meant increasing the concentration in her lungs.

Flipping around, she shut the sliding door, locking it just as Morgan appeared.

“Ambers!”

“Get back!” she insisted, looking around wildly for the closest open window to shut, one hand still holding her shirt over her face. “Get out of here!”

“What are you doing?! What’s wrong?”

He rushed over to the window with her, but wasn’t fast enough. “Don’t! STAY AWAY, MORGAN!”

“Tell me what’s going on!”

“I’VE BEEN EXPOSED!”

His face and Lydia’s heart both dropped at the same time. 

What had she done?

“Morgan,” she started, trying to keep her mind off of her death sentence, “I need you to tell the team that Nichols is dead.”

“He’s what?!”

“He’s been murdered,” she explained, stepping away from the window so that he could see the body behind her. “Blunt force trauma to the head. I have to stop the anthrax circulation in the room and then I can start to profile what happened.”

“What? No! Lydia, you have to get out of there so we can take you to the hospital!”

“Derek, Dr. Kimura said the only thing they can do at the hospital is give me morphine! If we wait for a team to clear the room before we profile, those people at the hospital will die. I might die. If I stay here, maybe I can find a cure.”

“I don’t like this, Lydia,” he grumbled. “Think about Spencer-”

“I am! We’ve seen what this toxin does to people. I have a few hours before I become incapable of doing my job. My chances of surviving increase tremendously if I spend those hours doing work. Trust me. I can do nothing from the hospital.”

He nervously gave her a once over, as if he’d be able to see how bad it was, before pulling out his cell and stepping away from the garage.

~ ~ ~

By the time Hotch got there, Lydia had turned off the AC unit, found a lab mask to cover her face, and given Morgan a rundown on the state of Nichols’s body. There was no way he was responsible for the attack at the part, because he had been dead for at least 2 days. The fact that he had anthrax here likely meant someone had murdered him to take his samples.

“Ambers,” Hotch answered his phone from across the backyard, looking at her through the window.

“Does Spencer know yet?” she demanded.

“Yes. He’s on his way now.”

“How did he take it?”

“How do you expect, Lydia?” Morgan hissed, clearly listening in on the conversation.

“I didn’t mean to do this,” she argued, glancing around the room. “But I’m going to stay and look for a cure, or at the very least, some more information on this strain and I’ll try to figure out who killed Dr. Nichols.”

Hotch took over once more. “Okay, we’re going to get a suit and mask in to you right away.”

“Don’t bother. I’m already infected. I’ve stopped the airflow for now, so my condition won’t get worse. I need to spend my time working the case.”

“Alright. What do you see?”

“He has cages stacked against the back wall, filled with dead animals,” she began, getting into work mode. “He struggled before he died. Um… there’s some oddly empty spots on shelves, which leads me to believe the murderer robbed him as well. Nothing personal in here, clearly it was only meant to be a workshop or lab of sorts. There are two desks. One is a mess but the other totally organized…”

“Two different work spaces?” It was Derek’s voice again.

“Yeah, um…” She started to flip through a journal on one of the desks and paused. “I think our unsub was working here with Nichols. These look like research notes. Stuff that Nichols would already know, considering he has a doctorate.” She ran back to the cluttered desk to look over some loose papers. “Yep. Two clearly different sets of handwriting. Maybe he took on a protege?”

“Ambers, Morgan is going to stay with you and help profile Nichols. I’m going to go back to the BAU and try to figure out who this protege might be.”

“Don’t worry about me, Hotch,” she said, hearing the edge in his voice. He didn’t want to leave her here. “I feel fine. I’m good at this stuff. If there’s a cure, I’ll find it.”

~ ~ ~

Lydia prepared herself for the worst as Spencer grew closer. Reckless together. That was her promise. Getting herself into this situation was exactly what he was talking about after the Colorado case. But she really hadn’t meant to end up here. She felt like there was no better way after being exposed. She was being as careful as she could. But their last fight hadn’t been good.

She was listing excuses in her mind. Building up a strong argument for when he got here and inevitably lost his shit on her. 

It was almost ironic that their last fight had been about her putting up walls between them and now, she was quite literally locking him out. But as she had promised to be careful, he had promised not to rush in to save her. And that included walking into a building of toxic air.

Her phone began to buzz in her pocket and she took several deep breaths before looking at the caller ID.

Spencer was here.

“Hey, love,” she said softly, not wanting to look outside and see him there. With Morgan. Probably pissed as hell.

But he matched her tone perfectly: gentle and concerned. “Lydia, how are you feeling?”

Her breath caught on all the things she was planning to say when he yelled at her. She wasn’t sure where to go with that response. “The… um… The fever’s kicking in. I’m unnaturally warm. But I’ve been super careful to lower my exposure, I promise! I didn’t mean to-”

“I know, honey. I know. Stay calm. Keep working. You’re gonna be alright.”

