#another case where I post something entirely random that has nothing to do with anything I've ever posted here

[icewindandboringhorror]

golf

[kaspbra-cant-even]

Never Tear Us Apart (Spencer Reid/Reader)

This is one of my works from AO3 where I post under the user-name fish_cloud. Under the cut will be the entire work as it is already finished. Have fun reading and feedback is always appreciated 💛

Rating: Mature Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions of Violence Category: F/M Fandom: Criminal Minds (US TV) Relationship: Spencer Reid/Reader Characters: Spencer Reid, Reader, Elle Greenaway, Penelope Garcia, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau, Aaron Hotchner, Jason Gideon, Derek Morgan Additional Tags: Soulmate AU, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Mutual Pining, Angst, Violence, Torture, Sexual Content Language: English Chapters: 7/7 Words: 17k

Summary: Soulmates exist but they are rare. So rare, that some people doubt their existence. (Y/n) is already struggling trying to hide her feelings for Spencer but then she finds out they're soulmates, just as they take on a case about a serial killer targeting couples, he thinks are soulmates, things get complicated and dangerous.

Notes: The title is inspired by Never Tear Us Apart by Paloma Faith (I swear that woman has a voice to die for). Also this is kind of dedicated to my best friend, I love her so much. Enough from me, have fun reading :))

Chapter 1

Having a soulmate was a rare occurrence. You could consider yourself lucky if you had one and even luckier if you ever found them. It was kind of like winning the lottery. There were people who had devoted their entire life to finding their other half, without even knowing if they even existed. Isn’t it only human to crave connection? The longing to belong to someone. This is not to say, that you were alone, just because you didn’t have a soulmate or didn’t find them. But this kind of connection was hard to grasp for someone who hadn’t experienced it. A one in a million connection.

Most known things about soul-connections were purely speculative due to the fact that they were so rare and even when some would find each other, there was nothing easy about trying to explain it. Like with all spiritual things there were some people who chased the idea with cult-like devotion and there were people whose life remained inherently untouched by it.

(Y/n) was the latter. In her now 1 and a half years at the BAU she had come into contact with the subject. Mostly it had been people who justified their crimes with their search for their soulmate or they were fueled by their hate for others who had found “the one”. (Y/n) knew that their loneliness didn’t stem from the lack of a soulmate. It was just something to project their loneliness onto.

There were several ways to know if you even had a soulmate but like with most things, they weren’t scientifically accurate most of the time. Soulmates could feel each other’s pain, physical as well as mental. The problem is, who hasn’t had random bruises that showed up out of nowhere or a sudden change in mood. Do you just not remember where those injuries came from and maybe you’re more empathetic than some people or is it your soulmate? Of course, with major injuries there was no doubt but taking into consideration how few even were unmatched souls and out of those how many suffered such significant damage that anything else could be ruled out, needless to say it was an uncommon occurrence to find out this way.

Another thing were shared dreams. Not in the sense that soulmates would dream about the exact same thing, but the overall tone would synchronize. If one was having nightmares, the other would too. Psychological consequences were mostly unexplored.

The last known indicator was that once having met your soulmate you’re lives were intertwined, no matter if you knew they were your soulmate or not.

As you see, all of these indicators weren’t exactly clear. As a result, you could meet your soulmate without ever figuring out they were the one.

When she was younger (Y/n) had fantasized about having a soulmate, like most teenagers did, but as she got older, the fantasy faded. Other things had become more important. She had picked up on some signs but there had never been definite proof and after a while it wasn’t important anymore. She had started working for the FBI as a profiler and from that point on

her mind had been preoccupied with anything else. She wouldn’t waste her life searching for someone she didn’t even know existed.

As (Y/n) walked into the bullpen one morning, the bad dream from the night before still lingered. She couldn’t remember what it had been about, but she hadn’t gotten much rest. She sat down at her desk. She hadn’t even unpacked as Spencer walked up to her with an extra cup of coffee in his hand. (Y/n) couldn’t help but notice he looked tired. “Morning, panda boy.” “Panda what?” “Because of the bags under your...nevermind, you look tired.” Spencer let out a sigh. (Y/n) took a sip of coffee. “Nightmare again?” Spencer nodded and leaned on the edge of her desk.

When (Y/n) first started to take a liking to Spencer she couldn’t stop herself from interpreting something into every one of these common experiences but after a while she’d resigned herself to accepting the were just coincidences. She had read somewhere that people would sync up after spending a lot of time together and there wasn’t a person in the world, she spent more time with than Spencer Reid. The only people who came in close second were the others on the team. When you worked for the BAU, the people you worked with were your family, so much so, she barely had any relationships outside of work.

“I’m sorry, do you want to talk about it?” She brushed his arm ever so lightly with her fingertips as to not overstep any boundaries. Spencer and (Y/n) were close but she herself wasn’t a very physical person and so she would go out of her way as not to make other people uncomfortable. There were of course exceptions. One of those exceptions was Penelope Garcia, (Y/n)’s best friend at the BAU. Over time she had gotten so comfortable with Penelope that physical touch was a given.

But with Spencer it had always been something different. After they had become friends, it hadn’t taken too long until (Y/n) had caught feelings and she felt like taking advantage of their friendship if she used it to get closer to him.

Spencer’s eyes flickered to her hand on his arm for a split second before she retracted it quickly as to not make him uncomfortable. Their eyes met for a second but before she could try to read him and overthink the situation Spencer spoke up. “Conference room in 5.” He walked back to his desk to get some papers before heading to the conference room.

(Y/n) let out a sigh. Spending time with Spencer had become increasingly more difficult. It wasn’t his fault. It just became harder to hide her affections. She could feel them drifting apart in her effort not to jeopardize their friendship. She buried her face in her hands. There was no good way out of this. Clearly her feelings weren’t going away, and she knew she couldn’t hide them forever. The BAU must’ve been the worst place on earth to have a crush on your coworker.

The inevitable next step was Spencer finding out about it one way or another. The only question was how he’d react. (Y/n) had ruled out the possibility of him reciprocating her

feelings pretty fast. She remembered a case in LA where they had to catch Lila Archers stalker. Spencer had been smitten from the second he laid eyes on her. It had taken (Y/n) weeks and a few bottles of Hennessy to get the image of them kissing in the pool out of her head.

She shook her head as if to get rid of the memory. She stared at her desk from between her fingers. The other two options were either him being ok with her having feelings for him but at this point she doubted she could still be friends with him even if he had a good reaction, or he wouldn’t want anything to do with her anyway.

“Fuck...” (Y/n) whispered. She looked up, fixed herself and grabbed her cup before walking into the conference room. The only free seat was next to Spencer. He gave her a small smile before she sat down. Instantly she felt the small butterflies in her stomach. She smiled back and emptied her coffee hoping to drown those fuckers.

Jennifer Jareau was standing in the front explaining their new case. The unsub was targeting couples in the Las Vegas area. The couples went missing sometimes for weeks. There had been 16 bodies already. They showed clear signs of torture. JJ showed them pictures of the symbol every victim had carved into their chest. It resembled a stick figure of a human with four arms and four legs.

“We can safely assume that the killer’s motivation has something to do with the soulmate myth.” JJ concluded.

(Y/n) couldn’t help but smile. She knew Spencer was about to speak before he even opened his mouth.

“Plato said: According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.”

(Y/n) turned to the others. “So, what er we thinking? Is this guy delusional and chasing some fantasy or were those people actually soulmates he found somehow?” “We won’t have definite proof if these people were soulmate or not as they’re dead, but it would be statistically very unlikely that they were in fact actual soulmates.” Spencer responded.

His eyes lingered on her for a moment. He would never admit it but the way (Y/n) chewed on her pen when she was in deep thought made him feel things. It took him a second to tear his eyes away from her before turning his attention back to JJ.

“We’re dealing with a highly organized serial killer. His motivation is power and control, we’re looking for someone with an outwardly normal looking life, someone charming, charismatic and very intelligent. Later victims have shown signs of post-mortem sexual behavior. So, we’re dealing with someone who feels alone, who fears rejection. When his victims are dead the possibility of being rejected is gone. He also inserts himself into the couple’s relationship. We have to assume that whether they really are soulmates or not, he believes they are. It is possible that he also has some sort of god complex, putting himself in the role of Zeus who separates the soulmates from each other.”

The atmosphere on the jet was buzzing with conversation. The soulmate subject had that effect on people. It was a heavily discussed and controversial concept.

“I don’t think soulmates actually exist.” Morgan said and leaned back in his chair. “How can you say that? There have been cases where soulmates have actually found each other!” Elle protested. “It’s all fake, how can you believe them? Let me guess, you also read your horoscope every day too?” Morgan let out a light laugh but Elle furrowed her brows. “They’re two totally different things, even if I did believe in astrology, which has no relevance whatsoever in this discussion, you can’t just ignore facts!”

(Y/n) leaned back in her seat looking at Spencer, who sat next to her. “What do you think?” He seemed to gather his thoughts for a moment. “I mean there is some evidence but it’s all very speculative.” He looked at her for a second and he swore he saw a glint of disappointment in them but then it was gone. “But who knows,” He added quickly “maybe Soulmate are real, it’s a nice thought that there could be someone out there who has such a special connection to you.”

(Y/n) nodded. “But how is that even supposed to work? What if I do have a soulmate but I like someone else? Or I have a family or something?” “There are platonic soulmates as well, you know.” He gave her a small smile. For some reason this gave him comfort. Spencer wasn’t one to indulge in fantasies and he was decidedly to pragmatic to dream of his soulmate but if he had to chose someone it would be (Y/n). The probability of her liking him in a romantic way was even lower than her being his soulmate so the option of platonic soulmates eased his mind, even if just for a bit. He shoved those thought in the back of his head, he didn’t like to dwell on daydreams.

“Well, if some random guy walked in tomorrow and it turned out he was my soulmate, I’d still want to stay with you.” She said, decidedly, not really thinking about the implication. When she caught herself it was already too late. Spencer let out a small laugh. “You don’t have to stay with me, believe me you won’t want to when you find them.” “Shut up, more likely than not I don’t have one anyway, so I guess you’re stuck with me.”

Spencer let out another small laugh, but his heart sank a bit. If he was being honest with himself it was one of his greatest fears. That one day, (Y/n) would walk into the BAU and announce she’ found the one and she would quit to spend her life with them. He couldn’t bare the thought of someone taking her away from him. But this was totally normal for a friendship as deep as theirs, right?

After a while Spencer got up to get himself a cup of coffee. Elle and Morgan were still fighting, JJ had taken Elle’s side, Hotch just listened and Gideon sat by a window rereading the case file. No one was paying attention when it happened. Spencer had gotten distracted by something Elle had said to Morgan and almost tripped, a cup of hot coffee in his hand. As she saw the scene unravel before her, (Y/n) felt the burn on her hand. It took her every ounce of self-control not to make a sound. Spencer hissed and sat down next to her again. He handed her the coffee so he could clean up his hand with a napkin.

(Y/n) stared at him, her mind running a hundred miles per hour. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be. Spencer shot her a concerned look. “(Y/n) are you ok? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” She stood up. “Excuse me for a second, I don’t feel so well, must’ve been the food or something.” She walked to the bathroom without looking back. After she closed the door behind her she sank to the ground with her back against the door.

(Y/n) felt panic rise in her chest. This was not possible. Sure there had been moments when she’d suspected something was up but she had always dismissed it but now it was so obvious there was no denying it. She felt tears of frustration gather in her eyes. As if everything hadn’t been already complicated enough. Not just did she have feelings for Spencer but now she knew almost certainly that they were also soulmates. She felt anger build up. Whoever came up with this soulmate stuff had been a real asshole. She would have been perfectly happy with not having a soulmate and just having Spencer by her side. What if he didn’t want to be her soulmate? Had there ever been a case where one of them just wasn’t into it? Shouldn’t there have been some signs from his part that he felt more for her? But then she remembered what he had said abut platonic soulmates and her stomach sank. Maybe he had known all along, and he’d just been giving her hints that they could just be friends.

Maybe they could make a deal somehow, they didn’t have to spend the rest of their lives together if he didn’t want to. She had resigned herself to not having a soulmate a long time ago, she didn’t need him.

She buried her face in her hands. Suddenly all those thoughts were gone and what remained was a heavy emptiness. There was no good solution for this, and she couldn’t hide in the bathroom forever. She took a deep breath and looked in the mirror to see how good her poker-face was after just having gone through the seven stages of grief in under 5 minutes.

As she walked back into the sitting area, she was greeted by Spencer’s worried looks. “Everything ok?” She sat down next to him. “Yeah, everything is fine.” “You don’t look so well, are you sure everything is ok?” He put his hand on her forehead to feel her temperature. His hand was cold on her warm face. Her breath hitched in her throat from the sudden touch and she had to fight the urge to close her eyes. She gave him a soft look. “I’m fine, Spencer, I promise.” His touch lingered for a second before he retracted his hand.

“You know you can’t lie to me.” He gave her a small smile. In a sudden burst of confidence she put her hand on his. “It’s alright, I’ll talk to you if I need to, don’t worry about me.” His hand wrapped around hers and he gave her a little squeeze. (Y/n) almost got sick from the explosion of butterflies in her stomach. Until now she’d attributed these strong physical reactions when they touched to the fact that she had a crush on him but looking back she couldn’t remember experiencing something like this with anyone else. Working with Spencer would be a real challenge, now that she had not one but two secrets.

Chapter 2

“Life is short, break the rules. Forgive quickly, kiss slowly. Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably and never regret anything that makes you smile.” – Mark Twain

(Y/n) had a hard time concentrating from the moment they got off the jet. She felt like moving in a dream as they checked in with the local PD, going over the case again, went to the last crime scene. Only when she entered the expensive suite, she felt like shook her awake. The champagne-colored furniture was covered in dark red blood. But it was not the image that snapped her back to reality, it was the smell, it was always the smell that got to her.

The bodies were no longer in the room, but they had been laying here at least three days before anyone even noticed. One of the detectives turned to her when he saw her going pale. “Ma’am is everything alright?” “Yes, I just...excuse me, I just need a minute.”

(Y/n) stumbled out of the expensive hotel room into the corridor. She had trouble breathing and her hands started to sweat profusely. She knew the symptoms, that didn’t make it any less bad. When she reached a side corridor, she slid down the wall. She tried to remember what she knew about panic attacks. Breath. In, out, in and out again.

A pair of shoes came into her field of vision. She didn’t need to look up, to know it was Spencer. He was the only FBI agent she knew of that wore converse. Without a word he sat down next to her, back to the wall. She heard him breath slowly. She knew he was doing it so she could synchronize with him and after a while the panic had subsided.

“Are you better now?” (Y/n) nodded. “Yeah, thanks.” “What happened in there? You’ve seen worse before, what is it?”

She didn’t know how to respond. It wasn’t just the fact that she had just figured out they were soulmates; it was something else. Their unsub was actively seeking out and killing what he thought were soulmates. She had been the unsubs ‘type’ before but now it wasn’t just about her, it was about Spencer too. She felt bad for withholding information like this. He didn’t even know he was a potential target. She wanted to tell him, tell him to be careful but something wouldn’t let her. Fear of rejection loomed over her like a dark cloud.

“I don’t know, Spence...I’ve just had a rough week, I guess.” “I know you’re not telling me the truth.” He put his fingers under her chin to make her look up at him. “I want to help you, but you need to tell me what is going on with you.”

There was nothing but kindness and goodness in his eyes. She wanted to tell him so bad. “I thought we weren’t supposed to profile each other.” She gave him a small smile to signal him she wasn’t mad about it. Spencer frowned.

“I’m serious, somethings not right and I need to know what it is. It doesn’t need a profiler to see somethings eating at you, it just takes a good friend.”

(Y/n) stood up. “Come on, we don’t have time for this now, we have a crime scene to profile.” She held out her hand to help him get up. He let out a sight and took it.

Back at the police station the team presented their profile but (Y/n) didn’t hear a single word. Her gaze was fixed on Spencer as he spoke. All she could process was the way he talked, how he moved his hands a s he gesticulated and the way he looked with his messy hair and the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows.

This was getting out of hand. Until now she had at least been able to do her job properly. Only when Hotch had called her name out for the third time her mind returned to reality. “Agent would you please tell the officers what our next step will be?” “Yes, of course, I’m sorry.” She gathered her thoughts for a second before standing up in front of the precinct. “Our best shot is going undercover and try to attract the unsubs attention. We will have two agents pose as a soulmate couple. We know that the unsub doesn’t stay at the same hotel for too long. We also know that he probably targets these couple at special events. Based on the profile we gave you he will appear sophisticated and he probably has some friends in high places. He will be successful in his career as to compensate his feelings of inadequacy regarding his personal life. He has to have some connections, otherwise we would find these victims much faster. He’s paying people to keep their mouth shut.

Tomorrow there will be a fund raiser at the Bellagio. There will be a lot of people and because of the nature of the event there will most certainly be a lot of couples, people usually don’t go alone to those things. This means our unsub will be there. The last victims were found today and killed three days ago; he’s looking for is next victims.”

She could still feel Spencer’s eyes on her when she sat back down. The crowd dissolved slowly. The BAU gathered around one of the desks.

“I think we all agree to send (Y/n) and Spencer as our soulmate couple.” Hotch said and shot them both a look. If (Y/n) hadn’t been so taken by surprise by Hotch’s proposal she would have noticed Spencer blushing lightly. Did they figure it out? Was that why Hotch had chosen them? No, it couldn’t be. Logically, they were the best match. They worked very well together, none of them would pose a great physical threat to the unsub and they were close after all. It wouldn’t be hard to make it believable. (Y/n) almost let out a laugh. Of course, it wouldn’t be hard. She wouldn’t even have to pretend.

“Are you ok with this?” Hotch asked. Both nodded. There really was no good reason to say no.

Spencer sat in front of the case files, but he couldn’t concentrate. He couldn’t stop thinking about (Y/n) and how strangely she was acting. Maybe he had crossed a line and made her uncomfortable? He tried his best to keep a respectful distance, but it got harder every day. It

was almost as if she attracted him like a magnet. It felt so right when they touched hands or when she would brush his hair out of his face when he was too caught up in something else.

He loved to hear her talk. And he loved it when she listened to him. She never seemed to get bored of anything he had to say. Ever. She’d been awfully quiet the entire day. Something was up, he could feel it but for some reason he couldn’t read her. He knew that she would get fidgety when she was nervous, he knew that she carried herself with caution, she had been hurt by people in the past. He knew that she would cover her insecurities with little jokes, and he knew that she had a hard time opening up to people sometimes. But for the love of god, he did not know how she felt about him, and he didn’t know what was wrong with her right now. Some things she held to close to her heart for anyone to see, even him.

Spencer wanted to tell her that she could tell him anything and he wished she would believe him. There was a longing in his heart he couldn’t explain, and he didn’t know what to do about it. His fear was paralyzing him. He’d been hurt before too. For the time being he was content with the little he got, the quick glances when she thought he wasn’t looking, the way she laughed at his jokes and the way she made him feel like their friendship was something special. All team members were close, but he would be the first one she would talk to in the morning and the last one to wave goodbye in the evening. She was always there.

Spencer jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder. “Are you coming? We’re checking into the hotel. Or are you to busy dreaming about our little Miss Commitment Issues?” Morgan teased and walked past Spencer. “I’m not – she doesn’t have – I’m coming wait up!” He grabbed his jacket and the files before following Morgan out the door.

The hotel was almost booked out. Hotch stood at the reception, arguing with the woman working there. “I don’t care that you don’t have enough rooms, we booked in advance!” She didn’t seem too bothered. She looked up from her phone for a moment.

“I’m sorry mister, that’s how it is, can’t throw the guests out that have already checked in. Should’ve come earlier.”

Hotch slammed his hand on the counter. “Listen here, I can get you fired in the blink of an eye. Get us our rooms, now!” His voice was calm but anyone who knew Hotch knew not to mess with him when he talked like this. The receptionist seemed to sense it too. “Ok, ok. I have a few rooms left but you’ll have to partner up.”

“Just give me the keys.”

(Y/n) and Spencer looked at each other like to school friends look at each other when the teacher says you can choose your partner for a project. It was understood they would share a room. But when (Y/n) turned the key around and entered their room she wanted to turn around and never come back.

“It’s just a-a queen size bed.” She stuttered. They stood side by side in silence. There was no couch, no armchair. Finally, Spencer spoke up. “It’s ok I can take the floor.”

(Y/n) gave him a light slap on the arm with the back of her hand. “Don’t be ridiculous. We can share unless you’re so uncomfortable with me you’d rather take the floor.” The last part had been meant as a joke, but Spencer began to stammer. “No, no of course not – I’d love to sleep with you – I mean share a bed.” His face was getting redder by the second.

It took her all her strength not to laugh. “Calm down, Spencer.” She gave him a reassuring smile. He seemed to let out a breath he’d been holding. He was so cute when he got flustered, she thought. She would like to see him like this more often if she didn’t know how much it stressed him out.

“I’m gonna go change.” She said pointing at the bathroom. “Y-yeah go ahead.” “Thanks for your permission.” She gave him another smile but this time she was teasing him. “I didn’t mean –” “I’m just messing with you.”

Spencer sat on the edge of the bed while (Y/n) was in the bathroom changing. He tried to calm himself down. His hands were shaking ever so slightly. There was no way she would ever want to be with a nervous wreck like him. Just like that one time Lila Archer had kissed him in the pool. He had predicted very accurately that she had only shown interest in him because of his role as protector. It had been too good to be true. He had become more cautious since then. His heart wouldn’t open as easily. But if he was being honest with himself it was already too late. He couldn’t even pretend (Y/n) had slipped in slowly and quietly. She had kicked the door in the first time he saw her and then she had made her home in his heart, barricading herself inside.

When (Y/n) came out of the bathroom her hair was damp. He hadn’t even heard the shower. There was something so endearing about seeing her like this, fresh out of the shower in an oversized FBI training t-shirt, something so domestic. “You’re turn.” She nodded at him. It took him a second to react before he stood up and followed her example of showering and changing into something more comfortable.

Later that night they laid side by side in the dark. The only light source were the colorful lights of Sin City. (Y/n) turned her head to look at Spencer. She could only make out his silhouette in the dark. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” He turned his head towards her too. “For acting so weird. You’re right there’s something wrong but I don’t know if I want to talk about it yet.” (Y/n) felt her throat close. “It’s just...I’m really anxious about the undercover mission tomorrow and that never happened to me before...” She tried to control herself, but she couldn’t help but let out a small sob. “I’ve never chickened out before.”

Spencer didn’t know what to do. He had never seen (Y/n) cry before. “You’re not gonna chicken out, it’s normal to be anxious about these things. And...and you don’t have to worry because you’re not alone. I’ll be by your side the entire time, ok?” (Y/n) nodded but then she remembered he couldn’t see her.

“Ok...thank you. Just promise me you won’t put yourself in danger, ok? I don’t know what is up with me I’ve never been like this before a mission...I’m worried about you and I have a really bad feeling, I can feel it in my gut, you know?”

Spencer didn’t respond immediately, instead his fingers found the hem of her sleeve and tugged at it. (Y/n) understood and closed the distance between them until Spencer had his arms wrapped around her. “Is this ok?” He asked, almost regretting having been so bold.

“Yeah, this is nice.” She could feel him take a deep breath and relax. She felt his heartbeat against her back and her own heart began to beat faster.

Spencer almost couldn’t believe his luck. The faint smell of the shampoo in her hair made him dizzy. He never wanted to let her go ever again. “Spencer?” Her voice trembled. “Hm?”

“I need to tell you something...”

Chapter 3

Spencer’s breath caught in his throat. (Y/n) turned around in his arms until she faced him. She had never been so close to him. He tried to study her face, but the darkness was making it hard. “What is it?” He asked cautiously. “I think it’s better if I show you.” He watched her as she raised her hands in front of him. When she pinched the back of one of her hands, he could feel it. He stared at her for a second. He felt the realization dawn on him. His mind short circuited and a quiet “Oh” escaped him.

(Y/n) felt her face heat up. She retreated hastily from Spencer’s arms to sit up with her back against the headboard. After 2 minutes Spencer still hadn’t said anything. “I-I’m sorry...I shouldn’t have said anything.” (Y/n) stood up. Now she felt stupid. Suddenly she felt like she was intruding. “I’m just gonna...” She pointed at the door and before leaving in a hurry. Spencer wanted to say something, but the words never left his mouth.

Before he could gather his thoughts, she was gone. It all made sense now. He couldn’t believe she had caught it before him, how could he not notice it until now? His first instinct was to run after her but what if she didn’t want to see him? Maybe she hadn’t told him because she didn’t want to be his soulmate. The only reason she had told him at all had to be the undercover mission tomorrow. Full disclosure so he knew what he was getting himself into.

Had something like this happened before? He tried to remember every single thing he had ever read or heard about soulmates but there was nothing. Another thought crept up on him. She knew when he was having nightmares, every night he had woken up covered in sweat, she had shared with him. Somehow, he wanted to apologize for that. She had to have been in so much pain because of him.

(Y/n) didn’t come back for the rest of the night. She had probably spent the night in Elle and JJ’s room. Spencer needed to talk to her before they started the mission but through the entire day, he couldn’t get her alone. He was almost sure she was avoiding him.

Some time in the evening they were getting ready for the fundraiser. The first time he saw her again was in front of the Bellagio. He wanted to say something, but they were wearing wires and he didn’t know if she’d told Elle or JJ about the soulmate thing, not to mention that the entire Las Vegas PD didn’t have to know about their personal issues.

