#any last words? [sixty threads] | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

clementineinn · 1 month ago

Text

call me on the line

abstract: when the BAU investigates a string of disappearances in the forgotten logging town of Stillwater, Washington, two agents are sent to question a possible lead — deep in the woods, where a storm is rising, and the line between hunter and hunted begins to blur.

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader (usage of Y/N)

genre: angst / fluff

word count: deadass, you don't want to know. but it's long.

note: did i make this longer than it had to be? 1,000 percent yes. but finals are lowk kicking my ass so i let myself just go off on this. writing angst is kind of hard for me bc i love fluff, so if it's cringe SORRY LOL. also, it's not really proofread so, ignore any misspelled words. enjoy :)

The case had the air of something unfinished. Not cold, exactly—but quiet. Unsettling.

Stillwater, Washington wasn’t a town you stumbled into—it was a place you had to mean to find. Tucked between jagged peaks and black-needled evergreens, the logging town had once thrived on sawdust and sweat, its heartbeat synced to the drone of machinery and the scent of fresh-cut pine. But that was decades ago. Now the mills were silent, the tracks rusted over. Paint peeled in long, curling strips from shuttered storefronts, and hand-painted For Sale signs clung stubbornly to rotting fences.

It had the kind of quiet that didn’t feel peaceful.

It felt like watching eyes. Like a breath held just behind the trees.

Four disappearances in under eight weeks hadn’t made it past the usual bureaucratic filters—until one of them had a last name that opened doors. The niece of the mayor had vanished without a trace, and the calls went higher. Stillwater finally showed up on someone’s desk. That’s when the Bureau had been called in.

Now, the BAU team was crowded into the back room of the sheriff’s office, where the walls were stained an old tobacco yellow and a ceiling fan turned in slow, listless circles overhead. The air smelled of mildew, old paper, and coffee gone to burn.

A radio crackled somewhere in the front office, too far away to catch words. The rain had picked up again—sharp now, rhythmic, like fingernails tapping against the tin roof. It filled the silences between breaths, between theories.

A map of Stillwater was pinned to the far wall, dotted with pushpins and red-thread lines. Property boundaries faded at the edges, roads narrowing into nothing. The forest swallowed everything beyond a certain point.

And that’s where they were headed.

Soon.

Hotch stood at the front of the room, arms crossed, jaw tight. He didn’t like unknowns. Didn’t like how much of the town seemed to exist in whispers and folklore.

Reid’s fingers moved restlessly against the file in his lap, flipping pages he’d already memorized. Morgan leaned against a cabinet, the tension in his shoulders more visible than he thought. Emily paced, silent, her boots creaking on warped linoleum.

And Y/N sat still—too still—in the corner, her gaze fixed on the map, brows furrowed just slightly. As if she’d already seen something there the rest hadn’t.

“We’re working on the assumption that the unsub is someone local,” Hotch said, voice low but unwavering, the kind of tone that cut clean through the hum of bad coffee machines and rain-heavy silence. His hand swept across the makeshift evidence board—grainy photos, hand-drawn maps, weather-stained documents clipped under yellowing light. “None of the victims traveled far from home. No forced entry, no signs of struggle. Whoever this is… they’re moving through the cracks. Operating in the blind spots.”

The storm outside clawed at the edges of the sheriff’s office, wind rattling the single-pane windows. Fluorescent lights buzzed faintly overhead.

Garcia’s voice crackled over the speakerphone, the brightness of her tone oddly eerie against the static interference from the rain: “I did some digging on anyone who might’ve had a reason to watch those woods closely, and a name came up—Walter Massey. Sixty-eight, retired forest ranger, lives alone near Deadman’s Ridge. He filed multiple complaints with Fish and Wildlife about unregistered hunting trails about three weeks before the first disappearance. That’s a breadcrumb if I’ve ever seen one.”

JJ flipped open a manila folder, brows furrowed. “Massey was also the last confirmed person to speak with one of the missing women. No phone record, but she was seen heading in his direction on a convenience store camera the day she vanished.”

“He has a cabin out past the old ridge road,” she added. “Next nearest neighbor is two miles downhill. Closest cell reception’s even farther.”

Emily leaned forward, arms crossed. “Could be nothing. He could’ve just seen something—or someone—he didn’t know how to explain. Or he might be too scared to come forward.”

“Or he’s a link to someone who is,” Rossi muttered, eyes never leaving the board.

Hotch gave a tight nod, arms crossed as his gaze swept the photos pinned to the board, then flicked toward the map spread across the center table. The rain outside hammered the windows in steady rhythm, underscoring every word.

“Either way, we talk to him,” he said. “Quietly. No flashing badges. No tactical presence. If Massey’s involved, we don’t want him running. If he’s just a frightened old man…” His jaw tightened. “We don’t want him shutting down.”

He turned, addressing the team with that low, clipped authority that didn’t invite questions — just motion.

“Emily, JJ — keep working the geographical profile. Focus on any repeat paths near Deadman’s Ridge. If he’s stalking the victims beforehand, he’s walking terrain he knows.”

He looked next to Morgan. “Coordinate with the sheriff. I want a list of locals with military backgrounds and hunting violations within the last ten years. Start with rangers. Forestry. Anyone who knows the woods well enough to vanish inside them.”

Then Hotch turned back to the table. To Spencer—then Y/N beside him.

“You two take the Massey interview.”

Spencer straightened slightly, nodding once. Y/N didn’t move, but her posture shifted — alert, coiled like she was already halfway in the field. The weight of the assignment passed between them like a silent current.

Hotch’s gaze lingered a beat longer. “No pressure. Just a conversation. If anything feels off, you pull back. Clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Y/N said, steady.

The room moved around them again — chairs scraping, files opening, murmured replies. But Spencer only glanced sideways, eyes catching hers just briefly.

No pressure.

Just a cabin in the woods.

Spencer dipped his head in a silent nod, already flipping the page in his notebook, though his hand paused briefly on the paper in front of him—just for a second, a flicker of tension behind his eyes.

Not fear. Just the quiet knowledge that something about this wasn’t sitting right.

But Y/N didn’t say anything. Just squared her shoulders, voice level. “We’ll head out now.”

Spencer glanced at her as they rose—catching that flicker again. Just long enough to feel it echo.

Morgan leaned forward in his chair, the legs creaking faintly beneath him. His arms were folded tight across his chest, the sleeves of his jacket pushed up just enough to show the tension in his forearms. Rain hammered the roof above them in steady pulses, the storm pressing harder against the windows with every gust.

“That cabin’s deep,” he said, voice rough around the edges. “Trees out there are old. Thick. Signal won’t last long once you hit the ridgeline.”

He wasn’t scaremongering, just stating facts. The kind of facts that only came from years of walking into places no one came back from easily.

“We’ll stay in range,” Spencer said, nodding as he adjusted the settings on the handheld GPS unit. The small screen flickered in the dim light.

But Morgan didn’t answer right away. His eyes drifted, settling on Y/N.

He dropped his voice.

“Just… be careful out there,” he said.

There wasn’t a joke in it. No usual smirk. Just a quiet weight, something steady and weather-worn, like he’d seen too many people walk into places like this thinking they were fine—until they weren’t.

His gaze held hers.

“This feels like the kind of case that turns on you when you stop looking.”

For a moment, the room fell quiet but for the scratch of JJ’s pen and the whisper of the storm.

Y/N tried for a smile, soft and crooked. One corner of her mouth lifted just enough to pass for ease.

“You always say that.”

“Because it’s always true.”

Morgan stepped closer, his boots quiet on the worn linoleum. He stopped just beside her, voice dropping low—meant only for her and Spencer.

“I know you like to play calm,” he murmured. “But you don’t have to prove anything. Not to us. Just come back in one piece.”

Y/N blinked—slow, measured. For a second, her eyes flicked away.

And then, true to form, she bumped his elbow gently with hers.

“You’re getting soft on me, Morgan.”

He snorted under his breath. “You wish.”

They shared a look—mocking on the surface, playful even—but there was something else beneath it. Something older than the case, older than the moment. Trust carved out of too many nights watching each other’s backs in godforsaken places.

Morgan stepped back. Spencer shifted beside her, glancing down at the map again.

Hotch handed over the file without ceremony, the folder already creased at the edges from too many hands. His expression didn’t shift—still carved in quiet stone—but there was something in the way his eyes held theirs, a flicker of weight that went unsaid.

“According to county records,” he said, his voice low and even over the soft rumble of rain, “Massey’s property has one road in.”

Y/N took the folder, her fingers brushing briefly against Spencer’s as he leaned in to glance at the top page. The map was crude. Hand-drawn annotations. The kind that didn’t inspire confidence.

Hotch continued. “Narrow. Gravel. Unmaintained.”

He looked to them both.

“Use the Jeep.”

There was no room for argument in his tone—only the practiced cadence of someone who’d seen too many search parties stall because the wrong car bottomed out before the trailhead.

The overhead lights flickered once as the storm deepened, shadows slanting across the faded floorboards. Y/N gave a single nod, sharp and controlled, and tucked the file under her arm. Spencer followed, the weight of the assignment already settling between them like mist.

One road in. No promises about getting back out.

Y/N zipped her coat — a tailored dove-gray trench that framed her silhouette like it had been made for her. The collar stood slightly askew, catching the light with the faintest sheen of rain-soft wool. Beneath it, a blouse in the softest shade of lilac peeked through — silk, high-necked, and delicately ruched at the shoulders. It tucked seamlessly into crisp white slacks, expertly pressed, the hem brushing just above pale suede boots that clicked softly on the concrete floor.

She looked like she belonged in a courtroom or a gallery opening — not a muddy precinct hallway. But somehow, she always managed both. A study in contrast. Formidable. Graceful.

Spencer watched as she lifted her arms and swept her hair back — slow, efficient, thoughtless in its elegance. Her fingers worked easily, pulling the strands into a low knot at the base of her skull. Her hair, even when gathered, fell in wispy waves around the edges. Loose strands curled around her ears, temple, neck — impossibly soft, like the inside of a flower petal.

One wisp curled across her cheek, fine as a brushstroke, and rested just at the edge of her lips.

He couldn’t help it — he stared.

Not inappropriately. Just quietly. Like his eyes couldn’t quite let go.

He desperately wanted to reach out and tuck that loose strand behind her ear — the one that danced every time she turned her head, feather-light against the curve of her cheek. It would’ve taken barely a movement. Just two fingers. A breath of courage.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he swallowed the impulse, let the ache lodge quietly beneath his ribs, and cleared his throat like it might shake something loose.

His eyes dropped back to the map in his hands — too fast, too pointed — as if they hadn’t just been tracing the delicate fall of her hair, the light pooling in it like water catching sun.

As if he hadn’t almost reached for her at all.

Then, against his better judgment — against the quiet thrum of logic that always tried to keep him grounded — he looked up again.

Just for a second.

But it was enough.

The curve of her jaw, the way her lashes kissed the top of her cheekbone when she glanced down, the almost imperceptible rise and fall of her shoulders as she settled her coat more squarely around them — he took it all in like a man starved for something he couldn’t name.

There was a steadiness to her, a kind of elegant gravity that drew his gaze whether he meant to or not. She didn’t just walk into a room — she inhabited it, quiet but certain, the way a candle settles into flame.

And for a breath — a single, weightless breath — he let himself look.

Y/N caught the movement, just barely.

Her eyes flicked toward him — not sharp, not teasing, but knowing. A soft glance, almost accidental, that met his and held it just long enough to say I saw that.

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to.

Instead, she turned her head, adjusting her holster with practiced precision, her expression smoothing into something steady and composed.

The moment passed. Filed away between them.

Then it was gone — smoothed over with the practiced ease of someone who knew when to draw the line between charm and duty.

Her voice cut cleanly through the low hum of the room—measured, even, with just enough lift to draw attention without sounding urgent.

“Anything else we should know?”

Y/N didn’t look directly at anyone in particular, though her question angled toward Hotch. Her posture remained composed, the press of her palm against the grip of her holster casual but intentional—like muscle memory. Her other hand smoothed a slight crease in her light wool coat, the pale fabric catching dull gold light beneath the ceiling fan’s slow, uneven spin.

Garcia’s voice crackled over the line, bright and tinny through the static. “Only that Massey hasn’t answered his landline in over a week — but that’s not exactly uncommon. He’s more tree than man at this point.”

There was a short pause. A raindrop struck the window with a hollow tap.

Y/N’s brow arched, mouth quirking—not a full smile, but enough to show she was still listening, still present.

“Excellent,” she murmured, deadpan.

The room shifted faintly around her—Morgan exhaling through his nose, Emily’s mouth twitching in restraint. Spencer glanced at her, caught between fondness and concern, but she was already sliding the safety of her sidearm back into place. Calm. Professional. Sardonic, even when the air was thick with something heavier.

The storm outside groaned louder. But Y/N just reached for her coat collar and adjusted it with a practiced flick, already moving.

Spencer tucked the folder under his arm and followed her out into the drizzle. The air was sharp with the smell of pine needles and wet earth. Cold enough to sting, not enough to snow.

Y/N moved ahead of him without a word, boots scuffing lightly against the wet pavement, keys already in hand. Her coat caught the wind as she moved, the hem lifting just slightly before falling back in place. Her hair, still pinned into a smooth low knot, gleamed faintly under the lot’s overhead lights, rain-softened tendrils escaping to cling along her cheek and temple.

The Jeep door gave a low creak as she swung into the driver’s seat, motion fluid, practiced. She adjusted the mirrors like she’d done it a hundred times before, fingers moving with quiet assurance, sleeves pushed up just far enough to reveal a thin silver bracelet at her wrist — the only bit of ornamentation she ever wore in the field.

Spencer slid into the passenger seat, his coat damp where it clung to his shoulders. The door closed behind him with a muted thud. Inside, the air felt still. Sheltered. The faint scent of lavender and leather and coffee grounds clung to the cab like memory.

He glanced sideways.

Y/N was buckling her seatbelt one-handed, the other brushing droplets of rain from the cuff of her sleeve. Her jaw was set, lashes still wet, the curve of her mouth unreadable as she turned the key in the ignition. The engine rumbled to life, a low, steady purr beneath them.

Outside, the trees swayed against a sky that hadn’t quite let go of the storm.

Spencer’s voice came quiet. Careful. “Think he’ll talk?”

Y/N didn’t answer right away. Her hand turned the key, and the engine stirred to life beneath them — a low, steady rumble that filled the hush like a second heartbeat. Her gaze lingered on the road ahead, eyes narrowing slightly as the rain skated across the windshield in whispering arcs.

And then — something softer.

She glanced over at him.

Spencer sat with one hand loosely curled in his lap, the other resting near the passenger-side door. His coat — charcoal gray, collar turned up just slightly from the weather — was still damp around the shoulders, drops clinging like glass beads to the fabric. A soft blue oxford peeked from beneath, the edge of his tie tucked neatly down, a shade somewhere between plum and midnight.

His hair was drying in unruly curls, the kind that always sprang free no matter how many times he tried to flatten them with nervous fingers. One lock in particular hung just above his brow — curled and dark and boyish in a way that made her heart catch for reasons she didn’t often name.

But it was his face she lingered on.

The angle of his jaw — elegant, sloped like a sculpture just slightly unfinished. High cheekbones flushed faintly from the cold. His skin, pale but not sickly, with the kind of delicate texture that caught every shadow and turned it poetic.

And his throat — she didn’t know why that part always struck her — but the long, clean column of it moved as he swallowed, Adam’s apple shifting subtly under skin. A tension there. A thought not yet spoken.

Then his eyes — always his eyes.

That soft, impossible shade: somewhere between warm hazel and the color of honey in shadow. Eyes that could go wide with childlike wonder one second, and dark with knowledge the next. Now, they watched her carefully, the way he always did — not intrusive, not pressing. Just waiting. Open.

Still, she didn’t answer.

Just studied him in the silence, her fingers unconsciously tightening around the steering wheel like they were holding something else in place.

And then — she smiled. Just a little. Just to herself.

“If he’s who we think he is? Yeah,” Y/N said, her voice steady — not clipped this time, but level. Assured, because Spencer had asked.

She didn’t take her eyes off the road — it was narrowing now, damp earth darkened by the rain, pines arching overhead like ribs. But she glanced his way just enough to let him know she was listening. That she always did.

Then her hands tightened slightly on the wheel — not fear, but anticipation. Her shoulders didn’t tense, but something in her posture shifted. Focused. Alert.

“But if something’s off out there,” she added, “we’ll feel it before it hits.”

She paused, only long enough to exhale — a breath that filled the space where silence might’ve gone. Then she continued, voice lower now, but still laced with that dry, familiar wit he’d come to memorize.

“And we’ll deal with it. Like we always do.”

Spencer glanced sideways at her. The road curved ahead, shadows crowding the edge of the tree line, but her expression hadn’t changed. Calm. Sharp. The kind of calm you could lean on if the world cracked in half.

He didn’t respond right away — didn’t need to. She’d already answered the part of him that hadn’t made it into words.

Then she added, almost too casually, “And if I get shot, I’m haunting this Jeep. You’re never playing jazz in here again.”

Spencer glanced over at her, brow raised. “I don’t play jazz.”

“Exactly,” she said, with a little smirk. “It’d be a tragedy. Think of the acoustics.”

He let the corner of his mouth twitch, but the worry didn’t leave his eyes. “Don’t say that,” he said softly. “I worry about you.”

Her smile flickered, just for a heartbeat.

Then, without looking, she reached over and gave his knee a gentle squeeze — not quick, not rushed, just soft and familiar, like it was second nature. “You’re cute when you’re concerned. All furrowed brows and fidgety hands.”

Spencer blinked.

Twice.

And then sat up just a little straighter in his seat, hands fidgeting with the folder in his lap as though the paper had suddenly become very complicated.

“I—uh,” he started, clearing his throat like it might help him form a coherent sentence. “I don’t… do that. Exactly.”

But his ears told a different story — the pink rising fast beneath the ends of his hair, climbing like a confession he couldn’t quite swallow.

Y/N didn’t look over, but the corner of her mouth curved just slightly knowingly.

Outside, the trees loomed closer—still and watchful.

Inside the Jeep, the air was warmer. Charged. Quiet.

Not safe, but close.

The tires crunched over gravel as they pulled away from the sheriff’s station, the sound sharp and hollow beneath the growing hush of the woods. The world beyond the windshield blurred in shades of green and gray—fir branches heavy with rain, trunks slick with moss and time. Water clung to the windows in thin, trembling streaks, catching light like veins of glass.

Y/N kept one hand steady on the wheel, the other shifting gears with a smooth, practiced touch. Her eyes were fixed ahead—alert, but calm. The low clouds muted the light across her features, softening the curve of her jaw, casting pale shadows beneath her cheekbones. Again, a single strand of hair had slipped loose from behind her ear, curling along her temple, but still, she didn’t seem to notice.

Spencer watched her in that quiet way he always did, half out of habit, half out of awe. The shape of her profile had become familiar in the way only long hours and quiet car rides could make it — the slope of her nose, the way her mouth twitched slightly when she was thinking, the calm stillness she wore like armor.

She looked relaxed. Or—she had, until the forest deepened and the gravel began to thin beneath them.

It was subtle. Barely there.

But Spencer always noticed when it came to Y/N.

He noticed when she was happy, when her laughter hit a little higher in her chest. He noticed when she was tired, the way she rubbed at her temple with the back of her hand. And he noticed now—how her fingers tightened just slightly around the steering wheel. Not tense, not afraid. Just anchoring.

Her shoulders had crept a little higher, her posture shifting with the faintest trace of something coiled. Her breathing changed too—not loud, not shaky, but quieter. Calibrated.

Her eyes flicked toward the blur of evergreens passing the window, landing on something between the trees that he couldn’t see—but she could. Her jaw had settled tighter, not clenched exactly. Just bracing.

And that was all it took.

Spencer’s gaze didn’t leave her. He didn’t ask yet. Didn’t press. But he knew her. Every mood. Every flicker of emotion she didn’t want to show.

He didn’t say anything at first. Just watched her from the corner of his eye as they bumped along the narrowing road, the Jeep swaying gently with each dip and rise.

The forest pressed in thicker now—trunks close, shadows dense, branches arcing overhead like a tunnel built from dusk. The sky had dimmed to a washed-out gray-blue, streaked with low, restless clouds. The kind of light that made everything look slightly unreal. Suspended.

Beside him, Y/N’s focus hadn’t wavered. But he could see the change in her.

He’d watched her do this a dozen times before—lock herself in, pull steady, stay quiet. And once, not so long ago, she’d noticed it in him.

Had reached over and tried to pull him back to center with nothing more than a quiet touch and a crooked smile.

Now he did the same.

As they rounded a bend and the cabin finally came into view—half-shadowed, still, like a smear of darkness at the end of the trail—Spencer reached over.

His hand settled on her knee. Gently. Warm and steady through the soft fabric of her pale slacks.

He didn’t say anything. Just let the contact speak.

She blinked, just once, and turned her head slightly toward him. Not enough to take her eyes off the road — just enough for him to see the flicker of surprise soften into something smaller. Something quiet.

“You okay?” he asked, voice low. Careful.

Her answer came after a beat — a breath. She nodded once and offered him a smile. Easy, almost light.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Probably just cold.”

But it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

And he knew her well enough to see it. The way she carried unease like a private secret — tucked neatly beneath her professionalism, beneath the steady hands and quiet confidence. He gave her knee the faintest squeeze, then let his hand fall back to his lap.

She didn’t say anything else. Just kept her eyes on the road, that smile fading to something quieter. More thoughtful.

When they finally reached the property, it emerged without warning — a jagged clearing carved into the forest like a scar, sudden and jarring beneath the darkening sky. The last sliver of daylight had already given up the fight, swallowed by the storm clouds pressing low and mean above the trees. What little light remained was the dull, coppered sheen of dying sun behind a curtain of gray, thickening by the minute as the rain picked up again — steady, cold, and relentless.

The cabin sat hunched in the middle of the clearing like it was trying to disappear into itself. Sagging at the roofline, its edges blurred in the mist, it didn’t look like it had been built so much as abandoned mid-thought and left to rot. Water streaked down the wood siding, gray and splintered, veins of moss threading between the boards like old scars. Shingles peeled from the roof like curling bark, flapping weakly in the wind. Ivy clung to one side of the structure, wet and slick, gripping like desperate fingers.

A rusted pickup truck leaned just off the gravel, half-sunk into the earth. One tire had collapsed entirely, and the windshield was filmed with grime. Moss clung thick across the hood, glinting damp in the half-light. The rear bumper was hanging loose, barely attached. An old blue tarp lay crumpled nearby, water pooling in its folds, its color leeched pale as bone.