God, she never really knew with him, did she? Of course he wasn’t happy she was there, but he kept his promise. He was trusting her. And for the first time today, she didn’t feel like she had to convince everyone that everything was normal. They both knew her odds were unfortunately low at the moment and they weren’t going to spend this time arguing.

“Dr. Kimura came with me. She’s suiting up to come in with the decon team.”

“Good.”

There was a long pause, before he said, “Lydia, come to the window.”

She originally had thought she was avoiding his gaze because she had expected him to be angry, but stepping up to the glass and seeing him at the edge of the lawn, as close as the CDC would allow him to get, brought a new meaning to the word guilt.

She didn’t just break her promise of being with him when the bad things happened. There was a chance that in a few hours, a few painful, painful hours, she might leave him. She might die. And Spencer… he didn’t deserve that.

“Lydia,” he began, looking her over carefully. “I love you so, so much, you hear me?”

She nodded, feeling tears begin to well up in the back of her throat.

“You keep fighting in there, alright? Fight and fight until we find a cure.”

“I know,” she gulped. “I know. I- I- I-”

She froze as a violent chill ran up her spine, causing her to lose her train of thought. Spencer's face broke momentarily, giving away his fear and anguish.

“I’m sorry. I… love you, too, Spence,” she finally forced out. “More than you will ever know.”

“Hopefully in an hour you’ll be out of there and you can try to tell me.”

“Of course,” she smiled, halfheartedly. “I will.”

She had to hang up the call as she heard the decon team start to file in.

She turned around to find Dr. Kimura approaching her directly. “Dr. Ambers.”

“Dr. Kimura,” she smiled, trying to hide how nauseous she was beginning to feel. “You look nice.”

She glanced down at the red and grey suit she wore and laughed along. “I haven’t been in this outfit in a while.”

“How are the patients doing?” she asked, before mentally kicking herself. She didn’t want to know how many more had died. She didn’t need that weighing her down.

Luckily, Dr. Kimura seemed to think the same. “Let's worry about you.”

“I feel fine,” she deflected. “I don’t think I’ve inhaled that much.”

“I see you’re being careful,” she noted with a nod to Lydia’s mask, “but if you feel any pain, I can give you something.”

“Oh, I don’t think giving me morphine is a good idea.”

Dr. Kimura raised an eyebrow in her direction. “Are you sure? Some pain medication might make you feel more comfortable.”

Lydia shook her head quickly. “Don’t worry. In my line of work, you learn to focus despite your discomfort.”

Dr. Kimura still looked hesitant to let go of the subject.

“I feel fine,” she tried again. “I should work at the task at hand.”

“Ok. Tell me how I can help.”

Thank god. She could get back on track. Between Morgan, Hotch, Spence, and Dr. Kimura, she would never find the cure. Everyone would be too busy worrying about her condition.

“The team believes that there’s a cure for this strain within this lab,” she explained. “Our profile for Nichols says he’s secretive, and likely, he’s paranoid. So he would be protective of the cure. Probably hid it from his partner. Look for something totally unsuspicious.”

“Alright…” Dr. Kimura hesitated, knowing that those instructions were too broad. But Lydia didn’t have anything else. Her profiling skills didn’t go as far as the others. And she didn’t have the same information on Nichols or the partner that the others might be getting from Quantico.

Her phone rang sharply and she almost jumped at the vibrations in her pocket.

Fuck, she was succumbing quickly. Disoriented, panicked, nauseous.

“Hello?” she asked, trying not to cough violently after saying it. Her throat was starting to dry.

“How’s it going in there, kiddo?” Morgan replied.

“I’ve seen better days,” she admitted, hoarsely.

“Well, you’ve got me, Reid, and Garcia.”

“Hey, Sugar.”

Lydia couldn’t stop herself from smiling and was almost through the word “Spice” when the coughing fit finally took over.

“Lydia, stick with me. Listen, Rossi and Prentiss don’t think the partner is a coworker. Can you tell us anything else about him?”

God, she was hot. She wiped her brow and tried to run her fingers through the tangled, sweaty mess that was her hair. “I don’t… I’m not sure. I looked through all the drawers, but I can’t-”

“Come on now, kiddo. I know you’re not thinking straight, but the Lydia I know would not stop looking.”

All she wanted to do was sleep. She didn’t care if Morgan called her lazy. She didn’t care if it wasn’t like her to quit. But then she remembered all those people at the hospital who were dying. They needed a break in the case. Now. She had to at least try to give that to them.