(Y/n) couldn’t help but give him a small smile when she saw Spencer in his tuxedo. She had never seen Spencer dressed up like this before. “You eh, you look good.” She didn’t dare to look him in the eyes. “Thanks, you too.”

“Guys you need to step your game up if you want to make it believable for the unsub. You look like two teens going to a school dance.” Morgan’s voice rang through their earpieces.

“Shut up, Derek, next time you can go undercover.”

She took the lead and walked into the entrance hall. Spencer walked behind her and in a moment of braveness he put his hand on the small of her back. She flinched under his touch but before he could take it back, she eased into the touch. There was too much on the line to let personal issues get in the way of the mission.

For the rest of the night, they walked around, watching people, trying to identify the unsub, to no avail. The tension was killing them. “Ok, this is getting ridiculous, we won’t get picked if we keep going on like this.” Spencer took (Y/n)’s hand and dragged her into an empty hallway. Before she knew what was happening, he had muted both of their mics.

“We need to talk about this. I’m sorry, I didn’t say anything yesterday I was just...” “Shocked?” She interrupted him. “I get it, can we go back to the mission now?”

She was already about to go back when he grabbed her hand and dragged her back. “Look, I get it, I’m not what you had hoped for in a soulmate, but you need to get your shit together.” (Y/n)’s eyebrows were furrowed. “What the hell are you talking about, if there would be anyone I would chose as a soulmate, it would be you!” “You’re not...you’re not mad?” “No, I’m not mad, I thought you were the one unhappy with this whole thing.” “Why would I be? If there’s anyone who should be unhappy, it’s you. You’re way out of my league –” “Oh my god, Spencer just shut up.” She cracked a smile. “You’re my best friend, why would I spend so much time with you, if I didn’t like you?”

He looked at her for a second. “I...I don’t know.” “Look at me.” She took his face in between her hands. “Don’t you ever say that you’re not good enough ever again.”

Spencer never wanted to kiss her more than it that moment. His eyes wandered to the hall again and then he saw it. “That’s him.” (Y/n) was still caught up in the moment. “What?”

“Our unsub, that’s him!” “Are you sure?” “Yes, now come on.”

They turned their mics back on. “Reid? What happened?” Morgan questioned but he didn’t get an answer. “We have our unsub, it’s the guy in the dark grey suit by the champagne fountain.” (Y/n) whispered. “We have a visual. Try to get near him.” “Roger that.”

As they walked out of the hallway Spencer placed his hand around (Y/n)’s waist. Her heart was beating faster again. They made sure to be in the unsub’s field of view when Spencer took her hand. “Wanna dance?”

(Y/n) just nodded, she felt her cheeks heat up and she hoped Spencer wouldn’t notice. Unfortunately, he was still a profiler and so he bent down to whisper in her ear. “You know you’re cute when you blush.” The red on her face only intensified. “You know they can hear us.”

They heard a laugh from Morgan. “Yeah, we can, looks like our boy’s got moves, careful (Y/n).” Spencer gave her a smile before taking her to the dancefloor.

“I didn’t know you could dance.” (Y/n) whispered as they swayed to the music. “I’m full of surprises, what can I say.” He hadn’t stopped smiling at her the whole time. Her arms wrapped a little tighter around his neck as she laid her head on his chest. She could hear his heart beat fast and she could smell his cologne. She raised her head slightly so that her nose grazed his neck. She felt him shudder lightly as if he was getting goosebumps.

“Guys he’s approaching you.” As soon as Morgan had alerted them, they heard a voice.

“I’m sorry to intrude like this. But you two just looked so beautiful together. Can I buy you a drink?”

(Y/n) had to peel herself away from Spencer. She never wanted to let him go again. “Sure, thank you, Sir.” She gave him a smile.

The man was a bit older than they had expected. The rest was dead on. He looked sophisticated enough with his expensive suit and his well-groomed physical appearance. The three of them sat down at the bar.

“So, what are you two lovebirds doing here? I can tell you’re not from Vegas.” He took a sip from his Whiskey. (Y/n) had to squeeze Spencer’s hand under the bar before he could open his mouth and correct the unsub, that he was, in fact, “from Vegas”. Instead (Y/n) took the word.

“Well, I know you’re not supposed to brag about this stuff but...” She gave Spencer an endearing look that instantly melted his heart. “We just found out we were soulmates and we wanted to get married as fast as possible and what better place than Las Vegas, the City of Marriage, right?”

The man eyed both of them for a moment. (Y/n) had never felt so exposed in her life. She wanted nothing more than shove her gun into this guy’s face and arrest him right then and there, but they had to wait. He had to take them to the hotel room, they had no concrete evidence yet.

“Congratulations you two. I hope I’m not overstepping here but would it be alright to give you a wedding gift?”

“That is so kind of you, right honey?” She looked at Spencer who forgot for a second the situation they were in. His mind had tripped over itself when he heard her call him “honey”. “Right, right, very kind.” He had to tear his eyes away from her. “I want to pay for a night in a suite, the most expensive in Las Vegas.”

“We would love that, but can I ask why?” (Y/n) asked. They couldn’t be too willing to come along with him or he would get suspicious.

The man let out a theatrical sigh before downing the rest of his Whiskey. “I lost my wife a few years ago and I want to do something good for such a sweet couple like you.” They both knew that was a blatant lie. “I’m so sorry for your loss.” Spencer watched (Y/n) play her role with perfection.

“Let’s not talk about me, this is your special night. The car is waiting outside.”

With every step they took (Y/n)’s bad feeling only got worse. She couldn’t pinpoint what it was exactly, but something was off. When they got into the car, she heard the doors lock and panic began to spread. She tried to calm herself down. The team knew where they were, and they would follow them to the hotel where they could finally arrest this guy. She felt Spencer’s fingers slip between hers. She tried to put on a smile but then she saw the man’s face and her blood froze. He knew.

“How funny...” He spoke. His smile made her skin crawl. “The FBI send me an actual pair of soulmates.” (Y/n) let out a nervous laugh. “I don’t know what you mean.” He pulled out a gun and pointed it at her. Spencer wanted to make a move, but the man shot him a look. “If you move, she’s dead.”

(Y/n) could hear Morgan’s voice in her ear. “They’ve been compromised we need to get them out now!” “Your microphones and earpieces please.” The man held out his hand. They had no choice. Hesitantly they took them off and handed them to him. (Y/n) could only watch in horror as the man took them and put the microphone to his mouth. “You can collect your agent’s bodies in a few days.” As soon as he had stopped talking, he crushed the devices.

(Y/n) prayed that the team would find them in time. She could feel how she began to lose it. Spencer felt it too. He squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry, we’ll be fine, they’re gonna find us.” The man laughed. “They will, but by then it will already be too late. I’m gonna have so much fun with the two of you.”

She felt Spencer’s hand wipe away some tears from her cheeks. She hadn’t even noticed she had started to cry.

They arrived at the hotel with no interruptions. (Y/n) knew he had shook the surveillance. As soon as they entered the luxurious suite, (Y/n) was just seconds away from a breakdown. There was no way out anymore. It would take the team an eternity before they found them.

There were about 150.000 hotel rooms in Las Vegas. There was no way they’d be found in time.

(Y/n) fell to her knees. “This is all my fault, I’m so sorry Spencer.” He kneeled next to her, putting an arm around her. “This is not your fault, why would you say that?” “Because I was so distracted. I haven’t been able to focus, I should’ve said something, and we should have sent someone who could do their job properly.” “Look at me.” Spencer cupped her face with his hands. “This is not your fault, do you understand?” She let out a sob. “We’re gonna die...” “We’re gonna be fine, I’m right here, ok? I’m right here with you.”

The man had sat on one of the armchairs, two security guards by his side. “I can assure you that the other agents wouldn’t have been chosen. I know the difference between real and fake soulmates.” Spencer looked up. “How?” He saw the man’s face turn into a grimace.

“Because I can recognize an abomination of nature when I see one.”

(Y/n) let out another sob. Spencer turned his attention back to her. “(Y/n), breath, look at me.” He saw the terror in her eyes. “Look at me, we will get out of here.” She nodded but the tears wouldn’t stop flowing. He had never seen her this scared. They had been through some bad stuff in the past but never had he seen her lose her cool. Something was very, very wrong.

Chapter 4

Everyone on the team was on edge. Morgan’s forehead was covered in sweat. Gideon was standing right behind him, Elle and Garcia sitting just a few feet away.

“How funny...” They heard the unsub’s voice. Something was not right. “The FBI sent me an actual pair of soulmates.”

They exchanged concerned looks. “What is he talking about?” Morgan turned around to look at the others. Garcia shrugged. “She never said anything to me. Do you think that’s what they were talking about earlier when the mics were off?” Gideon’s brows were furrowed. “Could be. Regardless we need to help them.” “They’ve been compromised we need to get them out now!” Morgan addressed the swat team.

Before they could do anything else, they heard the unsubs voice again. “You can collect your agent’s bodies in a few days.”

The horror in Garcia’s eyes grew before the signal died. “We need to do something now!”

A few hours had passed. The unsub, whose name turned out to be Rory Marshall, had left them alone in the suite. There was no phone, and the door was locked. One look out of the window told them they were at least on the 30th floor. There was no escape. Even if they managed to figure out what hotel they were in, they had no way of communicating with the team.

Spencer had gotten (Y/n) through another panic attack. Now she was sitting on the floor with her back leaning against an armchair. Spencer sat right next to her while holding her hand. After a while he moved his position to sit in front of her. He took her other hand too. “(Y/n) look at me.”

She raised her head. The color had drained out of her face. Her eyes were wide open and red. “I know this is very stressful.” Spencer continued. “But we will get through this. I won’t let anything happen to you.” She nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that; none of this is you’re fault. If anyone is at fault, it’s that unsub who is killing people.” “Spencer? What is going to happen to us?”

They both had seen the victims. They both knew what he had done to them. Spencer didn’t need to answer. There was no need to remind (Y/n) of the cruelty that had taken place in the other suites.

Spencer cupped her face in his hands. “Do you remember the Luxor Hotel? The one that looks like a pyramid with the light beam coming out of it?”

“Yes I remember.” “Did you know that the light attracts so many insects that it has established a new ecosystem with moths, bats and owls.” (Y/n) started at him for a second before she realized what he was doing. A small smile made it’s way on her face. Spencer caressed her cheeks with his thumbs. “And did you know that bats can live more than 30 years?” Her eyes became glassy as she scooted closer to him. “And did you know that they can fly at up to 60 mph, in fact the Mexican free-tailed bat can reach up to 100 mph, making it the fastest mammal on earth.”

(Y/n) was so close to him, their noses almost touched. Spencer’s heart began to beat faster. His hands were still on her face. He wanted to pull her closer and kiss the pain away. His eyes flickered to her lips and then back to her eyes. “Thank you, Spencer.” She whispered.

Before she could close the distance between them, the door opened with a bang. The sound made them jump and separate.

Marshall walked in with a grin on his face. “Look at you lovebirds, I hope I’m not intruding.” (Y/n)’s eyes fell on the suitcase in his hand. Two other men followed Marshall into the room. Both were armed. Marshall gave one of them a signal. The man left and came back with two chairs and rope. (Y/n) felt her stomach cramp and the thought what was going to follow. Her and Spencer didn’t move. The other two men left, leaving them alone with Marshall.

“I really didn’t want to interrupt.” he spoke. (Y/n) shot Spencer a quick glance. None of them spoke. She could see Marshall’s facial expression change slowly but surely. The self-assured, mocking look was being replaced by impatience, anger and aggression. “Go on.” He continues while pulling out his gun. “Go on, Dr. Reid, do what you were about to do!”

Spencer looked at (Y/n) but he still didn’t move. He could see the tears gather in her eyes. “I said do it!” Marshall shouted. He was losing it. There was nothing left of his cocky grin. Instead, his face was distorted into a grimace. “Do it or I’ll shoot her right now.”

Spencer straightened his back. “You won’t. You need her, you need us both for your revenge fantasy.” “Do you want to test me?” There was something absolutely insane in Marshall’s eyes. The clicking of the safety being disabled rang through the room. “I said do it.” He was calm again but there was something in his voice that made (Y/n)’s stomach turn.

“It’s ok.” She whispered to Spencer. He didn’t look half as calm as he looked an hour ago. He cupped her cheeks again. “You’re going to be fine; I promise.” He pulled her in until his lips were on hers. They tasted salty from her tears, but they were soft. For a moment he forgot where they were. He had wanted to kiss her for so long. She melted into him, grabbing his dress shirt to pull him even closer. The urgency in her movement almost drove him insane.

“Get in the chairs.” Marshall’s voice interrupted their moment. Spencer pulled away, locking eyes with (Y/n). Her cheeks were flushed and there was a glint in her eyes.

The ropes rubbed against her wrists and ankles. They were too tight to move. Marshall paced in front of them. He had opened the suitcase on a small coffee table. (Y/n) didn’t need to be an expert to know it was full of torture instruments. Every fiber in her body wanted to run when he pulled out a big hunting knife and walked towards her.

“Don’t touch her!” Spencer struggled against his constraints. “Leave her alone!” Marshall let out a laugh. “You know it doesn’t matter which one I chose you’ll both feel it.” He pretended to ponder for a moment before he continued talking. “I still think I’ll start with her. How does it feel not to be able to do anything to help her?” He shot Spencer a look. That shit-eating grin had returned to his face.

He turned to (Y/n). “Where do we start?” He lazily dragged the blade across her collarbone before making a cut. (Y/n) hissed. She felt something warm drip down her chest. Involuntarily she remembered that the killer would spare her face like he had with all his other victims. Her best guess was that he liked to look at them when he had his fun with them after they were dead.

Marshall made another cut, right under the first one. (Y/n) squeezed her eyes shut. Her jaw tensed as she tried not to make a sound. She heard Spencer inhale sharply. She remembered, Rory Marshall wasn’t hurting just her, he was hurting Spencer too. She would have given anything to protect him. If he would hurt only her, she could endure it knowing he spared Spencer, but this wasn’t the case.

The only thing she could protect him from right now was the first hand experience of being tortured and hopefully the mental scars that would remain. She knew she could handle it, for Spencer. He didn’t deserve this, any of it. She just should’ve told Hotch about the soul mate thing and they could have prepared differently. But now it was too late for that and minute to minute the pain made it harder to think.

There was a loud ringing in her ears and her mind was in a fog. After a while she couldn’t hold back the cries. She didn’t want to give Marshall the satisfaction, but it was too much. As if that wasn’t enough, she could hear Spencer too. She didn’t know how much time had passed when Marshall finally backed away from her. Her whole body was sore, and her cloths were damp from her own blood. She struggled to keep her eyes open, but she kept staring back at Marshall. It took her a moment to realize, why he had stepped away from her. His phone was ringing. He took a look at the display before letting out a groan and answering.

“What!? I’m busy.” He snapped. Silence followed. “Alright I’ll be there, give me half an hour.” Then he hung up. “Sorry, kids, I’ve got places to be but don’t worry, I’ll be back.” Before leaving the room and locking the door, he undid Spencer’s ropes.

As soon as they were alone Spencer jumped from his chair rushed over to (Y/n). He still felt the echoes of her pain, but it wasn’t half as bad as the pain she was going through. While his body was intact, hers was cut and bruised. He tried to untie her, but his fingers were trembling too badly.

“Are you ok?” Spencer looked up in surprise as he heard her talk. A nervous laugh left his throat. “You’re asking me if I’m alright?” She nodded. “He hurt you too, didn’t he?” “It’s ok, it’s fading.” That wasn’t entirely true. He still felt the sting of the cuts. He took a deep breath and started to undo the ropes. Finally, the knots loosened.

“Can you stand?” He asked. (Y/n) shook her head. “Ok, I’m going to help you get to the bathroom, we need to clean you’re cuts.” He managed to get his arm under her to give her some support. After ten painful minutes they reached the bathtub. Spencer unzipped her dress. “Is this ok?” (Y/n) just nodded absentmindedly. He left her underwear on and sat her into the tub. He found a towel, held it under warm water and proceeded to clean her up. She watched him with half lidded eyes as he carefully dabbed the cloth over her wounds.

“This is not how I imagined you seeing me naked for the first time.” The ghost of a smile appeared on her face. Spencer paused for a moment to look at her. “You imagined that?” A tint of pink appeared on her pale face.

“I know you find it hard to believe, that girls think about you that way, but they do. I do.” Spencer stared at her. He hadn’t realized she really liked him like that.

“How did you imagine it?” He asked as he continued to clean her. As much as he wanted to know, he also needed to get her mind off what was happening right now. She shot him another look. “Wouldn’t you like to know, lover-boy?”

He let out a laugh. “You don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to.”

After a moment of silence, she spoke up. She didn’t look at him. Instead, her gaze was fixed on the marble floor of the bathroom. “I don’t know. Maybe we both would have been working late and there was no one else except us. And I would walk over to your desk to ask you something and of course you’d know the answer. You always know the answer to anything. I’d listen to you talk...I love when you talk...” She looked so tired. “And I wouldn’t be able to keep it to myself anymore and I would tell you how I felt about you...and you’d kiss me and I would kiss you back...” She hissed as he cleaned on especially deep cut.

“I’m sorry, are you alright?” His worried eyes found hers. “Yeah, I’m fine.” “I’m sorry.” He repeated and placed a kiss on her forehead. When he pulled back, she looked at him with wide eyes. “Can you do it again?” “What?” “Can you kiss me, like you did before?”

Spencer searched her face for a sign of what was going on in her head. Her telling him about what she imagined him doing to her and asking him to kiss her did things to him. Things, he

hadn’t experienced before. He didn’t really know what to do. He didn’t want to take advantage of her vulnerable state, but he felt like she needed him.

He leaned forward to kiss her forehead again but before he could, she grabbed his face and pulled him down. “I meant like this.” She whispered before closing the distance between them and capturing his lips. The smell of his cologne still lingered, she needed it like oxygen. She needed him. She placed several more desperate kisses on his lips before pulling back to look at him. A second later Spencer’s hands were on her cheek and on her neck to pull her back again into another kiss. He had imagined this a hundred times but the reality of her soft and lips against his finally made him understand what Edgar Allan Poe had meant by “We loved with a love that was more than love”.

He felt her shiver. He pulled back. “Come on, let’s get you into bed.” He helped her out of the tub. After he had dried her and given her one of the bathrobes, he helped her into bed.

(Y/n) was tired...so tired. Her head was spinning but she knew she wouldn’t be able to get any sleep. “Can you stay with me?” She asked. “Of course.” He sat down on the bed. Her eyes wandered over his figure. He had taken of the tuxedo, so he was left with the white dress shirt. He had rolled up the sleeves to his elbows, just the way she liked it. The shirt was stained with her blood and it took her back to this reality.

“You know he does this on purpose.” Spencer’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?” “He gives us so much time alone, so we get closer and it’s even more painful when does those things to us.” “I don’t care, I won’t leave you alone. Also, we must find a way out of here.” “There is no way out. We have to pray the team finds us before it’s too late.” “There has to be a way out. And we’ll find it. Try to get some rest now.” “I can’t sleep.” “You haven’t even tried yet.” “But I know I can’t.” “But you have to. Pain tolerance is reduced by sleep deprivation.”

(Y/n) shot him a look. “Thanks for the heads up.” Spencer slipped under the blanket and laid an arm around her. She buried her face in the crook of his neck. She felt the vibrations through his chest as he began to talk again. “Randy Gradner holds the record for the longest period without sleep. It was 11 days and 25 minutes. He set the record in 1964 when he was only 17. They monitored his health. He had problems concentrating and struggled with paranoia and hallucinations. On the last day he was asked to subtract 7 repeatedly starting with 100. He stopped at 65, when asked why, he said he’d forgotten what he was doing...”

(Y/n) didn’t hear the rest, Spencer’s voice had lulled her to sleep. He felt her shallow but regular breath on his neck. He closed his eyes. He would get her out of here.

Chapter 5

(Y/n) woke up exhausted. They didn’t sleep much. When they woke up it was still dark outside. It took her a second to realize what had woken her up. The door had been opened very loudly and her and Spencer were dragged into the living room area. They were tied to the chairs again. The ropes burned against her already bruised wrists and ankles. To their surprise the two men who had tied them up left. They were alone again.

(Y/n) turned to Spencer. “Please tell me you have a plan. We need to get out fast. If Marshall stays on track, we have less than 48 hours.” Spencer’s brows were furrowed. She could practically hear his mind work. “We need to check the windows if they open. Maybe we can get some sort of sign outside.”

“What if it doesn’t work, what’s our plan B?” “Currently we don’t have a plan B...”

They sat there almost 4 hours before Marshall entered the room. He looked exhausted. (Y/n) felt a twinge of hope. The FBI knew his identity, there was no way he could hide for much longer. “You know, they’ll catch you. You won’t get away with this.” She said.

Marshall turned around at her with a surprised look on his face. “I thought I had messed you up pretty good last night. And you’re still talking back.” He gave her a smile that made her skin crawl. “Maybe this time I’ll try your little boyfriend.” (Y/n) saw the blood drain from Spencer’s face but his expression didn’t change. She knew he was stronger than most people would give him credit for. She wasn’t most people but the thought of him getting tortured made her sick. It wasn’t about the fact that she would feel it too, seeing Spencer in pain was almost worse.

“So, what’s your deal?” She asked. Anything to get him talking, to figure out why he was killing these people. Marshall let out a laugh. “So brave today, aren’t we?” “Why do you keep killing soulmates? Feeling lonely? Didn’t mommy give you enough love when you were a kid?” She saw his smile fade. “Or what, maybe you were in love and she turned you down because she had found her soulmate?” Bull’s eye. His face turned into a grimace again.

“Shut your mouth!” He raised his hand to slap her, but he caught himself just in time. For a second he seemed to try to get his rage under control. Then he leaned down to whisper into her ear. “You’re nothing but a filthy whore and by the time you get out of here there will be almost nothing left of you to identify the body.”

(Y/n) held her breath. She had gained precious information. His main target were the women. He was projecting his abandonment on them. The men were just there because it made the whole ordeal more painful. He had raped the women after their death to regain power, power over the soulmate bond.

“You’ll always be alone, killing and raping these women will never compare to a true connection and you know it.” (Y/n) said. Spencer stared at her. She wasn’t interrogating anymore; she was making him angry. And then it clicked. “(Y/n) stop.” He shot her a pleading look. But she didn’t pay him any mind but instead continued.

“So, how did she break it to you? Did she at least tell you in person?” Marshall took on the color of a plum. “Oh.” A cold laugh escaped her lips. “She didn’t. You weren’t even worth telling face to face.”

“SHUT UP!” Marshall grabbed a glass from the coffee table and threw it at (Y/n). She managed to dodge it and it shattered on the wall behind her.

Spencer began to panic. “(Y/n) stop, I know what you’re doing, stop it you’re going to get hurt!” While he was tied up, there was no way he could help her.

“Is that all you got!?” (Y/n) threw the word in Marshall’s face. His hands were trebling. “You’re ruining everything!” “Oh, am I? Am I ruining your little revenge fantasy? You know that it doesn’t matter how many people you kill; it will never be the same as the time you killed her. She couldn’t fight back, could she?”

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Marshall took the hunting knife in his hand making his way to (Y/n). To her surprise he didn’t cut her, but the ropes. He grabbed her arm and threw her on the ground. “I’m gonna show you fight!”

(Y/n) struggled to get on her feet. She was still weak, but the adrenaline kicked in as soon as he swung the knife in her direction. She turned her head frantically to look for something she could use as a weapon. Her eyes fell on an expensive vase. She grabbed it and threw it at him. While dodging it he lost the knife.

Everything moved in slow-motion as both made a run for it.

And then she had it, she had the knife. Her fingers curled around the handle. She raised her arm but before she could slam the blade into her attacker, she heard a gunshot.

The first thing she felt was her arm going limp. A few seconds later realization hit her and then a wave of pain washed over her. For a moment she thought she had to throw up. Her vision went blurry and the last thing she felt was a burning hot sensation and wetness on her arm. She heard Spencer yell her name before she lost consciousness.

When (Y/n) woke up again she was sitting in the chair, arms and legs tied up. The pain from her arm radiated through her entire body. She had trouble focusing. The first thing to catch her eye was Spencer whose gaze was fixed on her.

“Oh, thank god you’re awake!” She had never heard him sound this scared. “(Y/n) look at me.” Her head was heavy...her eyes were heavy. “(Y/n) look at me.” She managed to raise

her head, so she was making eye contact. “Listen, you have lost a lot of blood and you’re still bleeding. You need to somehow put pressure on the wound. It’s in your right arm near the shoulder. Try to lean against the chair with that part of your arm. It won’t save you, but it’ll hopefully keep you from bleeding out till I can help you.”

She struggled to hold her eyes open, let alone understand what Spencer was saying to her. Another person appeared in her field of vision. “Just let me help her!” This was Spencer’s voice. “Why should I? I’ll let the bitch bleed out, it’s what she deserves and you’re gonna watch her die.” Was this the unsub’s voice?

“But this is not how you operate normally. This is not how you get your satisfaction, do you want all of this to have been for nothing? You really let one of your men take the kill-shot? She won’t die by your hand but by that guy’s.”

There was silence. After what felt like an eternity, she felt the ropes loosen around her hands and legs. She felt two familiar arms around her. Everything went dark again.

“(Y/n) can you hear me?” This was Spencer’s voice again. “Spencer...why did you put me in the tub again?” She murmured. “What are you talking about? Open your eyes, look at me.” The panic in his voice hadn’t faded. “I’m wet, why did you put me under the shower?” “I didn’t please just open your eyes.”