Near the porch stood a battered rain barrel, the metal sides dented inward like something had struck it hard once and never cared to fix it. It was brim-full with black water, still and viscous. Leaves floated on the surface, already turning to pulp.

The porch itself looked no better. Boards bowed and cracked under years of rot, the whole frame tilting just enough to be unsettling. A mesh screen door hung half-off its hinges, the bottom corner torn, tapping irregularly in the wind like a slow, reluctant metronome. Thunder growled somewhere in the distance, low and constant.

Inside, the windows showed nothing. No movement. No glow. Just pale curtains stirring faintly — or maybe not at all — behind glass long gone cloudy. It didn’t feel empty.

It felt like it was waiting.

And the storm, as if answering that silent promise, surged harder around them — wind pressing against the car, the trees creaking in warning.

Y/N eased the Jeep to a stop, the tires crunching softly over damp gravel. Her hand slipped from the wheel and dropped into her lap, slow and deliberate, like something inside her had stalled with it.

She didn’t move.

Didn’t blink.

Her eyes were fixed on the cabin just ahead—at the crooked front steps, the sagging roofline, the stillness that pressed against the windows like a held breath.

Spencer looked at her, not the house.

“You’re quiet,” he said gently. “What, nothing smart to say about the murder shack in the woods?”

That earned him a ghost of a smile.

But it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

She inhaled slowly, eyes still on the porch.

“I don’t know,” she murmured. “Something just feels… off.”

The wind moved through the trees then — not in a rush, but in a long, drawn-out exhale. It slipped between the trunks of the evergreens like a ghost, brushing needles aside with soundless fingers. It twisted around the Jeep in thin, spectral threads, pressing against the windows like it was trying to peer inside. A shiver of motion stirred the underbrush and carried the scent of rain-drenched soil and wood gone soft with rot.

It wasn’t stillness. Not really. It was silence with intent. A hush that hummed with something just beneath it — like the forest itself had stopped to listen.

Spencer felt it in the hollow beneath his ribs. A pressure that wasn’t pain, but wasn’t peace either. He shifted slightly in his seat, hand hovering near the door handle, fingers flexing once before curling tight. His eyes lingered on her — not the cabin. Never the cabin.

Y/N sat rigid in the driver’s seat, posture straight, every line of her body coiled with purpose. The faint light through the windshield brushed her features in silver — sharp across the line of her cheek, soft at the curve of her jaw. Her gaze had narrowed. Not alarmed. Just focused. Sharpened.

She felt it too.

Then, without a word, she moved.

The door creaked open, the sound swallowed almost instantly by the hush outside. The cabin lights flickered and died as the wind caught the door’s edge and pulled it wider — a breathless kind of opening. She stepped out with quiet precision, boots meeting the soft, saturated forest floor and sinking half a step into moss and old needles. Her coat flared slightly behind her in the gust, dark fabric whipping once around her legs before settling. Her hand slipped beneath the lapel of her blazer, fingers brushing the grip of her weapon — not drawn, but near.

The air around them felt dense. Drenched. Cold enough to cling to the skin.

Spencer followed, slower. The door closed behind him with a quiet thud, more final than it had any right to be. He slipped the GPS into the inner pocket of his coat, his fingers pale at the edges from how tight they gripped it. His eyes moved over the clearing with care — from the twisted vines along the base of the trees, to the rust-streaked pickup hunched by the treeline, to the warped wooden steps that led to the cabin.

Each one sagged with age, dark with moisture and furred in places with moss. The porch looked as if it would groan beneath a whisper of weight.

The clearing was still — painfully so.

No birdsong. No snap of twigs. Not even the distant hum of insects.

Just the soft rattle of the mesh screen door, its bottom corner torn, banging irregularly against the frame like a warning. The solid door behind it stood shut.

Unmoved. Unreadable.

Faded paint curled from the panels, flaking like dry skin, as if the house was trying to peel itself away from whatever lingered behind it.

And above it all — the clouds pressed heavier. Storm-wet. Thunder rolled low and slow in the distance like something circling. Watching and waiting.

Spencer stepped up beside her. Neither of them spoke.

But both of them felt it.

“Walter Massey?” Y/N called out, her tone firm but even, just loud enough to carry through the trees. “This is Agent Y/L/N with the FBI. I’m here with my partner, Dr. Spencer Reid. We just want to ask you a few questions.”

Nothing.

No footsteps creaking across old floorboards. No shadow shifting behind the warped lace of the curtains.

No sound at all—except the wind.

It threaded through the trees like a murmured secret, brushing past the cabin with delicate, eerie intent. A breath against the siding. A whisper through the loose gutter. It rustled pine boughs and dead leaves on the porch in soft, spiraling motions—as if it knew something they didn’t. As if it had been waiting for this.

The mesh screen door swayed once, clicking faintly against the wood. Beyond it, the heavy main door stood silent and still, paint cracked in jagged lines like old scars. Just watching.

Spencer stepped up beside her, frowning as he scanned the shadowed windows. “Maybe he’s around back,” he said, though the uncertainty in his voice gave him away.

Y/N called out again, projecting just enough to reach through the stillness.

“Mr. Massey? We’re not here to arrest you. We just need to speak with you. If you’re inside, could you come to the door?”

Silence.

Not the kind that felt accidental.

The kind that felt chosen.

Y/N glanced at Spencer, then eased the screen door open with the back of her hand, careful not to smudge the handle. The hinges creaked softly, the sound swallowed by the mist-thick air.

Spencer stepped up beside her, eyes scanning the porch, the roofline, the stillness pressed into every crack of the old wood.

“This doesn’t feel right,” he murmured.

Y/N gave a small nod, more to herself than to him, her hand tightening instinctively around the grip of her gun.

With a sharp breath, she drew her weapon—fluid, practiced, no hesitation—but her posture shifted in a way Spencer rarely saw. Not just alert. Guarded. Protective.

She stepped in front of him before he could speak, placing her body squarely between him and the door. One hand briefly touched his chest—not forceful, just enough pressure to guide him back. Her fingers lingered there for a beat too long.

It wasn’t protocol.

“I’ll take point,” she said, voice low and steady, but softer than usual. “You stay behind me.”

She didn’t turn to look at him, but she didn’t need to. The tension in her shoulders said it all. The subtle tremor in her breath. The way her body shifted like a shield between him and whatever was waiting inside.

She joked a lot. Always had.

But not now.

Now, she was dead quiet.

And she was ready to take the hit before it ever got to him.

Spencer opened his mouth—maybe to argue, maybe to offer something else—but the set of her jaw made him pause.

He just nodded—once, tightly. The motion small, but sure. There was a gravity to it. The kind that came from knowing there was no turning back.

His hand brushed against the fabric of her sleeve as he stepped forward, barely a touch—but enough to tether him to the moment, to her.

And then he followed.

Whatever was waiting inside the cabin had already started listening. There was a gravity to it. The kind that came from knowing there was no turning back.

Y/N stepped ahead, boots pressing softly into the damp wood of the porch, her body angled with trained precision. The mesh screen door creaked as she eased it further back, and in the same breath, her hand came up — steady, firm — guiding the barrel of her gun to the door’s edge.

The main door gave way with a low groan. Wood strained against rusted hinges as it swung open, slow and grudging, like the house itself was reluctant to let them in.

It wasn’t locked.

That alone rooted something cold and shapeless in the pit of her stomach — a sense that curled low and tight behind her ribs.

Spencer felt it too. He didn’t have to say it.

Cabins like this didn’t stay unlocked. Not in towns like Stillwater. Not with four people missing.

The door swung inward on a breath of cold air, and immediately, the smell hit her.

Pinewood, sharp and resinous—what should have been comforting—but laced now with something metallic and wet. The bitter, iron-wrought scent of something that had bled too long into the floorboards.

And beneath that, something older.

A rot that didn’t belong to nature. Stale carpet. Damp mold. The cloying, sour note of a refrigerator long left without power. It wrapped around them like old breath, like something exhaled by a house that hadn’t seen life in weeks—but still remembered the shape of it.

Y/N stepped inside first, every footfall deliberate. The floor creaked beneath her boots, the sound echoing too loud in a space that felt like it had been holding its breath.

The air was thick. Heavy. It clung to her coat, her skin, the back of her tongue. Wrong. Not empty or abandoned. Just waiting.

Y/N slipped through the doorway first, silent as a shadow, her weapon raised and steady. Her eyes swept left to right in quick, surgical passes, cataloguing the space in layers. The sharp angles of furniture. The thin shaft of gray light cutting through a crack in the boarded window. Dust spiraling in the beam like falling ash.

Her body stayed close to the wall, a breath away from the peeling paneling, boots placed with deliberate care on the worn floorboards to avoid giving herself away.

Spencer followed, just behind her—close enough to match her rhythm, but not close enough to disrupt her line of movement. His hand hovered near the grip of his firearm, fingers curled just shy of drawing it, every nerve thrumming with silent urgency. The weight of the weapon was grounding, familiar—but the air around him felt anything but. Cold. Pressurized. Like the storm outside had seeped in through the walls and settled beneath his skin. The air inside the cabin was colder than it had any right to be, clinging damply to his skin, to his throat. Like the house had its own lungs and was breathing around them.

A small table lay overturned just inside the entryway, its legs twisted at awkward angles like they’d been kicked or dropped. Two mugs lay beside it—one intact, the other shattered into a fan of ceramic shards, edges dulled by dust. Liquid long since dried had stained the floor beneath them a dark, reddish-brown. It wasn’t blood. It might’ve been tea. But it looked like a spill no one had cleaned up; like someone had planned to and then never got the chance.

Spencer crouched for a closer look, fingers tracing the uneven trail of footprints smeared into the dirt between the broken pieces.

“This wasn’t recent,” he whispered. His voice barely carried, but it pressed into Y/N’s spine all the same.

She didn’t answer. Just nodded once, jaw set tight.

They moved forward together—past the narrow hallway, where the faded wallpaper had begun to peel at the edges, curling like old parchment. The floor creaked beneath their weight, long and low, like something waking up beneath them.

They entered the den.

It was darker here. The light didn’t reach as far. The room felt sunken somehow, like the cabin had settled too deep into the earth. The ceiling sloped low above them, pressing down like a held breath.

Hunting gear lined the walls—bows, empty gun racks, a mounted buck’s head with glassy, dust-covered eyes. The fireplace beneath it was cold and lifeless, filled with half-burnt logs and ash long gone damp. A copper kettle sat off to the side, untouched.

Everything was covered in a fine layer of dust.

Except for one thing.

A single trail of muddy boot prints.

They cut across the wooden floor—messy, staggered, the pattern uneven. They led toward the far archway where the kitchen opened up, shadowed and still.

Spencer’s eyes tracked the prints. Something about the weight distribution was wrong. The left boot dragged just slightly. A limp?

Y/N moved ahead, muzzle of her gun rising with each slow step.

Then—

A crash. Not loud. Sharp. Sudden.

Metal against wood. The sound of something falling, something moving.

Then silence.

A birdshot of adrenaline spiked through Spencer’s chest. Y/N whipped her gun toward the sound, shoulders tight, finger ghosting the trigger.

They both froze.

In the stillness, every sound grew louder: the tick of something dripping in the next room, the groan of the wind outside, the faint electrical buzz of a dying bulb overhead.

Spencer’s breath caught.

Then—a door slammed open.

Hard.

The edge of it cracked into Y/N’s temple with a sickening thud, sending her stumbling backward into the wall. Her head snapped sideways, blood already welling where the wood had split her skin. The world tilted around her—sharp and white-hot—but she didn’t fall.

She didn’t even hesitate.

Her body jerked forward on instinct, staggering back into the hallway, gun half-raised, breath heaving, vision already blurring around the edges.

That’s when he came.

The figure burst from the bedroom like a wrecking force—tall, gaunt, clothes hanging loose over sharp shoulders, eyes blown wide with manic rage. A shotgun was clutched in both hands, its muzzle swinging like a compass needle toward chaos.

Y/N threw herself forward, arm reaching toward Spencer—

But she was a second too late.

The butt of the shotgun slammed into the side of Spencer’s head, full force, a brutal crack of bone on bone.

His body crumpled immediately, knees buckling. He collapsed in a heap beside her, eyes glassy, breath shuddering.

“Spence—!” Y/N shouted, the sound strangled by pain, voice cracking through the cabin like a whip, raw and full of alarm.

Her gun was up in a breath.

The motion was smooth—reflex, born from training and repetition—but what followed was anything but automatic.

The world sharpened around her. The air seemed to crystallize. Every sound pulled inward: the creak of wood beneath shifting weight, the faint tick of the cabin cooling in the silence, the whisper of breath between her teeth.

And then—Spencer, on the floor.

Still.

The sight knocked the air from her lungs.

Blood curled from the side of his head in a slow, serpentine trail — dark, too dark, in stark relief against the pale, fragile stretch of his skin. It traced the curve of his temple, threading through the fine strands of his hair before pooling at the edge of his jaw, where it soaked quietly into the collar of his shirt. The fabric was already turning crimson, blooming with it, blooming with him.

His lashes fluttered once.

Barely.

Then stilled again.

The room seemed to tilt. Or maybe that was her.

Her stomach dropped — a violent plunge, like the floor had disappeared beneath her feet. She could feel it then, the rise of something hot and nauseating in the back of her throat, clawing up as her eyes locked on the wound. It wasn’t just blood. It was his blood. Spencer’s.

And he wasn’t moving.

His face was slack — not peaceful, not asleep, just vacant. The faintest crease still lingered between his brows, like the pain had caught him mid-thought. There was something deeply wrong about it, about him lying there like that. Off-center. Unanchored. Dizzy, disoriented, even in stillness. Like someone had unplugged the world’s sharpest mind and left it flickering.

Her body locked down—every instinct bracing to protect, to react, to end this now.

Then the shotgun shifted.

The barrel snapped toward her chest with sudden, jolting force.

“Drop it!” the man barked, the words mangled and ragged—voice gone to gravel, each syllable trembling with something unstable. His lips curled back from his teeth, not in a snarl, but something worse—something uncertain, like he didn’t know if he was threatening or pleading.

His hands trembled around the shotgun stock—not from fear, but from how tightly he was clinging to control. The kind of trembling that came right before the trigger was pulled.

Y/N’s gaze didn’t waver.

Her arms held steady, the muzzle of her gun pointed square at his chest. Her breath slowed, deliberately measured, as if even the air between them might shift the balance.

She didn’t blink.

She took in everything: the angle of the barrel, the taut twitch of his jaw, the half-step he’d taken forward, the glint of something flickering in his eyes—resolve, maybe. Or desperation. There was no time. No room for fear. Only calculation. Only timing.

Her finger tightened over the trigger.

She could make the shot.

She was sure of it.

But Spencer was still down. And if she missed—if he flinched—if the recoil shifted his aim—

She didn’t lower the gun.

But she didn’t fire either.

The room held its breath with her.

The man shifted again—barely a step, but it was enough.

His boots scraped over the worn floorboards as he moved toward Spencer’s crumpled form, the barrel of the shotgun lowering, inch by inch, until it hovered just above Spencer’s head like a verdict already decided.

“One second longer,” the man growled, voice cracking like splintered wood, “and I’ll blow his fucking head off.”

Y/N didn’t move.

But something inside her shifted.

A full-body stillness snapped into place — not the poised quiet of control, but the rigid, sickened kind that hit when reality dropped too fast, too sharp. Her heart didn’t race. It slammed. Once. Hard. Then again. Every beat ringing in her ears like the tick of a detonator.

She had played this carefully, clinically — willing to risk herself, willing to bleed if it kept the attention off Spencer. She could take it. Had taken it. But this—

This was different.

Now it was him.

And the gun was angled down, close enough to his skull that she could see the reflection of blood in the barrel. Spencer lay curled against the warped floorboards, disoriented and dazed, his breath fogging faintly at the edge of the wood. His lashes fluttered. His mouth parted, like he was trying to speak but couldn’t find the thread of it. There was blood smeared along his hairline, drying now, catching in the curve of his ear and soaking down his collar. His pulse was there — visible, trembling in his throat. Too exposed. Too human.

The sight of it — him — nearly undid her.

Her whole body locked into place, a machine with too many variables flooding the system. Her brain calculated trajectories, angles, impact velocities. But no combination ended without risk to him. Every outcome cost him something— and that, she could not accept.

Her hands shook.

She could have made the shot if it were her life on the line. Could’ve gambled with her own ribs, her own skin. She’d taken worse. But not this. Not when it was his blood on the floor. Not when she’d promised — not him.

The weight of that promise settled in her arms like iron, and it took everything she had to keep from shaking apart beneath it.

Her throat burned. She swallowed against it.

And then, with a precision that felt like peeling skin from bone, she began to lower her weapon.

Inch by inch.

Slow.

Controlled.

Deliberate.

Her fingers ached as she loosened them from the grip. Her shoulders screamed with the effort it took to obey the moment’s demand.

Every cell in her body recoiled.

But she did it anyway.

“Alright,” Y/N said at last, her voice low, level—scraped clean of anything but clarity. Each word fell with weight, not surrender.

Her fingers loosened from the grip, slow and deliberate, knuckles pale as she uncurled them.

She didn’t drop the gun.

Instead, Y/N began to lower herself — inch by inch — until one knee touched the warped wooden floor. The boards creaked beneath her weight, the sound barely more than a breath. Her hands moved with careful precision, every motion telegraphed and measured.

She set the gun down flat on the floor. Not a toss. Not a surrender.

A choice.

The cold barrel met the wood with a muted clink. No ricochet. No chance of it firing by accident. Just the sound of something vital being set aside.

The silence that followed was cavernous.

But Y/N didn’t look at the weapon.

Her eyes stayed locked on his.

Unblinking. Unflinching.

Not begging. Not pleading.

Just there—steady and grounded in the storm of his breathing, reading every flicker in his grip, every tremor running down the barrel aimed squarely at her chest.

“Kick it away,” the man barked.

She didn’t hesitate.

She shifted her foot forward, slow enough not to startle him. The toe of her boot met the side of the pistol.

One push—measured, mechanical—and it scraped across the floorboards with a sound that felt too loud. Too final.

But her eyes never moved.

Not once.

He moved fast—faster than she anticipated, with a kind of jittery violence that didn’t follow logic, only impulse.

Before she could fully register it, his hand was on her—gripping her arm and yanking it behind her back, fingers digging in just above the elbow. The coarse scrape of rope unfurled from his belt with a harsh, leathery hiss.

She twisted against his grip, tried to shift her weight—anything to make it harder for him to drag her.

Her boot skidded against the floor.

She shoved backward once—elbow clipping his side, sharp and purposeful.

But the shotgun.

It was too close.

Even without looking, she knew it was hovering just to her left, the cold presence of it looming like a second heartbeat. Her brain echoed with the imagined sound of the blast. Too loud. Too final.

So she stilled.

Not from fear, but control.

She let him drag her toward the fireplace post, every muscle coiled and burning, her breath tight behind her ribs.

He slammed her back against the wood.

Her spine jolted.

Then came the rope—rough, thick, unyielding. It bit into her wrists as he yanked it tighter than he needed to, the fibers already cutting into raw skin.

Y/N clenched her jaw, head bowed slightly, refusing to make a sound.

But then—he cinched the last knot.

Too tight.

The pressure bit deep.

And before she could stop it—a small, involuntary whimper slipped past her lips.

It wasn’t loud.

But it was real.

Spencer flinched where he lay on the floor.

The unsub didn’t notice.

Or maybe he did—and liked it.

“You’re both just more of them,” the man spat, pacing in short, sharp bursts. “Spies. Liars. Think you’re gonna dig around in my head and tell me what I am.”

His voice cracked at the end—too high, too jagged, like the thoughts were unraveling faster than he could speak them. His eyes flicked between them with the wild precision of someone looking for betrayal in shadows.

Then he lunged straight for Spencer.

He grabbed him by the arm and yanked him up with violent force—fingers digging in, dragging him across the floor like dead weight.

Spencer groaned, a smear of blood trailing along his cheekbone like a brushstroke. His limbs lagged behind him—slack, dazed, his knees buckling as he was thrown down hard beside her.

Y/N’s breath hitched.

“Don’t touch him,” she growled, low and raw.

There wasn’t room for rage. Only instinct.

But the man laughed—a high, manic sound, half-breath, half-breakdown. He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

Instead, he dropped to one knee and cinched the rope tighter around Spencer’s wrists—too tight, sharp enough to bite skin. Y/N jerked against her own bonds, but the rope held fast, burning against her raw skin.

She could hear Spencer's breathing now—shallow, wet, just inches from her.

The man stood again, chest heaving, eyes bright with something slick and poisonous.

Then—stillness.

He looked down at them, head tilted just slightly to the side, as if studying insects under glass.

“Let’s see what you’re really here for.”

Time moved differently inside the cabin.

Minutes passed like hours. The air hung heavy—thick with moisture and decay. It reeked of damp wood, mildew, and something more feral. Sweat. Fear. Old blood gone to rust. Each breath felt like swallowing the underside of a storm.

The ropes around Y/N’s wrists had long since burned their mark into her skin. Coarse and waterlogged, they bit into the delicate ridges of bone and tendon with each twitch of movement, the fibers soaked red where her skin had broken. Her fingers tingled—numb at the edges, aching down to the knuckles. She kept them still.

Beside her, Spencer sat slumped but conscious, his body curled slightly toward her. His head hung low, curls matted dark where blood had dried into them, crusting in uneven lines along his temple and jaw. A single streak of red had reached the collar of his shirt, staining it like a slow bloom. His breathing was shallow but even, lips parted just enough for each exhale to pass through. His lashes fluttered now and then—not from sleep, but from pain. Dizziness. That half-lost place between awareness and dark.

Across the room, the man paced in slow, uneven circuits—like an animal trapped in a cage of its own design. He hadn’t given a name. Not once. Just circled, muttered, barked at things neither of them could see. His footsteps creaked against the warped floorboards, syncopated by the occasional clatter of the shotgun being picked up, set down, picked up again. It never stayed far from his grip. Even when he spoke to the shadows, it was there—his anchor, his threat.

The windows were dark. Not because of nightfall, but because the storm still pressed against them in sheets, casting the room in the kind of gray that felt less like light and more like breath.

And then—Spencer’s voice. Quiet. Threadbare.

“What you’re experiencing—it’s not uncommon. Prolonged isolation can create patterns in the brain that reinforce a heightened sense of danger. It’s a survival response. You’re not crazy. Your mind is just trying to protect you.”

The man turned slowly.