“Alright,” she mumbled, headed straight for the partner’s desk. “We think this partner is more like a protege, right? He clearly doesn’t know as much about the chemistry of anthrax than Nichols would. So maybe he was one of Nichols’s students?”

“Nichols stopped teaching ages ago. Any of his students would likely be far more advanced now than what you described from the partner’s notes.”

She flipped through everything she had left on the desk from her last search through the doors. “You’re right. These look more like my freshman year of college notes. Basics…” A large huff escaped her lips as she desperately attempted to swallow more air. Could you drown in your own sweat? “Wait, wait- I’m looking at something here. My best guess is it’s a thesis and based on the marks in red along the sides, Nichols has been correcting it. So maybe, not one of his students, but a local PhD student, looking for help on their thesis about anthrax?”

“I can look up local PhD students,” Garcia cut in.

“Yeah, check the sciences,” Morgan told her. “Biochemistry, microbi-”

“No, wait-” Lydia cut in through another coughing fit. “A science PhD student wouldn’t have all these other notes. It’s the only part that doesn’t line up with…” She trailed off, trying to skim what he had written, but it was so hard to concentrate.

“Lydia?”

Spencer… finally.

“Lydia, you’re almost done. We’re so close to getting you out of there. Is there anything else you can tell us about this student?”

She closed her eyes, soaking in his voice, without really considering what he was asking of her. “Okay...okay…” Eyes open again, she turned the thesis back to the opening page, a table of contents. “The chapters are on setting up mobile emergencies-” She fumbled for her words. “Emergency rooms. That’s not… Science students don’t care about city preparedness.”

“Garcia, check with students in the social studies,” Spence ordered. “Public policy, urban planning. And cross check those with-”

“-Former employees and customers with grievances at the bookstore,” she finished for him. “Hot to trot. There’s a Chad Brown, school of public policy at U of M. Matches a Chad Brown, former employee at the book front.”

“That’s gotta be him,” Morgan said

“Totally. He’s been in the doctoral program on and off for five years. Nix on a steady job. Was slapped with a restraining order from his former girlfriend and has been arrested and released twice at protest rallies in DC. I’ll tell Hotch.”

Garcia spoke so fast that by the time Lydia had put Brown’s thesis down, she had already dropped off the call.

“You did good, kiddo.”

“Thanks, Morgan,” she rasped.

“Now it’s time for you to get the hell out of there,” Spencer demanded.

It wasn’t a cure, but Lydia was feeling so sick, she didn’t care. She’d done her best. Maybe it really was time to hit the hospital and succumb to the morphine.

“Yeah. Bye.”

She started to move towards the exit, knowing that they would have to decontaminate her before getting her into the ambulance, but was stopped on her way.

“Dr. Ambers!” Dr. Kimura called. “You said the cure would be hidden somewhere we wouldn’t suspect. What about Nichols’s inhaler?”

...smart.

Very smart.

“Bag it as evidence,” she ordered. “I have to hope this is it. But I can’t stay.”

The older woman nodded, likely seeing the sway as Lydia stood before her, or the sweat slipping down her neck. “Let’s get you to the hospital and I’ll have this sent to your lab.”

“Thank you,” Lydia said, smiling through the pain.

~ ~ ~

The rest of the day was a blur. Lydia had small snippets of memory: the moment Derek left to help the rest of the team, having the get hosed down and changed into a hospital gown outside of Nichols’s house, Spencer promising to meet her at the hospital. But after the fog cleared up from her mind she was positive that those would disappear as well.

She let her eyes crack open and swallowed a groan. Her nose was burning and itchy from the plastic tubes connecting her to a breathing machine and her voice was practically gone. She didn’t want to open her eyes fully because at the moment, her head was a dull ache, but she was sure the lights would cause a full blown migraine.

Spencer was holding onto her left hand with his right, his own left arm a makeshift pillow underneath his head.

On the opposite side of the room, Derek and Penelope were leaning against a wall, talking quietly. Morgan had a red Jell-O cup in his hand.

“You know, Derek,” she mumbled, softly, “I think hospital Jell-O is meant for the patients.”

They both looked over at her smiles spreading across their faces.

“Hey, kiddo,” Morgan said, matching her vocal level to not wake Spencer. “Hey doc,” he directed outside the room. “Look who’s back.”

Dr. Kimura wandered in next, standing at the edge of Lydia’s bed to speak to her. “Hey, Dr. Ambers. How are you feeling?”

“What happened?” she asked, glancing between her friends and the doctor.

“You’re gonna be alright,” Morgan prefaced. “And we got Brown. It’s over.”

“And the other patients? Did any of them…?”

“The four who were still alive are on the mend,” Garcia finally said, anxious to spread joy after the day she’d had. “You were right, Lydia. You saved them.”