(Y/n) felt like her eyes were glued shut. After a struggle she finally managed to open them a bit. She was greeted with Spencer’s face hovering over her. Her eyes wandered over his figure and widened as she saw him covered in blood. She wanted to sit up but a sharp pain in her arm held her down. She hissed.

“Spencer what happened, are you hurt, why is there so much blood? Let me help you...” “Calm down, it’s not mine.” He hesitated for a second. “It’s yours. You were shot and almost bled out.” “What? What happened?” You had the knife but before you could do anything, one of the bodyguards came in and shot you, he must’ve heard the commotion.” “Are you ok?” “Will you stop asking me that? You got shot!” “Exactly! You must be in pain too.” “I’m managing, it’s not so bad.” “You’re lying.” “Please don’t worry about me, ok?” “But I do, I worry about you all the time, I know you can handle yourself, but I care about you and I don’t want you to be in pain because of me.” “It’s ok, really.”

They looked at each other for a moment. Spencer bent down to place a kiss on her forehead. “Let’s focus on how we get out of here.”

“Have you checked the windows?” “They won’t open, it doesn’t surprise me though. We’re on the 30th floor, of course they’re shut.”

(Y/n) let her head fall back onto the pillow. “We’re screwed.” Spencer’s brows furrowed. “What are you thinking?” She asked. “The glass...”

“I don’t follow. The shards aren’t big enough to use as a weapon when he comes back.” “No, that’s not what I mean.”

Without saying another word, he got up and walked into the bathroom. (Y/n) heard glass shattering. “Spencer are you alright?” He came back into the room with a piece from the mirror.

“We can use this to send out an S.O.S. signal.” “How?” “Just watch.”

Spencer walked over to one of the windows. The sun shone into the room. He positioned the mirror in a certain position so that it reflected the sunlight and threw a patch of light onto the ceiling. He moved it so the light would go out of the window. He moved the shard in specific intervals.

“You’re a genius.” (Y/n) almost wanted to laugh. With a little bit of luck, someone would see the light signal. “I know.” He gave her a small smile.

Spencer repeated the pattern until the sun went down. “Now we pray someone saw that.” “Let’s hope it won’t be too late.”

He walked back to the bed. “You have to promise me something.” “What is it?”

He waited for a moment before answering. She looked awful. The bathrobe was soaked in blood, so was her hair. The parts of her skin that showed were covered in cuts and bruises. Her eyes were framed by dark circles. “Promise me you won’t make him angry again. I know you’re trying to protect me, but I wouldn’t know what to do if you sacrificed yourself so that I can get out of here.”

“I can’t promise you that.” “(Y/n), I’m serious.” She could see tears gather in his eyes. “Please...” The urgency in his voice made her heart ache.

With her good arm she reached out to put her hand on his cheek. “Alright, I promise.” Spencer closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. She managed to sit up and then position herself on his lap so that she was facing him, legs hooked around him. When he looked up at her there was nothing but adoration in his eyes.

“Thank you for taking care of me.” (Y/n) whispered before leaning down to press a kiss on his lips. Spencer wrapped his arms around her waist, careful not to touch her injured arm that was now bandaged and resting in a makeshift sling. Their chests were pressed together, and she could feel his heartbeat. Her breath became heavier as her fingers made their way into his hair and she tried to pull him even closer. (Y/n)’s cheeks began to heat up. She pulled away to whisper in his ear. “I need you so bad...” She felt him shiver underneath her. She continued to kiss his neck, relishing in the small sighs that escaped his throat.

She was just about to undo the buttons to his dress shirt when he grabbed her hand. “Wait...” “What?” “You can’t do this.”

“What? Why not? I thought you...” She looked around for a few seconds, anything not to meet his gaze and stood up as fast as she could. “I – I’m sorry I shouldn’t have assumed...I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable...I’m sorry.” Embarrassment washed over her. “I don’t know what came over me, I should’ve asked – I...”

Spencer stood up too walking towards her. She moved back and let out an insecure laugh. “I’m really sorry.” “No don’t be, it’s not that I don’t want to it’s just...” She still couldn’t look at him. “I don’t want to do this when there is a possibility that you just want this because of the circumstances. You might just be feeling about me this way because we’re in a life-or-death situation and I’m taking care of you. I don’t want this to happen just because you project these feelings onto me and regret it once we get out of here.”

(Y/n) stared at him but couldn’t say a word. Instead, Spencer continued. “It’s just, this has happened to me before, kind of, and I don’t want to...” “You don’t want to go through that again, I get it.” She slowly walked towards him. “Then we wait. But I want you to know that I’ve wanted this before we got caught up in this mess and the only things I regret are the ones I didn’t say to you sooner and that I didn’t have the courage sooner. I know this is important to you. I would wait a hundred years if that’s the time you needed. Just promise me you won’t forget me in the end.” She gave him a small smile. He smiled back and pulled her into a hug, still careful as to not to hurt her.

“I could never forget you.” “Can I still kiss you?” Spencer looked into her eyes and he knew he would never be able to say no to that. “Yes, please.” His voice barely a whisper, he cupped her cheeks and pulled her in. This kiss wasn’t desperate, it was sweet and full of unspoken promises and confessions.

Chapter 6

The BAU team had gathered around a table at the precinct. They had defeated looks on their faces. Hotch turned to look again at the wall where they had gathered their information. Morgan and Elle sat at the table, going through the casefiles again. Morgan closed the files and let the folder slap on the table.

“Hotch, please tell me we have a plan?” Hotch didn’t answer immediately. Before he could, JJ walked in. “I have news. There has been an S.O.S. signal from a hotel window at the Palazzo. It could be nothing, but it could be them, we need a SWAT team.”

Morgan jumped up. “I’ll call Garcia to see if she can find them on security footage in the lobby.” “Right, Elle and I will talk to the SWAT team, we may have to prepare for a possible hostage situation.” Hotch said and walked out, Elle right behind him.

(Y/n) and Spencer sat back-to-back with the couch, facing the window. Marshall had come back earlier and this time he hadn’t let (Y/n) distract him from Spencer. He didn’t look good. (Y/n) had taken care of his cuts, just like he had done for her.

“Tonight, is the night...” (Y/n) said while looking out the window. “It’s gonna be alright.” Spencer turned his head to her for a moment. She didn’t seem panicked anymore. She had been when Marshall had tortured Spencer, but after she had taken care of him it was like she had resigned herself to the fact that there was no way out.

“Spencer?” “Yeah?” “I need to tell you something.” “No, you don’t.” “I – I don’t?” She raised an eyebrow.

(Y/n) positioned herself to face Spencer. “Why?” Spencer turned around too. “I know the speech. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want you to talk like we’re going to die tonight.” “But we could die, and I don’t want to die without having told you how I feel.” “Then I guess you’ll have to survive tonight if you want to tell me how you feel.”

They looked at each other in silence for a while. “I lo –” “No.” Before she could end her sentence, Spencer dipped down to shut her up with a kiss. “You tell me when we get out of here.” “You’re a horrible person.” A smile tugged at her lips.

It was almost idyllic, sitting in a room somewhere over Las Vegas, sun shining through the window. (Y/n) rested her head on Spencer’s shoulder.

“Can I tell you something else?” “Like the time you told me how you imagined me seeing you naked for the first time?” (Y/n) shot him a look. She felt her cheeks heat up. “I think we can both agree that was a moment of weakness.” Spencer let out a laugh. “I think I like your moments of weakness.” She gave him another look but then looked out the window again.

“You know, I still remember the first time I saw you.” She gave him a small smile. “I had just started working for the BAU. They called us in on a Saturday night, it was about the Keystone Killer.” Spencer smiled. “Yeah, I remember.”

“You were so quick to find clues in that word puzzle and...I don’t know. I thought it was cool. Also, you telling Ryan on what page of his book that Francis Bacon quote was on, was kind of funny. And you looked cute with your vest and you had your sleeves rolled up, just like now.”

“You thought I looked cute?” Spencer looked at the carpet, still smiling. (Y/n) nodded. “I did. And every time I saw you after that, I liked you a little more.” She paused for a moment. “The day I realized that I lo – I mean...you know, was on that case with Lila Archers stalker. I knew that I cared for you, but then I got jealous, I didn’t expect that. I had no right, still I knew then.”

He looked at her incredulously. “You were jealous?” She nodded and laughed. “It’s stupid, I know.” “I don’t think it’s stupid, I think it’s cute. Did you know shrimp can feel jealousy too?” “Are you comparing me to shrimp?” “Well apparently you do share some similarities.”

(Y/n) rested her head back on Spencer’s shoulder. “I’m so tired.” He gently stroke her hair. “Me too.” “Do you really think we’ll get out of here?” “I do.” He heard a quiet sniff escape her. When he looked down at her, he saw her cry. Spencer wiped away a tear with his thumb.

“Spencer, I’m scared.” “I know, me too.” He cupped her face. “But I need you to be strong.” “I don’t want to die.” She had trouble holding back sobs. “I just found you, I don’t want to go yet.” They scooted closer. Spencer pulled her face to his, so his forehead resting on hers. “I know, baby, it’s going to be ok.” “I can’t do it.” “Yes you can! You’re strong, I know that.” Spencer brushed his thumb over her lips. “Do you know what I thought when I first saw you?” (Y/n) shook her head.

Spencer brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “When I saw you for the first time, I wanted to talk to you, but I didn’t really know what to say. You were so confident, despite being new and I whished I could be as confident as you. So, I tried to impress you, I guess I know now that it worked.” He let out a small laugh. “I didn’t think someone like you would ever go for someone like me. I guess I tried to get you out of my head with Lila. Obviously, it didn’t

work. What I’m trying to say is that I’ve always admired your bravery, you never give up and you can’t give up now.”

“I’ve got them.” Gracias voice rang through the speakers of a laptop surrounded by the other team members. “They’re on the security footage from two days ago in the lobby of the Palazzo. Rory Marshall is with them. They take the elevator, from there I lost them.” “It’s alright, thank you Garcia.” Hotch said. “We know the signal came from the 32nd floor. “That’s still a lot of hotel rooms.” Morgan chewed on a pen.

“Garcia, check how many suites are on that floor.” Hotch turned to the laptop again.

After a few seconds of keyboard clicking, Garcia spoke up again. “There’s five suites.” “Thank you.” Hotch turned to the others. “Get ready, we have to go in now, they don’t have much time left.”

(Y/n) had fallen asleep on Spencer’s shoulder. She woke up from a loud noise. Marshall entered the room, gun in his hand. “Stand up! Both of you. Get in the chairs.”

Something was wrong. Marshall didn’t wear his normal cocky grin. His was erratic, sweat covered his forehead. They didn’t move. “I said now!” Marshall shouted, pointing the gun at Spencer. They hurried to the chairs. Not two minutes later, they were tied up again.

“Your friends are here.” Marshall’s face had returned to that grimace he wore when he was getting angry.

(Y/n) felt hope rise in her chest. But as soon as the feeling came, it left her. Marshall had no reason to keep them alive anymore. He had no time to live out his fantasy. On the other hand, her and Spencer were his ticket out of here. Correction, her or Spencer could be his ticket out of here.

Marshall’s phone rang. He struggled to pick it up with one hand, his other one still clammed around the gun, uninterruptedly pointing it at Spencer. “Hello?” (Y/n) didn’t know if it was the tiredness or the desperation, but she could swear the voice on the end was Gideon’s.

“They’re right here...yeah...” Marshall shot them a look. “Yeah...” He repeated and handed the phone to Spencer, or rather held it to his ear. (Y/n) could see Spencer visibly relaxed as he heard Gideon’s voice. “Yeah we’re fine.” He said and shot (Y/n) a look. “(Y/n) was shot but we’ve got it under control.”

“Ok, that’s enough.” Marshall took the phone back. “I want a helicopter. And cash. By 9 p.m. sharp.” He hung up.

(Y/n) shifted in her seat. There was no way, Hotch would give him a helicopter. Regardless, there was one more thing she wanted to know. “How could you tell?” She turned her head to Marshall. “Tell what?” He snapped back. She had to be careful, he was on edge, everything looked like a possible threat right now.

“How could you tell we were actual soulmates? I only found out the day before myself.” Marshall shrugged. “I don’t know, I just knew when I saw you.”

“Actually, I could have an explanation.” Spencer chimed in. “There are studies that show that predators can pick out people that have previously been victims. They subconsciously learn to read body language and micro expressions to identify them. Because of this you’re chance of getting assaulted are higher, if you’ve been assaulted before.”

“Ok, enough of this psychoanalysis-bullshit. Shut up, I need to think.” Marshall started pacing around the room again.

It didn’t take long before the phone rang again. (Y/n) could hear Gideon’s voice again. He tried to negotiate the release of one of them. “One of my agents has been shot, let her go and we’ll prepare your demands.” Marshall hesitated. “I’ll send one of them to the roof, but I’ll decide which one.” Without waiting for the answer, he hung up.

Spencer immediately propped himself up on the chair. “Let her go, she needs medical attention.” The grin had returned. ���No, I think I’ll keep her. You can go.” Spencer began to pale. “Please, let her go, you can keep me.”

“Shut up, I’m calling the shots and I say she stays!” He waved the gun around.

(Y/n) turned to look at Spencer. “It’s alright, I’ll be fine, please just go.” He could tell she was scared again and this time there was nothing he could do to help her. Every fiber in his body screamed to stay by her side and not to leave her alone with this psycho.

Marshall undid Spencer’s ropes and pointed the gun to his head. “Go.” Spencer hesitated. He shot (Y/n) one last look. She mouthed the word ‘go’. The second the hotel door closed behind him Spencer started to sprint to the elevator. He pushed the button to the last floor a few too many times, as if that would get him up there faster.

When he finally arrived on the roof, where they had negotiated the exchange, he was greeted by the rest of the BAU. JJ pulled him into a hug before he was put in a bulletproof vest. “What happened?” Hotch and Gideon were by his side in seconds. “What does the situation look like down there?”

Spencer closed the last Velcro straps on his vest. “As far as I could tell, Marshall is alone. I’m guessing some of his men left, when they got wind that the FBI was raiding the place. (Y/n)’s been hurt pretty badly. One of Marshall’s men shot her in the arm. We could stop the bleeding but I’m afraid it’ll get infected. She’s tied up and Marshall is losing it. We need to go in now.”

“I understand.” Hotch nodded. “But we need to be careful. If we move too fast, he could panic and kill her.” He turned to Spencer. “I understand you’re impatient, but we need to keep a cool head.” Spencer nodded. As soon as Hotch stepped away to talk to Gideon, Derek came up to Spencer, reassuringly putting a hand on his shoulder. “Is it true?” He asked. “What do you mean?” Spencer’s head was every except on the roof. “Is she really your soulmate?” Spencer nodded. “She told me the night before, but we didn’t get a chance to talk about it.” “We’ll get her out of there, don’t worry, man.” Spencer gave him a small smile. “Thanks.”

Derek’s brows furrowed. “Wait, if she’s been shot, didn’t you feel that too? You need to get checked up by a medic.” “I’m not leaving until she’s out of there.” Derek had rarely seen this level of determination on Spencer’s face. He nodded. “I understand.”

(Y/n) felt the panic come back. Now that Spencer was gone, she realized just how much of her mental stability had depended on him. He was only gone for two hours now and he already seemed so far away. She would have given anything to be in his arms again now.

Marshall was still pacing through the room. She could tell he was weighing his chances of coming out of this alive. (Y/n) just hoped he wouldn’t come to the conclusion that there was no way out and decide that he would take her with him as his final act of revenge. It didn’t look good. He was talking to himself, but she couldn’t understand the words. She took a deep breath. Spencer would try to talk his way out of this, but because she had antagonized herself the day before, there was a slim chance he would listen to her. She had to try.

“Rory?” He snapped his head around, bewildered by the fact she had used his first name. She could tell, he wasn’t used to that. As a person with this much power and money, she could imagine that he had few people who were so close to him that they would address him by his first name. “Rory, I know what you’re thinking about –” “You don’t know shit! Why would you know what I’m thinking about?” “You’re feeling trapped and you try to decide what to do.” “Shut up!”

(Y/n) waited for a minute. “What was her name?” “What!?” “What was the woman’s name? The one that broke your heart.” Marshall hesitated before answering. “Heather.” “What did you like about her?” “She was smart, and beautiful. I couldn’t believe it when she said yes to going to dinner with

me.” (Y/n) could tell by the look on his face that he was reminiscing that time in his life. There was this almost soft look in his eyes. “If you walk out of here alive there is a chance you might find someone new someday.” She said cautiously, never letting Marshall out of her sight. Marshall’s face hardened.

“What the fuck do you know?” She had made a mistake. “There will never be anyone else for me and now she’s dead because of me!” He started to raise his voice and his movements became more and more erratic. “Why did she have to meet that guy? It’s her fault I had to kill her, if she’d just stayed with me, we could have been happy!” The crazy look had returned to his face. “You’re all like this! You go around, thinking you can play with people until some fucking asshole comes along who’s supposed to be your soulmate and you think that gives you the right to drop everyone!” In three big strides he was right in front of her, pressing the barrel of the gun directly to her forehead. “I should just kill you too, one less bitch to walk this earth, I bet your little boyfriend will be heartbroken.” She saw the ecstasy in his eyes. “Maybe then he’ll know what it feels like.”

(Y/n) squeezed her eyes shut. She tried to conjure up images of Spencer. If she died here and now, she wanted him to be the last thing she thought about. She tried to remember the feeling of his lips on hers, the smell of his cologne, the softness of his hair and the sound of his voice hen he told her everything would be alright.

“I love you.” She whispered so quite that Marshall couldn’t hear it. A gunshot rang through the suite.

Chapter 7

When he heard the gunshot, Spencer froze. The SWAT team had stormed the suite, but he was still behind them in the hallway. The moment seemed to drag on forever. The sound burned itself into his mind. He wanted to move but the thought of what was waiting for him in that suite wouldn’t let him. In that moment he hated himself for not letting (Y/n) tell him those three words.

It wasn’t until Derek appeared by his side that he woke up from his trance. Spencer’s feet moved by themselves. He didn’t want to go into that room. As soon as he did, whatever had happened would irrevocably become reality. He hated himself for being such a coward.

“Spencer?” The floor was covered in blood, brain splattered across the carpet, that undoubtedly cost more than his entire apartment. She looked up at him with big eyes. He could see the body of Rory Marshall, who had spent his last seconds in shock as the SWAT team had kicked down the door and taken him out, before he could pull the trigger. His head was empty as he rushed to her, taking her into his arms, holding on to her like his life depended on it. He felt her sob into his shoulder. It was so good to hear her voice. “I love you, I love you, I love you...” She whispered. He pulled back just a bit to look at her. “I love you too, I love you so much and I’m so sorry...I could’ve lost you without telling you.”

She let out a weak laugh. He buried his face in her neck. “I’ll never leave you ever again, I promise.” “I’ll never leave you too, promise.”

The hospital room was dimly lit. Spencer sat at (Y/n)’s bedside. He had laid his head in her lap and fallen asleep with her fingers tangled in his messy hair. She watched his chest rise and fall peacefully. After a while she fell asleep too.

A few days later (Y/n) was released and Spencer insisted to take her home. As they stepped into her apartment, Spencer remained at the door, unsure of what to do. (Y/n) turned around. “Don’t you want to come in?” “Do you want me to come in? I thought maybe you wanted some time to yourself...”

(Y/n) dumped her bag on the couch and walked back to him. He was a bit taller than her, so she had to stand on her tip toes to reach him. She pressed a small kiss to his lips. “I want you.” She said quiet but determined. Spencer let out a nervous laugh. “Maybe you should rest, you’re just tired.”

She grabbed his face. “Spencer, listen to me. I’ve had a whole week to rest. You don’t need to worry I’m not in the right state of mind to make a decision. I haven’t changed my mind about you.” She was so close, their lips almost touched. “If you want me to stop, I will...”

Spencer looked at her, feeling like he was in a dream. She kissed him and it was like his head was empty again. That didn’t happen very often to Spencer. There was always something, some thought, some doubt, eating away at him but when she took his bottom lip between her teeth, everything was gone. She took his hand leading him to the bedroom. He sat down on the edge of her bed, while she stood in front of him, taking her shirt of.

“Let me show you, how much I care about you.” She said, before straddling him. Spencer couldn’t take his eyes off of her. He had dreamed about this moment for so long, he was mesmerized by her. The signs of torture were still visible. He traced a few healed cuts with his thumb. He felt her shiver under his light touch. He looked up at her, meeting her half- lidded eyes. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

“Are you nervous?” Spencer nodded. His fingertips kept wandering over her waist, caressing her soft skin. “You tend to have that effect on me.” (Y/n)’s smile grew. “I make you nervous?” Spencer nodded again. She raised her hand to run it through his hair. The slow strokes seemed to calm him down. He closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. He felt her hands travel down his face, his neck, to the collar of his shirt. “Can I take it off?” Spencer opened his eyes again. “Yes please.” He watched her fingers unbutton his shirt. She moved painfully slow. Undoubtedly as to not overwhelm him, but something told him it was more then that. She was teasing him, and it was working. He felt the tension grow.

(Y/n) slid the shirt over his arms, fingers tracing over his skin. She felt him getting goosebumps and a slight shiver making its way through his body. She brought her hands back to his face, lifting it to make him look at her. “Do you know, how beautiful you are?” She whispered before stealing a small kiss. “I could look at you for all eternity and never get bored.” “Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.” “So we’re quoting Hume now?” (Y/n) smiled. “God, I love you so much...” Spencer pulled her back into the kiss. One of his arms wrapped around her waist to pull her closer.

(Y/n) pulled away. “Aren’t you getting impatient?” She stood up to take of the rest of her clothes, but Spencer stopped her by putting his hand on her arm. He stood up, so (Y/n) had to look up again to look him in the eyes. “Let me...” His hands wandered over her waist to her back, unclasping her bra. For a moment she mused where he had learned to do that so well, but the thought was gone as fast as it came when her undergarment fell to the floor and she suddenly realized how bare she was in front of him. The urge to cover herself up never came though. Spencer looked at her like he had never seen anything so beautiful in his life, and truthfully, he hadn’t.

They got rid of the rest of their clothes before (Y/n) led Spencer to the bed. She waited a moment on the bedside. Spencer grabbed her arm, to pull her into the bed. She landed in his arms but before she could get comfortable, Spencer rolled over, trapping her underneath him. A grin spread on his face.

“You can’t tease me forever.” His locks fell into his face, framing it perfectly.

He dipped down, capturing her lips in a hungry kiss. He didn’t want to waste another second. He had waited for so long and then he had almost lost her. His lips traveled to her jaw, down to her neck. A sigh escaped her mouth. “Spencer...” She whispered. He continued to pepper kisses down on her chest, over her stomach. She felt his lips graze the skin on her inner thigh. One kiss at a time he came closer to the place she was aching for him to touch.

(Y/n) buried her fingers in his hair, guiding him. When his tongue slid through her wet folds, she couldn’t hold back her moans anymore. Between the obscene sounds, that filled the bedroom, she repeated Spencer’s name over and over, like a mantra. He loved to hear his name fall from her desperate lips. Her breath was getting irregular, he could tell she was close. He pulled back, only to lift himself up, so he could kiss her. He knew she could taste herself on him as he slipped his tongue into her mouth.

After a while, (Y/n) broke the kiss to sit herself up. She crawled over the bed, guiding Spencer, until he sat on the edge and she was kneeling on the floor in front of him. She ran her hands up his thighs, never breaking eye contact. She could tell, he was holding his breath.

“Relax...” She placed a few kisses on his thighs before slowly taking him into her mouth. Spencer inhaled sharply. Now he was the one with his fingers tangled in her hair, lewd sounds and profanities leaving his mouth.

(Y/n) could feel him trying to hold back but he was struggling. Satisfied with the effect she had on him, she started to work her way up his abdomen until she reached his neck, sucking on it, careful not to leave marks above where the collar of his shirt would close. She seated herself on his lap. Her hands reached around his neck for support when she slid down on him. Both took in a sharp breath. Spencer’s eyes were closed and his mouth slightly agape when he let out a soft moan. That sound alone could have driven (Y/n) over the edge. She waited a second to adjust to the feeling of being filled up by Spencer.

“You feel so good...” Spencer whispered in the crook of her neck. He sank his teeth into her soft skin, sending shivers down her spine. “You too.” She managed to say between breathy moans. Spencer had started to move slowly. His hands were tightly gripping her thighs to guide her own movements.

“Oh god...” She moaned while dropping her head on his shoulder. Her nails dug into his back. “Spencer, I won’t last very long...” “It’s ok, baby...” His strokes were getting deeper. “Say my name again...” “S-spencer I –” She felt her orgasm build up.

“Again.” “Spenc-aah”

Spencer could feel her tighten around him. Her nails left bright red scratch marks on his back. She cried out his name again and while she was wrapped so tightly around him, he felt his own release.

(Y/n) and Spencer were both panting heavily, sweat covering their foreheads. They just stared at each other for a few seconds. “You’re amazing.” A smile spread on Spencer’s face. He took her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm. Her cheeks were glowing red.

“I’m not the only one.” She smiled back.

After cleaning themselves up they laid back in the bed. (Y/n)’s head was resting on Spencer’s chest. He was playing with her hair while she drew small patterns on his stomach. “Was it how you had imagined?” Spencer asked. She raised her head to look at him. “Better.” A smile tugged at her lips. “I never imagined it could feel so right to be with someone.”