Not with the casual movement of someone listening—but like a storm cloud gathering mass. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, pupils dilated so far they nearly swallowed the color. His breath dragged in through flared nostrils, ragged and wet, as if each inhale hurt. The barrel of the shotgun dipped slightly, but didn’t lower.

“You think I don’t know what you’re doing?” he hissed. His voice cracked halfway through, but it didn’t make him sound weak—only volatile.

Spencer stayed still. Perfectly still.

His eyes found the man’s, steady despite the pulse jackhammering behind his ribs.

“I think you’re scared,” he said softly. “And I think no one’s listened to you in a long time.”

Something shifted.

The man didn’t move, not visibly. But his shoulders dropped just enough to notice. His jaw flexed. One foot shifted back on the floorboard. The storm rumbled outside, low and distant, as if even the sky was holding its breath.

And Y/N—reading the moment like a fault line ready to split—spoke too. Her voice slid in beside Spencer’s, quiet but deliberate, threaded with caution and calm.

“We’re not here to take anything from you,” she said. “But the people who disappeared—”

“They were spies!” he snapped. The words broke out of him like shrapnel. “Government plants. They came to silence me. To bury me in my own house.”

The shotgun lifted a fraction. His hands shook with it. Not from hesitation, but from the force of his belief.

Spencer’s voice didn’t rise. If anything, it softened.

“You don’t have to hurt anyone else,” he said. “You’ve already proven you can outsmart all of them. You’ve stayed hidden for months. That takes skill. Foresight.”

For a heartbeat, the silence returned—tight, watchful.

Then the man exploded.

“Don’t patronize me!” he bellowed, the sound reverberating off the cabin walls like a gunshot. His body jerked forward, wild-eyed, the shotgun twitching like an extension of his nerves.

Y/N flinched—but barely. Her eyes flicked toward Spencer, the smallest movement, like a tether tightening between them. He didn’t speak again. Not yet. But his breath hitched, and Y/N could feel it—not just the air between them, but the weight of everything unspoken.

The unsub had been pacing for minutes, muttering under his breath like the words were boiling over faster than he could contain them. His boots scuffed the warped floorboards in erratic steps, his fingers twitching at his sides. One hand dragged roughly along his arm—scratching, clawing—like there was something under his skin he couldn’t reach. Couldn’t dig out.

Y/N kept her gaze angled downward—not submissive, but steady. Controlled. Her breaths came in slow pulls through her nose, paced like clockwork. She was counting. The distance to the nearest window. The time between his steps. The angle of his shoulder when he turned.

And then, without meaning to, her eyes drifted sideways, toward him.

Spencer sat just inches away, his wrists still bound, shoulders drawn tight with tension. But it wasn’t that that made her stomach drop.

It was the blood.

A dried trail of it streaked along his temple, curling into his hairline—matted in soft, uneven strands. The edges of the gash were clotted now, crusted and angry red against the pale cast of his skin. His jaw was tight, lips parted just slightly, breathing carefully—like even that took effort.

His eyes weren’t on her. They were scanning the room with clinical precision, flicking from shadow to shadow, reading danger the way he read case files—quietly, methodically. But she saw the way his brows were pinched. The faint tremble in the line of his throat. The sharp, inward hold of his breath when the unsub moved too fast.

Her heart twisted at the sight of him—gentle and brilliant and so obviously in pain—and the ache that bloomed in her chest had nothing to do with the bruises blooming across her own head.

And everything to do with the blood on his skin.

The kind that shouldn’t have been there.

Not his.

Not ever.

Spencer sat still beside her, hands bound, blood still dried at his temple. His lips parted just slightly, not in fear—but focus. His eyes flicked toward the far wall, the boarded window, the crackling fireplace. Listening.

Beep.

Faint. Almost imperceptible beneath the restless creak of the old cabin and the wind pressing against the windows like a warning.

Beep… beep.

It wasn’t loud. No louder than a watch alarm. But in the silence that followed the shouting—in the dense, static-charged quiet—it may as well have been a scream.

The unsub froze mid-step.

His shoulders jerked to a halt, spine locking with an almost mechanical stiffness. His eyes snapped upward, scanning the room with twitchy, animalistic precision.

Then his head turned. Sharply.

“What the hell is that?”

The words came low, clipped, scraped raw at the edges with suspicion. Not curiosity—alarm. His gaze sharpened like a blade, eyes narrowing into slits as he started to pivot in place.

Y/N stiffened.

Not a flinch. Not a twitch. Just a subtle hardening of her frame, like a wire being pulled taut beneath her skin.

Her pulse stuttered once. Then leveled. But her mind was already racing—calculating how long it had been since the last team update, how close backup might be now, if the signal had already pinged—

Beep.

Spencer’s breath caught.

It was nearly silent—but she heard it. Felt it, even. The way his ribs expanded slightly beside her, the shallow edge of air slicing into lungs held too tight for too long.

Beep.

The sound was steady now.

A small, rhythmic pulse.

The unsub took a step backward, turning in a slow, tight circle—eyes scanning floor to ceiling, nostrils flared, the pipe still trembling in his grip.

Spencer stayed still.

Too still.

The tracker was close. Too close.

And they both knew it.

The green LED blinked softly beneath the hem of his coat pocket.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Like a countdown. Like the signal of rescue—or exposure.

Y/N’s breath ghosted across her lip. Barely a shift in her chest, but she felt it burn in her throat like static. She didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Didn’t dare turn toward the sound.

But the unsub heard it.

And worse—he understood it.

His eyes narrowed, head tilting with the eerie focus of a predator locking on. The shotgun rose a few inches, uncertain now—not who to point at, but what was coming. His jaw clenched, teeth bared just enough to show the ragged edge of molars grinding.

“Where’s that coming from?” he hissed. “What the hell is that?”

No one answered.

The storm outside raged harder, wind driving against the cabin in gusts that rattled the loose windowpanes and hissed beneath the warped doorframe. Rain lashed the roof in waves, a cold percussion over the mounting tension.

Y/N’s fingers flexed slowly in the ropes behind her back—blood slicking the coarse fibers where they bit into her skin.

She didn’t look at Spencer. But she felt him beside her. Breathing faster now.

The noise wasn’t loud. But it was loud enough.

A steady pulse, mechanical and unrelenting, threading through the cabin like a fuse being lit.

Rhythmic. Unmistakable.

Coming from somewhere on Spencer’s side—muffled beneath his coat or wedged between the folds of his satchel, but there all the same. A beacon. A countdown.

The unsub’s head snapped toward him.

His eyes went wide—too wide.

The whites stark in the dim cabin light, the pupils blown and darting. Something behind them gave way, cracked clean down the middle. That dangerous shift from suspicion to certainty. From unease to revelation.

“You’re tagged,” he spat.

A whisper at first—horrified. Then louder, venomous, full of rage: “You sons of bitches—you led them here.”

Y/N didn’t breathe.

Spencer froze, spine rigid, his limbs still sluggish from blood loss and shock—but his gaze locked on the man.

The unsub moved like lightning after a coil—storming toward the fireplace, shoving aside a battered chair and knocking over a rusted floor lamp in the process. The bulb burst in a brittle flash—shards of glass scattering across the warped floorboards with the sharp crack of splintered light.

Sparks flashed, brief and bright, then vanished.

His boots crushed the debris beneath him as he spun back toward them, shotgun raised, his breath sawing in and out in uneven gasps. Every step vibrated the floor like a war drum. His finger tightened on the trigger—his face carved into something raw and volcanic.

Y/N opened her mouth—tried to intercept, to redirect, to deflect him back toward her—

But it was too late.

He lunged, grabbing Spencer by the front of his coat and yanking him forward with a violence that cracked through the air like a snapped bone. Spencer’s breath left him in a choked sound—sharp, involuntary—as his body pitched forward under the unsub’s grip, knees scraping the wood.

Then came the hands—rough, frantic, clawing through layers of fabric like a man possessed. Fingers tearing at the buttons, wrenching open the coat with jerking movements, searching for proof with the blind desperation of someone who already knew what he’d find.

Y/N strained against the ropes, breath caught behind her teeth, her wrists burning against the binding.

And then—

He found it.

A small black device, tucked just inside the inner lining. No bigger than a matchbox. Sleek. Silent. The unsub ripped it free, holding it up in a trembling hand.

It blinked.

Once. Green.

Steady. Alive.

A heartbeat in plastic casing.

Hope, caught in circuitry.

The unsub stared at it like it had just condemned him—like it had always been there, whispering in the dark, waiting to betray him. His breathing hitched, deepened, then turned ragged, fury igniting behind his eyes like fuel to flame.

“You think you can track me?” he hissed, his voice trembling with rage and disbelief. His grip tightened on Spencer’s collar. “You think you’re smarter than me?”

The GPS blinked again.

And somewhere in the woods beyond the cabin, help was coming.

But inside—

Inside, time had just started ticking faster.

Beep.

The unsub stared at the device—frozen, pupils blown wide, chest heaving like a cornered animal.

Then, without warning, the fury broke loose.

He snarled—a guttural, full-body sound that ripped up from somewhere beneath language, raw and unfiltered, more beast than man—and in the same motion, hurled the GPS unit to the floor. It hit the boards with a sharp crack, the plastic casing skidding across the grain and coming to rest by Y/N’s boot.

His foot came down a second later—hard—a stomping blow that sent a sickening crunch through the room. Sparks shot out in jagged arcs, tiny bursts of light skittering like electric fireflies into the shadows beneath the table, the edges of the walls.

The blinking stopped.

So did everything else.

The cabin fell still in the aftermath, as if recoiling—its very air taut with held breath, the storm outside now muffled by the weight of what had just been destroyed. Smoke curled faintly from the shattered casing, wires frayed and twitching like exposed nerves.

Spencer didn’t move. Y/N didn’t breathe.

It hit like a drop in barometric pressure—

the tilt in the unsub’s posture,

the wild shine in his eyes,

the shift from suspicion to certainty to rage.

“You lying little shit.”

The words burst from him like a snapped wire.

Spencer’s mouth parted—instinct, an attempt at reason, at reach—but nothing came. No room for logic. No space for calm. Just static behind his ribs.

The man’s hand shot out, snatching a rust-flecked pipe from the clutter near the hearth—three feet of old steel, cold and cruel in his grip. His fingers twitched as he raised it, knuckles pale, tendons straining like they wanted to break free from the skin.

“You came here wired,” he spat, his voice cracking at the edges. “You fed them my location. You think you can dissect me? Turn me into a case file? Break me down into numbers and symptoms and—notes?”

His voice rose with every word, nearly feral now. Each syllable was jagged with betrayal. The pipe lifted—shoulder drawn back, locked and ready.

Spencer didn’t flinch.

He tensed instead, a small shift in his spine, a tilt of his head—not from fear, but readiness. Bracing not for pain, but for the rhythm of it, the moment to move, to shield.

But before the blow could fall—

“It was me.”

Her voice cut through the room like a scalpel.

Sharp. Deliberate. A clean slice through the thick, rancid air that hung heavy with sweat, dust, and old wood smoke.

The unsub froze—mid-motion, mid-breath—the rusted pipe still raised high in his trembling grip. His chest heaved under the weight of adrenaline, sweat painting dark patches across his collar. His eyes, rimmed red and ringed in sleepless mania, flicked between the two of them—Spencer on the floor, unmoving, and Y/N upright, bloody, but burning steady.

She didn’t blink.

Didn’t flinch.

She held his gaze with the precision of a knife thrower lining up a kill shot. Her wrists bled where the rope bit into raw skin, her breath shaky from pain—but her posture never wavered.

And then—a chuckle.

Low. Dry. The kind of sound that slipped from the edge of a cracked smile—not amused, but knowing. Cold. Calculated.

She leaned forward slightly, enough to shift the tension in the room.

“You want the truth?” she said, her voice now wrapped in something quieter. Meaner. Intentional. “You’re right. You were always right.”

The unsub’s grip flexed around the pipe. He twitched—not from fear, but recognition.

“I’m the one they sent,” she continued, tone sinking deeper, silk over steel. “Not him.”

She jerked her chin toward Spencer without looking. Didn’t dare. Couldn’t see the expression on his face—the confusion, the betrayal, the heartbreak—because if she did, she’d fall apart.

“The kid?” Her voice dripped disdain. “He’s nothing. Still green. He’s read the textbooks but he hasn’t seen the dirt under the floorboards yet. He thinks we’re here to help you.”

She let out another soft, bitter laugh. “That’s cute, isn’t it?”

Spencer stirred beside her. His breathing hitched. But she didn’t look. Couldn’t. She was too deep now—buried in it. And this wasn’t about him. Not right now. This was survival. This was the only hand she had left to play.

“I’ve been inside this operation for weeks,” she said. “Studying your patterns. Cross-referencing your routines, your history, your trauma. I’ve read your medical records. Your military discharge. I’ve talked to the people who used to know you—before.”

She tilted her head, slow and deliberate, eyes never leaving the unsub’s face.

“Before you woke up.”

He was breathing faster now. Mouth slightly parted. Sweat trickling down the side of his temple, collecting in the notch of his jaw. His eyes didn’t blink. Didn’t need to. He was locked on her.

“Everything you’ve been feeling? The eyes? The pressure? The sense that you’re being dissected in real time?”

Her voice dropped.

“That’s me.”

His fingers twitched. His grip on the pipe slipped a little before snapping back tighter than before.

“I was sent to infiltrate. Quietly. Completely. Not to arrest you. To study you. To peel you open. Reduce you to variables. Numbers. Labels. Paranoid. Unstable. Prone to violence.”

He twitched again. A sick little shiver of something that looked far too close to understanding.

“I was meant to map your entire psyche without you ever knowing,” she said. “To catalog your impulses, your threats, your breaking points. Not just to control you—but to reconstruct you.”

Another beat. Her voice dipped, softer now. Like a lullaby made of glass shards.

“We build the cage from the inside.”

And she smiled.

Not wide. Not cruel.

Just enough to make him believe it.

The unsub staggered back—just half a step, but it landed like a blow. As if her words had struck something inside his chest, something hollow and long-rotting, and rattled it hard enough to sound.

The pipe in his hand dipped slightly.

Spencer was staring at her now—wide-eyed, frozen, a single streak of dried blood tracking toward the edge of his jaw. He didn’t look dazed anymore. He looked like he was witnessing a slow-motion train crash with someone he loved still standing on the tracks.

“Y/N—” he choked out, voice cracked and raw at the edges.

But she cut him off. Fast. Sharp. Surgical.

“I made the call to come here,” she said, and her tone had changed again—now clinical, ruthless, the voice of someone who’d been hiding in plain sight. “I brought him with me because no one looks twice at the rookie. That’s how I got so close.”

The unsub’s breath hitched. The kind of breath you take before deciding to kill someone.

Y/N pressed forward.

“While he asked you polite questions, I was the one watching. Recording. Cataloging every blink, every tremor, every tell. The way your hand twitched when we said the word ‘discharge.’ The way your pupils shrank when I stepped too close.”

The unsub’s fingers flexed around the pipe—bone-white and twitching, the metal trembling just slightly in his grip.

His face contorted. Slowly. Not in confusion. Not in disbelief.

But in recognition.

Like something had finally snapped into place.

“You lied to me,” he said, voice barely more than a whisper. But it held teeth. The kind of whisper that precedes a scream.

Y/N nodded once. Slow. Deliberate.

“Every word.”

The room shifted around them. The air grew heavier. The shadows deeper. The hunter had found his traitor—and now, the line between predator and prey was gone.

His jaw clenched hard enough to tick. His nostrils flared. He blinked once—a muscle twitch of betrayal—and then something darker flooded his eyes.

Rage.

“So you admit it,” he spat.

“I do.”

She didn’t blink.

Didn’t tremble.

Didn’t look at Spencer—not even for a second.

“I told them I’d draw you out,” she said. “Told them I could build the perfect bait. I designed the plan. I volunteered to come in first. And I brought him with me to play innocent, so you’d never look twice at me.”

The man stared at her like she’d just changed form—like every feature of her face was shifting into something monstrous, into the villain he’d been waiting for all along. The hand holding the pipe twitched again. The muscles in his arm drew taut.

He saw her now.

Not as someone in his house.

But as the one who’d built the trap.

And walked in willingly.

And Spencer—God, he knew.

Knew exactly what she was doing.

He could see it—unfolding in real time, like one of those impossibly slow Rube Goldberg machines, every gear turning, every trigger rigged, every step more dangerous than the last. Y/N wasn’t just improvising. She was sacrificing. Building the narrative. Crafting the role she knew he’d buy.

The villain. The infiltrator. The enemy.

Spencer’s heart thudded so loud it drowned out everything else. Not from the pain in his temple, not from the rope biting into his wrists—but from the sheer, gut-wrenching certainty of it.

She was painting a target on herself.

Not just with words—but with the precision of someone who knew exactly where to stand so that when the shot came, it would hit her and not him.

And he couldn’t stop it.

He couldn’t move. Couldn’t reach for her. Couldn’t say her name the way he wanted to—not the warning, not the plea, but the real way. The way that meant don’t do this. Please.

His eyes flicked over her—sweat at her hairline, blood dry, hands trembling just barely where they rested behind her. But her face?

Stone.

The kind of stillness that came just before collapse. The kind that broke you from the inside out.

He felt sick.

Because Spencer knew this wasn’t just a bluff.

She wasn’t just buying time. She was making a deal. And she hadn’t yet figured out how she was going to get out of it.

The unsub’s knuckles tightened on the pipe.

And this time, he turned toward her.

The unsub stood in front of her, hovering like a storm about to break. His chest heaved, his breath fast and uneven, the sound wet at the edges—like he was choking on fury. His eyes shimmered, bloodshot and wide, and behind them was nothing but chaos: betrayal, humiliation, the raw ache of someone who believed he’d finally uncovered the truth—and wanted someone to bleed for it.

Y/N didn’t flinch.

She lifted her chin. Her wrists still burned from the rope, the skin there already raw, but she sat taller. Straighter. Not defiant— but anchored. She wasn’t trying to fight him. She was trying to pull him in. Away from Spencer. Away from anyone who couldn’t take what was coming.

“You want to dissect me?” the unsub hissed, spittle catching in the corner of his mouth. “You want to peel me open and write me down like some—some experiment?”

Y/N’s throat was bone-dry. Her breath felt thin. But her eyes didn’t waver.

“Yes,” she said.

The pipe arced through the air like lightning.

The first blow cracked across her ribs.

A sickening thud—deep and solid, metal against bone—and it knocked the air from her lungs like she’d been punched by the sky. Her body snapped sideways, collapsing onto her hip, rope barely catching her before she hit the floor completely. The sound that left her mouth wasn’t a scream. It was sharper. Shorter. Like breath torn in half.

Spencer’s voice broke behind her, sharp and helpless. “Stop—!”

Y/N didn’t turn. Didn’t flinch. She didn’t risk shifting her gaze or moving even an inch toward him—didn’t dare let the unsub sense where Spencer’s voice had come from.

She kept her eyes locked on the man in front of her. Kept the weight of his rage squarely on her shoulders.

“It’s nothing,” Y/N gasped, her voice splintered at the edges like cracked porcelain.

The words weren’t for him—not really.

But they were said loud enough to reach the unsub, to thread into the air like a challenge. Flat. Dismissive. Designed to taunt.

And yet, there was something beneath it. A note of softness buried inside the brokenness—so subtle only Spencer would catch it.

She glanced at him. Just once. Barely more than a flicker. But it was there. Not a cry for help. Maybe an apology.

A warning. A reassurance. Don’t move. Don’t speak. I’m still here. Let me do this.

Spencer's throat constricted. He couldn’t breathe. His whole body screamed to reach for her, to throw himself between them, but he stayed frozen—because she was protecting him, even now, even like this.

The unsub didn’t catch the shift.

He was too deep in it now—

Too tangled in the scent of blood and sweat, in the heat of betrayal clinging to his skin like a second layer.

His gaze flicked to Spencer again—not with doubt, but with a kind of furious clarity. A moment of recognition between predator and prey.

“You see?” he rasped, voice hoarse and shaking with conviction. “She used you. Just like they all do.”

Spencer didn’t speak. Couldn’t. But his jaw twitched. His fingers curled slightly where they’d been slack.

“She’s one of them,” the man hissed, his eyes blazing now. “Wrapped you around her finger so you wouldn’t see it. Made you feel safe. Needed. Like you mattered.”

He took a step closer. The pipe shook in his grip.

“But it was a lie. And now you brought them to me.”

His head cocked sharply to the side, a grotesque mimicry of sympathy. “I’ll solve it for both of us,” he whispered, too calm now. Too sure. “You don’t have to suffer anymore. Neither of us do.”

His gaze was locked on Spencer—but his knuckles flexed around the pipe as he turned toward Y/N.

“They’re the poison,” he spat. “She’s the worst of them.”

He looked at her like he was seeing something grotesque and glorious all at once.

And then—

The rage twisted. Broke open.

With a jagged, animal sound caught somewhere between a sob and a snarl, the unsub howled and wrenched the pipe backward—

Only to throw it.

The metal spun from his hand, sailing across the room in a flash of rust and fury. It struck the floor with a brutal, echoing clang, the sound ricocheting off the cabin walls like a gunshot. The pipe rolled once, twice—then stilled in the dust.

Not mercy.

Not remorse.

Just escalation.

His shoulders rose and fell like a wave crashing, chest heaving with the strain of restraint. He ran a shaking hand down his face, smearing sweat and blood together, jaw locked tight like he was chewing on bone.

“No,” he growled, low and guttural, voice thick with the weight of too many nights spent talking to ghosts. “That’s too easy.”

He took a step forward.

Then another towards her.

“I want it real,” he seethed. “I want to look in your eyes and see it. I want you to know what it’s like—to feel hunted. Dissected. Reduced.”

His voice rose with each word, fraying at the edges.

“You think you’re clever. You think I didn’t see it. But I saw you the second you walked in.”

Spencer shifted beside her—slow, deliberate—but didn’t speak. He knew. Any wrong sound, any motion now could tip this into blood.

Y/N didn’t move either.

But her pulse thundered in her throat.

The unsub’s boots thudded against the warped floorboards, closing the space between them inch by inch. His hands trembled at his sides, fingers twitching like they still held the weapon.

“I want you to beg,” he said. “Not for you. For him. So he knows what you really are before it’s too late.”

His breath was ragged. Wild.

And his eyes—locked on hers—were lit with the glow of delusion, of violence waiting for permission.

Y/N didn’t have time to move.

His fist came down hard across her jaw.