“I didn’t-”

“Uh-uh,” Morgan interrupted. “I will have none of that. You put a lot on the line to find that cure. To find Brown. We all got a happy ending after what you did. Bask in it for a minute.”

She rolled her eyes teasingly and turned to check in on her boyfriend once more. He was still peacefully sleeping across his elbow, his long hair shielding his eyes from her.

“He was very worried for you,” Dr. Kimura told her.

“I was worried about him,” was all Lydia said, gently squeezing his hand.

“How long do you think you two are going to do this back and forth thing?” Morgan teased. “One of you is always worried about the other.”

“When we lose our impulse control,” Lydia replied, but stopped, thinking of something better. “When we lose our hearts.”

Tags: @kris-stuff​, @wooya1224​, @bispences​, @anotherr-fine-mess​, @eddysocs​

[makeste]

“Cool motive; still adultery” (or, ITP: makeste rants about Gokudera’s stupid dad)

@natashawogver Haha, so this reply ended up being so damn long that I ended up doing it as its own post so that I could add a cut.

First, I can’t speak for everyone, but I’ve always assumed “Gokudera” was his mother’s surname rather than his dad’s, and the parts of fandom I’ve interacted with seem to concur, I think? But since Gokudera’s father never got a canon name, I use “Gokupapa” at times just to make it clear who I’m referring to without having to type out “Gokudera’s father” every time.

Anyway! I said in my answer to your previous ask that I could go on for days about this topic, and I probably will, so! Just... be warned, lol.

The thing is, it’s absolutely possible to take Bianchi’s statement at 100% face value. It was a misunderstanding. His parents really did love each other. His mom was sick and didn’t want to get attached to him (and vice-versa), so she limited her contact with him. His father was heartbroken and wanted to marry his mother, but she refused, thinking it would be better for everyone that way. Somehow this all got twisted around, and rumors about Gokupapa’s infidelity spread, but the rumors all missed out on the crucial points that (1) he actually was in love with her, and (2) that she did from her illness rather than under any suspicious circumstances. Fine. It’s possible; it checks out; there are letters proving this; TYL!Bianchi says this is the case. So fine, let’s assume this is what actually happened.

The thing is that if this really was how the events actually played out, in my opinion it not only does not redeem Gokudera’s father, it actually kind of makes him a bigger asshole than ever. And on top of that, it makes his mom kind of an asshole too. The manga tries to play off this revelation like it’s supposed to redeem Hayato’s parents, but in actuality, if this is all true, both of them were pretty irredeemably selfish, and their actions came very close to ruining Hayato’s whole life. So okay, let’s get into all of the reasons why they, in fact, suck.

First and foremost: Gokudera’s father cheated on his wife. This is indisputable no matter which version of events we go with. He was married with a young daughter, he had a mistress, and he got his mistress pregnant. “Yes, but he was in love!” Okay! Cool motive; still adultery! “But he was going to marry her!” Sure, but then he didn’t. Nor did he divorce his previous wife. In the end he wound up pretending Hayato was her son instead. I can’t imagine she was very happy about that. Shades of Catelyn Stark and Jon Snow, most likely, except that Ned was actually a decent guy, whereas we have no evidence at all that Gokupapa was anything other than a big sack of shit.

Gokudera’s mom! Lavina! Let’s talk about her. First of all, it’s clear that whatever else, she genuinely did love her son dearly. She died before he was even three years old, and by all accounts only ever visited him a handful of times, and yet he still has deeply affecting memories of her more than a decade later. For her to have had that much of an impact on him in just that short amount of time, she must have been absolutely radiating love for him on each and every one of those visits. She’s a saint in his eyes. He loves her and misses her even though he barely knew her. I absolutely won’t argue that she didn’t love him, because all evidence says otherwise.

But -- she abandoned him. Because she thought it would be best for him, supposedly, but still. She left him with his father and basically surrendered all responsibility for him, and gave up the few short years that they could have spent together. She denied him the chance to get to know her, and minimized what seems to have been one of the few bright spots of his childhood. And by turning down Gokudera’s father (even though we’re led to believe they were in love), she ensured that her son would never have any hope of being seen as legitimate, something that ends up making his life fairly miserable later down the line.

So to sum, Gokudera’s mom = loving, but absent. As for Gokudera’s father, his infidelity is only one small aspect of his being a piece of shit! 