“Me neither.” He paused for a moment. “I love you so much, it’s driving me crazy.” (Y/n) propped herself up to get a better look at him. There was nothing but pure adoration in his eyes. “I love you too, I never want to spend another day without you.” “You don’t have to, I promise I’ll never leave your side.”

(Y/n) put her head back on Spencer’s chest. After a while she had fallen asleep. 

“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” - Aristotle

[stellisketches]

Random MCD Headcanons that have nothing to do with anything (Part 5???)

Sorry I haven't made any real posts in forever. My drawing phone broke and college has been a bitch so i haven't really gotten the chance to make anything (though I finally made some more progress on the next chapter of my rewrite). In any case, please accept this next installment of head canons I wrote like 10 months ago and completely forgot about in lieu of anything that requires actual talent. Love y'all:

Laurance lost an incisor tooth in a fistfight when he was 19

When he got turned into a shadowknight it grew back, now he purposefully goes out of his way to loose teeth just cause he knows he can grow back an unlimited supply

Hayden has a cat named Bog Butter. He’s the color of butter and he found him in the bog. 

Vylad’s favorite vegetable is avocado

There are three major guard academies in Ru’aun: one in O’Khasis, one in Scaleswind, and one in Bright Port. 

Bright Port’s is the largest and most well known

O’Khasis’ is the most prestigious

Scaleswind’s academy is the most difficult

The bare minimum age to join is 14, though most people join between 16-19

Every guard must have a minimum of 2 years training to earn the actual title of Guard, however to serve in O’Khasis you need a minimum of 4 and for Scaleswind a minimum of 5. 

Part of that training includes apprenticeship, so they do get some in-field experience with their mentors (think unpaid intern)

Technically you can train for up to 8 years, however most people only train for 2-5.

Garroth was in academy for 3-4 (although to be fair he had been trained in sword fighting since he was like 9)

Laurance went for 5 years and Dante went for 6 ½ 

Dante lied about his age when he enlisted though

He was barely thirteen

Both went to the Bright Port Academy however they were in different divisions at different times since Dante is younger, so they really only saw each other in passing and never actually talked to one another

The only personal interaction they ever had was one time at the academy Laurance was trying to get back to his dorm after a night of copious drinking and partying and could barely walk out the front door of the bar. Dante (who was pretty tipsy himself) ended up half-carrying back to Laurance’s dorm before going back to his own. Neither of them remember this. 

Katelyn’s two older brothers’ names are Kaj and Khareem

Khareem is the oldest, then Kaj, then Katelyn, then Kacey

Occasionally, when he is absolutely, positively, 100% sure he is alone, Zane will sing to himself sometimes

Dante once did a Zane impression in front of everyone and Garroth got so freaked out by how realistic it sounded he made Dante swear he’d never do that voice around him again. 

The worst argument Kenmur and Emmalyn ever had during their marriage was whether their system was heliocentric or geocentric (Kenmur argued the former and Emmalyn argued the latter)

In most colleges across Ru’Aun, there is usually some statue of Enki that students will leave offerings to before their big exams

Offerings vary, but it’s usually something like food, money, trinkets, or paper. It varies on how important the exam/how desperate the students are

Kenmur went to one of these colleges for a few years

One time he fell asleep the night before his final exam and he woke up like an hour before his exam was supposed to take place and in a fit of panic he dumped his entire wallet in front of the statue. He passed with flying colors.

One time at the Narhakan college someone left a life-sized horse statue made out of gold. No one has any idea where it came from or who left it. It’s become kind of an urban legend among all the colleges

Zenix never learned how to read and by god he isn’t about to wimp out now

Garroth tried to teach him once and it… did not go well

Let’s just say Garroth still owes Emmalyn a book from that incident. And a new table. 

Zianna came from the same region that Esmund was native to

Katelyn absolutely despises the feeling of sand in her shoes

Dmitri and Nekoette raided the Bright Port guard academy kitchen the first night they got sworn in

Dmitri also had to go to the infirmary after getting shot in the arm by one of Nekoette’s loose arrows

Laurance can play the piano and used to play it at some of the taverns in Meteli

Levin and Malachi both know a good bit of Elvish thanks to spending so much time in Yggdrasil

They switch to Elvish for the majority of their arguments

[pisboy]

as a fellow alopecia haver would you mind if i asked a few questions about how you cope with it? like, do you wear hats or wigs or do clever hairstyles to hide it or do you just let it show? ive tried pills and scalp shots and nothing is reversing mine. im only 26 and i feel like this is the worst thing to ever happen to me and i dont know what to do about it. nobody even thinks balding women exist. nobody considers how it is to actually be one. im so scared no one will ever like me or find me cute again. i used to think i was so cute. this sucks so bad.

For me the back of my head around the nape and up to nearly the top of my scalp has never grown hair, not even when I was born. My father also has alopecia areata and he has a few golfball-to-coin sized patches he loses and regrows at a random basis. So I've had my entire life to contend with hair loss and family that was familiar with it, so I sympathize so incredibly hard to women who develop it later in life. It is probably mortifying.

So yeah, shots and pills and balms and oils and etc have never worked for me. I also lose hair at random basis around the rest of my scalp, mainly around the margins of my crown (losing my bangs) and the sides of the back where I already do not grow hair. I also lose half my left eyebrow on a regular basis. If you go far back enough in my #me tag I've posted what it looks like. I also preface some of my advice might not be helpful if you have afro-textured hair, but I will recommend someone who will be extremely helpful in that respect.

Also I hope you don't mind me doing a shotgun blast of advice but maybe my experience will help someone

Things that worked for me:

I've always been flipping my part as my hair cycles in a growth/loss state for my bangs. Low pony tails tend to hold better than high ones in what is essentially a clever combover. Uhhh and always keep a hair tie around in case there is wind lol I always get self conscious when there's a breeze.

This is kind of vague and probably shitty advice but I've noticed over the years I lose hair when I am stressed, so I've had to make the call (in addition to other factors) to quit jobs that really strain me and I've noticed improvement in hair growth. So depending on your circumstances I say make some effort to reduce your other stress factors while you go through figuring it out. This shit is literally traumatizing.

This thing here is basically a pepper shaker for keratin bits that can color-fill in patches of missing (or really tiny short baby) hair. I can only speak as a brunette but it works pretty damn good as some camouflage for your skin poking out where you can't cover it. Do note it kind of has an ashy texture so it's something to wash out at night like makeup. Scalp makeup lol.

Hats are good. I wore trucker hats for most of my teen years, but I don't wear them much anymore, especially being out of the stress of school. However - a piece of advice from a mentor of mine, Jamie Elmore, is to call hats, bands, scarves, wigs, anything under an umbrella term "accessory." It's kind of corny but sometimes conceptualizing these things that way helps coping with the impulse of a world that demands you hide your hair loss and another where you can freely express yourself without fear of judgement. Anyway, I recommend looking her up, she has a magazine and works hard for the alopecia community, particularly for black alopecians.

Oh yeah if you can find those hippy chick silk hair bands that have the elastic around the back, I love those. Regular bandanas are also good.

Uhhh shorter hair also tends to weigh and pull less, which I think everyone has varying sensitivity to, but to anyone considering a bob, why not might help lol. I also lose my hair in the largest amounts in the shower, so like, if you develop a weird complex about showering I know allllllll about it.

I have tried partial wigs, which are custom cut out and adhered to your head, and it's nice if you want to do hairstyles you otherwise could not, but it's high maintenance, very itchy, and gets gummy after about a week.

But yeah it's been a very slow and steady process to get used to going out in public without putting effort in camouflaging my alopecia, and that mostly has to do with tuning people out. The existential stuff gets personal so I save those conversations for a 1-to-1. *Holds you by the shoulder* we are all coping out here.

I look at that sword of Damocles hanging over my head and if my scalp gets wiped out beyond all sidepart repair, I'll go full wig-wearing. I once had a hair stylist who was giddy at the idea of shaving my head when I explained it to her, which was comforting in a silly way.

Anyway, it's been years since I've dipped my toes into the greater Alopecia Community, the ones with all the acronyms, but there are NAAF chapter groups that you can meet and hopefully find people to connect with. I think you need to join an email group though. Anyway. For the longest time the only people I knew with it was just my dad and a cousin who had it for 1 year and never again and seeing a group of people with patchy/full baldness in person for the first time made me cry.

To end on a good note, there have been trials for JAK inhibitors (a treatment for many autoimmune disorders) having really breakthrough success rates at hair regrowth, but I haven't looked into it lately. Seems very promising. A lot better than cortisone shots in the scalp I figure, maybe worth the pain lmao

EDIT: i misremembered it being lupus medication, but it was actually Janus kinase inhibitor trials with success.

[dannyburke]

mind sharing your full opinion about fallout 76? i love fallout 4 more than anything and tried to play 76 but gave up just because it didn’t strike the same nerve. but I haven’t played it since the first week it came out and haven’t given it another chance since then, so things might’ve changed a whole lot! how do you like it?

SORRY im getting to this so late. not beating the taking a nap allegations.

but anyways, i actually really enjoy fo76! i haven't played it in a hot minute though due to not wanting to pay stupid ass sony for a subscription to play online, but i do think that like... it doesn't necessarily deserve all the hate it gets

i just think that it mechanically improved on basically every gameplay feature from fallout 4. like, the combat feels better to me, the workshop mechanics feel a lot smoother and make more sense AND i feel more compelled to go out and scavenge for random crafting materials than i did in 4; it just feels more like a little adventure. also the survival mechanics with eating/drinking/diseases/etc are engaging without being oppressive to the gameplay. i also think the people working on it were aware of the criticisms against fo4 wrt the big empty map, and they really did a great job making the map in fo76 feel alive imo. i know the whole no npcs thing was wack for several reasons, but there was something exciting about finding a note on one side of the map that referenced a character whose terminal you read on the opposite end, and it wasn't tied to questing or anything, just a little reward for exploration and engaging with the environment.... just a little thing i enjoy.

however i also fully understand people being underwhelmed by it, and my most major criticisms of fo76 are more tied to it being an mmo than with anything else... like you can't actually make choices that have a material difference in the world because you're playing in a world populated by other people who are making different choices from you. the group questing system is beyond bonked for the same reason, requiring differently instanced quest interiors for each person in a group means that you have to redo the same quest x amount of times per person, because completing it with the group lead doesn't complete it for anyone else. i don't care about this being the case in other mmos i've played a la world of warcraft bc the point of reference for the player character is not a game series where You make an oc who is the Main Character with Influential Choices, but it's just the association with prior fallout games that makes it a tough pill to swallow with 76.

BUT ALSO that being said, fo76 is a lot more engaging if you treat everything you do as a character building moment. it's all rp to me. my oc building her cabin, scavenging for supplies, hiding from super mutants and a scorchbeast in a trailer with your friends. i probably wouldn't play it for the mmo mechanics as an mmo enjoyer, but i feel a lot more connected to the character story beats for my oc than i do with fo4 unfortunately. (however i also live in appalachia irl so take that as you will. im mountain pilled)

idk this isn't coherent at all, just spaghetti at the wall type posting, but i just really enjoy the improvements on the engine's mechanics that fo76 has to offer, and i think it's pretty unfortunate how the game's initial shitty marketing clouded the entire release. (but also i will kind of always maintain that it would have been a better single player game. ough)

also anyone who says it's a pay to win game is literally lying to you. besides cosmetic items, nothing in the atom shop is mechanically necessary to progress the game or build a character. and convenience items are not pay to win lol. also you can unlock atoms by doing daily quests, which is the norm in like. every mmo.

[thefanficmonster]

Let Them Talk

Corpse Husband x Reader (Female) ft. Sykkuno

Warnings: Swearing, Jealousy

Genre: Fluff, a bit of Angst

Summary: We can all agree Among Us is a fun game on its own but what makes it ten times better is playing it with the right company. Y/N could agree 100% Being a streamer herself, she loves playing with the streamer gang that includes her boyfriend and best friend. But, what happens when her boyfriend starts doubting her feelings for him due to her close relationship with her best friend.

Requested by @cheetoscat . Thank you so much for your request! Sorry it took so long to write, I hope the final product is worth the wait. Enjoy! Love, Vy ❤

Y/AU/N - Your Among Us Name

I settle in my gaming chair, adjusting my webcam one last time before joining the Among Us lobby with my friends. 

“Hi everyone!“ I say into the mic, a smile plastering itself on my face. Discord is a magical thing, man. It’s so easy to forget that the people you are talking to aren’t around you or within arm’s reach. You could be separated by miles and miles of land or - in our case - oceans as well. Distance becomes negligible when you hear your friends’ voices, their laughter; when you have a good time together despite being each behind a screen, often times alone.

Well, I’m one of those lucky ones that isn’t alone. No one knows that, though. Everyone thinks I’m a single, self-employed girl that’s straight out of college. And they are 90% right. Only thing is - I’m not single. That would be a shocker in and of itself, but revealing who’s changed my relationship status would be a bomb with a whole new intensity.

Speaking of my significant other who shall remain unnamed - just kidding, it’s Corpse - his form materializes in the doorway of my recording room. I give him a hand signal the camera isn’t able to capture, alerting him of the fact that my mic is on. He replies by blowing me a kiss and walking off down the hall to his recording room where he’ll be stationed for the next three or so hours.

I owe this relationship to my best friend Sykkuno. I’m a pretty new and not very well known on the platform, however, thanks to him I haven’t only obtained a boyfriend, but a following of a little over million subscribers as well. 

It all started with an invitation to fill a spot in the Among Us lobby him and his friends had created. It took him quite a bit to convince me to join, but I eventually caved and agreed. Suddenly, there I was. In a Discord call, in an Among Us lobby with some of the most well-known names on this platform. I’m talking YouTube legends. I was that puppy playing with the big dogs. The newbie tagging along with the big leagues. Or at least that’s how I felt until we all started vibing - talking and teasing each other as though we’ve known each other for years and not minutes.

When I joined the call, Corpse wasn’t present. After everyone else introduced themselves, Sykkuno informed me that we were waiting for Corpse to return. The name sounded really cool to me and I was genuinely very excited to meet this Corpse guy.

And then, out of the blue - no prep, no warning...

“Did you get someone to fill the spot? Oh- Hello, Y/AU/N.“ 

…he started talking and he had me star-struck. Apparently, he also had me a blabbering mess cause I remember blurting out: “Whoa, who’s this guy speaking in bold and underlined at the same time?”

The entire lobby, including Corpse, laughed. Sean, or Jack like they called him most often, answered my question, “That is the voice of God, Y/N. Its source is named Corpse, though.”

Heat spread from the bottom of my neck to the tips of my ears. I was mortified by my own stupidity. I was well aware they couldn’t see me and I was incredibly thankful for that, but I simply could not get myself to open my eyes. “I’m so sorry.” I said through nervous laughter.

“No, no, I like that description. Bold and underlined at the same time, huh?“ His voice sounded even more pleasant when it had that teasing, mischievous note to it. That thought popping up in my head only made things worse for my self-esteem and only made me more embarrassed, causing me to hide my face in my hands. “You sure it’s not in Italics as well?“ 

His question got a weak laugh out of me. “Nope, definitely not. Nothing Italic about it.“

Yes, I don’t even know how some terrible jokes about MS Word fonts got me as far as a romantic relationship, but they did! We’ve been living together for quite some time now, dating for even longer - hiding it just as long. It’s not that we have been actively trying to hide it or something, we just wanted to see how long it would take someone to become sus of us. When we realized no one would notice, we decided that if any rumors about us started, or even fans shipping us, we’d come clean. That hasn’t happened either, so we haven’t had the proper chance to address our relationship and neither of us minds.

At this point, I’m honestly afraid of revealing it to the gaming squad. Sykkuno especially. He’s my best friend, after all. I can see him being hurt by the fact that I kept a secret so big even from him. The last thing I wanna do is hurt my best friend but it’s already too late for that, it’s inevitable.

“Y/N have you looked at Twitter today?“ Rae, another streamer I’ve become close with over the months, says urgently.

Overlooking the tension in her words, I answer: “Nope, haven’t had the time. Why? What’s up?“

Before Rae can say anything else, Sykkuno joins the conversation, his voice somehow even more urgent than Rae’s. “It’s nothing, Y/N. If you see it, just don’t let it bother you, ok?”

Hearing such a tone from Rae isn’t unusual, but hearing it from Sykkuno is completely different and a lot more worrisome. “Well if it has the potential of bothering me it can’t be nothing. What’s going on?”

Just then, my phone dings with two notifications. I check to see they are messages from Rae.

“I sent you screenshots. Sorry, Sykkuno. She has to know in order to address it and defuse it as well. I know better than anyone how fast these rumors can spread, especially if no one reacts to them.“ She says, her tone barely apologetic at all.

I open the screenshots she has sent me and I find myself frozen in shock. Some old pictures of Sykkuno and I have been posted on Twitter by some random user. These pictures have started an entire thread of suspicions surrounding our relationship.

The pictures in question are from a New Year’s Eve party a mutual friend of ours held two years ago. Sure, in the pictures we are a lot closer than what would be considered a platonic proximity. And yes one of the pictures is of me kissing his cheek. Yes we were both a bit tipsy. I acknowledge all those things and yet none of them are concrete reasons for these rumors to have started piling. 

“This is silly.“ I finally say after maybe five minutes of silence on my end. ”This is absolutely ridiculous! And why are people so serious about it as well? Actual, important matters get discussed more nonchalantly than the potential relationship between two online personalities! What is this world we live in?“ I know I shouldn’t let these rumors get to me like this, especially not on camera. Still, I can’t help it. I feel it’s so unfair to Corpse. He has to put up with this as well and it’s by no means easy for him. I’ve been shipped with people from our group in the past and he always took those rumors to heart despite acting like he didn’t care. Neither of us should get worked up, but him getting upset about them creates a domino effect with my emotions - causing me to be hit just as hard as him, in some cases harder.

Rumors of the past aside, this one is the worst by far. Mostly cause even Corpse himself suspected something between Sykkuno and I at the very beginning, when we were still acquaintances, barely crossing into the realm of friends.

I pull up Twitter to look for the whole thread, barely sparing my stream chat a glance in the process. It seems pretty split - those who agree with me and those who think Sykkuno and I make ‘such an adorable couple’. The thread is ridiculously long, and if we take into account that it was only started approximately five hours ago, you can either view it as impressive, amusing or sad. Why sad? Because someone has dedicated so much time and effort into fueling the fire of a weakly supported theory.

I love Sykkuno with all my heart. Everyone knows that - fandom, streamer squad, Corpse and Sykkuno included. I love too much and too platonically to ever even dream of having a romantic connection with him. I thought that was more than obvious, but people are either blind here, or just grasping at straws. One thing’s for certain - they’re stepping on a nerve.

“Hey where’s Corpse? Did he disconnect?” Felix asks, gaining my full attention. My eyes dart to the monitor, searching through the little avatars in a desperate search for the one of my boyfriend. It’s nowhere to be found.

“He just messaged me saying his connection is unstable but he might join us later.“ Rae says, “You guys can invite someone to fill...“

“Bathroom break.“ I interrupt, not waiting for a response before shutting my mic off, putting the ‘BRB‘ graphic on my stream and yanking the headset off. I basically run down the hall to Corpse’s recording room, my heart pounding like a bass drum.

“Corpse?!“ I call out to him, one hand already on the doorknob. When five seconds pass by without a response, I barge in. 

Inside, I find his usual spot on the gaming chair empty and his slumped figure seated on his bed.

“Corpse?“ I try again, watching for even the tiniest change of body language. He remains still as a statue, not bothering to look up at me either. 

His hands are gripping the edge of the mattress, his head hanging low. His eyes are covered by the short curtain of his dark messy curls. I can’t gauge much. Is he angry? Is he sad? Both? How should I approach the situation?

Before I find the answer to any of those questions, I am kneeling in front of him, our height difference eliminated. I gently pry his hands off the mattress and take them in mine, holding them firmly but tenderly. With one hand I reach up to tilt his head so his eyes can meet mine. He complies, his tear-filled brown orbs meeting mine. Those tears have the same effect on me as fifty sharp knives stabbing into my chest. These tears focus their attack straight on my heart, tearing it to pieces.

“Baby....“

He cuts me off, “Why is it always someone else, huh? Do they deem me not worthy of being with you? Do they think you deserve better?” His voice wavers, “Well, they might be right. They are correct and there’s little I can do to prove them wrong. They mean you well, Y/N - pairing you with guys better than me. Those are some loyal fans you’ve got. They only want what’s best for you. And so do I. If ‘best’ is being with someone else then...”

It’s my turn to cut him off. I put an end to his nonsense ramble that’s slowly killing me by pressing my finger against his lips. The sternness of my gaze is beyond me as I get up and walk over to his computer setup. I put on his headset and hop into the call as well as the lobby with his avatar.

“Hey Corpse’s back!” Toast says, “Good to have you back buddy.”

“No, not Corpse.” I say in a casual, nonchalant voice.

“Wait, wha-“ Sean’s voice shows just how confused he is, representing the confusion of the entire lobby actually.

“I know all of you are streaming so this message will be heard by several different audiences so I’m gonna make myself perfectly clear.“ I take a deep breath, “Sykkuno and I aren’t dating. He’s a lovely guy and he deserves to find a girl who will treat him right. That girl isn’t and won’t be me though. I am already treating someone right. Someone who treats me more than right as well. An amazing person. A man-child with a heart of gold. You know him, to a certain extent. He goes by the name of Corpse Husband, but I prefer to call him ‘Love of my life’. Thank you for your time and attention, goodbye.“

I exit the call and turn around to find a stunned Copse looking at me.

“That was meant for you just as much.“ I say with a fake strict attitude, one hand on my hip the other rested on his desk behind me, “Were you listening?“

Within milliseconds, he’s on his feet standing directly in front of me, his lips inches away from mine. “I heard and memorized every word. But...” he pauses for a moment, “I think you have no idea how big of a chaos you just created.”

I smile mischievously, “We’ll worry about that later. For now...” I close the gap between us, connecting our lips in a sweet and passionate kiss. 

@susceptible-but-siriusexual  @simonsbluee  @save-the-sky  @hacker-ghost  @itsminniekat  @bi-andready-tocry  @imtiredaffff  @jazzkaurtheglorious  @hereforbeebo  @fandomgirl17  @chrysanthykios  @maehemscorpyus  @loraleiix  @letsloveimagines  @annshit  @i-cant-choose-a-username-help  @enigmaticmaze  @divine-artemis  @waterlilypat  @idontknowwhatthisisfam  @evi-ka  @classyandfabulous00  @redperson58  @lilysdaydreams  @the-fuck-up-of-today  @slashersdream  @chiefwombathoagiepizza  @solowheein @mythicalamphitrite  @axen-gers  @luckygirl144  @nj01

[kookieskiwi]

𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐈: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠

Pairing: Shuntaro Chishiya x Fem!Reader x Suguru Niragi

Summary: The borderlands were already dark, they made you numb to death so long as you survived. When you become the object of desire for two psychopathic and sociopathic men, one of which is your ex lover, you find it harder to drown out the emotions you’re feeling and demons you're facing. Do you give into the dark desires and madness? But...aren’t we all already mad here?

Warnings: Explicit language, sexual situations, murder, death, manipulation, psychoanalyses, drugs, alcohol, suicidal thoughts and tendencies, more to be added as I write.

Genre: Alice in Borderland, very dark romance, angst, smut, a little fluff if you squint

Rating: Whoever is mature enough to handle the warnings above but recommended to ages 15 and older. DO NOT read if you are triggered by any of the things listed above.

Word Count: 5k

[Taglist] @bonnyskies @mylifeisafxingmess @kasaikawa @mercipourleslivres @dragoneye01 @bubb1ee-gum@nocturne181 @somegirl29 @pajerita19 @ddaenysus @imagine-t-h-a-ttt @queentorresstuff @rebirth-of-destruction @celestiacq @ryreads @beeissleepy

A note from your author — I’m so sorry this took so long, I just got out for summer vacation after an extremely stressful year so I’ll be way more active now. I have decided (with much hype from @imagine-t-h-a-ttt ) to post this in parts so I could give y’all something in appreciation for dealing with me. Expect more soon!! (It might not be AiB exclusively but I will be writing more)

The borderlands was a place where anyone and everyone was alone for themselves when it came to survival. “It’s every man for themselves,” you’d often tell yourself after a game since you walked away, sometimes alone, and others didn’t. After participating in your first heart’s game you learned that, and it was forever engraved into your mind. When you were cruelly taken from the real world you were alone in your room after your nightly shift as an SDF officer. All of a sudden the lights went out whilst you were changing out of your uniform before a shower which you never got to take. Deciding to investigate the outage, you threw your uniform back on and unbuttoned the jacket revealing your black sleeveless undershirt while keeping your green cargo style uniform pants and combat boots on. After grabbing your knife and placing it into your thigh holster, you explored your neighborhood to find that everyone was gone, cars were randomly in the street as if they had been stopped out of nowhere, and you were in fact alone.

“What the fuck is this?” You whispered to yourself as you were pulling out your phone to contact your friends only to see that it was dead. “Fantastic,” you grumbled, rolling your neck to the side to crack it and relieve the tension. Venturing back to your home you thought over what this could possibly be; an evacuation drill? Maybe a nightmare? Were you daydreaming again? No, this was too real and too strange to be any of those things. You needed to get out of this area, inspect and observe other parts of Tokyo to see what was going on. You thought you could find answers before it turned dark since it was only morning so you rushed home to pack a few things before heading out.