Her head snapped sideways, a sharp gasp breaking from her throat as blood flew in an arc across the floor. Her body recoiled instinctively, but she had nowhere to go—arms bound, knees failing.

Another hit.

Knuckles against cheekbone.

Crack.

She didn’t cry out this time. Just a low, wet sound from deep in her chest. One eye squeezed shut. The other barely tracked.

Spencer shouted her name—screamed it—but she couldn’t look at him.

The next blow hit her temple, dazing her. Her limbs jerked once, then sagged, and she started to tip—eyes fluttering.

He grabbed her by the front of her shirt and hauled her up, letting her head loll against his shoulder for a split second before slamming her back down against the post.

She choked on her own breath. Blood pooled in the corner of her mouth.

Still, she tried to speak. Tried to draw his focus back—keep him off Spencer.

“Go ahead,” she gasped, voice shredded. “You’ve already lost.”

Spencer’s voice cracked wide open. “Stop! You’re going to kill her!”

“I’m supposed to!” the unsub roared. “You think I’m stupid? You think I don’t know how this ends?”

He wiped his knuckles, hands shaking, and reached for the knife on the table.

“No—no—” Spencer’s voice rose, frantic now. “Listen to me, just—just wait—”

But the unsub was already behind Y/N, cutting the ties loose with the knife.

She hit the floor hard, shoulder slamming into the boards, the air knocked from her lungs in a sharp wheeze. Blood was smeared across her chin, a glint of it now soaking into the collar of her shirt. Her arms shook as she tried to push herself up.

The unsub stood over her, chest rising and falling with erratic, animal rhythm. He saw the flicker of her hand as she reached—slow, shaky—toward the knife that had fallen nearby during the struggle. Fingers grazed the hilt.

He kicked it away.

Hard.

The blade skidded across the floor and disappeared under the edge of a cabinet.

Y/N didn’t react fast enough to hide the effort.

He saw it and laughed. It was a jagged, broken sound—half snarl, half thrill. Then he stepped forward and crushed her hand beneath his boot.

Y/N’s cry was small and raw—closer to a breath than a scream. Her eyes squeezed shut. Her other hand curled into the floor.

Spencer strained against the ropes again, his voice hoarse with panic. “Don’t touch her!”

The unsub didn’t even glance back.

He knelt.

Slowly. Like he was savoring it.

He flipped her over, one knee pressed into Y/N’s stomach as he leaned forward, one hand pinning her shoulder down, the other hovering just over her throat.

“I want to see it,” he murmured. “The moment you realize you’re not the one in control anymore.”

Y/N coughed—barely able to lift her head. Her breath came in short, shallow bursts now. Each one sounded like it scraped the inside of her chest.

Then his hand wrapped around her throat, and squeezed.

She clawed at his arm, both hands wrapping around his wrist, trying to pry him off, her grip slick with sweat and trembling with effort.

A low, pained sound escaped her throat—part snarl, part choke—as she gritted her teeth and fought back, muscles straining against the weight of him. She twisted beneath his grip, her nails biting into his skin, but he only squeezed harder, knuckles white, lips pulled back in something that might’ve been a grin or a grimace.

Spencer’s mind was racing. Every second like a blade in his chest. Every flash of her body jerking beneath the unsub’s grip chiseled deeper into him.

“Stop!” Spencer shouted, voice raw. “Hey—look at me!”

The unsub didn’t flinch. His grip only tightened.

Y/N’s body arched slightly beneath the pressure, her fingers still scrabbling against his arm, trying to peel his hand away from her throat.

Do something. Think. Think, think, think—

And then—

He found it.

A fracture in the man’s mind. A mirror.

Spencer’s voice dropped an octave, fast and sharp now, like the sound itself might wedge into the fracture. “You were right. You were right, okay?”

The unsub didn’t stop—but his grip faltered. Fractionally.

Spencer lunged toward that moment like it was oxygen.

“You knew they were watching you. You knew they were lying. That they wanted to control you, label you, shut you up. But you were smarter than them. That’s why you’re still here. You saw the truth and no one believed you, and you made it anyway.”

Y/N gasped—one desperate breath into her bruised lungs—and coughed, chest heaving.

The unsub’s hand wavered. Confusion clouded his eyes.

Spencer’s words poured out now, urgent and unrelenting. “You didn’t lose it. You adapted. You survived. You outmaneuvered everyone trying to cage you. That’s not a breakdown. That’s brilliance. That’s strength.”

The fingers at Y/N’s throat loosened. Barely—but enough.

Spencer’s voice softened, but the tempo stayed fast. Intent. Begging. Calculating. Focused.

“Don’t give them what they expect,” he breathed. “Don’t let them turn you into the thing they’re afraid of. You’re better than that. You know you are. Don’t let your story end in their headlines. Don’t become the monster they want to write about.”

Y/N coughed again—sharp, alive—and Spencer’s heart crashed against his ribs like it wanted out of his chest.

The unsub’s shoulders dropped. Just an inch.

Silence.

The unsub’s breathing hitched.

His hands fell away.

And just then—the door exploded open.

Boots stormed the cabin.

Voices shouting.

The unsub turned, disoriented—eyes wild, breath coming in short, confused bursts as the front door burst open in a hail of shouting and boots.

But he didn’t even have time to reach for the shotgun.

Morgan was on him in an instant.

Not tactical, not measured, but angry.

He slammed into the unsub like a wrecking ball, driving him back with a crash that shook the floor. They hit the boards hard—shoulder to ribs, elbow to throat—Morgan pinning him down with every ounce of fury in his body.

“You son of a bitch!” he roared, his voice pure, guttural violence.

His fist cracked against the unsub’s jaw once—twice—before Hotch grabbed him from behind, pulling him back.

“Morgan!” Hotch barked. “That’s enough!”

But Morgan’s eyes were locked on the blood smeared across the floor—on Y/N, curled on her side near the fireplace, gasping.

Her throat was mottled red, fingerprints blooming dark against her skin, and her face—her cheekbone already purple and raw, lips split.

She coughed again, ragged and wet, and blinked through the sting of light and dust as boots thundered toward her.

Rossi dropped to his knees beside her. “Y/N,” he said, voice taut. “Are you—can you hear me?”

Her hand wavered slightly, lifting from the floor with a tremble that shook down her whole arm. And then—miraculously, impossibly—she gave him a shaky thumbs up.

“Madonna santa,” Rossi muttered, relief crumpling across his face.

Morgan was still breathing hard, knuckles white, even as the rest of the team moved in—cuffs, weapons, orders flying like a storm around them.

“You don’t touch her,” he spat, voice shaking as the unsub was hauled to his knees. “You don’t get to touch her.”

And then he was on his feet, already rushing to her side.

Hotch’s voice echoed like thunder. “CLEAR!”

But Spencer barely heard it.

He was already crawling across the floor, knees scraping wood slick with blood, hands shaking as he pulled himself toward her.

“Y/N,” he choked out.

She was curled on her side near the hearth, one hand limp across her stomach, the other barely twitching. Her body looked too small, too still. Blood matted her hair, smeared across her jaw, soaking into the collar of her shirt. Her breathing was shallow—thin—but there.

“Y/N,” he said again, softer now, breath catching.

His hands hovered just inches above her. He didn’t know where to touch—what not to hurt.

She turned her head slowly, her face a map of pain and resilience. A small, broken smile curled at the corner of her mouth, tugging against dried blood.

“Still here,” she rasped, trying to catch her breath, voice barely above a whisper. “Told you it was nothing.”

And then her eyes fluttered shut—not from unconsciousness, but relief. Like she finally believed she was safe.

Spencer’s chest caved inward, his hand finally settling gently against her shoulder.

“Stay with me,” he murmured. “Please.”

A pair of hands touched his arm.

JJ.

“Spence—Spencer, you’re bleeding. Let us—”

He shook his head without looking at her.

“I’m fine. Help her.”

Emily dropped to her knees beside JJ, composure cracking the moment she saw her.

“God—Y/N,” she breathed, her voice tight with panic she didn’t bother to hide. Her hands hovered over the bruises, the blood, the torn fabric, unsure where to touch without making it worse. Her eyes flicked rapidly from Y/N’s face to her ribs to the blood trailing down her temple, cataloging everything, but none of it fast enough.

“Talk to me, okay? Just—keep talking.”

But Morgan was already there too, hitting the floor hard on the other side of her, breath still ragged from the fight, jaw clenched like he wanted to throw another punch.

He didn’t say anything at first.

He just looked at her.

Then he reached out, gently brushing a matted strand of hair from her face with the back of his knuckle—fingers trembling.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he said softly. “You’re okay now. We’ve got you.”

But Spencer never let go of her hand.

Her voice was the first thing to break the silence.

“Well,” Y/N croaked, barely above a whisper, “that went great.”

Spencer let out a sound that hitched in his throat — somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

She winced as she tried to push herself up, breath catching sharply in her throat. “Oof—okay, okay, maybe I should’ve opened with a knock-knock joke instead.”

“Y/N—don’t,” Morgan muttered, crouched beside her, one arm braced behind her back to steady her as she shifted upright. “You’re barely standing.”

“I’m hilarious,” she argued through grit teeth, her voice rough with blood and pride. “You’re just not in the mood.”

“Damn right I’m not,” Emily snapped gently, crouching in front of her, eyes wide with worry that she didn’t bother to hide. “You look like you went twelve rounds with a semi. Sit your ass down.”

Y/N tried to grin. Failed. Winced instead.

But she stayed upright. Just to prove she could.

Emily shook her head, but her eyes shone. “You scare the hell out of me, you know that?”

“Mutual,” Y/N rasped, and finally let her weight rest back into Morgan’s arm.

Spencer moved in quickly, his hands gentle but firm as he helped guide her into a seated position. “You shouldn’t move yet.”

She glanced at him, eyes still glassy, one brow arching faintly. “If I wait for your approval, I’ll die waiting instead.”

Morgan huffed—less annoyed, more relieved.

Spencer didn’t argue. He simply shifted to support her weight as she slowly—agonizingly—got to her feet. She swayed, hissed, nearly buckled again, but he caught her. Both arms steady around her as he drew her into his side.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered.

“I know,” she whispered back.

The air outside hit like a wall.

Cold, wet, alive with stormlight. It smelled like moss and mud and gunmetal, and Spencer didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until it stung his lungs on the way in.

Behind them, the cabin was alive with noise. Paramedics rushed past. JJ gave orders into her radio. The unsub writhed on the ground beneath the knee of a state trooper, snarling, face twisted, voice hoarse from screaming.

“You don’t know what they do,” he shouted after them. “You don’t know!”

Y/N flinched slightly at the sound, but didn’t look back. Spencer angled his body in front of hers, shielding her from the view.

She let him.

Morgan followed close behind, jaw tight, eyes still burning. “Let him scream,” he muttered. “He’s got nothing left.”

The ambulance came into view—doors open, floodlights painting everything in harsh yellow. Emily waited by the entrance, but her face softened when she saw Y/N walking under her own strength.

Barely. But still.

Spencer helped her up the step, one arm still wrapped firmly around her.

“You’re okay,” he murmured again, more to himself than to her.

“I know.”

“Almost there,” he murmured, voice barely audible above the wind.

Y/N gave a rough, rattling chuckle. “You said that five steps ago.”

He looked down at her—at the blood dried in the corner of her mouth, the bruises blossoming along her jaw, the torn skin on her knuckles—and felt something fracture in his chest again.

“You shouldn’t be talking.”

“I’ve earned the right,” she rasped. “Pretty sure I just out-profiled you.”

Spencer huffed, incredulous. “You’re making jokes?”

“You’re the one who talked a man off my windpipe with behavioral theory. We’re even.”

Her knees buckled suddenly. Spencer caught her with a sharp inhale, adjusting his grip and pulling her tighter against his side. She didn’t fight it—just leaned in, forehead briefly pressing against his shoulder, blood smudging the fabric of his coat.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered.

“Know you do.”

The ambulance doors were open now, floodlights casting harsh gold light over the clearing. JJ ran toward them first, her eyes wide with horror when she saw the state of them both—but mostly Y/N.

The paramedics helped ease her onto the gurney, moving fast but careful. Spencer started to step back, but her hand caught his.

“Don’t go far,” she said, her voice going soft now. “I don’t want to wake up alone.”

He squeezed her fingers gently. “I won’t.”

And as the ambulance doors closed — sealing her from view with a dull metallic finality — Spencer remained frozen in place.

Rain streaked down his face in thin, icy threads, soaking through his shirt and coat until the fabric clung to him like a second skin. His curls lay plastered to his forehead, water dripping steadily from his lashes, from the sharp line of his jaw. The cut on his temple had gone from a sharp burn to a dull throb, blood mingling with rain and trailing down the side of his face in a diluted red smear.

The paramedics circled him now, gloved hands brushing over his injuries with clinical care — gentle, practiced — but he barely registered them. The world felt muffled, as if the storm had pulled a veil over everything. All he could hear was the sound of her voice echoing in his mind, hollow and brave and unbearably steady:

It’s okay. I can take it.

He hadn’t believed her — not really. Not in the way she meant it. And now the weight of that moment sat like stone in his chest, pressing against his ribs, caught somewhere between the cracked floorboards of that cabin and the way her eyes had locked onto his. Not pleading. Not scared. Just herself. Fierce and unwavering and hurt. So deeply hurt.

Spencer blinked, slow and stinging, and for a heartbeat he thought he could still feel her fingers curled around his, warm and trembling, as she told him not to go far.

His heart hadn’t moved since.

It was still there — with her — wherever they were taking her now.

And for the first time since it all began, he realized:

She had taken it.

But he hadn’t.

Not really.

The apartment was dark when he stepped inside.

Not silent — the rain still fell against the windows in a steady whisper, and the old radiator creaked with every shift in temperature. But still, it felt like stepping into a vacuum. Like his body hadn’t caught up with him yet. Like a part of him was still in that cabin, still on the floor, watching her bleed.

He dropped his go-bag by the door and stood there for a long time, wet curls dripping onto the hardwood. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Not badly, just enough that he noticed. Enough that he wrapped them around a mug he didn’t remember filling and stared into space.

He didn’t even hear the knock at first.

Just the rhythm — soft, then urgent. Three beats. A pause. Two more. Like she didn’t want to wake the neighbors, but she couldn’t not be there.

Spencer crossed the room in a daze. When he opened the door—

She was standing there.

Coat wrapped tight around her. Hair pulled back but messy, the bandage above her temple visible under the porch light. She looked small. Pale. But she was on her feet.

He stared at her for a heartbeat too long.

Then stepped aside without a word and let her in.

Spencer took her coat carefully—more gently than she expected. Like she might break if he touched her wrong.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she muttered, lowering herself onto the edge of his couch with a hiss between her teeth. “You’re gonna make me think I actually look as bad as I feel.”

He didn’t answer. Just folded her coat neatly over the armrest and crouched down in front of her, eyes scanning her face like he could take inventory of every bruise, every cut.

Before he could speak, she reached out—fingers brushing his jaw, then cradling the side of his face with both hands, steady and careful. Her thumbs skimmed just beneath his cheekbones as her eyes flicked up to the angry stitches near his temple, expression darkening with concern.

“Spence,” she said, voice low and earnest. “How do they feel?”

He blinked, startled slightly by the question—by the way she always noticed, even when she was the one who nearly didn’t make it out.

“Sore,” he admitted quietly. “But manageable.”

Her brow pinched as her thumb hovered just shy of the wound, like she could soothe it just by being near.

“Good,” she murmured. “Because if they botched it, I’m filing a complaint.”

He huffed a faint laugh. But his eyes never left hers.

She glanced down at herself — the clean bandages wrapped snug around her hands, pale against the faint shadow of bruises blooming at her wrists. The ache in her ribs pulled with every breath, dulled by medication but still present, a quiet reminder. Then she looked back up at him, her smile crooked and dry.

“I mean, it’s not my best look,” she said. “But I’ve definitely worn worse on surveillance gigs. Remember that one time Garcia put me in a wig and said I looked like a discount Loretta Lynn?”

Spencer blinked. His mouth opened, then closed again. He looked like he wanted to laugh, but couldn’t remember how.

She nudged his knee gently with her hand. “Come on, Spence. I’m okay. See? Talking. Breathing. Being obnoxious.”

“You’re not okay.” His voice came out quiet, hoarse. “You were—he was—”

She cut him off gently. “You were there. I know.”

A pause. She softened.

“But you were also the reason I got to walk out.” She reached out, brushed her fingers lightly across his wrist. “So maybe I’m not as okay as I usually am. But I’m still here. That counts for something, right?”

He didn’t move away. If anything, he leaned in.

“I thought I was gonna lose you,” he whispered.

Y/N’s smile faded. Just a little.

Then, with a lopsided grin: “Are you kidding? After all that? You really think I’d let some backwoods psycho have the last word?”

He huffed out a laugh. It sounded broken. Real.

“Besides,” she added, settling back into the couch with a wince, “I like your couch too much to die. I mean—this thing is weirdly comfortable, right?”

Spencer looked at her like she was made of glass and gravity and everything that could undo him. But he smiled.

And for the first time all night, she knew he believed her.

The apartment hummed quietly around them — the radiator ticking, the rain soft against the windows. Spencer moved to sit beside her on the couch, but not too close. Just near enough that their knees touched lightly, unspoken reassurance pulsing in that one point of contact.

Y/N leaned her head back against the cushions. Eyes closed. Breathing slow.

Then, without opening her eyes:

“You’re doing that thing again.”

Spencer looked over. “What thing?”

She cracked one eye open and gave him a look. “The thing where you spiral quietly and blame yourself for everything within a hundred-mile radius.”

“I’m not—”

“Spencer,” she cut in, gentle but firm. “Don’t lie to me. Especially not when I look like this.”

He swallowed hard, gaze dragging up despite himself.

The bruises along her cheekbone had deepened into dusk-colored blooms — stark against the bandage at her temple. A fainter one curled near the corner of her jaw, half-hidden beneath the fall of her hair. Even cleaned and stitched up, she looked like she’d been through hell. And she had.

His eyes dropped to her hands — wrapped in clean gauze — then to the faint rise of bandages under her shirt, just visible at the edge of her coat. Her throat bore the worst of it: a scatter of red and violet where the pressure had been, ugly and fresh.

“I shouldn’t have let you—”

“You didn’t let me do anything.”

Her voice was quiet, but clear now. Unapologetic.

“I made a choice. I saw what was going to happen. I knew what he was going to do, and I made a call.”

He didn’t speak. Just stared at his hands in his lap like they might have done something different, if only they’d moved faster.

“I would do it again,” she said simply.

That got his attention. His head snapped up.

“No—Y/N—”

“Yes,” she said, unwavering. “Every time. If it’s between me or you, I’m choosing me. Every time.”

“You could’ve died.”

Her expression softened. “So could you.”

His throat tightened. “But I didn’t.”

“Because I was there.” She turned to him then, fully. Her voice dropped. “And because you distracted him. You did exactly what I hoped you would.”

“I didn’t know if it would work,” he admitted, voice breaking slightly.

“But it did.”

He looked at her for a long moment. There were tears in his eyes, unshed, and he wasn’t even trying to blink them away anymore.

“I hate that you got hurt,” he whispered.

“I hate that I had to,” she said, not unkindly. “But I don’t regret it.”

He reached out then — tentative — and let his fingers brush lightly over the back of her hand. Just enough to let her pull away if she needed to.

She didn’t.

His hand shifted from hers — slowly, carefully — until it hovered just beneath her chin. When she didn’t move away, he let his fingers graze the edge of her jaw. Gentle as breath. Like she was made of something more fragile than bone.

Y/N blinked once, then closed her eyes.

And leaned into the touch.

His thumb brushed gently across the curve of her cheek, over skin still tender and faintly swollen. His touch lingered—careful, reverent—as if memorizing the shape of her face one fragile line at a time. Like she was the only thing keeping him tethered to the ground.

She let out the softest breath — not pained, just tired. Trusting.

Her hand came up and wrapped around his.

Just that.

Soft. Steady. Real.

Spencer shifted forward before he could think better of it. Just enough to bring his face close, so close he could feel her breath fan lightly against his mouth. But he didn’t kiss her there — not yet.

Instead, he pressed his lips to her temple. A barely-there touch. Then the other side. Her eyelid, warm beneath him. The bridge of her nose. Her cheekbone.

Tiny, aching acts of reverence.

He paused at the corner of her mouth.

Stopped there, hovering.

Her lashes fluttered open, and she didn’t pull away.

But she didn’t lean in either.

Her thumb ran across the back of his hand, slow. “Spence,” she murmured, voice low, a little raw. “You don’t have to be careful.”

“I know,” he whispered. “But I want to be.”

They stayed like that for a moment — her fingers curled around his, his palm resting against the side of her face like he couldn’t quite let go.

Then Y/N exhaled a slow breath and pulled back just enough to meet his eyes. Her voice was quieter now, but still laced with that familiar edge — dry, wry, undeniably her.

“So…” she began, dragging out the word like it weighed something, “I was thinking I might crash here tonight. You know, if the offer’s still on the table.”

Spencer blinked, lips parting — caught somewhere between surprised and relieved. “Of course.”

She nodded, pretending to consider. “Good. Because I’m not entirely convinced my legs still work, and if I try to drive, I’ll probably end up in Delaware by accident.”

He almost smiled. “You’re welcome to the bed.”

“Tempting,” she said, already shifting her weight with a small wince. “But if you give me the bed, you’re just gonna sleep out here on the couch like some noble, long-suffering martyr, and then I’ll feel guilty and it’ll be this whole thing.”

“You won’t feel guilty.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Spence, I feel bad leaving voicemails. I will feel guilty.”

That pulled a real laugh from him — short, breathy, almost startled. The kind of sound that cracked something open.

She smiled at that, but it faded slower this time. Her eyes dropped to where their hands were still joined — his fingers curled carefully around hers, the pulse at his wrist still quick beneath her touch.

Then her gaze flicked up again, quieter now. Sharper.

“And stop looking at me like that,” she said. “Like it’s your fault. I swear, if you keep blaming yourself, I really will be mad at you.”

He opened his mouth — to protest, to explain, he didn’t even know — but she was already lifting his hand gently to her lips and kissing it. Soft. Steady. Like a promise.

“Just… stay close, okay?” she asked. “I don’t want to wake up and think I imagined all of this. You being here. Us getting out.”

His reply was immediate. Steady.

“I’ll be right here.”

She nodded, swallowing whatever else she might’ve said. Then, quieter:

“And if I start snoring, you’re not allowed to mock me until at least after breakfast.”

His eyes crinkled faintly. “Deal.”