Let’s talk for a second about Gokudera’s childhood. By all accounts, he grew up desperately lonely. It’s clear that he and Bianchi were very isolated growing up. They don’t appear to have any friends, and they were tutored at home. It’s also fairly clear that Hayato was not receiving anything in the way of paternal affection, judging by how totally enamored he was of Shamal, idolizing him and seeking his approval and going so far as to imitate his hairstyle. Look, Shamal isn’t exactly a tender or affectionate guy. He’s mostly just an asshole! On the few occasions that he does show any type of caring toward Hayato, it’s always in the most gruff and indirect ways possible. So for this guy, as aloof as he is, to be receiving that level of reverence and admiration from this six or seven-year-old boy speaks volumes about just how starved Hayato was for any type of kindness or attention. It means that he had no one else. Maybe he wasn’t suffering from any physical abuse yet at this point, but there was absolutely neglect. And you can tell this left scars on him that he’s still struggling to deal with even as a teenager.

So now, let’s talk about the actual abuse. Poison cookies! All right, so before I start in with this, I just want to make it clear that I don’t blame Bianchi for any of it. As I’ve said before, I truly believe that she didn’t (and still doesn’t) understand the damage she actually did. She loves her little brother and her cooking was made with love; how could it possibly hurt him? There’s a lot of inherent tragedy there, because this ends up forcing the two of them apart, and up until that point, Bianchi had really been the only loving presence in Hayato’s life from what I can see. And she still doesn’t understand what caused the rift between them.

Because this was all first revealed back during the Daily Life arc, it was all played up for comedic effect, and so it wasn’t ever examined too closely. We’re not really meant to think on it too much. But later on when the manga does become serious, and more events from Hayato’s past are revealed that absolutely are serious and tragic and treated with gravity and solemnity, it gets harder to ignore the tonal whiplash. You kind of do have to go back and look at the whole poison cooking thing again, this time from a more serious standpoint. And when you do, it’s pretty damn fucked up.

Basically, Hayato was poisoned on a regular basis for two whole years. It was painful and traumatizing to the point where just the memory of it physically affects him years later. And the one responsible for making all this happen in the first place? Dear old dad. After the bizarre “success” of that first disastrous concert, Hayato is forced to eat his sister’s cookies before every single performance. His dad fucking forced him to eat poison for fucking entertainment! Like, it’s such an insanely over-the-top tragedy that that itself is the joke. It’s so absurd and so out of the blue that it’s hilarious. Or at least it is in the original context when we first get this reveal all the way back in chapter 10.

But as the manga’s tone gradually sobers up and matures, Gokudera’s role in the series shifts from “hotheaded whipping boy whose hypertragic past can be exploited for comedic purposes” to “deeply-insecure-yet-determined character whose genuinely awful past can be milked for lots of angst.” Conveniently enough, the series never revisits the whole poison cooking story once this shift takes place, but what we do get is a brand new backstory in which Gokudera despises his father because he believes that he had his mother killed. 

Let’s repeat that: Gokudera believes that his father murdered his mother. Whether or not this is actually true or not almost doesn’t matter, because the fact remains that Hayato believed this story without question from the moment he first heard it. It means there was absolutely no doubt in his eight-year-old mind that his father was capable of that. And small wonder that he wouldn’t doubt it, because this is a man who first neglected him and then later went on to abuse him. Because that’s what the poison cooking thing is, in this revised context: abuse. Full stop. There is absolutely no other way to look at it. 

So yeah! It’s pretty safe to say that a man who was capable of that would also have been capable of callously killing a woman just to cover up his own indiscretions. He doesn’t exactly have a lot going on that would make one want to give him the benefit of the doubt.

But again, canon later swings around and says this was all just a misunderstanding. He didn’t kill Lavina, and Gokudera was in fact “born into this world loved by both of his parents.” To add onto that, TYL!Bianchi tells Gokudera all this while also observing that she “doesn’t expect him to understand right now.” The implication is almost that Gokudera is somehow the one who’s been in the wrong this whole time, and he’s been unfairly assuming the worst about his dad, and judging him without fully understanding the situation.

This. Is. Bullshit. And it’s where I take the most umbrage with regards to this entire thing. Because here’s the final bit of evidence that Gokudera’s dad is The Absolute Worst, and it’s probably the most damning of all: he lets Hayato run away. He lets him leave, and there is no evidence at all that he ever made any kind of attempt to go after him and bring him home. This is an eight-year-old child, who up until this point has grown up in a fucking castle, and who has absolutely no knowledge of the real world whatsoever. He went from fairy tale levels of wealth to literally living on the street. Anything could have happened to him. Probably a hell of a lot did happen to him that will never be fully examined, because this was a manga aimed at kids and young teenagers, and also it ended back in 2012 lol. But it’s not hard to imagine. Even assuming the most G-rated version of events possible -- say, in a world where drugs and human trafficking and violent street crime somehow aren’t a thing -- he’s still homeless, and all alone. We know from canon and from the light novels that he basically just drifted from place to place. 