While at home, you grabbed your backpack and in it you put; a change of clothes, three water bottles, pain pills and a few snacks as well as your phone and charger in case you could figure out a way for it to work. In a haste you also threw on your side holster which held your nine millimeter handgun and two packs of ammo for extra precautions. After that, you set out on your search of the city. The first thing you thought of was to get in one of those abandoned vehicles however even though they were full of fuel, they wouldn’t start. “So phones and vehicles don’t work, neither does anything powered by electricity. Great.”

With that newly found information, you stepped out of the vehicle and began the long walk across Tokyo. Along the way you inspected stores, homes and even government buildings but found no trace of anyone but yourself. Where did everyone go? It looked so desolate without the constant buzz of people around walking, the tourists, the neon billboards. Everything was...dead. You spent the entire day walking further into the abandoned city which was once lively yet found nothing other than a restaurant with food which you took the liberty to eat at.

Upon nightfall, you were looking for a place to stay when a billboard lit up drawing your attention to it immediately. “This way to the game arena,” it read with an arrow pointing to the left. Turning your head in that direction you saw an area in the distance brightened by lights while everything else was still surrounded in darkness. “Game arena?” You whispered in confusion. Looking around at your surroundings you didn’t see any other lights other than that building which looked to be about three blocks away. You followed the arrows leading you to the designated arena which looked to be a botanical tea garden from a distance. You slowly approached the building while keeping your hand close to the blade strapped on your thigh in case someone or something appeared. As soon as you stepped across the final set of stairs leading up to the entrance, a line of red lasers appeared and quickly turned blue when a sound similar to that of a confirmation resonated in the area. “What is this?”

“It’s the threshold of the arena.” Turning in the direction of the voice, you saw a familiar face step next to you with the same sound chiming at her entry. “Holyn? How did you get here? Are you okay?” You asked quickly before hugging her out of relife, you were more than happy to see a familiar face in this apocalyptic place. She was your childhood best friend, the only reason you hadn’t seen or heard from her in a while was because of both of your working lives.She hugged you back even tighter as she was feeling the same way you were, scared, alone and confused. When the two of you released each other she began explaining everything she knew to you as the both of you started walking into the garden.

“I got here a few days ago and since then, I’ve asked around to see what others know about whatever the hell is going on. No one knows how we got here or what exactly this place is but everyone is made to participate in games of survival. You must participate or you’ll die. After winning a game, you keep the phone you had and you’ll be supplied with a visa. The visa tells you how long you have until you’re out of time here which is why you have to participate in games to renew it before it runs out. You must win each game, there is no other way to survive if you don’t. Do everything it takes so you live and move on. Anything with an electric circuit board or IC chip does not work whereas analog equipment like radios work and so do older vehicles.” She explained quickly as more people came into view. Your mind fogged with all of the new information, it was so much to take in. Then you realized you were just thrown into a game of survival and like she said; you HAD to win to survive. “But-” you had just begun when she silenced you, “pretend you’ve been here and done this. I know you’re confused and probably scared shitless but just pretend.” She instructed as you both entered the arena and quickly added one thing, “I don’t want to continue playing after this, I killed someone Y/n.” But before you could respond she shook her head and you did as she said, silencing yourself and putting on the facade you had mastered over the years.

Upon entry, you almost immediately noticed the two groups of people to the right each containing about six people and consisting of both males and females and the other group of six men. Gauging their distance to and from each other you could conclude the individuals in each group had played together previously and probably had strategies to compete with. As you and Holyn approached the area the others stood around, you glanced down to the table in front of all of you. ‘One per person’ the sign read with approximately twenty phones laid out beside it. Each of you grabbed a random phone and stepped away from the table into your own spaces, you and Holyn sticking closely together. If everything with a circuit board was destroyed, then why did these phones work? In the middle of your questioning the phone screen lit up with the text ‘facial recognition in progress’ before switching to another screen as you looked at the others subtly to see they were looking around as well.

“Registration has closed,” the phone chimed causing each of you to glance down at the small screen. “There are twenty participants. Game: Queen of cards.”

“Rules,” the automated voice said, “After putting on the designated collars you will be divided into two teams, one team will be the Jacks while the other is the Queen of Hearts. Find the Queen of Hearts, take her phone and find the safe zone. If the Queen is not found, it is game over for the Jacks. If the Queen is found, it is game over for her.”

“Does this mean it’s one girl against the rest of us?” Holyn asked with a small crack in her voice, making hit her as a sign to be quiet and do exactly what she told you to do. The two of you grabbed the collars they had laid out on the table, placing them on your neck after close inspection. You needed to seem like you had done this before, the last thing you needed was to be seen as the weaklings or newbies. “It’s a Hearts game, of course that’s what it means. We are supposed to turn on each other and play with others minds. It makes sense.” A male with his arms crossed over his chest said. He had played before, you could tell. The group of men he came with looked like they had been here for a while based on their appearance and calmness towards the situation.

“What do you mean ‘It’s a heart's game’?” A girl who looked to be about seventeen asked. It was obvious she was new to this like you, however, you weren’t letting anyone know that. “When you see the game card, you know the type of game and the difficulty of it. Heart games are those of psychological torture and betrayal where you mess with your opponents or friends minds and emotions. Diamond games are ones of minds and intelligence, often including solving riddles or puzzles. Clubs are by far the safest there is given they are teamwork and unity games. Spade games are physical, they test your stamina and endurance. The number of the cards tell you the difficulty levels; one being the easiest and ten being the hardest.” Another man explained to the girls. You listened attentively while looking down at your phone noticing this was a six of hearts game. Hearts. There had to be a way to do this without betrayal. But before you could think of anything further you were interrupted by the phone which spoke once more.

“The Queen will have one minute to hide before Jack's time starts, but she wont know she is the Queen until Jack's time begins.” The feminine AI voice instructed once more. The girls were to be hunted by the boys and even if they weren’t the Queen the males wouldn’t know. Even if it was a best friend. You noticed when the others came to the same realization as you as one guy started profusely apologizing to a girl who was shaking. This is a game of survival. “So that means-”

“You girls better run.” It came from one of the men and said with a sinister smirk. All the guys had to do to ensure survival was take our phones and get to the undisclosed safezone. However this was more than that. You saw the weapons on a board in the distance and you knew you weren’t the only one who did. Without a second thought, you grabbed Holyn’s hand and ran as fast as you could to get the farthest from any other person, vividly aware of the knife you still had on your thigh. She quickly followed behind although she didn’t have much of a choice with your iron-like grip on her wrist. After running a sufficient distance from the others you ducked into the shrubbery and crawled towards a dark corner to hide from anyone’s sight. She sat across from you as you both tried to calm your breathing while keeping yourselves hidden from anyone who might pass by. The phone chimed again, “Hiding time is up,” the voice said while a new timer appeared on your phone. “Ten minutes,” it read. An alarm sounded throughout the arena echoing off the walls of the indoor tea garden. “The game will now commence,” you heard just before seeing your screen turn balck temporarily with your role on it.

“Thank goodness, I’m a Jack. You are too right?” Holyn asked as you turned off your phone and looked at her with a smile as her voice echoed in your mind, “you must win each game, there’s no other way to survive,” so you pushed away the dread in your chest and replied “me too.”

No. You were the Queen.

The two of you sat still for about five minutes listening to the shouts and screams of the others until you heard sets of footsteps coming in your direction causing the two of you to duck down onto your stomachs out of fear. In the distance you heard a feminine scream echo off the glass walls followed by shattering sounds and more screams of “I’m not her” or “It’s not me” followed by the sounds of struggles. “Come out come out wherever you are,” one of the men closer to you called. You could tell he was near and if you two didn’t move, he'd find you.”We found the safe zone but none of the girls were queens,” you heard one say, “damnit, if they were still alive they could help us,’ the other commented making your stomach drop. “We need to run,” who whispered to Holyn knowing those men would have no issue killing you to survive. “Three minutes remaining,” the time was announced but you could hardly hear it due to your pulse thudding in your ears.

“Now,” you called quietly queuing the both of you to jump up and run, but it didn’t go unnoticed by the men. “There they are!” One shouted followed by the heavy stomps of footsteps behind you as they set in on the chase. “It’s only the two of you, just give us the phone and you’ll live.” You ignored him and kept sprinting towards the place you knew there were weapons. Without another thought you grabbed two weapons and handed one to Holyn to defend yourselves with until she came to the realization you loathed. “You’ve been the queen this entire time!?” She shouted at you as the stomping sound got closer and closer. “I’m sorry! You said to do anything it takes to survive.” You responded with tears clouding your vision. Never in your life would you have thought you’d be choosing your life over your best friend’s, not when the two of you had gone through everything together. “Two minutes remaining,” the voice announced reminding you of your impending fate. Holyn looked at you with emotions you couldn’t decipher, but you saw the way she relaxed even if it was slight. Why was she glad you chose yourself over her?

“Come on, let’s hide.” She said grabbing your hand and this time, she was the one dragging you along. She veered off to the right pulling you behind a fountain and kept running until the two of you collapsed onto the ground. “Remember when you turned fifteen and we decided to sneak out?” she reminisced laying between your legs against your chest. “Yeah, our parents almost killed us, we were grounded for months.” you giggled despite the tears falling from your eyes. As memories of you both flooded your mind you acted without control and shouted, “Over he--” to let the men know your location but you were interrupted by her hand clasping over your mouth tightly to silence you as she yanked you backwards into the shadows. “Shh,” she whispered, calming you while you sobbed into her hand, “I want you to live on for me, okay? Beat this game, we both know you are the only one who can. I know you can. I’ll be helping you from above if I can.” She soothed laying her head on top of yours.

“One minute remaining”

The tears wouldn’t stop as you moved to hug her tightly, never wanting to let go. “I’m so sorry.” you choked out in between gasps for air. Everything was too much, too loud, time was moving too quickly, you heard the men rapidly shouting and searching for you two as you clung to your best friend. Everything seemed to be happening so quickly, the seconds flew by while you were holding the only person you had left before she was to die. “I’m not. Thank you Y/n, I wouldn’t have made it any further anyways, I’m glad I can help you move forward. Don’t let me die in vain.” She told you kissing the top of your head before roughly pushing you off to get you away from her. “Holyn!” You shouted trying to latch back onto her when suddenly the collar around her neck exploded and her blood splattered everywhere. Your eyes and mouth opened wide in shock at what you had just seen. You could feel the specks of blood all over your face and body while you stared at her now decapitated one lying in front of you. She had just died, and it was because of you, because you were selfish and confused all while being scared.

You didn’t know how long you stayed there in total silence until you just collapsed onto the cold, hard floor beneath your feet. The silence was interrupted by your blood curdling scream of pure agony that echoed throughout the enclosed building. Your head came into contact with the ground when you curled over your knees and screamed once again while grabbing at your hair and banging your forehead against the cement. Tears flowed out of both your eyes as you cried out in horror, unable to rid your mind of the events that just occurred. You screamed until your throat was raw and your voice hoarse, you could feel the clumps of hair you pulled out of your scalp as your fingers dug deeper into your skull and worst of all, you knew you were alone now.

For days, you were numb. Five days to be exact. You didn’t do much but sleep, cry, eat, walk aimlessly to a new location and then repeat it all again the next day. You couldn’t shake the immense feeling of guilt you felt when you woke each morning knowing Holyn wouldn’t because of you. It wasn’t until you played your next game, an eight of spades, that you snapped out of the haze your emotions put you in. During the game, you had to climb a tree fast enough to avoid the arrows being shot at you from below as the height the arrows were shot increased each minute as you ascended the tree. You were ahead of the others until one man decided to start pulling at your ankles to hold you back which eventually turned into him trying to make you lose your grip and fall. In the moment he yanked your body down, you almost completely lost your grip on the branch keeping you from falling. It was then that you realized you weren’t going to let Holyn die in vain, you’d survive and push through everything to honor her memory.

After that, the “acquaintances” you made between or during games never meant much to you because in the end, you could only count on and rely on yourself to ensure your survival. You stopped moping around and became the version of yourself you had always wanted to become, the one that allowed you to turn off your emotions and step away from your chaotic thoughts. You now lived for yourself and yourself only, but even then, you never killed anyone intentionally.

A few days passed by but you couldn’t tell exactly how long you had been in this hell hole. You only played games when it was necessary which was only about two days before your visa expired. After overhearing someone in a two of Spades game talk about a place called “the Beach” and the people there “knowing how to get out here,” you started observing those who played games when you didn’t. It only took a few nights to see the connection between the group of people who entered games with tag numbers on their wrists being the ones who walked out. After you played a couple games with people with the tags on their wrists, you were convinced they knew something about the strategy of the games. Lingering in the shadows, you watched the participants of the game walk out of the arena and head down the street while you quietly followed behind. You must’ve walked for five minutes before you noticed where exactly the group was headed; a vehicle. “But I thought..” you whispered to yourself in confusion seeing them jump into the four seater 1970 cadillac while you stood still in your hidden position wondering what they were doing. Upon hearing the ignition of the engine you remembered Holyn telling you only older modeled vehicles were able to work here, but where did they find fuel? Not once had you seen an operable fuel station. “There must be fuel at the beach, there has to be,” you thought to yourself, watching as they drove off which only made you more determined to find this place and get the answers to your questions. And with that thought in mind, you set out on a journey to find this so-called “beach.”

As the vehicle drove further from your sight, you started jogging in order to tail them to their location while still keeping yourself out of sight. You ran for around fifteen minutes before you saw a building in the distance, a building which had power unlike everything else in the city. Seeing the destination, you stopped running and took a while to slow your breathing and regain your energy. “So this is the Beach,” you sighed observing the structure and its surroundings. The building itself seemed to be four stories tall and included a large pool in front where people partied as if they weren’t fighting for their lives everyday. You approached a fence which seemed to outline the perimeter of the area and carefully leaned over it as if you were watching a child’s game. You saw the vast amounts of people give into the pleasures of ignorance while deafening music thrummed in the background, even from the great distance you were, you could slightly feel the vibrations of the bass in your chest.

“Ah who's this?” you heard a cynical voice ask rhetorically from behind you. At the sudden and unexpected presence you jumped, turning around and swinging your fist to punch whoever it was out of instinct. When your right hand came in contact with a face your left twisted to grab the knife you still carried on your thigh in a holster. Just as you grasped ahold of the handle one of the two people delivered a knockout-blow to the side of your head just behind your temple which caused you to instantly lose consciousness.

When you awoke you were sitting in a chair with your hands tied loosely behind your back onto the chair with what felt like a burlap bag over your head. You let out a small groan of discomfort feeling your head pulse due to your new injury, one you would have to repay later on. Upon hearing your groan, the bag was swiftly removed from your head allowing the bright lights of the room to flood your vision which hadn’t adjusted making you shut your eyes with a silent wince. After blinking a few times you get adjusted, you were finally able to scan your surroundings. In front of you stood a man with shoulder-length hair, blsck sunglasses, an open kimono and red swim trunks, to his left stood a man with buzzed hair, a black muscle shirt and green military pants who you instantly recognized.

“Aguni?” You asked with confusion seeing the man you used to work with. He was here too? You weren’t surprised he was still alive, the man was invincible when you worked with him. And just like back then, he was silent, he only gave a small nod of his head to you as a response before reassuming his statue-like stance. To his right was a man with silver hair, a white Nike hoodie and blue swim shorts who looked at you in an inquisitive manner with tired yet sharp eyes. Two women who had black hair were standing to his right and a man covered in tattoos stood further off to the side holding a sword long in length, possibly a katana. A few other people were staggered around the room but none of them seemed to be as ‘important’ as the few that you noticed immediately.

“Aguni-san? You know her?” The man in the kimono asked the latter with creased brows showing obvious confusion. “We worked at the SDF together. She was my partner before we were assigned to different segments, she’d be a good addition to the executives or militants.” He responded while putting in a good word for you. “Someone like her? An SDF officer? If you hadn’t told me, Aguni-san, I would have never known.” The man remarked crossing his arms over his chest while walking over to a desk which he leaned on. “What’s that supposed to mean?” You questioned with a scowl in his direction as your fingers fiddled with the ropes binding your wrists. You would be able to get out of them in a matter of minutes if no one noticed what you were trying to do, but it seemed the man in the white hoodie already noticed as he raised his brow in your direction with an impressed smirk on his stoic face. “A pretty, small woman like yourself...I would’ve thought you’d be tagging along with someone and not alone. Actually I would’ve thought you’d be dead by now, much less an SDF officer.” He commented with a wry smile fanning out all your cards which contradicted his statement.

“If my cards tell you anything, you should know you’re wrong,” you hummed, resuming your attempt to loosen the ropes. “Ah yes your cards,” he began while pushing himself off the desk and slowly pacing around the room, “we want you to become a resident at the Beach after seeing the cards you’ve gathered. And after learning of your pastime, you would be a great addition to the team either way.” Of course he would want you once he saw the games you had played, you were good at surviving meaning you’d also be efficient in getting him the rest of the cards. “And if I don’t want to become a resident?” You questioned poking the inside of your cheek with your tongue out of habit. You were doing just fine on your own and definitely did not need this place, however, it seemed like they needed you. Or they needed your cards more so than yourself.

“Well if you choose to stay, you’ll be able to get out of this game quicker. We have a theory that once we collect all the playing cards, one person will be able to go back to the normal world. And if you choose not to stay, well, you can walk away from here but we will keep your cards. We have gathered all the weapons in the city, we regularly gather rain water and food which the game makers seem to replenish once a week, you’ll be taken care of here.” He explained pausing directly in front of you waiting for a response. Did no one else see the problem with him? How he was manipulating everyone to get the cards under the false security that they’d get to leave too? Or was everyone here really THAT ignorant? “It seems like you take my cards either way hm?” You suggested in a hum cocking your head to the right slightly in question. “You’re correct. However, now you would be higher in the rankings and an executive after making such a great contribution and having the skill set you supposedly possess.” He told you in an attempt to persuade you into staying while adding a bit of sweetness to the word ‘contribution’. When you simply looked at him with a bored gaze, he sighed and continued speaking.

“If you decide to stay there are only three rules. 1) "always wear a bathing suit". This is to be sure no one is hiding any weapons which is why our militants don’t have to wear them if chosen to do so. Rule 2) "be free to live your life exactly as you wish including alcohol, drugs and sex" and the third and last rule: "death to traitors".” He enlightened you on the standards they lived by to help you make your decision. It didn’t seem like it would be a bad choice if you chose to stay here, you’d have food, shelter, and people you didn’t know in case you had to play another game of hearts.

“I’ll stay but I want my knife back, if I have to wear a bathing suit you’ll be able to see it anytime since I wear it on my thigh.” You compromised whilst completely freeing your hands from their bound position but still holding the rope to hide suspicions. You hated the fact you’d have to wear a swimsuit because your scars would be visible but if it meant you could have your knife, you’d be more than willing. Hearing a few chuckles resonate around the room at your demand you brought your attention to one of the men in the back of the room who had a bandage on his cheek and a black eye. It was easy to come to the conclusion that he was the one you punched earlier, and the thought of that made you smile with pride while looking at him.

“You are in no position to make demands, sweetheart,” he practically snarled at you. You hated being called sweetheart, it not only made you cringe but it infuriated you beyond measure. With a deadly glare, you let go of the rope and stood from the chair in a swift motion and threw the ropes at him without a word which said everything you needed to. However, just as he caught the ropes you could hear the door being slammed open followed by a voice which was all too familiar.

“The traitors are dead,” the unknown man announced in a tone of pride, kicking the door closed behind him. His voice instantly brought back memory after memory causing you to turn your head in shock in order to make sure you were hearing things correctly. The man you were looking at looked nothing like the one you once knew. This one had piercings on his nose and eyebrow while he sported an automatic rifle on his shoulder and a psychotic smile on his face. “Niragi?” You whispered in shock, still unable to believe your eyes. Was this the same boy you stood up for in high school? He looked so....different. What exactly happened to the sweet, shy boy you once fell in love with? “Y/N?” He questioned letting his mouth fall open the slightest but before he regained his composure. It was him, Suguru Niragi, the first and only man you’ve ever truly fallen in love with, but also the man who disappeared without a trace three years ago. You knew he had left you, it wasn’t hard to figure that much out, but you never knew why and quite frankly, you didn’t care anymore. You had moved on.

“Fantastic! Another one of our own knows this charming young woman, this will make things a lot easier. Niragi, you may take her to the locker rooms so she can change into some fitting attire then you can get her an ID bracelet and take her to her room.” The man who you noticed had a bracelet tagged 001, exclaimed with a clap of his hands as he was instructing Niragi to get you settled in. “She can do it on her own,” Niragi scoffed with a roll of his eyes which had you throwing your head back in a sarcastic chuckle. “I’ll take her,” someone insisted from the side. Glancing in the direction the voice resounded you noticed the short pale man with the silver hair stepping out towards you. He seemed oddly familiar as well but you couldn’t quite place it.

“That’s settled then. Now, my knife?” You quipped raising a brow at the ‘leader’ in the kimono just before someone came from behind you pressing a cold piece of metal to your throat while their other arm was holding your arms in place by your waist. The room went silent as everyone watched what was about to unfold in front of them, Aguni simply rolled his eyes with a sigh knowing what was about to happen. “You mean this knife?” The man teased, his voice was one you recognized from one of the two men that brought you to this place and all you wanted in that moment was to stab him for that. So, naturally, you settled for the next best thing. Pushing your head forward a little while trying not to move your neck, you watched Niragi’s expression as you threw your head backwards with all your force resulting in hitting the unknown man’s nose.

When the back of your skull came into contact with his face he immediately lessened his grip on you which allowed you to slip out of his grasp and take your knife from his hand. With your knife in hand, you grabbed his wrist, twisting it and bending his arm behind his back while your other arm placed him in a chokehold. You leaned in close to his ear as he was fighting your hold before pulling him back harshly, putting pressure on his windpipe, “Never, and I mean NEVER, touch my knife again. Got it?” You growled and if you were being honest, you would’ve intimidated yourself. You didn’t wait for a response as you pushed him forward only to watch him fall onto the ground with a soft thud. “Now,” you sighed looking up with a smile which could’ve been seen as both innocent or sinister, “let’s go,” you said slipping your knife into the holster on your thigh. The man with the white hair stepped forward with his hands in his pockets and came to your side, briefly looking at Niragi before turning his attention to you. “Let’s go, shall we?”

[classic80sand90smovieloves2]

Meeting and Dating J.D.

(Not my gif)(Requested by anonymous and @poruchik-logy​)

(Sorry about the inactivity lately. With the holidays coming up, I’ve been a bit busy. Plus, I’ve written a post or two on my other blogs which means no post on this one. Anyways, hope you enjoy!)

- You meet J.D. when he transfers to your school. You’re in study hall when you just so happen to look up and make eye contact with the boy while glancing around the room. 

- For the rest of the period, you feel like someone's watching you, and lo and behold, every time you sneak a glance his way, his eyes are on you. He doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he was looking, he just raises an eyebrow at you when you turn and meet his gaze. 

- You spot him in the lunchroom later that day and ask your friends about him though they don’t have much information besides his name and where he moved from which they got from one of their teachers forcing him to introduce himself to the class. He was a mystery …and boy were you intrigued. 

- You have your first conversation at the local Snappy Snack Shack. You’d just popped in to grab a little junk food, only to find him stalking through the store in his black trench coat. You figured you’d dance around each other until one of you left but before you knew it, he’d sauntered up to you and interjected that you looked familiar. 

- Before you knew it, the two of you had introduced yourselves and began a sort of flirtatious conversation. He bought you a slushy and offered you a ride home on his bike which you coyly accepted after a moment of nervous hesitation. 

- It was that same night that he returned to your house, rapping at your window and damn near giving you a heart attack. Even though it was terrifying at first, it was also sort of endearing and you soon found yourself joining him outside.

- Now, It’s your choice whether or not you sleep together that night. If you do then consider yourself kissed and claimed from then on. If you don’t, he’ll continue to show up at your house or hang around you at school until he gets what he wants. You. 

- You suppose that your first date happened at the Snack Shack so from then on, the two of you were sort of seeing each other. Well, one of his favorite things to do with you is not be at home so the two of you were hanging out in an empty lot.

- The sun went down and you were sitting in the dark, the glow of the moon being the only thing lighting up your date. You were sitting down and he was lingering on his feet somewhere behind him, sorta pacing from what you could hear. 

- He knelt down beside you and you turned your head to look at him, only to immediately get pulled into a kiss that all but had you melt into the floor. It was passionate and somewhat rough, exactly what you’d expect from him. And you wouldn’t have it any other way. 

- Well, he most certainly isn’t letting you go after that. I hope you like him babe because you’re not getting rid of him anytime soon. 

- This man is fully willing to makeout with you in public. So yeah, there’s a lot of Pda.

- His hands are pretty much on you at all times.

- Pecks on the lips. He loves when you just give him a kiss for no reason at all.

- Rough, passionate kisses. He asserts his dominance by hooking his arms around you and pulling you into a searing kiss until you can’t breathe.

- He definitely calls you “woman” and a ton of other pet names ranging from cute to just plain annoying. 

- He never would have imagined a girl like you would actually put up with him for so long …but boy is he thankful you have.

- He’s a little shit and that’s just something you’ll have to live with. He’s blunt, conniving and sarcastic, but he does care about you.

- He pretends like he doesn’t give a shit a lot of the time but he does, more than he cares to admit.

- Surprisingly enough, JD actually really likes cuddling. You’ll usually lay with your legs intertwined and your head resting against his chest while he wraps his arms tight around you. 

-  Jason's father sort of ignores him, they aren’t very close and certainly not close enough to be sharing affection besides; maybe, a pat on he back or something similar. So he craves attention and affection.