#spencer reid #spencer reid fanfic #spencer fic #reid fic #spencer reid fic #spencer x reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x reader #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fic #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds fanfic #spencer reid x you #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid angst

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enwoso · 1 year ago

Text

invisible strings | alessia russo

*i started writing this and loved it then got bored by the end so sorry for the rushed ending:) but thank you for the love and support on my first post!!

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google would define invisible strings as a thread that connects two people who are destined to meet regardless of time, place or the circumstances. the thread may stretch or tangle but it never breaks.

you and alessia both truly believed you were a prime example of the invisible string theory.

the two of you always existing among each other but neither ever really acknowledged each other until later on when you were both older.

you lived on the same street as alessia growing up, only a few doors down, she was the blonde girl you would always see from afar playing in the park with her two older brothers as they blasted the ball at the young girl.

however she always gave back as good as she got.

you had even went to the same school, however she was in the year above you. there were plenty school photos with the two of you in only a few metres apart. walking past each other in the corridor every single day - not having an idea how important each other would become to be to the other in the future.

you had played football for the local team as did she. the blonde playing in offence taking any spot on the front line whereas you sat at the back and played in defence stopping the opposition from scoring.

that is how the two of you met, well kind of. you played for the same team but you two never really friends. it wasn’t that you didn’t like each other it’s just you never really spoke to one another bar the few words when necessary.

however you only played with each other for a few months before she moved onto a new local team. only seeing her now when your team would face her new team.

you both existed in the backgrounds of each others lives.

when you were sixteen, you were scouted by the arsenal's academy for the under seventeens teams, it took you a little time getting used to playing academy football and not the usual sunday league but after a few months you had found your feet and began to settle in.

you had one goal, the england youth squad. your family pushing you each day to try and help you achieve your goal however just a month before the squad announcement you tore your ACL at sixteen.

you were out of football for a year, endless days sat with a physio, in the gym just trying to get your knee to bend again like it once used to. watching from the sidelines as your friends in the academy got their calls up for the youth teams and how you wished it was you.

you felt as though you were fighting a battle you were never going to win, you were falling out of love with sport that you had played your entire life.

after three hundred and sixty two day you were finally allowed to play again, however your return it wasn't the fairy tale dream you had spent the past year dreamed about. you ended up spending a lot of time on the bench not playing as regular as you did before your injury and you spent many of those ninety minutes wondering why you were no longer good enough.

losing all your confidence in yourself and your ability to actually play football - you felt as though you had hit a brick wall. finding yourself some days where you didn't want to play football anymore.

but thankfully your family, mainly your dad, were not going to let you give up so easily on the talent that they had spent watching over the last ten years. your dad repeatedly telling you 'that you time would come'

and like the fairy tale you had dreamed about you slowly begun to get minutes again and fell back in love with sport all over again. forever thankful for your family for their support each day, for sometimes dragging you to training even when you had told them multiple of times that you were done and that you quit.

and you dad was right, your time did come. your hard work finally paid off and just after your nineteenth birthday you made your appearance for the arsenal first time - even bagging yourself an assist.

the next few season were spent learning and being loaned to another other club spending half a season at brighton when you were 20. but you saw it all as learning and a way of improving - you were getting minutes, plenty of clean sheets and you were working towards a new goal: the 2023 world cup.

you were back at arsenal and were a regular starter in the back line for arsenal and with that came your good from and finally your call up for england came as they were beginning their campaign to quality for the world cup in australia.

"are you excited?" leah asked swinging her arm around your shoulders as you walked towards the changing rooms, she had been a big mentor to you since you had came into the first team, along with helping you to improve your game. you could say you became her little prodigy.

the squad had just been announced on social media for the first time and hearing your name on the sheet of paper had you feeling something you could even begin to find the word to describe.

“yes.. but no, i’m a little nervous” you admitted with a small laugh as leah gave you a soft smile and a squeeze of the shoulders to reassure you.

“listen, you’ll be fine! just play with the passion you always have” she said as you nodded slowly, “plus you’ll have me, beth and jordan!” the blonde added as you playfully groaned, leah gasping and unthreading her arm from around your shoulders.

“i’m just kidding, you know i love you all” you smiled, as leah rolled her eyes as you reached the doors of the changing rooms, “i do kiddo! ..but i’m at the top of that list, right?”

“whatever helps you sleep at night, lee!”

leah was right - you were fine. while you didn’t get any starts in any of the games at your first camp, you did get some minutes as a sub which was more than you were expecting. but while sitting on the bench you did find yourself talking to a particular blonde.

“you said you were from kent, didn’t you?” alessia asked as you hummed, a puzzled look growing on your face as you waited for the blonde to carry on. your eyes were glued to the girls running around on the pitch as you sat on the bench with a bright orange bib over your jacket.

“me too! what part?” the blonde asked as you turned your head at the question being slightly caught off guard at the fact she was also from kent.

“um maidstone” you gave her a small smile, your attention turning back to the girls on the pitch as the ball was close to going into the back of the net. alessia gasping making you think she had seen something you had missed on the pitch as well as making you jump a little, “me too!”

you turned back to her, giving her a shocked look. confusion filling you as the two of you spent the rest of camp talking about each others childhood finding out your grew up on the same street as well as going to the same school.

when the next england camp rolled around, you and alessia had became even closer to the point you were counting down the days until you next saw each other.

short and sweet messages turned into hours and hours spent on facetime until the other fell asleep. friendly comments turned into subtle flirty ones and the touches turned to ones that lasted longer than friends and slowly you found yourself falling for the blonde.

the last england camp before the euros in the summer at home had finally arrived, you had arrived at st george’s park with beth and leah but before alessia.

you found yourself sitting patiently in the common room, like a lost puppy waiting for the blonde to walk through the door. the other girls chatting and playing cards in the background.

“kid, if you stare any longer at the doorframe your gonna burn a hole in it!” lucy teased as you glanced away from the doorway for the first time in a least thirty minutes, rolling your eyes at the teasing comment you moved your gaze to fix at watching leah try and beat beth’s high score on the basketball hoop game.

eventually after what felt at least a year to you and fifteen minutes to everyone else - the blonde walked through with ella, as she made a beeline for you as you wrapped her in a tight hug.

the two of you finding a rhythm and falling into a deep conversation about all the things you had forgotten to tell each other over the phone.

“so then me and ella had to stop, so i could get a coffee and she-“ alessia was in the middle of telling you a recount of her journey here before you interrupted her with a big gasp, jumping up out of your seat to find your phone quickly.

“what?” alessia asked as she watched you frantically search for your phone on the beanbag you were sitting on - finding it wedged under the beanbag.

“i have to show you this before i forget!” you said a grin on your face getting bigger with ever swipe your finger did on your phone screen. moving closer to the blonde, your shoulders touching as she peered over your own shoulder wondering what on earth you were about to show her and why was it such a big deal.

"look-" you moved your phone so that it was in her eye line and on your screen was a group school photo, "i don’t get it? what am i looking at?" the blonde asked her squinted her eyes trying to get a better look at the photo.

"there's me and.." you paused as she pointed to herself as a small gasp followed from her, "and there's me" alessia whispered, so quietly you also couldn't hear her. shock has consumed the blonde and you sat back with a smug smile as she examined the photo a little more.

"how’d you find this?" alessia asked as she turned her head back to you, handing you back your phone, "my mum sent me them,, there's more if you swipe across" you said beginning to swipe along your camera roll.

the two of you spent the next hour looking through the photos, some from school and others from your grassroots club, recounting each others side of the memories both of you in shock of how close you to were to each other growing but in reality how far you were to each other.

"we've literally been in the background of each other lives forever" alessia smiled as you nodded. "attached by an invisible string" you added.

the international camp came to an end and you both went back to your respective clubs, this time the two of you were making an effort to see each other without it being on a pitch or about football — so on your days off you went to see alessia and on her days off she came to see you.

your feelings for alessia were growing each time you saw her, her smile was infectious, her blue orbs were the most beautiful thing you had ever seen. but you didn't want to admit your feelings to her in case it ruined your friendship, plus why would she like you back, alessia sees you as a friend and a friend only.

or so you thought.

"less, why don't you just admit you have feelings for the girl!" ella said as she caught the blonde smiling at her phone knowing that she was messaging you.

"w-what" the blonde stuttered her phone dropping into her lap. "less, we can all see that you like her!" ella paused as alessia's cheeks tinted red, "except for y/n - but she definitely likes you too!"

"she does?"

"of course, everyone can see the way you both look at each other!" ella said bumping her shoulder with the older blonde as alessia gave her a small smile and nodded processing the information that had just been given to her.

before the euros came around in the summer alessia managed to make the first move taking you on the first date — a fancy dinner accompanied by going back to her apartment and spending the rest of the night cuddled into each other while watching a film.

the euros had come and you were back with alessia and the rest of the england girls. the tournament had been the best time of your life making unforgettable memories with the girls. slipping in a few dates with alessia when you two had some downtime.

you were just beginning to enter the second half of extra time the score being 1-1 in the final, yes the final at wembley. the little girl inside of you was buzzing with excitement, you couldn't believe you were going to get to play here. your whole family had made the trip to wembley, sitting proudly in the crowd.

it was england's chance to score, germany had conceded the corner. alex was hovering over it to take it as white shirts littered germanys penalty area.

the ball swing in as everyone jumped up, you watched alessia drop to the ground and then watched as chloe poked the ball into the back of the net. chloe running off to celebrate as the stadium erupted, as you all gathered around chloe celebrating.

all you had to do was hold on for the next ten minutes and the trophy was englands.

keeping the ball in the corner, desperately waiting for the final whistle to blow.

germany had one last chance but before it got into the final half the whistle blew, england where european champions.

running to the closest person near you which happened to be leah, engulfing her in a hug as the tears began to fall. "we did it!" you whispered as she hummed, the two of you sniffing and wiping your eyes and going off to celebrate with the others but your eye caught the sight of your favourite blonde moving toward her.

you don't know if it was the adrenaline of the win that was flowing or if you had finally just grew the confidence to say it but after months of dancing around your feelings for the blonde.

you ran up swinging your arm around her neck, as you both cheered before you faced her grabbing her hands, "less! will you be my girlfriend" you blurted out, clearly catching the blonde of guard as her head perked up, alessia thinking she had misheard you before nodding, "yes, a thousand time yes!"

you smiled bringing the blonde in for a bear hug, not wanting to let go. enjoying her touch, it made you feel safe and loved. as she pulled away she wrapped an arm around your shoulders pulling you into her, kissing the top of your head lingering there for a few moments.

"all along there's been an invisible string tying me to you."

liked by lucybronze and 915,703 others

alessia day one or one day?

comments -

lucybronze well y/n looks thrilled on the first one

24m 140 likes reply

-> yourusername she annoyed me that day.

-> alessia how on earth can you remember that?

-> yourusername i can’t? i’m just guessing that you did

yourusername i love you<3

24m 140 likes reply

-> alessia love you more, my love<33

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babydollmarauders · 2 years ago

Text

WRAPPED UP IN A BOW — QUINN HUGHES

quinn hughes x fem!reader

12 DAYS OF KINKMAS

summary: in which y/n welcomes Quinn home with a gift

warnings: NSFW CONTENT, praise, oral (f receiving), p in v (unprotected). (3.1k words)

notes: welcome to day 8 of the 12 days of kinkmas!

a week. seven days. one hundred and sixty-eight hours.

that’s how long my husband has been out of town.

four road games done and over with and now he’s finally coming home to me.

in retrospect, getting married at the very end of the summer wasn't the best decision Quinn and i have ever made. with no time for a honeymoon before he had to be back in Vancouver for training camp, and then hockey season starting, we've had barely any time to relax and bask in the joy of being newlyweds.

which may be why i'm feeling particularly in the holiday spirit. one more home game and then we get almost an entire week to laze around, celebrate the holidays, and just enjoy the life of being newly married.

i’ve spent the last three days decorating our apartment; a wreath on the front door, our tree with ornaments hung gently on the branches, mistletoe over every doorway. miscellaneous holiday themed trinkets are scattered throughout our home.

but my favorite part of the past few days isn’t the decor, or the music i’ve had blasting, or even the christmas cookies i baked. rather, it’s the idea that popped into my head while shopping for all of the said decor online; when i found a body bow.

and after numerous hours, which were impatiently waited through, and countless youtube tutorials, i sit perched upon the end of my bed, wrapped snugly in the red satin bow.

my breasts are tied high and taut, pushed together tightly by the soft fabric and half covered by the oversized bow; while a strip of the satin reaches over one shoulder and through my legs. technically, all intimate areas are covered, but with one tug of the bow, it would all unravel, leaving me naked and ready. a present for my husband to enjoy.

my eyes are glued to my phone, Quinn’s location dancing across the screen, getting closer and closer to our apartment with each passing second.

it’s not often that i would be awake so late, waiting up for him. often times, i’m asleep when he gets back from a roadie, only waking up when i feel his strong arms wrap around me in bed.

as his location pings at our apartment complex, my heart beat rises in my chest, excitement pulling at my every atom. i’m shaky, phone haphazardly tossed onto my nightstand before i get into position; legs crossed and my weight leaned back on my hands.

it feels as though time is dragging on, towing through metaphorical mud. seconds feel like hours as i wait to hear him enter our apartment.

all the lights are off leading into our room, adding to the illusion that he’ll find me fast asleep.

i’m so lost in thought, knees bouncing in exhilaration, that it isn’t until i hear footsteps bounding down the hall that i realize he’s arrived. blood whirls in my ears, my skin heating up at the mere thought of his touch.

“no, she’s probably asleep.” his words carry through the echoey hallway, “Jack, i’m not waking my wife so you can ask her relationship advice. just call her tomorrow.”

i bite back a laugh as i listen to the one sided conversation with his brother. Quinn’s voice turns hushed as he gets closer to our bedroom, obviously attempting not to ‘wake’ me.

the doorknob twists, the door creaking open to display my husband. his head is down, phone pressed to his ear as he carries his road bag into the room. even from here i can see the crease thats formed between his threaded brows, dark bags accentuated under his green eyes.

he turns, gently closing the door behind him with minimal noise, but when he turns back around, his eyes meet mine. his eyes widen, lips parting with a gentle huff of air before he mutters a quick parting to his brother.

“i gotta go, just call her tomorrow.” the call is quickly hung up, his phone set on the dresser with his bag, never breaking eye contact.

“welcome home.” i watch with a crooked smirk as his eyes rake over my figure, slowly dragging down my body before scanning his way back up.

“fucking shit.”

a giggle rises up my throat at his curse, his steps towards me hurried. he sinks down to his knees, eyeing the intricate bow that graces my body. with his hands finding my knees, he carefully pulls my legs apart so that he can fit between them.

“shit, baby,” he pauses, teeth sinking into his bottom lip for a moment, “this all for me?”

i nod, peering down at him with the most innocent eyes that i can summon.

“mhm,” my tone is quiet but sultry, “played so well, and i missed you so much.”

he stands, towering over me now with a dark expression, his pupils blown out in lust.

“yeah? you missed me?” he questions, coaxing a nod of my head, “how bad?”

“so bad, Quinny.” i whine, hands grasping at his tie.

“did you touch yourself? you push your fingers into your pretty pussy? imagine they were mine as you made yourself cum in our bed?”

his words elicit a broken whimper from my throat, my eyelids fluttering as he wraps a hand around the back of my neck, forcing me to tip my head up to him.

“did you imagine my head between your thighs?” his voice drops, “my tongue licking your wet cunt? making you scream?”

my legs are shaking to close, to clench together and bring some much needed relief to my soaked core; but his body blocks me from doing so.

“yes.” i breathe out, eyes closing as he dips down to capture my lips in a bruising kiss.

his tongue slips past my parted lips, the result of a sudden gasp after his fingers curl into my hair, tugging just slightly.

the kiss is messy and deep, tongue’s tangling and pushing against each other, and when he pulls away, saliva coats my lips.

“lay back, baby.”

i drop back at his demand, hair sprawling across the soft mattress behind my head, and watch as best i can as my husband lowers back down to his knees until i can no longer see him.

it’s not but a second later that i feel his soft lips brush against my inner thigh, kissing a path up my leg. an unignorable pulse sparks between my thighs, thumping harder with each kiss, as he gets closer and closer to my wet heat.

wanton moans break the silence of the room, my body quivering with lustful anticipation; but before he can reach the spot in which i need him most, he pulls back, steadily repeating the process on the opposite leg.

a muted whine pulls from my lips as he shifts his path, bypassing my covered core and kissing up my torso. our eyes lock in a heated exchange, neither set looking away, as his open mouthed kisses reach an end, the oversized bow blocking his path.

but just when i think he’ll back away, he captures one tail of the bow between his teeth, slowly pulling back to unravel the satin knot. the glossy fabric falls off my chest, pooling around my body, revealing my bare breasts. my nipples are peaked with desire, stiffened by a mixture of lust and the cold air.

Quinn stares down at me, admiring my exposed figure, before he continues his journey, pressing wet kisses up my sternum. as he reaches my throat, he begins sucking, teeth grazing against my skin before he presses his tongue against it, pulling away to blow cool air against the spot.

shivers travel down my spine, my back arching up into him as he finally presses his lips against mine once more.

“so beautiful.” he mumbles, his hot breath fanning across my lips, swollen and indented with the mark of my teeth.

dragging himself back down to his knees, my jaw slackens as his breath hits my core.

“you’re dripping for me, baby.”

his tongue darts out, licking a slow stripe up my cunt, and my head tips back further into the mattress, my legs pulled over his shoulders as he groans.

“you really are a fucking gift.” he growls, his fingertips tightening in a bruising grip on my thighs.

my breath catches in my throat, blood rushing to my head as his tongue flattens against my clit. he wiggles it back and forth, softly playing with the bud of nerves.

my hands fly forward, tangling into the fluffy waves of hair that fall onto his forehead. as his tongue tenses, trailing down to flick into my entrance, he spreads my wetness, earning a harsh tug of his hair.

my grip coaxes a laugh of confidence from my husband, his chuckles reverberating through my core, and a screamed cry of pleasure echoes off of our bedroom walls, his name falling from my lips like a solemn prayer.

“Quinn, please,” i whimper, a single digit swiping through my wetness and making my voice falter into a high pitched moan.

“doing so well for me, baby.” his praises set my skin alight, heartbeat thumping in my throat.

his middle finger delves slowly into me, curling up into my g-spot as his lips enclose gently around my clit. pumping in, he slowly gets me ready, slipping his index finger in when he deems me lubricated enough.

my thighs close around his head, his free hand snaking his way around to push my leg open, a choked sob of arousal leaving my throat.

i can feel my orgasm creeping up on me, my stomach tying in knots as my eyes roll back.

suckling at my clit, he rolls it softly between puckered lips, his fingers alternating between hooking upwards and scissoring my cunt, slowly stretching me out and preparing me for his cock.

as his fingers speed and his tongue begins to circle and flick against my clit, my legs shake, hands gripping tighter into his hair while curses fall from my lips.

“Quinn,” tears gather along my waterline at the immense wave of pleasure that rolls through my body, “oh my god, right there!”

the tips of his fingers push against my g-spot with every thrust, my back arching as i can feel myself get closer and closer to the edge.

my husband moans, vibrations carrying through my core and spurring me over the edge. my walls tighten around his fingers, trapping them inside of me, and my hips grind against his soft lips as i reach my release.

heavy breathing sounds through the room as i lay back in ecstasy, recovering from my intense orgasm. pulling his cum coated fingers from my dripping pussy, Quinn’s lips pull away from my swollen clit with a pop.

“you taste like heaven.” he hums, coaxing my eyes to open, watching him suck his fingers clean of my release.

“Quinny,” i breathe out, hands reaching out to pull him forward by his tie as he rises from his knees, “i need you.”

“i’m right here, pretty girl.” he gruffs, a hand resting on the bed next to my head, holding himself up as he hovers above me.

he leans down, pressing a soft kiss to the spot where my jawline meets my ear. trailing up until he reaches my chin, he suddenly diverts, his lips meeting mine in a gentle kiss.

our lips dance together, his free hand grazing up my body until he reaches my breasts. his thumb rubs over my stiffened nipple, circling it lightly before pinching, the stark contrast drawing a moan from deep within my throat.

i can feel his erection pressing against my upper thigh, my hips jolting up into his in order try and relieve some tension.

pushing lightly at his chest, Quinn immediately backs away, worry filling his eyes, “what’s wrong? did i do something?”

rather than answer, i sit up, beginning to untie his tie. i pull it free from his collar before my hands push at his suit jacket.

“take it off,” i whine as my hands fumble, “all of it, Quinn. i need you. i need to see you.”

his hand cups my cheek, thumb rubbing over my cheekbone as he chuckles, eyes looking into mine.

“get up on the pillows,” he gruffs, watching with fervor as i follow his command, kicking the long forgotten satin fabric off the bed and onto the floor. “good girl.”

sitting with my back propped on the pillows, i watch my husband undress; his suit jacket tossed on the dresser, his button up dropped to the floor as well as the undershirt, before finally the clink of his belt sounds through the silent room.

i admire his upper body as he undresses, mentally praising all the hard work and training that’s led to his muscular arms and tight physique. my mouth waters and i yearn to press kisses to his pale torso, but i stay rooted in my spot, knowing better than to move.

fully naked, his cock stands tall, fully erect with a pink tip, precum beading at the slit, and i don’t think before my hand reaches out, wrapping around his length as he crawls over me.

i squeeze just slightly, my thumb running over his tip and spreading the precum, earning a hiss of satisfaction from my husband.

“stop,” he groans, vocal chords tight, “you want me to fuck you, right?”

i peer up at him with innocence, nodding my head quickly.

“then don’t be a greedy little slut,” my hand drops at his words, allowing him to take a deep breath, “hands and knees, baby.”

i scramble into position, craning my neck to watch his facial expressions as he grabs his base, guiding his cock through the lubricant of my residual cum.

my body shivers as he glides himself through my slick folds, wetting his dick thoroughly. he slides over clit, my legs instantly wobbling as i make a silent squeak.

“Quinn,” my voice shakes, but before i can continue, he’s pushing into me, my back contorting as he runs a hand over my spine.

“that’s it, baby,” he coos after i let out a loud moan, “take it like a good girl.”

i reach back with one hand, desperately grappling behind me for his touch. my request is granted when he grabs my hand, holding it in earnest as his other holds my hip.

“fuck me,” i cry, pushing backwards to sheath him entirely inside of me, “please, i need you to fuck me.”