In the opening section of his light novel story Bakudan Bambino, he wakes up after getting himself knocked out in a brawl to find that a good samaritan has taken him in and bandaged up his wounds. He is incredibly confused by all of this, but it’s not the fact that he was knocked out and woke up in a strange place that confuses him. It’s the fact that he didn’t wake up bleeding in an alley somewhere, but that instead some guy he didn’t even know helped him out for absolutely no reason without expecting anything in return. Hayato is at such a low point in his life at this stage that he literally can’t conceive of someone actually doing that, because he’s spent the past four years having it repeatedly hammered into his head that people aren’t like that, and the world isn’t like that. He has issues. He is miserable. Later in the novel, when he asks that same good samaritan guy why the hell he keeps helping him out, the man answers that it’s because Hayato’s eyes always seem to be saying ‘help me.’ Basically, in those four years he’s been through absolute hell, and the entire fucking time he’s been suffering through it completely and utterly on his own.

But here’s the thing -- he was eight years old when he left. He had no plan whatsoever, no fucking idea what the hell he was doing. You can’t tell me he could have possibly made it very far, at least at first. Where the hell could a stupid little eight-year-old kid with no money or transportation or anything possibly could have gone that his father, a man with a ton of resources and wealth, wouldn’t have been able to track him down? He wasn’t laying low; we know for a fact that he attempted to join a number of other mafia families, only to be turned down by all of them because they didn’t want a spoiled rich brat, or “a half-breed.”

This all goes to show that they knew who he was, though. It’s not a secret. All his father would have had to do was put the word out that Hayato had gone off on his own and that he would be very grateful (in the $$$ sense) to anyone who could aid him in tracking him down and returning him. This is assuming that he couldn’t have just had his own men do it. Basically, there’s no way that Hayato successfully manages to run away and not be found unless his father actually didn’t want to find him.

And when you think about it like that, then it does start to make more sense. From the start, Gokudera’s father never shows any kind of attachment to him, and is content first to ignore his existence, and then to later on actually have him poisoned for laughs. Best case scenario, he doesn’t care about him one way or the other. Worst case, Hayato is actually a thorn in his side and he’s happy to be rid of him. Because he is still illegitimate, after all, and who knows what kind of political troubles that could end up causing as he starts to get older. And there’s a good chance that Hayato’s stepmother, Bianchi’s mother (who is never once mentioned throughout the entire series but who does, one has to assume, exist) isn’t particularly fond of Hayato and never has been. So really, who even cares if he runs away, then? In the long run it’s probably for the best. So rather than showing even the slightest bit of concern over his son’s safety and well-being, he just lets him run away and apparently disregards the matter entirely. Just abandons him to whatever might happen out there, and good riddance.

And this -- this is why I can’t swallow the whole “your parents loved you and each other” thing at the end of the day. Because even supposing that the latter part is true, the former absolutely is not. It can’t be. And it bothers me so much, because it’s like, so are we supposed to get the impression that Gokudera’s dad is just a misunderstood guy who was only ever trying to do his best, then? Because if not, why even bring any of this up? Is this supposed to be a cathartic revelation for Gokudera, to realize that not only is his dad a dick who never gave a shit about him, but that his mom, too, played a part in how these events all turned out, and that it was her choice not to ever see him? How the fuck is that supposed to make him feel better about the whole situation? In the end it somehow just makes it all end up being even more of a huge clusterfuck.

Lol oh my god. So that’s pretty much all of my thoughts on the matter. As you can see, I still have very strong opinions about all this, and I still haven’t gotten over it after all this time, to the point where I actually wrote a fic that partially revised Gokudera’s backstory just so I could resolve it all in my own mind in a way that actually felt satisfying to me. (The link is here, incidentally, and I really have some nerve linking to that considering that I still haven’t finished the epilogue for it yet. But I guess I have no shame lol.) It’s probably the single most infuriating thing in the entire series for me. I should probably chill out just a little, but! He’s my goddamn son. It’s like you said: I love everything about him too, lol. So for his sake, I will always be mildly enraged over this two-page plot point that occurred ages and ages ago and then never came up again.  (︶▽︶)b

[nikki-romero]