- He yearns for you to touch and love him but he doesn’t know how to tell you that he wants you to suffocate him with your own body. He’ll just try to repeat whatever it is he did to make you touch him or touch you until you do something to him.

- Hugs from behind.

- Husky whispers in your ear. He does it on purpose because he knows what it does to you.

- Motorcycle rides. 

- Trying to get him to quit smoking. It never actually works but he; somewhat, tries to cut down on it for your sake. He thinks the fact that you care is sorta amusing. 

- Cutting class together.

- Going shooting with him. The beer bottles and porcelain plates kind of shooting, not the Ram and Kurt kind of shooting. 

- Dark humor. Although, sometimes you genuinely don’t know if he’s joking or not. 

- He can always seem to make you laugh, even if it makes you feel guilty to laugh at some off the stuff he says.

-  Hearing an alarming amount of gun and bomb facts. 

- Going to Snappys Snack Shack with him.

- Junk food binges.

- He’s kind of a stalker if I’m being honest. He follows you around without you knowing, finds out everything he can about you, etc. You’re sort of like an obsession of his and that can be good or bad depending on the situation and to what extent you know about his feelings. 

- He knows practically everything about you, ranging from your birthday to where you are at pretty much any given time.

- He’s not too great at all that lovey dovey shit but he tries. It might take him a little while to get the hang of it but he eventually will. 

- Getting him to play the sax for you.

- Having his hand on your thigh whenever he’s driving. 

- Making out.

- Hickeys.

- He likes when you wear his clothes, it’s like marking his territory without getting in trouble for making your neck different colors.

- Listening to morbid music.

- Deep existential conversations. What else do you talk about with your girlfriend besides the meaning of life and why society will ultimately cave in and destroy itself in a violent revolt?

- Late night phone calls from him. Be prepared to rush to your landline at three a.m. so that you don’t wake up your parents. You can’t even really be mad at him because he’ll just immediately launch into either a spiel about how he missed you or ask what your opinion on Manchurian candidates are; successfully silencing you in bewilderment. 

- Getting random knocks at your window whenever he decides he just has to see you. 

- Your parents either love or hate him, there is no inbetween. He’s generally pretty good at playing the role of the upstanding young man who cares a lot about their daughter; that parts real of course, but occasionally a parent will just get a bad vibe from him and his charade; though convincing, just won’t work on them. 

- If that’s the case with your parents then you’ll sort of be forced to sneak out if you want to see him, which he’s particularly good at helping you do. 

- Getting kept away from his father. He tries to keep your interactions to a minimum, especially if you have a much different personality than to the man.

- Incredibly jealous though he’ll always try to hide just how upset whatever situation you’re in makes him. He makes jokes and “forgets about it” as soon as you join his side, convincingly acting like nothing happened or that he saw nothing wrong with it but staying up the rest of the night wondering what he can do about it. 

- Possessive. You’re each others, aren’t you? He’s yours and you’re his. Everybody belongs to someone and the two of you belong to one another. 

- Is he protective? What do you think? If you ever complain about a person bothering you, he’ll almost immediately ask if you want him to kill them. You think it’s a joke. It’s not. 

- Although it may seem like he does things just for his own benefit, he would genuinely do anything you ask of him. Sometimes he’ll surprise you with the lengths that he goes to make your life easier and happier. 

- He’s hot tempered and kind of an asshole so the two of you are; most likely, almost constantly fighting. You’ll usually be yelling at each other or arguing passionately which is a problem because he thinks you’re hot when you’re angry. He’ll usually wind up trying to kiss you which succeeds in making things worse and having you give him the silent treatment/break up. 

- He tries his best to give you your space but the instant you want him back, he’s all over you. He usually never actually apologizes but he doesn’t force you to when you’re in the wrong either so you suppose it’s fair. 

- I love you’s are few and far between. He doesn’t really want to make himself seem too vulnerable so you only get them on rare occasions. 

- The two of you tend to not talk about the future. He wants to be with you forever; which is obvious, and he wants you to be his; which is also obvious. But you don’t know if you’re entirely sure you can handle him. So, you try to just enjoy the time you’re spending together and not think about how things may end. 

- You’re either the Bonnie to his Clyde or his blissfully unaware darling. Pick your poison. 

[greenplumbboblover]

(Originally from my Patreon)

Heya everyone!

Hopefully things are going well with you all! Today I figured I'd show off a bit of what I've been working on :)  It's all themed around the 'environment' interest, which as mentioned in a previous post, is the first interest I'll be entirely working on ;)

Townie Interests Manager - General

The townie interest manager is a 'helper' for, well, pre-mades living in the town! It gives them random interests when you first load the world with this mod.

Some pre-mades are 'remakes' from TS2, I figured, would it be cool to make sure that those sims are somewhat true to their ts2 interests? And so, those sims now have interests that work with their TS2 interests!

All of these townies (aka pre-mades) have 'Dislike' and 'Passionate' (or neutral even)  that are all true to them:

(Remember 0 is absolutely disliking the interest, 20 is absolutely loving the interesting, 10 is neutral)

For premades, these interests can always be tweaked to your own personal liking of course! I'm just basing most off of the traits and skills :)

Townie Interests Manager - Autonomy

Currently, this is still a HUGE WIP of course! And currently, I'm testing it with in-game objects before I wanna try it with other mods out there and my own items that I'll make for this mod (See documentation: Google Docs )

I'm still expanding the 'autonomy' for this of course, but currently, I'm implementing the autonomy for sims to go to hobby lots (or any community lots that has their hobbies on it). They can also, of course, choose to do it at home :)

So how does this work then exactly? Well, in the picture above you might have seen 'Hobby lot: None' (which looks different with an actual lot though :p)

Here's the progress in an image format:

Of course, you can change or remove it ;) I do have to make the 'removing' part a bit clearer though. For now, you have to choose 'none' for that to work. Not so practical really.

What happens after setting a lot as a hobby lot?

From there, there's a 50% chance a sim will decide to visit that lot, or rather do their hobbies at home :) Since Entertainment currently does literally nothing, I'll demonstrate it with Environment:

For these sims, they'll need a gardening skill higher than at least 1, and there need to be at least some plants on the lot! Nraas SP seems really helpful here, as it does skill sims up automatically depending on their traits :)

(NOTE: this will NOT affect any households you're currently playing with, just families that you're currently not playing with. I'll make sure there's an off/on switch for families though :))

---

Here both Jocasta & Gobias have decided they wanted to do some gardening in their own garden!

And here, I turned the Library into a hobby lot for Environment! And so Judy decided to visit it! :)

Testing blunder:

At some point, I actually forgot to 'blacklist' residential lots from being 'harvested' (since if you have no hobby lots, townies will just go to any community lot that has plants on it :)) And because of that Gobias kindly kept stealing/tending other sim's gardens :p

That no longer is the case though :p Gobias won’t steal your harvest anymore lol

How will this be useful?

First off, I'm personally really happy that Jocasta, for example, is *actually* tending her garden! I remember how before this mod, no one would tend their gardens and they were just... well, there!

So now, even if you're playing your family, and you're maybe following them driving to work, you actually see your neighbors do stuff! 

Plus! your neighbors will actually skill up the skills they might need for their life wishes or just the storyline in general!

Stocks

As mentioned in the documentation, you can ask, in this case, the gardener sims here what they harvested and see their stock! This is extra great if your sim is a chef! All you got to do is check their stack of whatever-you-need, get anything with the best quality, and buy that, then make that perfect dish!

They may also donate some vegetables to you if they exceed over a certain limit (this is also so that the save game doesn't get bloated in huge MBs :p)

Researching an interest

Something for your own simmies! Now, because of some comments, I've seen on how people play their games, I figured this is the best way to proceed: Gatekeeping the interests.

What do I exactly mean by that? Well, if your sim is 'neutral' in an interest (So 10 points) they'll have to 'study' said interest they want to participate in :)  That way, it's also less annoying too, when your sim is gardening for example, that the interests mod keeps bugging you about selecting a hobby and stuff :p

How it works:

Either on the computer, or your phone, your sim can go to Lyra's Interests & Hobbies > Research X interest.

Depending on what thing you're researching, your sim will show thought bubbles on what they're researching! So if you ever forget, just check the thought bubbles!

In this case, it's 'Health' ;)

Another way is of course to check the queue and hover over the task :p

Want to speed up the progress?

The research progress is somewhat like the 'writing a novel' progress. However, I coded mine in such a way, that it's keeping in mind that sims are reading things, rather than writing ;)

So, Bookworms and sims who read over 50 books (so if both, you're extra lucky! :p) will research things quicker by 10%.

Neurotic sims, on the other hand, that's -5% of the overall speed, since they really wanna know all the nitpicky details on how, what, why, where, etc.

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And that's all for now! it's not super impressive, but it was a hard job linking things together though! Hopefully, you all liked this first progress log! :)

[mercurytrinemoon]

Me debunking astrology generalizations and misconceptions or smth idk...

Squares and oppositions aren't pure evil. 

I can't believe I have to say this because I thought ya'll have learnt the characteristics of every aspect but here we are. Nothing in astrology is black and white. And I saw some ridiculous statements (not necessary here on tumblr) that said things like "if your Venus squares someone's ascendant then you don't find that person attractive AT ALL". Or "Mars square Mercury people can't speak politely and have an annoying voice". Like????? First of all, that's ridiculous. Second of all, square in not "everything bad" just like trine is not "everything amazing". Squares bring tension, which leads to motivation, they’re stimulating; sometimes excitement or charisma; sometimes they can make you overdo things. I'm not saying they're oh-so-marvelous because the challenges are still there, but they're not as bad as people paint them to be. Squares happen between two signs that are in the same modality so they have a bunch of things in common. Besides, some of them (Sagi-Pisces and Gemini-Virgo) are ruled by the same planet so there's a special type of chemistry between those (especially when applied to synastry). Oppositions work in two ways, planets either meet in the middle - opposite signs usually complete each other and fuel each other up. And worse case scenario? Natally this means being pulled in two different directions; synastry-wise, you can completely miss each other like two passing cars - so there may be some misunderstandings but I don't think that's the end of the world... And, as per usual, may be mitigated by other positive aspects.

This is me debunking other people's attempts at debunking Sun sign compatibility. 

Sun IS very important but when people ask about compatibility and go with Suns... and then someone tries to be a smartass and debunk the "compatible-incompatible" and does the same thing without even realizing it. Like, "oh I actually see a lot of Aries and Pisces having amazing relationships because *insert someting that is a total stretch and refers to their Sun sign traits*"... But you seem to forget that they're neighbouring signs... which means they probably have personal planets in those neighbouring signs... which means they're compatible not because of some made-up stuff that you're trying to come up with but because their other planets are compatible with each other. But you're still feeding into the Sun sign compatibility talk. (So like, what I'm trying to also say, yes, the entire synastry chart comes into play; Also, side note, everyone can get along on some level if they’re mature enough).

Planet in a sign is NOT the same as planet in the house. 

There may be some overlaps in some of the sign-houses associations (like in the overall energy; like for example, it sort of makes sense that 3rd, 7th and 11th are referred to as “air houses” because they’re the most social) but in NO WAY there are similarities between planet house position and the "ruling" sign. That association started a few decades ago and some would say that NOT linking houses with signs is a purely traditional approach. But there’s plenty of professional modern astrologers with 20/30/40-year experience who still differentiate between sign/house position... because they know (and have learnt along the way) that there’s a huge difference.

I'll give you 3 quick examples: Gemini planets and 3rd house planets both may put emphasis on communication, mental stimulation and gathering data. But Geminis are often scattered in their approach, they may be easily distracted, may be indecisive, may be jack of all trades and talkative jokesters. They actually hate routines and dullness. "Spice it up" is probably a Gemini's philosophy. Now 3rd house planets may indicate you actually LIKE doing things on the regular - like running errands every other day in the mornings or going to that one specific coffee shop to pick up a snack. You may actually work in logistics or as a postman (especially if your chart ruler or MC ruler is in the 3rd). Planets in the 3rd talk about your siblings, neighbours or school experiences - like having Venus in the 3rd may point to positive experiences within those areas - something Gemini Venus has nothing in common.

Venus in the 9th can study at an art/beauty or fashion school (or even teach there if the MC is involved); can be very attached to spiritual and religious matters; can also find love in a foreign land. But imagine it being in Taurus - rather shy, needing those stable values to feel secure, being an exceptionally great student at that art school thanks to its domicile. Venus in Sagittarius on the other hand, likes adventure, things being shaken up from time to time, lightheartedness and exploration. But what if we flip the scenario and that Sag Venus is in the 2nd house. This can denote earing money through travelling and looking for ways to expand but in a financial matters.

Continuing with the Venus examples, having Venus in Aries is completely different than Venus in the 1st. What do people usually say about Venus in the 1st? That it makes the native charming, lovely, well-put together, with great manners, maybe beautiful, graceful, maybe a bit shallow. When in Aries? None of these characteristics fit, on top of that, it's in its detriment. Our poor gal Venus is uncomfortable and confused in Aries. She's like, "conquer? Swords? Selfishness? Obnoxiousness? Sparring? You're telling me to fight people? What am I doing here???" 

And I'll leave you here with that cause those examples weren’t that quick lol and in fact, I could give you a 100 of those. Besides, this actually inspired a 3-page rant that I've already posted not so long ago that you can read HERE.

There's no such thing as "more accurate" astrology. 

Both western and vedic are valid. Both can show you the same things. JUST KEEP THEM SEPARATE AND DON'T MIX THEM WITH EACH OTHER. And don't say things like "sidereal shows your soul" - omg I saw this statement soooo many times, who the hell even came up with this?! Actually, if anything, it's the modern western approach that "psychologized" (yea I just made up a word, you mad?) astrology while Jyotish still sticks to the very real "here and now", sometimes fatalistic predictions of how exactly your life is going to roll out... But hey, reach for hellenistic methods and they can tell you the same things, just with different tools. So no, they do not show different things, it's just their language is different.

If you say you don't identify with your chart then you're just reading it wrong.

This partially connects to the last one in some ways... Switching to a different astrology or different charts is not a solution. Learn how to read your natal. If you say it doesn’t describe you, I can guarantee you that you haven’t studied it properly. (Now this hasn't turned into a rant yet but I may actually do a whole-ass post on this because if I start elaborating on it now I'll end up with another 3-page essay).

Learn how and when to generalize. Also learn how to take generalizations. 

I understand that you have to pick up on every single thing separately in order to put everything together. It's like learning a new language: first you need to learn individual words and then you need to know the proper grammar to create a full sentence. This is 100% understandable and necessary, but it's important to take the entire thing into consideration. And this goes for all branches of astrology, but I guess it's especially annoying with synastry. This, again, comes down to the very black and white approach. You know, like when you see those long paragraphs where people elaborate on all the intricacies of Venus-Pluto aspects or whatever as if that one thing was determining the entire relationship between two people. (Side note, no shade but some of ya'll should start writing fiction or poetry cause the amount of fluffy speech and waffle that I see floating around here on tumblr is insane sometimes). Why are you wording everything as a make it or break it type of situation? And on the receiving end - learn how to take *properly phrased* generalizations constructively. Example: it IS a rule that Aries is a competitive one, maybe you're not one of them (for many reasons) but don't make a fuss about someone saying this. It IS a basic rule that energies of the same sign in two people are going to get along (well that depends on the planets involved but I digress), if that, for some other reasons, doesn't apply to you, don't go yelling that it's bullcrap because you hate people of the same sign. You know? Like, learn the difference.

DON'T SCARE PEOPLE WITH ASTROLOGY.

I had a mini-rant on this one a while ago, but I think this deserves a constant reminder (and refers to the last point), I don't want to see any more posts that would say things like "xxx house placements will bring you suffering" or "stay away from people with planets in your xxx house" or, even worse, making a (completely untrue btw) prediction based on one single thing like "someone with so-and-so aspect is going to harm you". And you're so casual about it??? You know there are sensitive people in the world. Learn some ethics. Learn some counseling skills. Don't be ignorant. Don't throw these random stuff at people just like that. And learn some actual astrology cause most of these aren't even closely describing that particual aspect. LIKE WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.

Ok now I'm pissed again.

Studying astrology and believing in free will doesn’t go well together.

It's not just psychological and spiritual. It's useful to know that western astrology made it like that because there were still people threatening astrologers for using it as a divination tool. So they moved away from the predictive/deterministic aspect of it. Now, I'm not here to change anyone's beliefs cause that's a very personal thing that everyone should develop on their own. But once you start diving deeper into astrology you'd notice that there's a heavy emphasis on fatedness and things being predetermined. That includes both the good and the bad stuff and you should learn to accept that. And with the bad things specifically, let's not excuse it with some "oh that was an opportunity for growth". Like yea, maybe, occasionally??? But just acknowledge that sometimes things happen not because there was a deeper meaning in them... but because you have a Pluto-Mars conjunction in the 6th that makes an applying square to your chart ruler and you were going through a profection year where Mars was your time lord and it transited that chart ruler while making a conjunction with Neptune so you were attacked by a baby crocodile while swimming and it bit off your toe and you got a nasty infection and that’s it (I just made that up btw, I don't actually know anyone who was attacted by a crocodile). So like, sometimes shit just happens and there's nothing psychological about it. Also, I bet your free will didn't want to be attacked by that croc.

[turnaroundroundround]

Opera References in Musical Yuukoku no Moriarty Op. 2

Some thoughts of mine after re-watching Morimyu Op. 2, regarding Irene's arc A Scandal in British Empire, about all the opera references and some random thoughts that come to mind during this arc. Obviously there's a lot more to Morimyu Op. 2, for instance The Two M's and Mycroft's solo (which I often refer to as "the Mycroft Anthem" lol), the entire Baskerville arc, and the train arc, and so on. And there's a whole lot of other things I'd like to discuss about them as well, but maybe just save it for another time. I don't know if anyone has discussed these references before, and I am not entirely a pro in music either. All I have is some basic knowledge on opera and harmony, so these are just some personal impression that came to mind when I watched this arc, so please keep it in mind.

A SCANDAL IN BRITISH EMPIRE

Okay, so the biggest motivation for this post is, obviously, the music throughout the entire Scandal arc. It is heavily influenced by opera, partly because Irene herself is an opera singer, partly also because the masquerade ball itself is also a perfect stage for an opera to be shown. And the opera was not simply brought in to make the music sound good, but also utilising the plot of the opera itself to create more depth and color to the musical. About Opera during the 19th Century Some side notes. Opera has originated and developed from various different kinds of stage ever since the Greek and Romans. I'm not going into details but anyway, by the 19th Century, it's still somewhat of a luxury that is mostly meant for nobles and people with high status. There are millions of stories about nobles coming to the theatre only to enjoy the music and not the play itself, or not really watching anything but waiting to see their favourite opera singer. Like when the other things in the play are going on, they stay in there box or hang out with other nobles, playing cards and all, and when their favourite singer makes her debut, they come to the front of the box and watch her. Then they return to their games when she exits. All the luxuries. Opera is really something that is meant for nobles and those with nothing but time and money on their hand back then. And another thing is (with an image that I quickly searched on Google just now lol) back them before any stages there is always a pit for the orchestra to be in. They are just below the stage so that the music can still reach the audience as equally, but also low enough that they aren't in the way of the audience's view.

By the way, the role of the conductor and stage director back then was somewhat a blur (if I remember it correctly), as the music writer would very often himself direct the entire stage and become the conductor on the performance day. In case something goes wrong, such as actors need more time to adlib, then he knows how to direct the orchestra to play accordingly. It's quite a small detail, but in Op. 3 Liam also refers to himself (yes this is still about Yuumori lol) as the maestro, somewhat very similar to the role of the conductor himself. This reference, as we can see, shows Liam's role behind the scene conducting all the plots and instructions. It's quite a small detail I think, but also quite interesting

By the way, the leading singer, or Prima Donna (as they call Irene), are always sopranos. And the same goes for Irene Adler, all of her songs were written to highlight her soprano voice, like in 大作戦ーDaisakusen or her song with Ms. Hudson

An example from a song that I was reminded of when listening to Cecile!Irene. Of course there are many other songs we can talk about, this is just one of the examples.

Obviously, Irene's song aren't entirely like classical opera songs. They were all arranged to both highlight the opera feature, but also to suit the form of the musical and all the while showing Irene's elegant and gracious manners of a prima donna, and also showing her playful side especially during her duet with Sherlock.

YAMI NO OPERA - DON GIOVANNI BEHIND THE CURTAIN

To understand Don Giovanni references, it's essential to understand the story behind the original opera by Mozart. That being said, the actual plot of the story is quite long and contains so many details it's almost impossible to fit all of them into one post while also comparing them with the one in Morimyu, so this is a link to a more detailed synopsis of the opera. Or you can also read more on wiki. I'll just give some basic details that are referenced and discussed in this post. Overall impression: This opera revolves around a playboy that flirts with women, but lacking in loyalty and commitment to keep any of his promises to them. By the end of the play, after all the sin he has committed, Don Giovanni is engulfed in hell's fire, and punished for his sin. It is very much similar to the story in Morimyu, nobles relying on their wealth and status and have the freedom to do anything as they want, without having to worry about having to bear the consequence. Because of the difference in power and status, it is almost impossible to punish all of them, therefore having a need of a "demon" to punish them with powers that no human have - the role of Moriarty gang within the play.

In this arc, Liam is "directing" a play that is inspired by Don Giovanni. His audience is Irene Adler (and of course us who is watching the entire thing), and the main character is Lorinson who ends up being punished for his crime. Mozart's Don Giovanni is being performed on stage, but at the same time Liam's "Don Giovanni" happens, in the back stage. What we are watching as the main stage is actually the "back stage" of the real story.

In the original play, Don Giovanni was a playboy that flirts with many women. At the beginning of the play, he flirts with a woman called Donna Anna, and her father tried to defend his daughter. They got involved in a duel and Don Giovanni killed the man. Donna Anna mourns and wish to avenger her father.

In Morimyu, the story of Lord Lorinson (pardon me for not knowing both the translation of his title and his name) is added in spite of the original plot in the manga. As far as my Japanese comprehension goes, the story is that Lord Lorinson is also one that uses his status to abduct other women to his pleasure, and ends up treating them poorly.

At one point, a woman came to the Lord of Crime, saying that her daughter has been murdered by the noble and mourns her. She wishes for revenge, and Liam proceed to do so.

Don Giovanni - Act I Finale

During Moran and Louis' fight with Raymond(?), in the section behind the stage we can see the opera theatre with the Finale song going on. The ensemble is still singing as the fight goes on behind them.

In the Finale of Act 1 here, the section that was insert into Morimyu was rather short, and was meant for a dramatic effect than actually showing what's happening in the original opera anyway. But anyway, we can see that as the fight proceeds, the curtain behind also slowly closes, ending the first Act of the opera.

It's clearer here. We can see that as they are fighting there is an entire opera going on at the back. The fact that the ensemble has their back to the audience emphasises how everything we're seeing are all in the backstage, but at the same time it proceeds alongside with all the events in the "mainstage". It's quite a powerful image.

At one point in the opera, Don Giovanni attends a party where he met one of his previous lovers that he betrayed. Then there's some talking and such and more betrayal, and somehow he then decides that he would also flirt with his ex's maid.

There isn't much that I have to say with this reference in the play, only that it is actually Fred disguising as a maid for the purpose of carrying out the plan and scared the sh*t out of Lorinson lol

I couldn't catch all the details from their conversation, but apparently Fred did some kind of stand-in again as the victim who was murdered by Lorinson, also to provoke him and lead him into Liam's trap?

At the end of the opera, Don Giovanni was cornered by the 'devil', drowning him in the flames of hell. However before that happens, the women that Don Giovanni once flirted with (as well as Donna Anna whose father was murdered by Don Giovanni) gathered, chasing after Leporello - Don Giovanni's servant - who exposed him of his guilts and sins.

The song that the women sung in this scene is "Ah, dov'e il perfido?", and there is a very small section at the end of the song that was kind of re-arranged and added to Morimyu. In Morimyu, this is the scene when Lorinson is exposed of what he is done, after that being "punished" by the devil. There is also a scene in the play when Liam mentions 地獄の炎 - Jigoku no Hono (The Flames of Hell) which is a direct reference from the original Don Giovanni. In fact, what he has been telling Lorinson is the story of Don Giovanni and how he ends up being punished - only that when Lorinson realised that, it's already too late.

(A reference from the song in the original play, the section that is used in Morimyu is actually quite short, only starting from around 5:40 within the song in this video)

In Yami no Opera, the song is arranged with Liam's part of the melody above the entire harmony. So it is indeed a proper opera that "Liam" has based on re-arranged to carry out his plan.

While Don Giovanni is happening on stage, there is also another "Don Giovanni" being punished by the devil - Lorinson. We hear part of the original song from the ensemble in the background, and also Liam's version of the punishment along with Lorinson's struggle. And at the same time the ensemble does seem to be focusing on "Don Giovanni" - all of them looking towards Liam's and Lorinson's position. A really impressive scene.

And after that very short section, the play goes on, returning their focus back to Irene Adler and Albert's conversation. There is no "Flames of Hell" erupting in any ways except for Liam's really strong section of the Yami no Opera song. And there's no need for it, I think, as Lorinson has never been the real protagonist like Don Giovanni. Liam only made him a temporary "protagonist" and not solely for the purpose of exposing him, but only as a mean to show Irene the true identity of the Lord of Crime. So there is no point making it more dramatic than it already is.

So...

That's pretty much all that I have to say about Don Giovanni and opera's reference, I think?