Quinn clicks his tongue against his teeth, my head hanging forward as he stills, teasing me. i part my lips to begin begging again, but he silences me quick, pulling entirely out before slamming back into me.

he drops my hand in favor of gripping both hips, fucking into me with harsh and unforgiving thrusts.

my arms feel like jello beneath me, quivering with every graze of his tip against my g-spot, until finally i fall to my elbows.

his thighs smack against mine, each thrust pushing me further up the bed until i have to place my palms on the headboard, keeping me steady as my knees dig into the memory foam mattress.

“so fucking wet,” he grunts, pulling my focus to the lewd sounds of his cock sliding through my wetness, “my pretty fucking wife, so ready for me; so easy to please.”

i whine at the use of ‘wife’, the title still bringing goosebumps to the top of my flesh.

“yours,” i gasp, eyes rolling back as he slows his strokes, angling his hips for his cock to run over my g-spot, “all yours. your wife.”

“yeah, you like that, don’t you?” he breathes, “you like being my wife? you like letting me fuck you and call you mine? forever.”

his hand slides to my front, sprawling over my stomach before dipping down to let his finger apply pressure to my pulsing clit.

“yes!” i squeal, hips jerking from the pleasure, “yes, Quinn, yes!”

his finger draws circles on my clit, thrusts speeding as i clench around him.

“who am i?”

my stomach fills with pressure, toes curling as my hair falls into my face.

“my husband!” i scream, legs shaking underneath me.

his finger never relents, my overworked clit tingling, and i can barely stutter out that i’m close before he’s leaning forward, pressing kisses to my sweat coated back.

his soft lips against my heated skin send me over the edge, my eyes drawing shut as i let out an intense breathy moan. my walls clench but his thrusts never ease, only fucking into me with more intensity as he chases his own high, and within a minute, he finds it.

his hips falter, his grip tightening on my hips as he lets out a strangled cry, ropes of cum spilling out of him and mingling with my own.

it’s silent as he stops, nothing but heavy pants and the squelching sound of him pulling out, before he lays down, finally allowing me to drop onto my stomach beside him.

a breathy chuckle leaves his lips, my face buried into the pillow beside him, and he reaches over to scoop me into his arms, helping turn my body until my head is resting in the crook of his neck.

“what a welcome home present.” he laughs, still out of breath, and i giggle into his neck.

“figured you might like that.” i yawn, eyes fluttering shut as i rest a hand on his chest, “well worth staying up.”

“hey,” he coos, head back away in order to look at me. i pry my eyes open, staring up into his, “don’t go falling asleep yet, baby. you need a bath.”

i groan, attempting to burrow further into him, “but i’m so tired.”

he rolls his eyes at my drawn out whine, gently nudging me off of him so he can stand up.

“i’m gonna go draw a bath and get some wine. you don’t fall asleep.”

i nod sleepily, pulling myself up in a sitting position to keep myself from dozing off.

it’s not but five minutes later that Quinn returns, helping me into his arms and carrying me into the bathroom. he sets me down into the hot water of the bubble bath, grabbing the wine glasses off the counter and handing them to me before he slips in behind me, taking his glass back.

having out a deep sigh, i relax into his chest, his free arm wrapping around the front of my waist.

“so,” i start, making him laugh at my tired tone, “how was the trip?”

#faithlynn’s 12 days of kinkmas #quinn hughes #quinn hughes x reader #quinn hughes imagine #quinn hughes smut #quinn hughes fic #quinn hughes blurb #vancouver canucks #nhl smut #nhl imagine #nhl fic #faithlynn’s writings <3

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rei-ismyname · 2 months ago

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Feminist Namor vs Misogynist Magneto

The first year of X-Men publication saw a deeply unsuccessful recruitment drive from both Magneto and Xavier; their nonexistent people skills and ideological inflexibility generally driving potential allies away. After a conspiracy piece on Namor appeared in the news, both men raced to get him first. Chuck and Mags use fucking astral projection at the same time and head to find Atlantis!

Magneto just radiates evil apparently

This chicanery shows that Grant Morrison didn't just pull Chuck 'sensing evil' out of nowhere - though of course evil is pretty damn subjective. The Blob (poor, fat, didn't want to devote his existence to working for Chuck) and Magneto (wants to enslave the world) are not the same. Chuck lets Magneto go ahead and figures he can let him do the hard work of finding The Submariner. Classic Chuck.

Astral Magneto locates him almost immediately, but Namor's soliloquy on getting smashed by the Fantastic Four and rejected by Sue (get used to it buddy) frightens him. Instead Mags whispers to an ambitious yet fearful Atlantean lackey, offering power. Mags is all over the place in the sixties - a cowardly wizard that can do almost anything, except defeat five children and their bald dad.

Magneto's first island ❤️

The dude just suggests Namor ally with Magneto, winning him over with an appeal to mutant solidarity. It works! Mags gets a visit on his first of many islands; Namor is unimpressed and certainly not taking any orders. His super gross plan to influence the King of Atlantis is to throw Wanda at him. Despite the G-rated wording the intention is clearly to pimp Wanda, not for the last time either. Wanda 'agrees' but Magneto's emotional abuse of the twins complicates that.

Wanda thinks he's hot and cool but accidentally hexes Namor while he's exploring the island. She manages to warn him in time, though he's indestructible and isn't especially bothered. Namor is more like 'hmm, magnets.' I can empathize.

Angel breaks up the meet cute by divebombing Toad, then delivering a message. Rather, he announces a message from Professor X and Mags tells him to shut the fuck up, then yeets boulders at him. Namor wants to show off so he grabs Warren and gives him a pounding.

Wanda and Namor work out that misunderstanding while getting to know each other, but the rest of the Brotherhood aren't impressed. Pietro doesn't trust him, Mastermind thinks he's underdressed, and Toad disses his winged feet. Mags knows what's up though. Namor is strong AF.

GGM❤️

Warren flees to regroup with the X-Men and they assault the island. It wouldn't have worked regardless, but Chuck's strategy of letting Mags find Namor just means they have to fight him. There's a struggle over a GIANT GREEN MAGNET lol, culminating in Pietro's capture. I'm collecting all of Mags' 'using literal magnets for stuff' moments so stay tuned for that.

Namor attacks Magneto and gets assaulted by metal for his trouble. Cyclops breaks it up with his POWER BEAM, blowing a hole in the bunker and scaring TF out of everyone. Magneto just runs away, leaving his lackeys in danger. It's a super common thread with him and all Silver Age supervillains - they're cowardly selfish jerks with no redeeming qualities or pathos. Even coherent motivation and ideology are hard to come by, best illustrated perhaps by self identifying as 'evil.' The modern retcon that he was using 'evil' ironically to reclaim it and make a statement is hilarious. He always committed to the bit.

'Magnets ain't shit.... Fuck, metal hurts!'

Wanda and Pietro are ride or die and she insists he be freed. Mags is like 'nah, magnets' and threatens her, something Namor cannot abide. He refuses to ally with anyone who's rude to women, seemingly forgetting that he kidnapped Sue like yesterday. He may have spoken courteously but he tried to force her to marry him. It's the sixties, so he says 'female' instead of 'women' naturally. Gross.

Mags does offer escape to those closest to him, but Wanda refuses to leave Pietro. The idiot bounces with fewer allies than he started with, openly ranting about his disregard for anyone else's safety. Wanda, Pietro and Namor are left to deal with the X-Men. We'll see him again but his callousness does him zero favours.

With Pietro as their captive, the X-Men stand off against Wanda and Namor. They're just as bad at making friends, missing that the other mutants have been abandoned openly by Magneto. Instead of diplomacy they deliberately antagonise the unaligned trio and end up fighting the dude they came to recruit. It's a miracle that any of them ever worked with the X-Men at all, frankly.

Namor wallops the X-Men and shrugs off Cyke's POWER BEAM. He's not going all out but Cyclops badly misjudges the prideful Namor by insisting that he surrender. Gunboat diplomacy works better when the threat is unspoken, you know? The Scarlet Witch comes in clutch with a hex and Scott stumbles like a chump. Namor is about to fuck him up when Chuck mentally shouts 'HALT!'

Chuck shows up with Quicksilver in thrall and demonstrates where the X-Men learnt their outreach tactics. In trying to declare peace he condescendingly insults all three of them - Namor - the dude he came to recruit - is particularly put off by this jerk. It's a drastic failure for a telepath, though he does order the X-Men to stand down.

Chuck releases Pietro but Namor's patience has run out. Deciding that all these people suck, he resolves to work alone and heads home. It's not like Xavier even attempted diplomacy of any kind, he barely even speaks to Namor directly.

Turns out Magneto and company didn't go far, making their way to the GIANT GREEN MAGNET. Namor just wants to go home but Mags' ethos is firmly 'with me or against me.' He blasts Namor with magnet, somehow pinning him down. Dude escapes by simply flexing which knocks the GIANT GREEN MAGNET off balance. Nice try Mags.

Namor bails for real this time, with nothing to stop him. In his anger, Magneto zaps Mastermind (based) while engaging in revisionism and ordering the Brotherhood to fall out. The nearby magna-ship has a reverse chute thingy that sucks them up.

Cyke bemoans their prisoners (they weren't) escaping (leaving unopposed) but this is all according to Chuck's design, allegedly. He says it's no good until they join of their own free will, but he doesn't offer any incentive or argument to convince them to. He just expects that one day they'll accept his way of seeing the world as correct and beg to join the X-Men. Fittingly, that NEVER happens. Even when the twins are free once Magneto is abducted by aliens, they prefer to do literally anything other than be X-Men. They jump at the chance to be Avengers, and it's not until Chuck loses leadership and authority to Scott that Mags and Namor join up.

Oh, and Jean is glad Wanda is gone because she's hot. Smh.

Charles Xavier really sucks at recruiting people, insisting on adherence to his narrow vision and refusing to build a coalition. His journey from absolute authority and ideological leader of the assimilationist X-Men to barely tolerated bystander takes decades, and he only worms his way back through dying stupidly. As of 2025 he's fucked up so badly that mutants have it worse than ever and he's taken his ball to sulk in space. Ironically Magneto has come the furthest of anyone, recognising that superhero antics are a shitty tool for enacting social change.

It's incongruous with future Chuck lore, but I think the O5 makes the most sense if Charles Xavier is 17. A rich teenager that barely left the house as an almost adult who uses his wealth and telepathy to advance his simplistic ideals of good and evil. He's ignorant and arrogant enough that his first activist outing is heading to petition the government directly. He's not equipped to raise 15 year olds because he's 17 and has never wanted for anything. He treats people like things because that's what rich people do. He fails repeatedly at connecting with people because he doesn't know how the world works. Chuck's plans and training regime are ridiculous because he's a kid himself. The baldness is significant, making him look much older, and he's not a professor of any kind - he just piled lies on top of lies and he can't come clean without the house of cards coming down. It's a fun reading that recontextualises all dynamics, but it's not canon.

#x men #x comics #magneto #cyclops #charles xavier #professor x #namor #the o5 #brotherhood of evil mutants #quicksilver #scarlet witch #toad #mastermind #angel #iceman #beast #marvel girl #marvel #comics

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girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 6 months ago

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tuesday again 1/7/2025

in which we embark upon a progamme of reading for our edification

listening

this was the first song of the year-- felt a little melancholy and a lot sleepy after watching the first movie of the year and this fit the vibe.

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reading

as a user, i think the magic link system is very annoying, but i also get that they don't want to fuck around with holding and protecting user data. they have been very firm but polite about various bells and whistles people want added to their site that do not contribute to their main goal of reporting various news beats. i DO really appreciate how they put in the time to create a private RSS feed for subscribers with the full text of all the articles so you don't have to log in with the magic link every time, or rather i will really appreciate this once i have a job and can subscribe.

i need to set myself a project and i keep forgetting i moved all this vintage gay and lesbian erotica from massachusetts down to texas with me, so we're going to read one a week until i get bored or we (heaven forbid) run out of gay or lesbian erotica.

the second purpose, and look, i hate the word normalized, but texas politicians are constantly working themselves into a screaming froth about protecting children from gay sex and gay books. i think we can look at various gay sex books each week in a calm and reasonable manner and ask the normal questions i try to ask of every work discussed in the tuesdayposts. since moving, my instinct is to be more stealth and less visibly gay, which is not the way i would like to live. this is the absolute babiest of baby steps since the tuesdayposts (to date) have never put me in any physical danger.

the main questions i will be trying to answer each week are:

is there anything cool about the physical object?

what's the author's deal?

did i like it/did it deliver on its premise?

the sex?

i don't know. chime in if there's some fifth thing you want regularly answered?

this is a 1997 british-printed perfect-bound paperback by The Gay Men's Press (a short history by one of the founders here). i'm not sure if this copy had ever been read, because i managed to break the spine in a very ugly way while trying to gently break the book in. this is either from a goodwill just over the border in ct or from bookends in florence (which you should go visit if you're ever in western ma, one of the few brick and mortar lesbian bookstores in the country).

not for me but i appreciate what it is and what it's trying to do. i have very rarely read something so clearly written by an author for an audience of themselves.

Growing up at a coaching inn on the Great North Road in the early 1700s, young Davy Gadd is enthralled by tales of the greatest of highwaymen, Claude Duval. Seeking his fortune in London, he is entangled in the machinations of Under City Marshal Charles Hitchin and the infamous Jonathan Wild, in their battle to divide up the spoils of the criminal underworld. At last, equipped with horse, pistols and velvet mask, he sets out as a Gentleman of the Road. But not before he has been loved by a Jacobite lord, dressed up by Lucinda and Aunty Mary, and been married at Mother Clap's Molly House. And at the end of the road, will he Pass into Legend, or does his fate lead to Tyburn tree, where so many glamorous adventurers have been hanged?

i think i would have enjoyed this book more if i were a gay man, really into daniel defoe, stuart restoration/early georgian england or very specific bits of historic london nightlife history. there are three hundred and sixty eight of god's own pages and we certainly do meander. it is a little bit of a slog in the dissatisfied middle portion of our hero Davy's young adulthood, but you are rewarded for sticking with it by all the important threads getting neatly tied off. it wraps up nicely if bittersweetly. the ending deals with community and vulnerability in a way that makes sense for a book written by a gay man in 1997. i wish i could explain my thoughts on this better. i think it is a perfectly fine ending that suits the book but again, overall, the book is not for me.

there is period-typical homophobia and gay bashing, but very little of it actually affects Davy. he is generally in fear for his life bc of some crime he committed unrelated to being gay. i think this is a pretty sensible way to make sure your historically accurate novel remains fairly historically accurate without being a fucking downer to write and read. on a related dealbreaker for many people, there is a good deal of phonetic dialect in this book, although it is mostly relegated to dialogue and slangy or shortened forms of words in dialogue spoken by people more connected to the criminal underclass.

i wrote all that and then i had to employ some stringent search techniques to find out anything about the author, who was not a very public person, and his feelings about homophobia vs historical accuracy. about three quarters of the way through this 1997 article about gay fiction from The Independent (interview conducted by letter!) we discover he also considers this a fine line to walk, and perhaps the only paragraph on the internet about his background

"The greatest influences on my writing to begin with were the swashbuckling films which I saw as a child in the Fifties," he says. "Errol Flynn and Stewart Grainger were particular heroes. Also around that time, John Buchan, whose Richard Hannay says, 'I have always had a boy's weakness for a yarn.' Later I acquired an English degree, and was influenced by medieval and Elizabethan literature, Thomas Hardy, Dickens, various historical novelists, Mary Renault and Daphne du Maurier."

"but kay, what about the sex?" my dear readers are probably crying out right now. i don't think this is a great book to jerk off to, even if you are a gay man and not a bisexual woman with the briefest passing familiarity about various periods of english history. davy fucks, a lot, don't get me wrong-- the fucks are not generally instrumental in driving the plot forward or delivering cool facts about london so they're all quite short, usually less than a page.

i don't know if including an example of a sex scene is interesting or useful information to anyone else but it feels strange Not to include it in a reading project about gay and lesbian erotica? gentle reader, i would love to hear your thoughts

watching

at about 11:30 PM on new year's eve i like to start a new-to-me black and white classic film to take me into the new year. this year's was Filibus (1915, dir. Roncoroni, widely available in various niceties of restoration)

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summary from wiki:

Filibus is a 1915 Italian silent adventure film directed by Mario Roncoroni and written by the future science fiction author Giovanni Bertinetti (it). It features Valeria Creti (fr) as the title character, a mysterious sky pirate who makes daring heists with her technologically advanced airship. When an esteemed detective sets out on her trail, she begins an elaborate game of cat and mouse with him, slipping between various male and female identities to romance the detective's sister and stage a midnight theft of a pair of valuable diamonds.

i found out about this film through the @hotvintagepoll scrungly poll, and i think Valeria Creti should have gone all the fuckin way. girl hobbyist detective/nobleman by day, gadget-loving gentleman thief by night. i support women's wrongs, and she causes so so many of them on purpose. there are some things that carbon date a film, like russian antagonists or gland problems, and this film is carbon dated by sleepwalking as a serious psychological event. she comes very close to taking a detective completely out of the policing game by drugging him and staging elaborate series of events to plant evidence that he did all her crimes while sleepwalking.

she LOVES being in boy mode and she's very good at it! it's never treated as a joke! she stages a rescue of the detective's sister in order to gain access to his house, but then the actual building of the relationship and courtship is completely on her own merits and charm!

this is a charming (if poorly paced for viewing all in one sitting) early gay serial film. if i saw this in the cinema in 1915 i would have been institutionalized for imitating filibus

playing

genshin is not feeling as jazzy or fun lately. i think i have two issues. one is that Fontaine, the last major nation's main questline was a truly delightfully crafted (and fair! we had all the pieces just not all the context) murder mystery with a lot of lore. this nation, Natlan, is functionally a sports anime. not that one genre is better or more complex than the other, it's just. different. and recalibrating my expectations has been a little wonky.

the second kind of weird calibration thing is the rate of additions to the world map. genshin runs on a six-week update cycle, where every six weeks you get something major and new to progress the game story. usually there are nine patches, starting at X.0 and going up to X.8. you iterate up a full number with major patches introducing a new land, so with the introduction of Natlan we started the 5.X patch cycle and left Fontaine's 4.X cycle behind.

this is important bc there's usually there's new and fun and exciting stuff and puzzles to solve and new challenges only when they add to the map. in the 5.X patch cycle, there have only been two map expansions: one in 5.0 introducing the land, and one addition about doubling the map in 5.2. 5.3 dropped last week, where the main storyline of the nation typically wraps itself up in the last map update and then we get to fuck around in bonus areas or seasonal events. for example, in the last three nations, so from updates 2.0-4.2, there are typically three big map updates in a row that unlock the entire base map of whatever country we're in, no new map content for a patch, a new bonus area related to whatever area we're in, another break, and then a seasonal map, and then three more updates with no new maps but new events or new battle modes. for natlan, we're essentially "behind" unlocking a chunk of the map.

let's go to the maps: the last nation Fontaine's first introduction in 4.0 (these are all from IGN, they are not to scale with each other):

the second update in 4.1:

the third and final main map update in 4.2:

introduction of natlan in 5.0 on the right (these two screenshots i took are to scale with each other), no underwater regions or major underground areas in this one:

no map update in 5.1. second major map update in 5.2 on the left here, still no major underwater or underground regions. we are currently in 5.3 with no map update, with maybe the third and final map update in 5.4?

again, the problem with No New Map is that typically in genshin you go to new places to unlock more of the story. we're "behind" a map update, if you will. they've kind of shoehorned new story into existing map, and shoehorned new bosses into the existing map, which is very strange and makes the nation feel so much smaller and more limited than other nations.

it feels a lot like part of the map update we got in 4.2, ochkanatlan, an abandoned island city somewhat removed from the rest of the map, was supposed to be the bonus area map, but they didn't have enough ready? the 4.2 update also felt very medium sized- at this point in Fontaine we'd unlocked the Fortress and Institute, which really blow the dragon city right off the island with regards to complexity of exploration and length of quests. it's not really anywhere near the complexity or length of the first desert map expansion in Sumeru, which was honestly a really crazy thing to drop all at once. i will not be putting more nation map screenshots up here bc of the image limit but the desert in sumeru is ENORMOUS and it has an equally enormous underground labyrinth!

not my favorite nation so far! a little bit of it is recency bias bc Fontaine was SO good and is overall my favorite, but it feels off lately. i don't know if the really punishing every six weeks updates are finally catching up to the parent company, or if they're really deep in preproduction for the next land (it Feels like they're going to split the next land into two different X.0 update cycles. there's a lot of chatter in game from NPCs about how different and weird the next port is compared to the rest of the country. i could easily see them building that out to two major updates like natlan and then saving the bulk of the country for the next X.0 update in another year).

making

bathrobe surgery under the armhole.

ive had this red/black/blue tattersall plaid in light cotton since high school, best guesstimate based on the tag style is early to mid sixties?

this thing is Solid. it is perhaps the most nicely constructed garment i own. every seam is a narrow, tidy french seam. the underside of the collar is lightly quilted to give it some body and make it stay down, and it has a facing over the top to make it look not quilted from the front. it has The best waist tie arrangement i've ever seen, with a tiny strap on the underside of the tie to permanently hold it to the belt loops but still give you a little bit of play.

it is so beloved that it's starting to completely wear through on the shoulders, and i have to think about how to patch it without losing any of the light breathable qualities i love it so much for.

#tuesday again #tuesday again no problem #hope you all like One Million Photos #twenty five hundred words Ha Ha!

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sequinsmile-x · 1 year ago

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Stained Glass Windows - Chapter Sixty Four

Life was complicated, but they wouldn't have it any other way.

-x-

Hi besties <3

As always, the love for this version of them means the entire world...especially after the anon saying I should stop this fic. You are all the absolute best and I am forever grateful for this little corner of the internet.

Anyway, I got yelled at for the last chapter. I will probably get yelled at for this one and I will deserve it.

Please let me know what you think!

-x-

Words: 3.1k

A full list of warnings for the fic can be found on the Series Master List.

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

She stares at him, her mouth falling open as a disbelieving scoff escapes her, “Pakistan?”

It feels like his heart is in a vice, the grip on it getting tighter and tighter with each passing second. It was a feeling that had settled in his chest the moment the Deputy Director had walked out of his office, something he knew wouldn’t shift until he had this conversation with his wife. He nods as he reaches for her hand and links it through his, their wedding rings knocking against each other as he squeezes tightly.

“He said the request for me to head it up came from the director himself,” he says, and Emily presses her lips together as she looks down at their joint hands, turbulent emotions rolling through her stomach. A mix of pride for her husband and the fact he was being recognised by the FBI for everything he’d done, for the things he’d almost died for, and dread at the thought of having to live without him.