GENETIC NEMESIS [SHUICHI HISHIKURA] ~ CHAPTER 9

It was the weekend, and I was on my way to the local florist. It would be my excuse to see Shuichi again. I didn’t think it necessary to buy a new cactus; a pot and some soil should do. I randomly picked a pot I thought was big enough, but as I tried making my way to register, I accidently bumped into the person in front of me. “Oh, excuse me…” I looked up and the person in front of me was none other than Shuichi himself. We both froze upon seeing each other. He silently tried to walk past me. “Hang on.” I grabbed hold of his wrist. “What is it?” He stared at me coldly. “Don’t give me that. I need to talk to you,” I replied assertively. “You never change, do you?” He sighed and walked over to me. “I lied to you. We have nothing to talk about. “Yes we do. I want to know why you lied.” “It’s none of your business.” His standoffish attitude, which usually annoyed me, did little to faze me today. “I’m the one you tried to manipulate here,” I pointed a forefinger at myself, “It damn well is my business. You don’t show up to our meetings anymore. I thought you were supposed to be watching me.” A surprised look crossed his face. “Why do you want to know so badly? I lied to you. Shouldn’t you never want to see me again?” “Which part of I want to know why I was being lied to do you not understand?” “I’m sure you do. I bet you hate me for lying to you.” “No, I…” I paused. “I don’t… hate you…” “What?” Hishikura raised his eyebrows in surprise. “How about lunch?” “Lunch?” He looked at me like I was insane. “I’m saying we can talk over lunch instead of discussing it here.” Shuichi sighed, but took me to a nearby restaurant.

For some reason, Hishikura insisted on ordering for us at the restaurant. He ordered grilled chicken kebabs, which were pretty good. “Do you like it?” he asked me. “It’s not bad,” I replied. “I come here often because the food reminds me of home,” he said nonchalantly. He quietly drank a cup of coffee while I ate. After, he ordered me a coffee as well. I stared into the cup of black coffee in front of me. “Where should I start?” he asked me quietly. “My goal is to clear my father’s name.” “Okay.” I nodded. “That wasn’t much of a reaction. Isn’t that what you wanted to know?” Hishikura murmured, puzzled by my lack of response. I laced my fingers and rested my chin on top of my hands. “I think we both know there’s more to it than that… Maezono told me a little about your father.” “Oh. I didn’t know you spoke to Maezono.” His expression softened. “He used to be my father’s secretary, but now he works for me. After my father lost his seat, Maezono gave me so much support. I can never thank him enough.” I smiled slightly. “What?” “Nothing. Go on,” I egged him on. “The reason my father lost his seat is because he was suspected of bribery.” “I heard about that.” “He lost the trust of his voters because of the bribery scandal.” “Who did he supposedly take a bribe from?” “I don’t know. Whoever it was covered his trail so well, it was never made public. I’m participating in the auctions to find information so I can avenge my father.” “I see…” I wasn’t sure if I believed him or not. I felt like he knew more than he was telling me. “I haven’t found anything yet, though.” He smiled sadly. “I thought you were the key to finding out inside information about the auctions. I thought you might be dating one of the managers, so I approached you as Shu.” I burst out laughing. “Me? Date one of those lunatics?” I slapped my hand repeatedly on the table as I laughed. “Like that’d ever happen.” Shuichi smiled. “I know that now. I wanted to use you to find out if any information regarding my father’s bribery scandal was being sold at the auctions or not, and then stop it. Since there was a possibility that very important information could fall into the wrong hands.” I nodded now and then, listening intently. “It seems despite your position, you’re not an integral part of the auctions. It was a miscalculation,” he said awkwardly. “Only Eisuke and his girlfriend know the specific information about the auction patrons. I don’t really want to, but I suppose I could ask him to help…” “No, I can’t possibly cause any more trouble for you. And you’re too unpredictable. You’re too much for me to handle.” I chuckled. “How long have you known that I was tricking you?” “I didn’t know that first night, but I found out shortly after. It was pretty obvious.” “It was?” Shuichi frowned. Using my fingers, I recounted all the reasons. “First of all a person being called a shortened version of his twin’s name? Unlikely. Second of all, siblings don’t refer to each other by their last names. As Shu, you always referred to yourself as ‘Hishikura’, never using your name. Siblings don’t do that. I should know; I have four. And third of all, think about who I am. I didn’t become a mafia leader by sitting on my ass and looking pretty.” “Your language is as crass as ever…” “…And I have a lot of connections.” I ignored his snide remark. “It’d be easy for someone like me to get my hands on your family background information.” “You’re much sharper than I gave you credit for.” I smiled. “I know, right?” Shuichi looked surprised for a moment. “What’s wrong?” “Nothing…” He frowned. “That time I went out with you as Shu… When I dropped you off at the embassy…” He didn’t have to say more than that; I knew what he wanted to know. I rested my cheek in the palm of my hand as I looked at him. “I knew who I was kissing,” I replied bluntly. “What…” Shuichi looked more shocked than I’ve ever seen him. I looked him straight in the eye, a small smile playing on my lips. “You don’t seem to get along with Ichinomiya very well…” After a long pause, Shuichi changed the subject. “Get along with him? I detest him.” I leaned back, resting my elbows on top of the backside of the chair. “I meant what I said when you went out with me that time as Shu: My life has been in complete disarray ever since he stepped foot in it. Having myself suspected of terrorism by a foreign government is proof of that. Eisuke uses whoever he can to his advantage and then casts them aside. He acts like the world owes him everything; like he’s the only one who can get what he wants, no matter who gets hurt in the process. All he ever does is cause trouble for other people and he doesn’t even feel bad about it. I know I called him my brother that one time, but the truth of it is, he’s just a stranger; a distant relative who happens to share my blood. Our definitions of family are polar opposites. The only people I consider my family are the parents who raised me and the brothers I grew up with. I’ve never accepted Eisuke as such, and I likely never will.” “If that’s how you feel, why do you spend so much time in the penthouse?” “The Ice Dragons and the Wings of Freedom signed a treaty little lees than a year ago. My eldest brother, Ayato, is in charge of the Dubai branch of the Wings of Freedom, but I tend to deal with the negotiations with Soryu in the penthouse. It’s safer that way.” “I suppose a stranger going into the penthouse would be too conspicuous.” “No, that’s not it. Aya doesn’t have a lot of patience. If he handled the negotiations in the penthouse, everyone else there would probably end up dead within the hour.” Shuichi looked surprised at that. “Maybe dead is too strong a word. But he would definitely beat them to a bloody pulp.” “You’re saying he’s more violent than you are?” “We’re about the same amount. I’m just better at ignoring people. I guess you could say I’m a bit calmer overall. Also, I don’t hate the others that much. They can be fun sometimes.” “Is everyone in your family mafia leaders?” “My parents are retired, but my brothers and I are, yes. Aya got promoted to branch leader a few months before I came here. My other three brothers are all squad captains in the homeland corps, and I’m the commander. I basically have control over all of the Wings of Freedom homeland corps squads in the world.”  