Well another thing, maybe, is how much I love the instrumental arrangement for violin and piano in Morimyu. They don't have the privilege of having an entire orchestra, but instead they did as much as they could for the instruments so that they recreate the original opera vibe as well as they possibly can. And the result is, just, extraordinary.

Anyhow, I've heard many of my friends comparing the songs from Op. 2 and Op. 3, seeing that Op. 3 has more of a "flow" in between the songs as all of them were written with harmony such that they have a certain connection to each other.

Not that Op. 2 doesn't do the same thing. However the second Opus does feel more separated, I think, since the music in the 3 different arcs are much more different. For instance the Baskerville arc has a "hunting" vibe to it, describing Moriarty gang's plan to bring down the nobles' game of hurting children, while the final Scandal arc revolves around an opera singer and mostly happens within a masquerade ball. So there is a big difference between the scenes, and obviously a big difference in the music brought to them as well.

Aaaand, that's pretty much all the details I've picked up (and remembered lol) up to this point.

Anyway, I've been watching and re-watching all 3 Opus of Morimyu many times, each time firguring out something else that I haven't noticed before. So if I end up realising some other details within this arc, maybe I'll come back and add to this post.

Thank you for reading ヽ(・∀・)ﾉ

Also, thank you @rikaaki for these beautiful gifs(☆▽☆)

[heauxplesslydevoted]

Silent Treatment (Ethan x MC)

Summary: Naomi decides that if Ethan isn’t going to treat her like a valued member of the team, she’ll teach him a little lesson.

Based on chapter 1, some spoilers for chapter 2, and my own speculation, so read at your own risk.

I highkey hate this but I’m posting it anyway

~v~

Naomi is quiet. No, she is unusually quiet. Ethan has seen her get silent when it’s time to buckle down and focus on a task, or if something is weighing heavily on her, but at this point he knows her well enough to know it’s neither of those. She’s withdrawn, and he doesn’t understand why.

Her presence is hard to miss, the young resident has enough charm and charisma in her pinky finger to dazzle an entire room. And she’s never this quiet. Naomi demands to be heard at all times. With unapologetic vivacity. With her hands. Eyes sparkling when she gets an idea, or fiery when she needs to dig her toes into something and fight. Nothing about Naomi Valentine is ever subdued, so why the hell is she so silent?

She didn’t speak much during the last few team meetings. He and Harper have led all of the conversations, bouncing ideas back and forth, building off of each other’s ideas. Occasionally, Naomi would offer input, merely to agree or disagree with a theory, before going back into her shell.

It’s even bleeding into their personal life. For the better part of the past 3 months, she’s stayed with him, the two of them holed up in his apartment in the Back Bay, but now she’s opting to stay at her own place. It’s been going on a few days now, this random despondence, and Ethan isn’t a fan of it. He’d take it a step further and say it's driving him crazy. This isn’t the woman he’s known for the past two years, even at her lowest was she never this reclusive.

As he walks down the halls of Edenbrook, he spots Naomi, her personality back to what it once was. She’s with Ines at a vending machine, and Naomi wastes no time animatedly talking to the now attending about a fun date she went on with her girlfriend.

Heart hammering wildly in his chest, Ethan swallows thickly as he listens to her talk. He’s missed the sound of her voice, the affectionate way her strong accent curls around her ‘r’s’ and dramatically elongates her ‘o’s’. It becomes clear that she’s willing to talk, just not to him. Ethan doesn’t like that idea at all, but it’s the only one that makes sense. And if that’s the case, he needs to get to the bottom of things and remedy the situation.

“Naomi, can we talk please?” He asks once Ines is no longer in their presence.

He doesn’t miss the way she bristles upon hearing his voice. But Naomi nods anyway. “Sure, what’s wrong?”

“Can we talk in the office?”

The walk back to the seventh floor is marked with awkward silence as Naomi refuses to initiate conversation with him. The more time ticks on, the more anxiety settles in Ethan’s chest. What’s going on with her that she refuses to divulge?

The office is unoccupied when they arrive, as Harper has already gone home for the evening. Naomi stands by the door, opting not to settle into a seat or even move further into the room. Everything about her body language reads that she’s poised and ready to strike at any given moment. He frowns. She’s never been this defensive against him, at least when they’re not in the middle of an argument. “What’s going on?”

“Are you okay?”

The question catches Naomi off guard. She blinks slowly before shrugging in nonchalance. “I’m fine, Ethan.”

“You’re fine? Really?”

“Is there a reason why I shouldn’t be fine?”

“Not really, but you haven’t been acting like yourself recently.”

Because you’ve been quieter than a church mouse for the past few days. You don’t talk during meetings, you’re silent when we interact with the patients, it’s like you’ve completely tuned out.”

With the way he’s been acting, Naomi is almost shocked that he even realized what she’s been doing. Wow, so maybe the great Ethan Ramsey hasn’t lost his attention to detail.

“Oh, so you’ve actually noticed?”

“I’m a diagnostician, I notice everything,” Ethan deadpans. He can feel the sarcasm wafting off of her. “What, was this an intentional act for my attention?”

“Intentional, yes. But for your attention? Not necessarily,” Naomi answers.

His eyes narrow at her, his gaze near piercing. She’s playing some sort of childish game with him, first with not speaking and now with the vague half answers. “Okay, so walk me through your thought process. Why has the cat stolen your tongue?”

“I decided that if my input wasn’t going to be valued during team discussions, I might as well not speak at all.”

Ethan gapes at her, confused. Where did that come from? “Naomi, what on earth are you talking about? When have I ever not valued your input?”

“I’m talking about the fact that for the past two cases, I’ve stood on the sidelines while you’ve either cut me off mid-sentence to talk over me, or ignore my presence altogether. I might as well blend into the wall.”

“That’s not–”

Naomi doesn’t give him the chance to refute.  “Please spare me the attempt at arguing. Last week, Harper’s first day on the team, you literally had to circle back to me because you cut me off while I was speaking. And now, we’re working on a case, and you and Harper aren’t even taking this patient seriously! I’ve had to redirect the conversation and tell you guys to focus, because you two were too busy acting like bosom buddies, sharing anecdotes about hangovers, and stupid flamenco lessons, and dates you went on in the past, which is not only inappropriate and disrespectful to the patient’s time, it’s disrespectful to me.”

“So either you are completely oblivious, which I find hard to believe for someone as astute as you are, or you have no respect for me, not just as your colleague, but as the woman you claim to be in a relationship with,” Naomi continues. The floodgates have been opened and now that she’s started, she can’t stop herself. “And maybe it’s the latter, because I set that standard. I’ve let you go days, weeks, months without speaking to me with zero consequence, I’ve let you shut me out and slam doors in my face, make snide comments last year when we were treating Leland, I’ve let you have carte blanche over the pace of this relationship. I’ve always just been here and allowed your shitty social graces and piss poor communication skills to rule, and time and time again, you’ve gone unscathed, but now I’m just really tired of it.”

For the first time in a long, Ethan doesn’t have a clue what to say, and as always, Naomi is the woman who puts him in this position.

“Naomi, you can’t possibly think that I think so little of you.”

He can tell by the way her eyes darken that he put his entire foot in his mouth just now. The warning bells go off in his brain, and he scrambles to think of how he can correct this latest blunder.

Naomi bites down on her lip, and she’s actually shocked her mouth isn’t instantly flooded with the metallic taste of blood. She’s getting Punk’d obviously. The office is bugged, and Ashton Kutcher is going to jump out and announce his presence soon. That has to be it. Ethan has to be pranking her, because there’s no way a 38 year old man could ever be so dense, right? Surely his response to her grievances isn’t to dismiss her claims.

“You know what? You’re being obtuse, and we clearly aren’t getting anywhere, so I’m going to cut this conversation off now.”

She refuses to look like the psycho in this scenario and breathe any more life into this argument, and she’s not about to plead her case any further like she’s the one in the wrong.

Ethan’s eyes soften, and he takes a step forward, arms outstretched to touch, soothe whatever hurts he’s heaped upon her, but Naomi sidesteps, moving out of his reach.

If he wasn’t nervous at the start of this conversation, he is now. If the physical act of Naomi blatantly refusing to touch him wasn’t clear enough, the metaphorical chasm between the two of the just widened by a few yards as well. A chill races up and down the length of his spine.

“Naomi, I’m sorry,” Ethan says gently. “I…” His words taper off and he pauses, struggling for what he wants to say next. This has never been his strong point, being vulnerable.

And Naomi doesn’t offer him a lifeline. She’s not going to give him an out or assuage him of anything he’s currently feeling like she usually does. She’s laid out all of her cards, and things are in Ethan’s court at this point. Like always. 

“I’m going home,” she announces. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

~v~

The sun is barely out when Naomi shows up for work in the morning. Most of the hospital is still, the last of the night shift heading out as she’s on her way in. She heads towards the residents’ lounge, wanting to put her things away before checking in on her patients and having a team meeting.

As soon as she opens her locker, she spots a gorgeous bouquet of red roses wrapped in newspaper invading the space. There’s no note attached to the bouquet, and she spared a quick glance around the room to see if anyone else is there. The lounge is empty, save for another resident in the corner, sleeping.

Naomi takes the bouquet out of her locker, careful not to smash the petals and holds it up to her nose, inhaling deeply. 

Deciding to not put more thought into where they came from, Naomi simply cradles the bouquet in the crook of one of her arms, stuffs her bag into her locker, and continues on with her morning routine.

She’s passing by the nurses’ station on the 7th floor when someone catches her attention. “Oh Dr. Valentine! You have a special delivery.”

Her steps slow down as she approaches the front desk where Sarah, one of her favorite RNs is stationed. Sarah steps aside, revealing an even larger bouquet of roses, these ones white.

“Where did these come from?” Naomi asks.

“They were delivered about half an hour ago,” Sarah replies with a wink. “No note, though. I won’t let Dr. Ramsey know that you have a secret admirer.”

And that’s when it clicks into place. Memories of her fight with Ethan come flooding back, and it becomes clear that he’s the one gifting her these flowers. Before she even realizes she’s doing it, her eyes roll. If he thinks a couple of bouquets of roses are a good enough apology, he can think again.

Naomi plucks a white rose right from the center of the bouquet and hands it to Sarah. “For you.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“I insist,” Naomi says. “Happy Friday, Sarah.”

“Thank you, Dr. Valentine!”

Seeing the smile on the senior nurse’s face is almost enough to cleanse Naomi of the annoyance she feels towards Ethan in this moment. After exchanging a few more pleasantries, Naomi manages to scoop up this new batch of flowers – they’re in a vase, to which she adds her red ones – and finishes her trek to the office.

She isn’t expecting it to be covered in bunches of bright yellow sunflowers.

Their communal desk is covered in them, along with Ethan’s personal desk and the couch. “What on earth was he thinking?”

“I was thinking that sunflowers are your favorite flower,” Ethan answers, and Naomi jumps, startled at his voice. She whips around and sees him standing in the doorway. “And so I got up well before the sun was shining, went to the Boston Flower Exchange and bought every single one I could get my hands on.”

“And the roses?”

“White is supposed to be symbolic of new beginnings and forgiveness,” Ethan explains. “And you simply can’t go wrong with red.”

“If you think buying me flowers is going to cut it, you must not know me well,” Naomi says. Him buying her things doesn’t impress her, no matter how much she jokes about his money.

“No, but I figured it couldn’t hurt.” Ethan takes a cautious step into the room, shutting the door behind him. A sleepless night without her beside him forced Ethan to do a lot of thinking about how he wanted this conversation to go. A peace offering is always a good start. “And it got you to talk to me.”

Naomi scoffs and sets her flowers down. “Barely.”

“I’m sorry,” Ethan says. “I’m an idiot, and an asshole.”

“It’s good that we can agree on something.”

Okay, it’s clear that she is not going to give him any leeway. “You were absolutely right to call me out on my behavior towards you.”

“Why did you do it?” Naomi asks.

“I wasn’t thinking,” Ethan says simply. “I got so caught up in having Harper on the team, and it’s easy to slip back into old habits without even realizing.”

“It wasn’t a simple one time thing. It was more than once that you and Harper completely forgot I was even there. And I like Harper, I don’t think I could respect her more than I already do, and I have a very healthy sense of self esteem, but even the toughest person on earth wouldn’t like being in my shoes, on the outside looking in while you and your ex reminisce on old dates and inside stories. Ethan, you couldn’t handle a modicum of the shit I have willingly put up with in order to be with you.”

His stomach knots up at the thought of an ex-boyfriend of Naomi’s coming into his personal space, sharing personal jokes with her, ignoring him, and monopolizing her time. If the thought of it had him this twisted, he can’t believe he’s been putting her through that reality.

“You were right to call me out on my bad communication skills. I am terrible at relationships. I’m not using it as an excuse, it’s just the truth. But I’ve gotten complacent, which is unacceptable.” Ethan takes another step towards Naomi, and when she doesn’t instantly recoil, he takes it as a sign to get even closer. “The last thing I ever want to do is stifle your voice, or make you feel invisible. Naomi, you are...invaluable. To this hospital, to this team, to me, and I am so sorry that there was ever a time where I made you feel like you weren’t. You are the most important person in my life, and what we have is something I’ve never had with anyone else.”

“Okay, so start acting like it,” Naomi challenges. “I’m your equal and I demand every bit of respect you have to offer. Anything less than that cannot be tolerated anymore, personally or professionally.”

Ethan nods emphatically at her words. “Of course.”

“I mean it.”

“You have my word, Naomi. I’ll never let it happen again.” He closes the gap between them and cups her face in his hand. “Just please...never give me the silent treatment again. Yell from the rooftops, argue with me, I don’t care, but I can’t take not hearing your voice.”

“You needed to be taught a lesson,” Naomi says simply.

“I learned my lesson, and I hated it,” Ethan confesses, his lips dangerously close to hers. Naomi doesn’t budge, not even an inch. She’s terribly stubborn, even at the end of a fight. “It was torture.”

“Good.” Deciding to put him out of his misery, Naomi tilts her head up and captures Ethan in a kiss. He doesn’t waste a single second returning it. His free hand wraps around the small of her back, pulling her in closer. How did he go this long without touching her?

He doesn’t know how long they’ve been kissing, but he finally breaks apart from her long enough to bury his face in her neck, allowing her scent and soft skin to soothe any of his fraught nerves. She smells like home.

“Does this mean I’m forgiven?” Ethan asks.

“The jury is still out on that one.”

“You’re going to make me work for this, aren’t you?”

“Are you up for the challenge?”

Ethan untangles himself from their embrace and takes a step back, so he’s able to look Naomi in the eyes. He takes her hand and presses a soft kiss into her palm. “For you? I’ll do just about anything.”

~v~

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[zenlesszonezero]

[luke-patterson-owns-my-soul]

Kiss Me

Charlie Gillespie x Reader

Title: Kiss Me

Words: 1593

Summary: Charlie’s back from Hawaii and providing social media with all the content.

Requested: No. I had to write this after that video of Charlie singing in the bath tub…

TW: Implications of sexual intercourse, mostly the reader getting frustrated by Charlie being Charlie.

Author’s notes: I just wanted to write a bit of domesticity between Charlie and the reader, and thanks to all the content we got from him the other day, this kinda just fell into place. I hope you like it. - also, a little shout out to @dream-a-little-bigger-x​ because she’s been giving us some AMAZING fic content, and she isn’t feeling to great today. I hope this helps a little, Nele.

Three weeks without being able to see Charlie in the flesh had been hard. Yeah, he’d posted photos and videos while he’d been away in Hawaii with his castmates and Kenny, but it wasn’t the same. Neither were the intimate FaceTime calls the two of you shared pretty much daily. Nothing beat being able to wrap your arms around him, to feel the warmth of his skin against yours, to smell the scent that was intrinsically him. Yeah, you’d missed him like crazy.

Checking your watch, again, before checking the arrivals board you leaned up against the wall behind you waiting for his flight to disembark the plane and make their way through to the arrivals lounge. You scrolled through your Instagram feed, checking out what people had been tagging your boyfriend in, amazed by the talent of his fans. More than anything, you wanted to share them, but as no one knew about you, you couldn’t. It was a good thing you ran a semi-popular fan account that you could do it all from, and your story was full of amazing artwork and song covers. As far as your followers knew, you were just another fangirl.

You were so engrossed in the pictures on the screen in front of you, you didn’t hear Charlie approaching you, didn’t know he was right in front of you until grabbed you by the waist, making you squeal in shock and almost drop your phone.

“Oh my God, Charlie. You scared me.” You laughed, flinging your arms around his neck, breathing him in. 

“I would say I’m sorry, but my mom taught me that lying makes my nose grow and my tongue fall out. And I don’t think you’d want that.” He teased after placing a quick kiss on your lips.

“Well, no. But it would be quieter around the apartment.” Your response made him pull away and pout. “What? Am I lying?”

“I thought you loved me.” If he hadn’t been grinning like the loveable idiot he was, you would have believed his offended tone of voice was real.

“Oh, you know I adore you. Shall we go home?” as you slide your phone into your pocket, you take hold of his hand and lead him out to the parking lot where his car is parked. “Do you want to drive, or shall I?”

“You, please.” You know he’s not the most confident of flyers, so you understand his need to chill for a while before he’s at full Gillespie – a term you coined not long after the two of you met and he was his usual ‘constant overdrive’ self. He was always moving, doing something with his hands, or exploring. Charlie Gillespie didn’t do bored or sitting still very well.

Once you’re back at the apartment you share Charlie sets about unpacking his case, dumping his clothes in the washer straight away. It always strikes you how domestic he is. You’re not the best at remembering to do stuff, but he always manages to catch what you miss.

“Have you got to go to work?” he asks you as he leans up against the counter while you prepare some food for the two of you. You work at a TV studio, but the show you work on is on a break so your hours are more flexible than they would be normally.

“No, I’m all yours for a couple of days.” Your words make him grin before he wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you in for a kiss.

Your kiss had led to more of an intimate reunion which led you both to your bedroom for most of the day. By the time you emerged, it was almost dark outside and the food you’d been preparing needed to be tossed in the trash. You couldn’t complain though because you’d been able to show Charlie just how much you’d missed him.

___________________________

After the insanity that was Charlie’s delivery from and subsequent live with Madison’s dad, you now had a billboard poster partially unfolded in your bedroom. Naturally, because he was often a child in an adult’s body, Charlie had been like a kid at Christmas when he’d been allowed to open the box. Off camera, he’d been able to slide the parcel that had been included with your name on – Mr. Reyes had so kindly included a hoodie for you which you were now wearing while you stared at the space around you in horror.

“Charlie, babe. Did you have to open it in here? You heard what he said, it took up their entire back yard. Our bedroom is like a shoebox.”

“Yeah, I kinda got carried away. Sorry.” Leaning over, so he wouldn’t rip the poster, he planted a kiss on your lips.

“Well, don’t expect me to help you fold it back up.” With a grin, you turned on your heel and flounced out of the room to post screenshots from the live to your fan account. Only Charlie knew about it and had followed you early on. Eventually, after hearing him swearing and falling over, you went in and helped him fold the damn thing up. It took a ridiculous amount of time, but it was soon back in the box ready to be transported to Canada in Charlie’s car when the both of you went back for Christmas.

Exhausted, you flopped onto the couch and decided to order in some food rather than cook. But first, you took a sweaty selfie and sent it to Madison.

I love your dad, but please don’t let him send us anymore billboard posters. It took two hours to get it back in the damn box.

Her reply was instant.

Dad never expected him to unfold the thing. Love to you both. She wasn’t wrong. Only the man you adored would have ever done that, and live on the internet too. Shaking your head, you ordered pizza.

“Babe, I need a favor.” Charlie spoke as he tidied up the pizza boxes and soda cans from your dinner, making you groan. You were still exhausted, and now a little bloated. All you wanted to do was to slouch and watch a movie, curled up in Charlie’s arms.

“What?”

“Help me set up my phone in the bathroom.” That got your attention.

“Er… why?”

He scratched at the back of his head, a sheepish look on his beautiful face that was covered in the stubble you adored.

“I want to do a couple of videos.”

“And you have to do it now? Haven’t you done enough today?” you close your eyes as you lean your head on the back of the couch. You sense Charlie standing behind you, and when you open your eyes again, he’s looking down at you, the puppy dog eyes in force. Even upside down, he knows what they do to you. “I hate you, did you know that?” you tell him affectionately. With a grin, he bends over and captures your lips in a searing kiss.

“I promise, I’ll make it up to you.” With a chuckle, he runs his jaw along yours, knowing the roughness of his stubble is a huge turn on for you.

“Yes, yes you will.” You pull away and stand up. The sooner you get this done, the sooner the two of you can snuggle, and the sooner you can claim your owed favor.

Grabbing the car keys from the sideboard, you head down to the car to get the phone holder. You figure the suction cup works on the car’s windscreen, so should work on the glass screen. When you get back into the apartment, Charlie’s changed clothes and has his guitar in his hand.

“Remind me why you can’t do this from the couch?” you ask, walking into the bathroom. It’s tiny and you know Charlie’s going to regret his decision, but when he mumbles about acoustics you keep your mouth shut. Trying to change his mind when it’s made up is nigh on impossible.

You manage to secure the phone holder to the shower screen you’d cleaned that morning, pull it across the tub, and leave the small space.

“All ready for you, maestro.” You call out as you enter the lounge. Charlie stands up, kisses you and disappears into the bathroom. You fully plan on putting the TV on, choosing a random Hallmark Christmas movie to watch, and wait for him to finish, but when you hear his clear voice singing what he knows is one of your favorite Ed Sheeran songs, you can help but go and stand at the end of the tub and watch him morph from Charlie your doofus boyfriend to Charlie the star.

You watch him, with a smile on your face, as he records a video for his Instagram reel, messing it up a couple of times and having to restart a few times, making you laugh.

“If you can’t be quiet, you’re gonna have to leave.” He scolds you without any anger in his voice.

“I’ll behave. For now.” You wink at him as he starts to record again. Once he’s done, he says he wants to do one more, slightly longer for his Tiktok account.

“Last try, because my leg’s falling asleep.” He speaks into the camera once it’s recording.

I’m in love now

Kiss me like you wanna be loved

Wanna be loved, wanna be loved,

Wanna be loved, yeah

As he sings, he looks up, catching your eye and smiling. In that moment, you fall in love with him all over again.

.

.

.

.

.

Taglist: - if you want to be added, please send me an ask, just in case I happen to miss any comments

@dream-a-little-bigger-x​​ @calamitykaty​​ @crybabyddl​​ @xplrreylo​​ @morganayennefertyrell​​ @lovesanimals​​ @sunsetcurvenotsunsetswerve​​ @echocharm17618​​ @kinda-really-lost​ @n0wornever​ @all-in-fangirl​ @5sosmukefan​

[parvulous-writings]

Patrick  McKenna // SFW alphabet

​Summary: A sfw A-Z for Camerlengo Patrick McKenna

Warnings: Breaking of church vows (kinda, if you think about it)

Notes: Please be aware that this is purely off of the movie where McKenna features, this is in no way related to how he is portrayed in the book (mostly because I haven’t read it yet). Also I don’t know how the Roman Catholic church entirely operates- as although I do study it, I have never experienced any of it first hand, so there may be inaccuracies, for which I apologise.  My requests are currently open! My pinned post (found here) contains both a list of characters I write for, and a masterlist!

Not my gif

A - Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?) 

Publicly, Patrick can’t be affectionate. He’ll give you a look every so often, just so you still know he cares for you, even though he can’t exactly show it.  He makes up for it in private though- making food once a week, some beverages, and lots of time curled up together on the sofa. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, he’ll even read to you.

B - Best Friend (What would they be like as a best friend? Where does the friendship start?)

As a friend, he would be the voice of reason, a moral compass for those who had little or none (whether they listened to him or not though, he couldn’t control). 

C - Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

Patrick does quite like cuddles. Curling up to cuddle wherever is probably his favourite way to cuddle- having you both embrace one another as close as you can fills him with such a sense of joy that nothing else can replicate. 

D - Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking, cleaning, ect?)

Despite his vows to the Roman Catholic church, and the Vatican, he would love to settle down with you. Hands down, he’d probably do it in a heartbeat. He’s a pretty good cook, and often does some cleaning around the home. 

E - Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

He would be very sympathetic about it- he understands it hurts, but if he’s leaving you there is most likely a good reason for it; most likely linking to his profession and position in the Vatican. 

F - Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? Do they wanna get married?)

Despite his vows of celibacy and chastity, this man is still a follower of Roman Catholicism. His commitment to a person would be unwavering, everlasting. But it would have to come after his devotion to the Vatican itself. 

G - Gentle (How gentle are they both physically and emotionally?)

He’s very gentle. He may be firm when implementing his beliefs and his opinions, but he is still gentle when he needs to be. He can be a little extreme, but for the most part, he knows how to take care of you, physically and emotionally. 

H - Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it, and what are they like?)

Similar to cuddles, Patrick really likes hugs as well. A quick form of affection, that works well when out in public. He’ll often hug you from the side, as it’s the easiest one to have whilst on the move or staying mostly out of sight. 

I - I Love You (How fast do they say the “love” word?)

It may take him a little while. He wants to be absolutely sure that love is what he’s feeling before he admits it to anyone but himself, even you.

J - Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What are they like when jealous?)

Jealousy is a trait that McKenna both has and despises. He can become incredibly jealous sometimes, but has become very good at hiding it. Sometimes even you don’t realise that that is what he’s feeling. When it gets really bad though, he’ll come to stand beside you- usually unable to touch you, since this usually happens whilst he is working- and speaks with the offender who made him jealous until they get scared off. 

K - Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Patrick likes to kiss you on your cheek or ear when just out of sight in public. Kisses on the lips are usually fairly chaste, getting heated very rarely- and these were always in private, and always would be unless you get married. He likes to be kissed on the jaw and the crook of his neck- though you found this out through trial and error, rather than him telling you.

L - Little Ones (How are they around kids?)

Patrick is actually pretty good around kids- he is often a good influence for them. Sometimes he can get a little too preachy, but you usually let him know of that and he’ll eventually reel himself back in a little bit.

M - Morning (What are mornings like with them?)

Oftentimes McKenna is long gone by the time you wake up- though occasionally he’ll wake you to give you a forehead kiss before he leaves. 

N - Nights (How are nights spent with them?)

There’s a routine for the evenings with Patrick- Grace and dinner, reading/watching a film, evening prayer, bed. There’s not overly much wiggle room in that, he likes routines. 

O - Open (When do they open up about themselves?)

If you’re having a quiet conversation during a film, he’ll occasionally slip in a piece of information about him, but you already know a lot from what he told you when he first met you- besides his extreme beliefs, he doesn’t keep many secrets. 

P - Patience (How easily angered are they?)

He is incredibly patient. Almost eerily so at times. It takes a lot, and I mean a lot, to get him visibly angered. Such as a lot of pressure over time, or a heavy interrogation.

Q - Quizzes (How much do they remember about you?)

A  lot. Occasionally he’ll forget something though- in which case he’ll profusely apologise and promise to remember it again in future. 

R - Remember (Favorite memory with you?)

There’s no one particular memory. There’s many- going to cafes together, walking along the canals hand in hand, hell even showing you around the Vatican. Anything that makes you smile, really. 

S - Security (How protective are they?)

Quite protective, even if he doesn’t often outwardly show it. The Roman Catholic church is a big organisation, one full of corruption even if they deny it. He knows that if any of them knew of your relationship, it could put you in danger, so he makes sure to inform you of how to keep safe, no matter the situation. 

T - Try (How much effort do they put in?)

He puts about as much effort in as any normal man does. He tries, but it’s not always particularly special. 

U - Ugly (What are their bad habits?)

He preaches a lot. This man has to quote something from scripture every day, for whatever reason. It can get rather frustrating at times. 

V - Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

He has to look presentable, but since vanity goes against the virtues he’s been raised to follow, he does his best not to be as vain as some people can be. 

W - Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

He would miss you a lot- you’ve become so ingrained into his daily life that it’s hard to imagine a day without you now.

X - Xtra (Random HC)

He’ll sometimes read you a bible story or two to get you to sleep if you’ve had a bad day- he has a very smooth and calming reading voice.

Y - Yuck (Things they don’t like either in general or a partner?)

He doesn’t like it when people try to disprove his beliefs, or argue against them. It gets him very agitated, and will deter him from said person. 

Z - Zzz (Sleep habits)

Literally just a normal sleep pattern, there’s nothing else or unusual to say about it. 

[cdarkheartzero]

Diary of a Security Guard

For the always wonderful Rissy @rissynicole who I promised this to for being just...amazing.

Prequel found here-

https://cdarkheartzara.tumblr.com/post/622506786343288833

Data log entry 6555

Been watching Zim battle his PAK for a few (days) now. It has been SO mentally exhausting just to see, let alone experience. But that determination to get his PAK legs working. Imma be honest, it’s downright inspiring seeing him spaz, spark and struggle just to get back up n’ try it again once he catches his breath.

He even got Skoodge trying to activate his- few of the other smeets too, actually. I can’t tell whether he knows it or not (he’s pretty oblivious to the world around him so I doubt it), but he has a lot of fans among the youngins. They might find him annoying (cuz let’s be honest here, he is) but he has this unique…. charm(?) to him. Little bastard just doesn’t know when ta quit.

I can see the stress and strain of his struggles are starting to get to him though. He just hasn’t been himself lately. Physically Exhausted. Less destructive (again- lemme be honest- I AM ALL FOR but under normal circumstances). Hasn’t been doing much eating or sleeping. He’s just so fixated on this that it’s basically taken over his entire life. Can’t tell you how many times I have found him in the incubation room the past few shifts, tryin’ so damn hard to stand on his legs he basically passes out.

The smeets should be sleeping now. It’s pretty late and I see all the other guards settling into their seats relaxin’. Now’s the time to piss around, the break we all deserve. Alas, I can’t get that little shit outta my head. The pain on his face. The dedication and exhaustion in his eyes. It’s been burned into my organic brain ever since I had to stun him the first time. I don’t think I have ever been that scared before. I thought… I thought I could have killed him. That he wouldn’t be there the next morning. That this little ball of chaos would be erased from my life. And it was worse than anything I coulda imagined.

I wanna do something for him. I know I shouldn’t. ‘Specially after all the shit he puts me through. And I really shouldn’t play favoritisms but I dunno. There is just something about Zim.

Now, don’t get me wrong. He drives me crazy. He’s a little demon spawn. A selfish little piece of shit. More than once have I seen him sacrifice a playmate to make a quick escape or use poor Skoodge as a flesh shield. His bomb gifts haunt me very soul- I swear I hear them ticking in the walls relentlessly, taunting me. But he brings me such a calming ease. It’s so weird. Like… I wanna ring his neck sometimes but just having his little body in my arms brings me such warmth. His voice makes me want to slam my face against a wall but I honestly can’t fathom it not being there. I just want to be there for him. And do everything in my power to make him as happy as I can.

What did he do to me?

Ugh. I’m pulling my lekku out at my desk. Think, Zara. Think. There’s gotta be something I can do. I’m mindlessly fumbling through my clutter, still rackin’ my brain around what to do next. Suddenly, a sweet scent fills the air and I realize I opened my candy drawer.

Hmmmm…. it’s not much but it’s the thought that counts.

I look over to Kira and tell her imma need to take 5. “Candy break?” She asks, watching me sneak a few pieces away. “Something like that” I reply.

Walking down the hallway to the smeetery felt like an eternity. What do I say? How will he respond? Lord, what if he wakes the other smeets and I gotta clear out my whole snack stash to not upset the others? What if he cries? If his PAK spazes out again, what if I have to shock him again? What if I fail my mission? What will the control brains do to me? what if… what if I have to kill him? How would I live with myself if I...hurt my smeet? Shit. I gotta stop doing that. He’s not MY smeet. He belongs to Irk. I’m just a guardian, nothing more. But… I never want him to leave my side. But he also has a job to do! For Irk! I hope he never becomes an invader. Keep him here, where it’s safe. Maybe the science division or something… hmmmmm.”

“Uhhh…” I hear next to me, a random voice sounding concerned. It breaks my concentration and I see another guard, head slightly tilted, staring at me. “You good, man?”

Oh! Seems I have been standing at the door for some time. I laughed. “Yeah. Sorry. Just got a lot on my mind.”

“It’s cool” she smiled “just don’t let the higher ups catch you wandering around aimlessly.”

“I appreciate it. Thanks!” I said waving as she went about her way. “Higher ups?” Yeah. Not a whole lot of fear there. Nothing can be worse than what we’ve already experienced.

The door opened, inviting me to the darkness of the smeetery. Was it always so cold in here? The only light shines from a few wires and screens on the walls but other than that, it’s pretty pitch black. A totally different feel to the liveliness of the early shift when spirits are high and bodies are active. Luckily, our vision is enhanced in our tubes, far before we go online so nighttime is never an issue for us.

I creep over to the nesting area, where all the little bodies are snoozing (or snoring in Skoodge’s case) and see those ruby eyes staring at the ceiling. I notice his antenna perk and he looks my direction, instantly making a face of aggression.

“What?”

That the hell kinda greeting is that? Little rude shit. I wanna smack him outside his little skull but I take a deep breath and calmly whisper. “Ain’t you supposed to be asleep?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“I’m your guard. It IS my business. Why ain’t you asleep?”

“I’m not tired.”

“Something bothering you?”

“No.”

I can see it written all over his face in glow in the dark paint. “Ah-ha. You really are a bad liar. Is it cuz your legs?”

“NO.” He turned to face away from me.

“Hey. Listen: you’re going to get it. I know you will.”

“But how come Tak could so easily? All mine do is attack me.”

“Just because she got it faster than you, that doesn’t make her better than you.”

“Zim never claimed it did.”

He’s hurt. His words and his feelings are battling against each other. Tak being able to activate her PAK legs without any difficulties was eating him alive but he would never admit it.

“Listen… Zim. It’s going to get easier. You just gotta keep at it. Small steps get you far in life.”

He shrugged, sitting up, curling into himself. “Zim wonders about that sometimes. Maybe… he isn’t meant to get it.”

There it is. “Of course you are.” I said, gently putting a hand on his shoulder. “I believe in you. You are going to find a way. You never give up. I don’t think you know how.”

He looked my way, eyes wide and glassy. SHIT. Imma make him cry!? I didn’t mean to!

“You… you do?”

Huh?

“Of course I believe in you, dummy. And I will be here every step of the way. I got you.” I said, grazing my thumb across his cheek. A smile took the place of that awful frown and his eyes lit. “Here. I got you a little something, but only if you try to get some sleep. You got a long day of training with your PAK and you need all the rest you can get. Oh, and don’t let anyone know I did this.” I said putting my finger to my lips.

I reached into a belt pocket and grabbed a wrapped hard candy. With two fingers I held it in front of him, he looked at it inquisitively. His grubby little hands reached for it and I let him grab it. He stared at it, slowly unwrapping it and Then glanced back at me. I guess he didn’t trust it.

“It’s not drugged or nuthin’. Just some sweets.”

Again, he stared at me.

“What?”

“Your accent is really weird.”

“Just eat the damn candy and shut up” I said, pushing the sweet into his mouth. He just huffed but suckled on.

“Now DON'T cause anymore problems and get some shut eye. I will see you bright n’ early.”

He just puffed his cheeks and rolled over. Think I handled that well. And maybe, hopefully tomorrow will be a better day for him.

Smiled and waved on my way out. Dunno if he saw me but it doesn’t hurt. Walked into the hallway, into dread. Leaned against the wall and slid down.

Us E.L.I.T.E.S can’t disobey orders from the Control brains but… I pray with everything I have in me that things stay like this forever. Cuz’ if i ever had my mission changed or if I had to hurt him… idunno what I would do.

Zara out

[bigskydreaming]

Doing some writing today off and on between errands and work, and jumping around various Kings of the Sky installments, specifically Dick, Jason and Cass stuff, so probably gonna post snippets from a bunch of them as I go. 

(Kings of the Sky is an AU that goes canon divergent from the point of Jason calling Dick for advice for dealing with Bruce after the Garzonas case and where things end up going dramatically different from that point on. Including Jason not dying, being part of his own lineup of Titans between Dick and Tim’s, Dick being adopted not long after the Church of Blood incident, Cass being the third Wayne kid to be taken in and adopted and with Tim and Duke being next and then Damian coming along later once they find out about him. This is basically my ‘the family’s alright’ AU with largely ‘Good Dad Bruce’ except for Dick and then Jason yelling some sense into him about the other, respectively, in the first two installments, just FYI).

Anyway, this bit is from a story called “In Their Shadows Grow Trees Of Good and Evil,” set about a year after Cass has been adopted, when she and Jason are both sixteen and Dick’s twenty-one. Also just FYI, because canon has never been specific about what ways Cass is neurodivergent due to the comic-book style ‘rewiring’ of her brain so that she could learn to speak later in life, I tend to go with her being dyslexic and having aphasia. She sticks exclusively to sign language and being a silent presence in her costumed personas, so that there’s no chance of people connecting the dots between Black Bat and Cassandra Wayne, as she mostly speaks verbally in her civilian persona and doesn’t hide her aphasia. The reason there’s not likely to be any obvious signs of aphasia in the snippets of her I post is because I wait until I complete something to choose words at random to replace with aphasia-born mixups, so its more realistic and I’m not gearing her dialogue towards deliberately placed moments. Just in case you were wondering.

In Their Shadows Grow Trees of Good and Evil

“Hey Todd,” sneered an exquisitely obnoxious voice. “Why’s your sister so fucking weird?”

Jason sighed the sigh of a soul a mere century into its eternity of damnation as he rose from the lunch table he’d been studying at and crammed the rest of his books into his backpack. Then he pasted a cheerfully bland smile on his face and turned around, geared for academia warfare (teenage prep school edition).

“Hey Craig,” he said brightly. “Why’d you come out of the womb so ugly your parents had to tie a piece of steak around your neck just to get the family dog to go near you? Mysteries abound.”

The advancing junior slowed a step, momentarily rocked by his truly impressive return volley. The grimace Craig’s already gargoyle-esque features twisted into made his face even more unpleasant to look at than usual, which was quite the feat. Jason would have applauded if just looking at it hadn’t already turned him to stone.

But the bargain basement basilisk kept on towards him rather than turn tail and skulk off to pop his emotional blisters, so Jason sighed a sequel to his first one. Looked like it was one of those days where Craig felt up to powering through. Guess someone had eaten their self-esteem Wheaties that morning. Joy.

“You think you’re pretty hot shit, don’t you, Todd?”

Jason shrugged. “I mean, to be honest I kinda have a one track mind, so right now I’m mostly just thinking about punching you in your mistake.”

“My what?”

“Your face,” Jason elaborated with exaggerated patience.

“Huh?”

“Oh my god, I’m saying your face is a mistake. See, its not as fun when I have to stop and explain it to you. Ugh, you ruin everything.”

He neatly sidestepped the older boy as R2-Dumbass stayed frozen, smoke coming off of his internal CPU while trying to catch up. For a second Jason thought he was home free, but then he remembered the universe fucking hated him so haha, sucks to suck. Also, a small crowd had gathered to witness the verbal jousting match, and nothing invigorated an asshole like Craig more than an audience of like-minded peers. So there was that too.

“Whatever. Laugh it up all you want, you little shit,” the junior rallied. “But just remember, mocking your betters will never change the fact that you were born street trash and you’ll be street trash until the day you die.”

Honestly? Not his best effort. Jason almost felt bad using any of his good material. Seemed like overkill at this point. But he did have a strict Scorched Earth policy to maintain, so.....

“Yeah but my dad could buy out and ruin your dad so that means I still win, right?”

He smirked as the barb landed and Craig’s face set into a sunset vista of strangled purple and furious red. Bam. Direct hit.

“Listen, you - “

“Oh for fuck’s sake, it was rhetorical,” Jason interrupted. “I don’t actually care what you think even a little bit. Nobody does. You don’t matter. Please go be irrelevant elsewhere, you’re fucking dismissed, you loser.”

“Speak for yourself, charity case.” Oh goodie, Craig’s backup singers had finally arrived. Now if only he could remember to care enough to learn their names in the first place. Seriously, who told the extras they could have lines? “All the jokes in the world can’t change who and what you are.”

Jason shrugged and continued nonchalantly up the hill to where his sister was standing with arms crossed, staring down at something on the other side.

“True genius is never appreciated in its own time,” he tossed back over his shoulder. “I’m sure I’ll be immortalized in song eventually.”

The mob of morons deigned to let him go without further incident. Though he suspected that had less to do with his scathing wit and more to do with him being headed towards Cass. She was immaculately presented as always, wearing the Gotham Academy uniform like she was born to it despite hating its uncomfortable stiffness every bit as much as he did. But that was just Cass for you. 

For all that she still struggled at times to engage verbally or speak up in social settings, her mastery of body language remained without peer. She could chameleon-camouflage her way into matching poise and posture with anyone - a skill that had allowed her to walk into school on her very first day with her head held high as though she owned everything in her sight. Exuding so much Queen Bee Intimidation Factor even the other hive queens were afraid to approach her  themselves. Sending forth their drones to try and woo her into an alliance, only to see her remain oh-so-casually above it all, a slightly contemptuous smile adorning her lips.

Basically, she scared the shit out of their classmates without them having anywhere close to a true understanding of why, and Jason was outrageously jealous. Rude. Unfair. Why did his siblings always get all the cool toys when all he had was his rakish charm, scintillating intellect and debonair.....nah, who was he kidding. He was fucking awesome. 

“Sup, sis,” he said, cresting the hill to stand beside Cass. “Just FYI, I just took a popularity bullet for you, which means you owe me your dessert tonight. Its a family rule that’s totally a real thing and definitely not something I just made up right now because Alf is making chocolate soufflé.”

She made no acknowledgment and remained stock still, a Colossus at Rhodes peering down into the shifting shadows of the parking lot below.

He peered down as well, though with absolutely no idea what they were looking at. Solidarity, yo.

“So are we staring fixedly at anything in particular, or should I just pick my own spot and commit?”

His humor was totally wasted on her as always. Instead of laughing and telling him what a lovable goof he was, she just inclined her head in the direction of a blonde girl where she was standing next to the driver’s side door of a Mercedes-Benz, dictating final commandments to her peons before departing. Well, probably. Jason was just guessing, based on his own body language reads, and like, general disdain for literally everyone at this school that wasn’t related to him.

He made a face. An extra special one reserved just for this classmate in particular. “Ugh, Madison Dunleavy? She’s the worst.”

Cass raised a cool eyebrow. “I thought Craig Hendricks was the worst.”

“He is. They’re both the worst. Its a hotly contested position here at Gotham Academy.”

She rolled her eyes and nodded back down at the Queen of Air and Darkness. “So. You know her?”

“Nope,” Jason said. “Come to think of it, I’ve actually never seen her in my life. No idea who that is. Can’t help you, sorry. Shall we go home?”

The Eyebrow of Inquisition speared him with clear intent. Who the fuck needed words when you could pack the Encyclopedia Britannica into a single facial expression?

Jason sighed gustily. 

“I had a slight altercation with her freshman year that led to her declaring her undying enmity for me until the end of time. The word nemesis may or may not have been thrown around once or twice. I can’t recall.”

The Eyebrow of Inquisition lowered nary an inch. Ugh, she wanted more? Why did everyone in his family hate privacy, with the obvious exclusion of himself when snooping through Cass and Dick’s rooms for blackmail material, which was actually intel-gathering and thus another matter entirely.

“Okay so basically what happened was my first week here I overheard her talking shit about me and not even twenty minutes later she was pretending to kiss my ass in homeroom, like probably because of Bruce, y’know? So I just busted out laughing and told her to fuck off and die and she has inexplicably loathed me ever since.”

Avoiding further Eyebrow Inquisition-ing, he made a show of peering around aimlessly. When the silence extended and it was clear Cass was absolutely not going to break first, Jason waved a hand in dismissal and took to peering oh so casually at his fingernails. "I suppose I was less tactful back in those days.”

He chanced a look up, finally, and saw his sister’s eyebrow had somehow managed to mighty morphin power ranger its way into a configuration evoking both judgment and disbelief, with the latter perhaps aimed at the idea he was significantly differing in the tact department these days either.

“I don’t love the implications your face is making right now,” he told her.

She ignored him, because of course she did. 

“Does she know Dick?” She asked instead. Jason shrugged.

“I mean, maybe? She’s probably seen him around at one of those stupid galas we have to go to, and actually I think maybe she has an older brother who was either in Dick’s grade or like, one above or below it? I don’t know.”

Now both eyebrows were doing the dance of disbelief. Okay, so maybe that was poor situational awareness on his part, since it wasn’t like Gotham Academy was a big school with a ton of other kids and also he’d only been in the same class as Madison for like over two whole years, but whatever. There were extingent circumstances.

“Look, she’s a total snob who’s always looked down on me and in return I willfully ignore both her existence and that of everyone and everything even tangentially related to her. Its called equality, Cass.”

She pursed her lips and went back to the peering, because of course in the mind of Cass it made total sense that the Grand Inquisition didn’t need to be followed up by any explanation on her part, what the hell. Like was he supposed to have inferred it?

“What’s this all about anyway?”

“I heard her talking about Dick earlier,” she said without peeling her eyes away from her personal recon mission. “I don’t know what she said though, I just heard her say Grayson, and then I was busy looking at what her body was saying. I know it was about Dick because she shut down when she saw me. And I didn’t like the way she....looked....before that happened. The way she was talking. It was.....”

Jason frowned but held back any follow-up questions while he waited - with total patience because he wasn’t an absolute cad, thank you very much - for his sister to find the word she was hunting for. It was a major source of frustration for her, that whatever neural map her brain followed put body language and spoken language in totally different regions of her brain, separated by a fairly great divide. Meaning she usually had to make a conscious choice to focus on body language or conventional languages - whether verbal or sign. But it tended to be one or the other; she’d yet to master taking in and comprehending both forms of ‘language’ at the same time. And none of them had quite figured out how to convince her that she wasn’t actually missing anything when she chose to focus on one specific form of communication - that she was still observing far more than most people ever would.

“Proprietary,” Cass settled on at last. She nodded her satisfaction with her choice of word, and Jason waited a whole two point five seconds before sticking  his whole foot in his mouth.

“Proprietary?” He asked with a scrunched nose as he weighed that for possible context and implications. “You sure?”

She glared. He winced. It was a whole thing.

“Yeah, I know, sorry, sorry, I heard it the second it was out of my mouth. We don’t actually have to experiment with the legitimacy of if looks could kill.”

Cass rolled her eyes, but eh. That could’ve gone worse.

Jason swiftly redirected attention anyway. Discretion is the better part of valor, after all.

“So. The Queen of Air and Darkness was talking about our big bro, and her mood was.....proprietary, huh?” He recapped while digesting the info like a boss. “Well. Definitely not loving that, I gotta say. Hold please.”

Pulling out his phone and pulling up his most recent texts, he began typing furiously.

“What are you doing?” Cass asked.

“Texting Tom,” he replied, because duh. Hah, now it was his chance to have the answers that should be patently obvious and thus make with the ‘are you kidding me’ when she asked obvious questions she should know the answer to! How do you like them apples, sis?

“Why are you texting your boyfriend right now?”

Jason rolled his eyes, because fair is fair, but never ceased texting for a moment. Time was of the essence here, probably. Well, maybe. Okay probably not. But it’d still been like half an hour since he and Tom had last texted and that’s a very fucking long time in teenage years.

“To be our getaway driver tonight, obviously.”

She stared at him. He didn’t look up, but he could feel it anyway. He was very intuitive like that.

“What?”

Jason heaved another sigh, one keyed to tones of ‘oh my god, do I really have to spell this out,” exasperation. He was just racking up the bonus points here. It was really too bad this wasn’t an actual competition he could actually win and this was all just pettiness taking place wholly in his own head. Lame. 

“Well, clearly we now have to go snoop in Madison’s house aka lair to see if its actually a house or a full on lair. Because she’s either a creeper or like, legit evil, and its important to know which one before we proceed, because obviously we can only bust her for being a weird creeper about our brother as Jason and Cass, whereas if she’s legit evil, that’s gotta go down as Robin and Black Bat. I’ll handle the snooping, you’ll take look-out, but we still need a wheelman and that’s why I’m texting Tom. This is all very mission-oriented, okay. I’m a professional.”

“Right,” she affirmed, while sounding anything but convinced. “Why don’t we just tell Bruce?”

Without looking up or breaking stride, he said: “I’m going to give you til I finish typing this sentence to figure out what was wrong with what you just said. Remember that we are talking about hypothetical danger to our brother, and also Bruce’s idea of a proportionate response to any of his children being in even hypothetical danger. And also our brother’s idea of a proportionate response to Bruce’s idea of a proportionate response. Look, you’re still new so I’m gonna need you to just trust me on this one. Its gonna be a no on telling Bruce without further intel.”

Cass said nothing in response to that, which meant that she was conceding the point and recognized the wisdom of his words. Or maybe that she was just gonna go ahead and do what she wanted anyway and just wasn’t bothering to fight about it, but it was probably that first thing.

“Well you better not just make out with your boyfriend all night,” is what she said at last, and that got his attention reeeeeal quick like.

“Umm. Wow. Okay. So, first off, you’re not the boss of me and who I make out with and when, so jot that down. And second, now I’m definitely going to make out with my boyfriend extra hard, with the exception of when we are actually on our recon mission because as previously established, I am a professional. And also, again, you’re not the boss of me.”

Jason ignored her Eye Roll With Extra Emphasis, and instead just held up his phone to Text With Extra Emphasis, as he read along with what he was typing.

“By the way babe, we have to make out extra hard tonight,” he said, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth while he dragged out his dictation with the kind of focus that usually led to Bruce asking why he couldn’t apply as much intensity to training as he did to pettiness. “Cass has suddenly decided she can dictate terms to me and I need to shut that shit down ASAP, so thank you in advance for your assistance in this matter. Smoochies and other gay stuff to the best boyfriend ever.”

Jason frowned as a response pinged back seconds later. 

TheCatsMeow: ....the things I put up with for the sake of your weird family dynamics.

TheOnlyRobinThatRocks: Yeah, yeah. You’re a saint among were-panthers. Must you mock? Why can’t you just tell me I’m pretty instead?

TheCatsMeow: Sorry. Let me try again. OMG you’re so pretty Jase how did I get so lucky xoxo.

TheOnlyRobinThatRocks: No. Its too late. It feels forced and unbelievable now. You’ve ruined it forever.

TheCatsMeow: Got it. From now on I will only tell you that you’re repulsive and hideous.

TheOnlyRobinThatRocks: I’m breaking up with you.

TheCatsMeow: But after I help you with your mission tonight.

TheOnlyRobinThatRocks: Obvsly. I’m a professional. Why do people keep forgetting this?

TheCatsMeow: And also the making out to spite your sister.

TheOnlyRobinThatRocks: Yeah we should do that first too. I mean we already penciled it in.

[zenlesszonezero]