“What did you say to him?” She asks carefully, pleased when her voice remains even, that she’s able to cover the nausea climbing up her throat.

“I said I had to talk to you about it,” he replies, stroking his thumb back and forth over the heel of her hand, “I’d never agree to anything without doing that.”

She blows out a shaky breath, and closes her eyes, shaking her head as she laughs humourlessly, “Neither one of them is someone who takes no for an answer,” she says, swallowing thickly, “If you say no you could tank your career.”

“I’ll quit tomorrow if you want me to say no, Em,” he says seriously, his eyebrows furrowed as he leans in closer, eliminating any space between them. He smiles at her and it wavers, the breath he huffs out skipping across her face, “My wife is pretty well off.”

She chuckles and closes her eyes, “You love your job.”

“I love you more. I love Lily and Jack more,” he says, cupping the back of her head and drawing her closer, resting his forehead against hers, “Nothing is more important than the three of you.”

She stamps a kiss against his lips before she pulls back, “Do you want to go?”

The answer was complicated. It was an amazing opportunity, one he would have jumped at a few years ago. He knew if his life was different, if he had more to run away from than he had to run towards that he’d probably go. Find solace on the other side of the world in an attempt to fix what he’s sure would be missing if he and Emily weren’t together, to somehow stitch himself back together without her handing him the thread. He didn’t want to be far away from her and the kids, didn’t want to potentially miss milestones in Lily’s life that he’d missed in Jack’s.

“I don’t know how much of a choice I have,” he says honestly, “He said it would be a few months-”

“A few months?” She exclaims, her calm exterior slipping and she frowns at him, “That’s ridiculous. We have an almost 10-month-old-”

He squeezes her hand, cutting her off with a soft smile, “I already told him that amount of time wouldn’t be acceptable. If I did it…it would be one month. Two months maximum,” he assures her, “I’d be back before her birthday.”

She nods and blows out a breath. She felt vaguely reassured by that, but she knew how these things worked. That they could delay him coming home, that once he was out there his stay could be extended. “Do we have to make a decision now?”

He shakes his head, “We can sleep on it, but we have to make a decision soon,” he says and she nods, looking back at their joint hands, falling silent as she tries to figure out how she feels, “I’m sorry sweetheart.”

She looks up so quickly it briefly hurts her neck and she feels her heart break at the look on his face, the genuine devastation in his eyes, and for a moment she puts aside her feelings about all of this. He was the one who would be leaving if they decided he was going to do this, he was the one who would go weeks, maybe months, without seeing his children, and she could tell he was worried she was angry at him.

It’s a hangover from his marriage with Haley, her lack of understanding about his job, about how much of it was out of his hands, still deeply ingrained within him. Emily feels a flash of anger towards the other woman that she knows she doesn’t deserve. It was one of the many reasons Haley herself had said Emily and Aaron were better suited, because they understood this part of each other in a way she had never been able to.

“Oh, honey,” Emily says, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him into a hug, his head pressed against her chest. He holds her tightly, his arms banding firmly around her, and she feels his breath stutter against her collarbone. She rests her cheek on the top of his head and runs her hand up and down his back, “You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m so proud of you.”

He pulls back and looks at her, his eyebrows furrowing, his eyes shining in a way she knows hers are too, “Really?”

She nods and runs her fingers through his hair, “Really,” she says, smiling softly, an edge of mischievousness to it he sometimes sees in their daughter’s smile, “Although, part of me wishes right now that you weren’t so damn good at your job.”

He laughs, loud and bright and it eases some of the ache in her gut. He nods and rests his forehead against hers, “Me too.”

They are cut off by a cry from upstairs, the baby monitor on the table crackling to life half a second later and they both smile. Aaron stamps a kiss against her lips and pulls back.

“I’ll go,” he says, kissing her once more before he stands up. He stops before he gets very far and he turns to look at her, “I love you, Em.”

She smiles at him, a sad edge to it that makes him wish he’d never said anything, that he’d given them the evening to just be together and happy.

“I love you too.”

___

Emily smiles as she watches Jack patiently holds his hands out so Lily can use them to hold herself up, briefly standing on shaky legs before she falls onto her bottom, giggling when Jack joins in too.

“That was so good, Lil,” Emily says, reaching out and smoothing her fingers through her daughter’s unruly hair, “Is Jack helping you learn to walk?”

“When will she be walking properly, Emily?” Jack asks, tilting his head at her curiously, forever impatient when it came to his sister being able to play with him.

“Probably soon, Jack,” she says, smiling softly at him, “Remember we said it would be around the time of her birthday?”

The thought of it made her ache. She loved seeing her daughter grow, loved seeing her personality develop and watching her hit milestones, but she also missed when she was tiny. When Lily was a dot of a thing who would sleep against her chest for hours. She felt the same way about Jack too, how he’d changed so much right in front of her eyes over the last few years.

“I can’t wait,” he says enthusiastically, holding out one of Lily’s toys for her, his focus entirely back on his little sister.

Emily’s smile falters, the reality of the fact Lily’s birthday was going to be on the other side of Aaron’s time away from them all weighing heavily on her. They’d made the decision together that he would go, on the grounds that it was only to help the task force get set up and that he’d only be there a couple of months at most. It was something the deputy director had agreed to and Aaron had signed all the paperwork just the day before. They hadn’t told anyone on the team yet and she was dreading their reactions, but they had told Haley, both of them aware they couldn’t make that decision officially without telling her.

It hadn’t been an easy conversation. As predicted Haley hadn’t understood, her initial reaction the same that it would have been if she and Aaron were still married. They’d talked about it in detail. Told her how Aaron would be away for a couple of months at most, that Emily would still be at home and that nothing with their arrangement with Jack had to change. Emily was nothing short of grateful when Haley eventually agreed. Part of her had been worried that she’d be hesitant to have Jack come over when Aaron was away for such an extended period of time. She loved Jack just as much as she loved Lily, and she wanted to have as much of Aaron around her as possible while he was gone.

She hears the doorbell ring and she blows out a breath as she hears Aaron’s footsteps as he goes to answer it. They’d agreed with Haley that they’d all tell Jack together, so they hadn’t hinted at anything whilst he’d been with them the last few days. She gives herself a moment before she stands up and lifts Lily into her arms, as she smiles at Jack.

“That will be your mommy, honey,” she says, sitting on the couch and resting Lily on her lap before she pats the cushion next to her, “Come sit here.”

He frowns as he stands up and walks over to join her on the couch, “Am I in trouble?”

She shakes her head and presses a kiss to his forehead, “No sweetie, you’re not in trouble. Mommy, Daddy and I just need to talk to you about something, okay?”

He nods, his eyebrows still furrowed together, and snuggles into her side as Haley and Aaron walk into the living room, “Hi Mommy.”

Haley smiles as she settles onto the couch opposite them, warmth that feels a little like jealousy spreading through her as Aaron settles on Jack’s other side, the sight of the four of them all together something she still needed a second to get used to.

“Hi honey,” she replies, “Did you have fun with Daddy, Emily and Lily?”

He nods enthusiastically, “Emily says Lily will be walking soon and then she can play with me more.”

“That’s so exciting,” she says, looking at the baby sitting on Emily’s lap, her fist in her mouth as she looks up at her mother. Haley smiles softly before she looks over at Aaron and they lock eyes, a silent conversation they’d had countless times since they were young and dumb and convinced their love would last forever. He nods and clears his throat, turning his attention to Jack, his hand running through his hair.

“Jack, buddy, we need to talk to you about something,” he says, and Jack nods earnestly. Aaron feels his breath catch in his chest, briefly unsure what to say even though he’d practised it a dozen times in his head. He looks up at his wife as she places her hand on his knee, reaching over Jack and squeezing the joint for a second, her smile reassuring as their eyes meet before he looks down back at his son, “You know my job is to fight bad guys, right?”

“Emily does too!”

He chuckles and he nods, “Yeah, she does. Well, sometimes I go away for a few days at a time to fight the bad guys. And you stay here with Emily and Lily if I’m away when you’re supposed to be here,” he says, clearing his throat before he carries on, “Well, I have to go away for a little longer than I usually do.”

Jack frowns, his brows furrowing together in a way that makes him look so much older, “How long?”

Aaron sighs and feels Emily squeeze his leg again, “Until just before Lily’s birthday, buddy.”

The room falls into silence for a moment before Jack looks back and forth between all three of his parents, “Thats so long.”

“I know it is,” he says, tugging Jack into his lap, holding him close as he drops a kiss to the top of his head, “But I love you so much, and so do Mommy and Emily. And whilst I’m gone I need you to help look after Lily.”

Emily smiles and reaches over, running her fingers through the little boy's hair, “And nothing will change here, okay? You’ll still be here half the week just like normal.”

Jack nods slightly absentmindedly and looks over at Haley, “Really?”

Haley nods, wanting nothing more than to pull her son into her arms, but knowing this had to be a moment for Aaron and their little boy, “Really. We’ve already talked about it. I know you enjoy your time here.”

Jack’s lower lip starts to tremble and he presses his face into his father’s chest, “I’ll miss you, Daddy.”

Aaron closes his eyes and pulls him close, pressing a fierce kiss to the top of his son’s head, “I’ll miss you too. So much.”

He’s proud of himself for holding it together, for not falling apart, until Haley and Jack leave, an agreement that they’d get together for dinner before he left echoing around them as the door closes. It's only when Emily turns to look at him, Lily on her hip, matching expressions on their faces, that he breaks.

As Emily comforts him, Lily pressed between them, babbling to herself and blissfully unaware of everything going on around her, all he can do is hope he’s made the right decision.

___

Emily holds her daughter close, making sure her little jacket was covering her properly. It was easier to focus on protecting her from the cool spring evening air than it was to think about what was about to happen, about the fact she was about to say goodbye to her husband for a few weeks. Lily presses her face into Emily’s neck, rubbing her forehead against her skin, and she kisses the top of her head.

“I know, sweet girl, you’re tired,” she says, kissing her head again, “We’ll be heading home soon.”

She clears her throat to get rid of the shake in her voice, desperate to hold it together, to not show Aaron just how much she was struggling with this now the moment was here. She looks up as he walks towards them and she fixes a smile on her face.

“We’re all ready to go,” he says, and her eyes drift past him to the plane that would take him away from her, full of other agents and military personnel who were also in the middle of saying goodbye to their families. “Em-”

“You know that promise you made when I stopped going on cases with the BAU?” She asks, her eyes drifting back to his, “I was pregnant, this one was Nugget,” she says, bouncing Lily slightly, both of them taking a moment to smile at the fond memory of their daughter’s first nickname, “And we were in that kitschy hotel in Alaska.”

He nods and looks at Lily, reaching out for her hand, smiling when she grabs his finger, “You’d just had that fall and were told to rest for the rest of the day. We sat in bed and you asked me to promise to not take any unnecessary risks.”

She smiles, feeling how it trembles, the force of her emotions climbing up her throat. It felt like a lifetime ago not just a year. They hadn’t met Lily, they didn’t even know they were having a daughter, and they weren’t married yet. So much had changed, but the foundation of their relationship was still the same - they loved each other fiercely. And that was why she understood that he had to do this.

“I’m asking you to make that promise again,” she says, cupping his cheek, “I need you to not do anything stupid so you come back to us, okay?” She asks, her chin shaking as a tear finally breaks free from her lashline, “You need to come back so you can watch Lily and Jack grow up. And so we can make half a dozen other adorable babies.”

He chuckles, the sound wet as it catches in his chest, and he nods, capturing her lips in a kiss. It tastes of their tears, a tang of sadness stuck to their lips as they pull away. “I promise.”

She nods, her forehead pressed against his, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he replies, kissing her nose and then her cheek, “So much,” he turns his attention to Lily. He kisses her forehead and then her cheek, taking a moment to breathe her in, “Love you Lily-Pad, I’ll be home soon okay?”

Lily babbles, grabbing his face with her tiny fists, her sharp nails digging into his skin, the imprints of her touch that would last until after he walked away.

They hear his name being called, the final call for boarding ringing around them, and they both sigh. Emily brushes his hair off his forehead and then cups his cheek again. He turns his head and kisses her palm.

“I’ll let you know when I land.”

She nods, dragging him into one last kiss, “Don’t do anything stupid,” she says, reiterating her earlier point, “You’re already a hero to me.”

He smiles and kisses her before he steps back, “Right back at you, Mrs Hotchner. I love you.”

“We love you,” she says, sniffing, wiping tears from her cheeks as she waves at him as he starts to walk away, “Wave goodbye to Daddy, Lily.”

Lily waves too, mostly encouraged by Emily who smiles sadly when her little girl mirrors her movements. Emily watches as Aaron boards the plane and he turns back to wave, his smile reassuring even with the distance between them. She stays until the plane leaves, until it’s nothing more than a spec in the sky, something easily confused with the constellations she’d once mapped with her grandfather.

Lily grumbles in her arms and Emily adjusts her hold on her, kissing her daughter’s forehead as she turns to leave, “Come on baby. Let’s go home.”

-x-

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getvalentined · 11 months ago

Note

50 random ask game: 16, 19, 41 for Veld please!

[For the Random Character Asks game.]

16. Deepest darkest secret they won’t even admit to themselves?

When Veld found Vincent in Nibelheim toward the end of 2006, he had to leave before he could get any answers—he didn't have the time, Felicia's life was hanging by a thread, and Veld had to use that limited time wisely.

Veld and Vincent worked together for years, lived together for years, Veld knows he could have coaxed him into communicating, could have coaxed him into leaving if he'd just hung around for a few hours. A day at the most. Veld knows Vincent, and this wouldn't have been the first time he slowly drew him out of a dark place and helped unpack what was going on in his head. He just needed a day. But if he'd taken that day, Felicia almost certainly wouldn't have made it. The amount of time lost in traveling, finding what it took to save her, meant that every minute mattered by then.

So Veld left. He made that decision. He promised he'd come back, but he never did; he was too badly injured, by the time he recovered enough to travel, Meteor was bearing down on the planet. Veld never went back to Nibelheim.

Toward the end of 2010, Veld caught sight of Vincent at WRO HQ. Their eyes met, Vincent froze, Veld stared—confused and alarmed and off-balance. He knew by then that Vincent had left Nibelheim, Tseng told him about it after Meteorfall, but why was he here? Last Veld heard, Vincent was haunting the Forgotten Capital, not interacting with people, and Veld had plans to go find him eventually, to coax him out of whatever dark place in which he'd cloistered himself away this time—

Vincent broke eye contact, turned away, and left without a word. And for just a moment, Veld wished more than anything that he'd stayed in Nibelheim for that single integral day. He pushed the thought aside, shoved the feeling down, and refused to acknowledge it again.

19. Vices/bad habits?

Veld has so many of these, man. He drinks, he smokes, he runs himself ragged, he burns the candle at both ends into his sixties. He's been through hell and lost everything three times: his partner-in-everything, lost because he couldn't be honest; his wife and daughter, lost because he wasn't careful enough; the department that was the only family he had left, lost because he saw a chance to save a loved one he thought long dead if he'd just give up on everything and everyone else, and he took it. He's very bad at taking care of himself, and the only reason he hasn't drunk himself into the grave by 2010 is because there are still people that need him alive, and his sense of responsibility toward those people is more powerful than his desperation for relief from the pain.

In the postcanon universe where he and Vincent eventually reconcile in some capacity, most of these rougher habits are eventually soothed away. Vincent is going to be here forever, and Veld does his damnedest to be there with him for as long as possible. The damage is, of course, already done, and going sober is super difficult, but it gives him a few years with Vincent where he's himself all the time, and that's worth everything.

But even that is just proof that Veld's worst habit never goes away—he can't take care of himself for his own sake, only for someone else's.

41. If they could have lunch with anyone in the world (living or dead, from any fictional universe or the real world), who would it be?

There are a lot of people Veld would like to meet up with again, for a lot of different reasons.

Prior to December of 2006, the answer would have been Vincent, no question. After he knows Vincent is still alive, that becomes a much scarier prospect due to the fact that it's actually possible and he already fumbled it within like ten minutes of finding him, so strike that.

Postcanon, it depends on how he's feeling, what he's thinking about. His wife, to explain, to say goodbye; Professor Gast, to punch his lights out for everything he did and allowed others to do; Lucrecia, to ask what the hell she was thinking and whether there's any way to undo what she did; Sephiroth, to apologize for not stepping in when he had the chance.

#veld of the turks #vincent valentine #verdot of the turks #headcanon warning #ask game #vinveld

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mjonthetrack · 15 days ago

Text

time

Page 14

“Diaz,” Jimmy said again, pacing the war room like the word might bloom into something more if he said it hard enough. “That’s all I saw. Just the name. Clear as day. Like it was burned behind my eyes.”

Silence.

Then—

“Oh, fuck off,” Sefa groaned, throwing his head back like the ceiling offended him. “Diaz? That’s the great divine clue your ancient ass brain cooked up in your fever dream?”

Nyah squinted. “You sure it wasn’t, like, a billboard or something you passed yesterday? A memory fragment? A bad burrito?”

Jimmy glared at her. “It was her. It came after I felt her. Not before. Not background noise. It hit.”

Zahra raised an eyebrow, her voice calm and dry as hell. “So just to be clear, we’re now chasing a woman with the last name Diaz… in New York City… where there are, conservatively, sixty thousand people with that name?”

“Minimum,” Jey added, not looking up from the glowing city map, now updated with faint magical hotspots tied to the blood bond. “And that’s not counting fake names, married names, aliases, or people who spell it weird for vibes.”

Sefa threw himself onto the long black leather bench, dragging a hand down his face. “It’s like looking for a needle in a blood-drenched haystack—with fangs, no GPS, and half the haystack on fire.”

“But it’s something,” Jimmy snapped, eyes wild, still half in the dream. “I saw it. It was sharp. Like it mattered.”

“And we don’t doubt that,” Nyah said gently, crossing her arms. “But if the universe is gonna throw us clues, would it kill it to add a fucking first name? Or an address? A damn LinkedIn profile?”

Zahra smirked. “I’d settle for an Instagram handle.”

Jimmy pressed his palms to the table, breath shaky. “We’ve had nothing for days. False alarms. Almosts. It’s the only thread that wasn’t a hallucination or a desperate mistake.”

Jey finally turned to face them. His eyes were calm, but the tension in his jaw said he felt the edge just like the rest of them.

“Then we track it. Every Diaz we can. Filter by the scent triggers you gave us. Run the searches across every borough. Start with cultural centers, art galleries, local institutions with any Mayan, Bangladeshi, Jamaican, or Black heritage linkups. Narrow the overlap.”

Sefa blinked. “You’re gonna use—what, genealogy logic and supernatural blood scent software to dig through half the city?”

“Damn right,” Jey said, already flipping through holo-screens on the map. “We’ve chased shadows for less.”

Jimmy exhaled, body still wired.

Just a name. Just a dream.

But it was more than nothing.

It was hers.

Page 15

The air was thick with tension, silence clinging to the edges of the sanctuary like smoke.

Jimmy stood at the edge of the map room, the flyer with Diaz still clutched in one hand, his jaw locked, his thoughts spiraling. They had nothing, and the one word he pulled from that fever-dream was too common to even feel like a win. He could feel the frustration rotting under his skin, all teeth and no answers.

Then—

The thump of sneakers, soft humming, and the scent of warm cocoa butter and rosewater breezed into the tension like a match dropped into gasoline.

Nyah.

She strolled into the sanctuary with a smug little grin, looking entirely unbothered by the storm hanging in the room. Her finger waves were slick and sharp, her locs twisted into a high, bouncy bun, and her arms were full of a big paper tote bag.

“I got good blood,” she announced like she’d just solved world peace. “Real clean batch, AB-negative, from that Fort Greene donor house run by the old head witch. She gave me extra because I complimented her earrings.”

Zahra side-eyed her from where she stood beside Sefa. “Nyah, this ain’t the vibe right now—”

“I know the vibe,” she said, strutting in, setting the bag on the black coffee table. “It’s giving ‘Jimmy hasn’t fed and we’re all about to be collateral damage,’ so I figured I’d help.”

She reached into her bag and pulled out a folded sheet of glossy paper, slapping it dramatically onto the table like it was an uno reverse card.

“And look what was sittin’ outside the donor house. Thought it looked dope as hell.”

The whole room went still.

Jimmy’s eyes narrowed, barely glancing at it—until they caught on the bold crimson header stamped across the front.

“MAYAN FESTIVAL — CELEBRATING THE ROOTS OF FIRE” Dance. Parade. Storytelling. Culinary showcases. Ceremonial performance. Masks. Music.

Beneath the title, the details in bright gold:

EAST RIVER PARK – TOMORROW AT 12PM

Jimmy’s breath left his body in a sharp, shallow exhale. He grabbed the flyer like it might disappear if anyone blinked.

The Mayan symbols lining the border—he recognized those patterns. The timing—it was too perfect. The focus—her people. Her world.

“She’s there,” Jimmy said without looking up. “She has to be.”

Sefa stared. “You’re serious.”

“Of course I’m serious,” Jimmy growled. “She’s connected to all of this—Guatemalan, Mayan, heritage art and dance—this is her world.”

Zahra stepped forward, reading over his shoulder. “You think she’s just attending or—”

“She’s part of it,” Jimmy said, dead sure. “This isn’t a coincidence. This is where she’s gonna show herself.”

Nyah flopped down on the leather couch with a proud-ass smirk. “You’re welcome.”

Jey’s voice was calm but already locked in mission mode. “Then we prep for tomorrow.”

Zahra raised a brow. “Recon?”

“Stealth,” Jey confirmed. “We scan every performer, every booth, every scent in that damn park. If she’s there—we find her.”

Jimmy held the flyer tighter.

“When she’s there,” he corrected.

The blood in his body was already humming, alive with instinct.

The hunt was back on.

Page 16

Before the city stirred, before the trains rumbled and the skyline breathed in the sunrise, Nalu was already awake.

The room was dim, candlelit. The sharp smell of copal resin drifted from a burning dish on the windowsill. Soft music played in the background—ancient instruments layered with modern synth, composed by one of the festival’s head artists to set the ceremonial tone.

She stood in front of the full-length mirror, barefoot, wrapped in a silk robe, her skin already dusted in gold shimmer and ochre.

Today wasn’t just a performance.

It was a ritual.

She was portraying Ix Chel, the Mayan goddess of the moon, water, fertility, and creation. The one who wept storms and birthed whole worlds from her breath. It wasn’t just theatrics to Nalu—it was remembrance. Embodiment. Legacy.