By the time we left the restaurant, the sun had already set. “I’ll take you back to your apartment,” he told me. “Thanks,” I replied. We walked through the streets together, the night sky hanging above us. Shu and I used to walk around like this a lot, even when I already knew the truth. This was the first time I’d done it with Shuichi as himself. “Do you have bad eyesight?” I asked. “Yes, it’s fairly bad. Why do you ask?” “You didn’t wear glasses when you were pretending to be Shu.” “Those were contacts. I had them sent over from Japan.” “I see.” He thought everything out to the last detail. “You really love your father, huh?” “…What?” He suddenly stopped in his tracks, which in turn made me stop too. “What is it?” “Why did you ask me that?” “You wouldn’t go to such lengths to clear his name if you didn’t,” I answered. “It’s even led you to try and use an uninvolved party. I get the feeling that’s not something you would do if you could help it.” Hishikura stared at me with astonishment. “I didn’t expect you to say that.” “Did I say something rude?” I didn’t ask that in seriousness; I knew the answer. “No… Quite the opposite, actually,” Hishikura turned to me and leaned over. “I’ll tell you a secret.” He brought his lips close to my ear. “Please don’t tell anyone.” His deep voice rumbled in my ear. “I’m going to avenge my father and become the prime minister.” I didn’t say anything in response. He pulled away and started walking away. “Hey.” I jogged up to him. He glanced at me. “You’re the first person I’ve ever told that,” he said. “Really?” “If I told any of the politicians I know, all they’d do is laugh and make fun of me.” “Why did you tell me then?” “I’m not sure. I suppose I just did it on impulse.” “Impulse…” I repeated in disbelief. Shuichi Hishikura, doing something on impulse? Now there’s something you don’t see every day.   “Emillia. I’m really sorry that I lied to you.” He bowed his head low to me. “I deserved your punishment for what I did to you. I know it’s not much of an apology. But if there’s anything you want, I can try my best to make it happen.” I walked over to him. “Shuichi.” As he lifted his head, I flicked his forehead. “You’re an idiot, you know that? Fine, then I want to keep seeing you.” “And do what?” he asked. “I don’t care.” Shuichi sighed deeply. “What’s with that reaction?” “I used you… I never expected you to make that request of me. I really don’t understand you.” I smiled self-deprecatingly. “Honestly, right now neither do I. I just…” want to be with you… I thought. “If you want me to watch you that badly, I suppose I can.” He pushed up his glasses and started walking again. “Don’t be an idiot. You know perfectly well that isn’t what I meant.” As he briskly walked away, I could’ve sworn I saw his cheeks turn pink. “Are you blushing?” “Please be quiet. That reminds me. You told Shu that you thought I was hard headed-and like a robot.” “You’re the one who asked.” “I don’t know about that.” We both laughed for a few seconds. “I’ll see you at the hotel tomorrow,” he said as soon as we reached the apartment building.   “Yeah. Have a good night. Shuichi.” I used his first name for the first time. He looked at me in surprise as I went inside.

To be continued…  

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