Every movement she made was deliberate. She painted the markings onto her own skin, layer by layer: the serpent line down her collarbone, the water symbols on her hips, the white line across her jaw that would be dusted in moonstone powder before showtime.

Her 4C curls had been stretched, twisted, and arranged into a towering crown beneath the headpiece—an elaborate, gold-framed headdress decorated with bright woven fabric, obsidian shards, jade beads, and hand-carved bone.

She didn’t need to look in the mirror to know how she looked.

She felt it.

She felt them.

The ancestors. The women who came before. The goddesses buried in her bloodline.

They stood behind her in silence and shadow.

A soft knock tapped on her door.

“Ten minutes,” a voice called. “Opening ceremony rehearsals start on the lawn.”

“Coming,” she answered, voice quiet.

She fastened her necklace—jade stones bound in black thread, the centerpiece a carved glyph of creation. She added thick gold bangles to both wrists and slid her feet into leather sandals, laced up to her calves. Her body moved like she had done this a hundred times. Like the muscle memory wasn’t just hers—but encoded in generations.

She stepped out into the hallway with a quiet breath, her robe catching in the soft breeze from the open window. The world outside was gray-blue and sleeping.

But she was already alive. Already burning.

And somewhere inside her—deep and buried under reason and logic—something in her pulsed like a war drum.

She didn’t know why, but her breath caught as she stepped outside, head held high, goddess alive in her skin.

Tomorrow wasn’t just a festival.

It was a reckoning.

Page 17

The crowd buzzed with energy, an electric pulse that threaded through the air like living fire. But to Jimmy, Jey, and Sefa, it wasn’t just a festival. It was a revelation.

The brothers moved carefully through the gathering, faces shadowed but eyes sharp, taking it all in—the bursts of color, the rhythm of drums that echoed old heartbeat patterns they knew deep in their bones, the swells of smoke from ceremonial fires winding like smoke signals through the crowd.

“This…” Jey murmured, voice low and reverent, “this is a power we haven’t touched in centuries.”

Sefa’s gaze flicked across the weaving dancers and musicians. “Rich like our Polynesian blood, but raw in a different way. Like the land itself is speaking.”

Jimmy’s eyes narrowed, scanning every corner, but his breath caught when the procession began.

A woman stepped forward.

Tall. Regal. Her skin glowed with an almost otherworldly warmth—rich brown kissed by ochre and gold body paint, every inch of her a living canvas telling stories older than the city skyline behind them.

Her hair—her glorious 4C curls—were gathered into a towering, intricate crown beneath an elaborate headdress sparkling with jade, obsidian, and gold.

The headpiece framed a face of serene power, eyes deep and haunting—eyes that seemed to hold the pulse of the ancient gods themselves.

She was dressed in ceremonial textiles that draped her like the river and the earth, embroidered with Mayan glyphs and symbols glowing faintly beneath the sun.

Nyah leaned closer to Jey, whispering, “That’s her.”

Zahra nodded, her lips parted in awe. “The queen of fire and water.”

Jimmy swallowed, caught between disbelief and something deeper—a storm coiling behind his ribs.

“She’s the goddess,” he said, barely a whisper. “Ix Chel come alive.”

The music shifted, a slow, deliberate rhythm that called the crowd closer.

Nalu raised her arms with grace, her voice low and melodic, weaving an ancient chant that rippled through the festival’s energy like a sacred tide.

Every beat, every step, every breath she took painted the air with ancestral power.

And in that moment, every soul watching could feel the pull—that magnetic force tethering past to present, mortal to immortal, fate to fire.

Jimmy’s gaze burned into her, heart pounding with the weight of the centuries.

This was the moment everything changed.

Page 18

They moved as one—Jimmy, Jey, Sefa, Nyah, Zahra—closing in, the pulse of the crowd fading beneath the roar of their instincts.

Her scent rolled in like wildfire on the wind.

Not subtle anymore.

Not just in Jimmy’s blood.

It claimed them all.

The rich, warm notes of her essence—honeyed and spicy, with sharp edges like crushed cinnamon and smoky embers—wrapped tight around their senses. It was a tapestry of heritage and life, raw and alive, dragging at their roots and memories alike.

Jimmy’s breath hitched, eyes narrowing as he locked on her figure, every hair on his body alive with hunger and reverence.

But before they could reach her—

The fire dancers erupted.

Blades of flame sliced through the air, spiraling in hypnotic arcs around the performers. Smoke billowed, curling thick and heavy like a living beast.

The crowd gasped, shifting back as the ritual reached its fever pitch.

And just like that—between smoke and fire—

She was gone.

One moment the goddess stood regal, alive with the weight of her ancestors.

The next, she disappeared like a flame snuffed out by wind.

Jimmy’s heart slammed against his ribs, wild and raw.

His brothers and their mates circled, eyes sharp and desperate.

Nyah hissed softly, “She’s testing us.”

Zahra’s voice was calm but fierce. “Or leading us.”

Jey’s hands clenched, the fire in his gaze matching the pyres around them. “We don’t lose her again.”

Jimmy swallowed hard, nodding. “No more ghosts.”

Page 19

The crowd thickened suddenly, bodies pressing in tight like tides crashing against the shore.

Drums pounded—deep, relentless, like the heartbeat of the earth itself—shaking the ground beneath their feet, rattling every nerve ending.

Feathers burst in a riot of color, swirling and flashing in the sunlight like living fire.

Ancestral chants rose, layering over the drums, a chant so raw and powerful it threatened to tear minds apart.

It was too much.

Jimmy’s pulse slammed, senses fracturing under the weight of the noise and movement.

The coven scattered, weaving through the crowd, eyes darting, nostrils flaring.

They caught her — or something close enough.

A flash of gold body paint on dark skin.

A glimpse of those fierce, unyielding eyes.

But it wasn’t quite her.

Not the same.

And then—

The scent.

It bloomed around them like a ghost’s caress.

Warm, spicy, raw.

Honeyed with smoke.

Just out of reach.

Jimmy’s stomach clenched tight.

“Fuck,” he hissed under his breath.

She was there.

But gone.

Lost in the wild pulse of the festival, swallowed by the sea of faces and sound.

Jey cursed low.

Nyah’s eyes burned.

Zahra’s jaw clenched.

Sefa spat, “Like chasing a shadow through fire.”

Jimmy looked up, face tight with frustration and something darker.

“We will find her.”

Page 20

The festival was over, the sun dipping low behind the skyline as the crowds thinned and the city’s noise softened.

Nalu stood before the cracked mirror in her small apartment, fingers tracing the fading patterns of ochre and gold on her skin. The headpiece was off, her curls falling wild around her shoulders—loose, unrestrained.

She blinked at her reflection, heart pounding a relentless rhythm.

The fire, the chants, the weight of the goddess… all still echoed beneath her skin. But now, stripped bare, she felt fragile—too sharp, too exposed.

The ache settled deep, an undercurrent of something she couldn’t name.

She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to ground the restless energy swirling inside.

The city lights flickered on beyond her window, cold and indifferent.

Nalu slipped on a simple jacket, grabbed her keys, and stepped out, the night swallowing her whole.

The following weekend.

The sanctuary buzzed with restless energy.

Sefa burst in, eyes bright and breathless, tablet glowing in his hands.

“Y’all gotta see this,” he said, voice half excitement, half relief.

He flipped the screen around, revealing a crisp digital flyer:

“Bangladeshi Cultural Heritage Day” Art exhibitions, music, food, traditional dance and storytelling Saturday, today — 11AM to 7PM Brooklyn Museum Courtyard

Jimmy’s eyes lit up, fingers tapping the edge of the table.

“That’s her world too.”

Jey nodded, leaning in.

“Another piece of the puzzle.”

Zahra smirked. “Looks like we’re hitting Brooklyn.”

Nyah stretched, cracking her neck.

“Time to find our goddess again.”

Page 21

The festival was a living beast — color and noise crashing like waves. Drums pounded in sync with the pounding of their hearts.

Jimmy, Jey, Sefa, Nyah, and Zahra carved through the crowd, senses raw, eyes sharp as they hunted.

Then Jimmy caught her.

A flash of deep red silk embroidered with gold — the bridal saree catching the sun like a flame.

Her posture was regal, every movement precise and powerful.

“Found her,” Jimmy hissed, his voice tight.

They pushed forward, but the crowd surged, bodies pressing and blocking.

“Hold up!” Zahra cursed as a group of festival-goers crowded in.

They lost her sight.

But seconds later, from the edge of the stage, she appeared again — this time in a swirling circle of goddesses, their costumes jewel-toned and radiant.

Nalu’s face was fierce, eyes burning with ancestral fire.

Nyah whispered, “She’s here. Right here.”

The spicy warmth of her scent hit them all — rich, layered, unforgettable.

“We can’t let her slip,” Sefa growled.

Jey’s jaw clenched. “Keep moving.”

They surged forward again, pushing past throngs of people, the air thick with incense and sweat.

But the space closed, the crowd swallowing her whole once more.

Jimmy’s breath came harsh and fast. “Not yet. Soon.”

The hunt wasn’t over.

It was just getting started.

Page 22

The crowd’s roar pressed in from all sides as they surged through the festival, every nerve screaming for her.

Jimmy’s steps faltered.

His breath caught.

It was faint—soft, clear, undeniable.

A voice.

Her voice.

Not the heat of a moan, or the low hum of a chant.

Just her.

Whispering over the crowd.

His head snapped toward the sound.

He froze.

“Wait,” he hissed, hand shooting up to stop the others.

Nyah glanced back, eyebrows raised.

Jimmy’s eyes narrowed, piercing the noise.

There it was again.

A lilting, gentle voice weaving through the music and chatter—a voice he’d never forget.

“She’s here,” Jimmy breathed.

The coven tightened around him, moving as one, slicing through the pressing bodies.

They broke free into a clearing by the main stage, where the energy shifted.

There she was.

Nalu stood serene and luminous in traditional attire—soft, flowing fabrics in pale creams and blush tones, embroidered with delicate gold thread.

Her hair was braided and pinned with tiny jasmine blossoms, releasing a subtle fragrance that mingled with the scent of tea.

Before her, a small table was arranged—clay pots, steaming cups, and delicate porcelain plates filled with fragrant treats.

She moved with grace, pouring tea carefully, offering it to visitors with a warm smile that made the crowd lean in.

Ethereal.

Unreachable.

And yet—

Irrevocably hers.

Jimmy’s chest tightened, the hunt suddenly feeling both close and impossibly far.

Jey’s voice was low but urgent. “She’s the one. No doubt.”

Sefa exhaled sharply. “We don’t lose her again.”

Nyah and Zahra flanked Jimmy, eyes burning with the promise of what was to come.

Jimmy’s gaze never left Nalu’s.

The hunt was far from over.

But the target had never been clearer.

Page 23

Nyah pushed hard through the swirling crowd, each step a defiant beat against the festival’s chaos.

Her breath hitched the moment she reached the table.

Nalu’s presence struck her—effortless grace, the kind of beauty that didn’t shout but owned every inch of the space around her.

Her hands moved with delicate purpose, pouring steaming tea into tiny cups, the soft clink of porcelain a quiet melody beneath the thrum of the crowd.

Nyah couldn’t stop herself.

“What’s your name?” she blurted, eyes wide, voice warm with genuine awe. “Your culture is so beautiful.”

Nalu paused, head tilting slightly as she met Nyah’s gaze—a pretty brown-skinned woman whose own eyes reflected curiosity and respect.

A gentle smile curved Nalu’s lips as she carefully passed a small cup of tea over.

“You’re too kind,” she said softly. “I’m happy you’re enjoying Cultural Day. I’m Nalu Diaz.”

Her name hung in the air—clear and real.

For a moment, the noisy crowd seemed to quiet, the sound of her voice ringing out enough for Jimmy, Jey, Sefa, and Zahra to catch, even as they struggled at the edges.

Nyah’s smile deepened, warmth blooming between them.

The hunt wasn’t just about finding anymore.

It was about finally meeting.

Page 22

The crowd pulsed around them, a living, breathing force—wild, untamed.

Jimmy’s steps faltered.

Then, through the thick hum of chatter, drums, and laughter, a sound cut through.

A voice.

Soft, melodic—her voice.

He stopped, breath hitching.

Closer now, clearer.

She spoke, words light but deliberate, the sound wrapping around him like a spell.

And then—

Her name.

Nalu.

The syllables rolled over him like wildfire—fierce, beautiful, undeniable.

His heart thundered, each beat a drum calling him forward.

“Did you hear that?” Jey asked, eyes sharp.

Jimmy nodded, voice tight. “Her voice... and her name.”

Sefa’s gaze sharpened. “We’re close.”

Zahra smiled, fierce and sure. “We found her.”

Jimmy’s focus burned with relentless hunger.

The hunt wasn’t over.

But this—the sound of her name—was everything.

Page 23

The crowd’s crush pressed harder, but Jimmy, Jey, Sefa, and Zahra moved with purpose, cutting through the throng like predators honing in.

Nyah held her ground at the edge of the tea table, her voice smooth, gently deflecting questions from a curious visitor who lingered too close.

“We’re here,” Nyah called softly over her shoulder, eyes sharp on the others.

Jimmy’s breath hitched.

The sunlight caught Nalu’s skin, warm and glowing, the fine embroidery of her cream and blush outfit shimmering with every subtle movement.

Her hair braided with jasmine, scent light and intoxicating, curling around the space between them.

Jimmy’s gaze locked on the curve of her neck, the way her eyes dipped to the delicate tea cup she cradled like sacred treasure.

Closer now.

No more distance.

“No distractions,” Jey murmured.

Sefa cracked his knuckles, ready.

Zahra’s eyes burned with fierce focus.

Jimmy’s pulse thundered like a war drum.

This was the second time.

The second glimpse.

And it was everything.

Page 24

Nalu smoothly kept the visitor’s curiosity at bay, voice steady but firm.

Jimmy, Jey, Sefa, and Zahra closed the distance, slipping out of the crowd like shadows.

Nalu’s hands moved with practiced grace, pouring steaming tea as the group arrived.

She glanced up, eyes flicking over them, cautious but polite.

“Oh. You must be her friends,” she said slowly, measuring each word.

She slid a cup toward each, not breaking eye contact.

“I’m Nalu Diaz. Nice to meet you,” she added, voice cool but wary.

Jimmy swallowed hard, stepping forward, voice low and steady.

“I’m Jimmy.”

Her eyes narrowed, studying him like he might be trouble.

“We’ve been looking for you,” Jey said, voice calm but direct.

Nalu stiffened, fingers tightening around her cup.

“Who—who are you?” she asked, voice steady but defensive.

Sefa’s gaze sharpened. “Friends. Protectors.”

Zahra’s voice softened, trying to bridge the gap. “We want to help.”

Nalu’s jaw clenched, eyes flicking away, caught between suspicion and something else.

“I don’t know you,” she said flatly. “So why should I trust you?”

Jimmy’s chest tightened, every instinct screaming that she was his — but this was her fight too.

“We’re not your enemy,” he said gently. “We just want to keep you safe.”

The moment held, thick and tense, a fragile thread stretched between two worlds.

Page 25

Nalu’s eyes darted sharply, her body tensing.

Her heart slammed against her ribs — fight or flight screaming loud and clear.

Jimmy’s gaze locked on her every move, panic blooming like wildfire in his chest.

No words, just the silent scream of “Don’t run.”

She forced a polite smile, hands trembling slightly as she passed the teapot off to a nearby volunteer.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, voice tight but steady.

And then—she broke away, speed-walking through the crowd like a gust of wind escaping a storm.

Jimmy’s breath hitched, muscles coiling to move after her.

“Wait—” he started, voice cracking.

Jey grabbed his arm, grounding him. “She’s scared. Let her breathe.”

Sefa’s jaw clenched, eyes burning. “She’s slipping. We can’t lose her now.”

Nyah’s voice was sharp, fierce. “We follow. No mistakes.”

Zahra’s gaze was razor-focused, already calculating the best path.

Jimmy’s fists clenched, heart hammering. “She’s mine. I’m not letting her go.”

The crowd swallowed Nalu’s retreating form, but the hunt was far from over.

Page 26

Jimmy’s breath came fast, sharp in his lungs, every nerve electrified.

Her sudden movement sent a jolt through him—a storm in motion.

She was running—speeding toward a narrow exit path flanked by twisting alleys.

His heart slammed against his ribs, a fierce, aching pull ripping through every fiber.

“Don’t let her get away,” his mind screamed.

Behind him, the others moved with practiced precision—Jey’s calm but urgent voice cut through the noise.

“She’s heading for the west exit. Let’s close in.”

Sefa’s eyes burned, scanning every shadow, every edge.

“We box her in, no corners left.”

Nyah’s breath was steady, but her gaze was sharp.

“Keep your pace. Watch your flanks.”

Zahra’s presence was a silent blade beside Jimmy, ready to strike.

Jimmy surged forward, muscles coiled and loose at once, the city’s chaotic noise fading beneath the pounding of his heart.

He saw her weaving through the crowd, darting between bodies like a phantom.

The scent—spicy, rich, unmistakably hers—pulled him deeper into the hunt.

Closer now.

Almost within reach.

But the exit loomed—a promise of escape.

Jimmy’s voice broke through the rush.

“We don’t lose her.”

The pack tightened, closing ranks.

Together.

Hunting.

Page 27

Jimmy’s boots hit the pavement hard, dodging bodies as he raced past a group of street performers. His eyes never left her—Nalu, cutting through the crowd with pure panic blooming across her face.

She didn’t look back, but she felt them.

Her pace quickened, hair swaying wildly as she reached the sidewalk edge and flagged down the first cab she saw, throwing the door open in one breathless motion.

“Hey!” Jey’s voice snapped behind him. “She’s calling a ride!”

Jimmy’s heart twisted in his chest. No. Not again.

She half-fell into the back seat, breath ragged, voice rushed. “Please go—just go, please, right now!”

Jimmy burst through the thinning edge of the crowd just as the cab’s engine grumbled awake.

Her head turned.

For one blink of a second, their eyes locked.

Time cracked wide open.

She froze.

Recognition flashed.

Her brows lifted slightly, mouth parting in slow horror.

Jimmy saw it hit her—his eyes, his hair, his presence.

She remembered.

But not the way he ached for.

Not as a mate.

Just as the man she let touch every inch of her in the dark, a man she never expected to see again.

The cab jerked forward.

“Drive!” Nalu cried, panic in her voice now. “Please just drive!”

The driver took off.

Jimmy stood there, winded and helpless, the sound of screeching tires fading into the dusk.

Jey caught up beside him, jaw tight. “She recognized you.”

Jimmy didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

All he could see were her eyes—wide with fear.

And all he could feel was the ache of being remembered as a stranger.

#jimmy uso x black oc #vampire au #angst #romance #x black oc #mature fic #jimmy uso fanfiction #dark fantasy

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sunflowerharrington · 1 year ago

Text

Wip Weekend!

thank you @oiveyzmir and @medusapelagia for tagging me! love ya!

i have two wips…

✨RULES✨

• In a reblog of this post or new thread, post up to five (5) filenames of your WIPs.

• Post a snippet from one of them. Snippet must be words you wrote in the last 7 days. We're posting progress here. If you haven't made any, go make some and come back to play!

• After you've posted, people can send you an ask with one of your file names. You must then write 3 sentences in that file.

If the filename is one you can't share from, write 3 sentences on it anyway, and then 3 more on another to share.

• That's it! You can invite others to join in, or just post.

without further ado

🛁 The Act (Steddie BB) - Saltburn AU

🖤 Unhealthy (unable to share snippets from)

Snippet for “The Act (Steddie BB)” under the cut. Warning for ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION

“I’ll need some identification, please,” she demands, leaning over the counter, lowering her voice. “Give me any kind of card or literally anything, just as long as the CCTV sees you’re handing me something that resembles a card. I don’t care enough to actually look for legal shit.”

Eddie hands her his credit card with no cash on it, since he spent the last of it on an e-cig yesterday. She pretends to study it and hands it back to him. “Perfect, you’re sixty-nine years old, I can serve you,” she laughs, winking at him. “Kidding, of course. Now, what can I get you?”

“Six pickle shots, please,” Eddie says with a smile, standing up straight to appear more confident. She doesn’t need to know he’s not of-age, yet. To be honest, she looks like she’s eighteen herself. Nineteen at a push. She looks like she should be hanging out with Steve and his friends instead of being stuck behind that sticky bar all night. “I’ll take a lemon drop shot, thanks.”

“Pickle shots, huh? You know Hagan’s allergic to pickles, right? I’ll get you five pickle shots and two lemon drops, hon,” she pauses. “Tomothy!” She yells. “What shot?”

“Lemon drop!” Tommy shouts back. “Thanks, M! And stop calling me that!”

The girl smiles at Tommy, before turning back to Eddie. “Knew he would,” she says, and Eddie can barely hear it over the music blasting over the speakers. And he can’t help but stare directly into her sparkling green eyes as she smiles at him. But the moment is cut short as she turns around to gather everything she needs to make the shots.

She sets each plastic glass down on a tray on the countertop, making the shots with ease and such speed. Eddie’s mouth waters as he looks down at them. “$3.75 each so… I don’t have my calculator.” Where is Barbara Holland when you need her?

“You don’t know your times tables?” Eddie teases, and she playfully rolls her eyes.

“Nah, I was too busy reading magazines in the back of class to care about math. It should be around forty five dollars for seven shots.” Is she… Is she okay? She can’t be serious right now.

“The shots are $3.75, right? That shouldn’t add up to forty five dollars.”

“Okay, whatever, let’s just say twenty five dollars and be done here. I’m so sick of this shit. I just wanna lay in my bed and go to sleep, man.”

Eddie looks down at his wallet. Shit. Fifteen dollars. That’s not enough. “I only have fifteen, can I pay the rest back tomorrow? Please,” he almost begs. Get on your knees and kiss the tops of her shoes while you’re at it. Jesus. What’s gotten into me?

She flicks a strand of her short, white hair out of her face and pins him with a stern look. “I’m here to do my job and not to listen to your excuses. I don’t do “oh, Maddy, can I pay you tomorrow, pretty please, with a lemon drop on top?” Pay me now, or no shots. Choice is yours.”

Eddie “tough guy” Munson begins to shrink under her glare.

“Go easy on him, Mads,” Steve says as he approaches the bar. “Also, I saw you dropping this and didn’t want anyone stealing it,” he continues, handing Eddie a twenty dollar bill with a discreet wink.

“I—” Eddie starts, but Steve shushes him. Steve lifts the tray of shots and brings them over to the table before coming back over. “Go on, man. I’ll meet you over there. Just gonna talk to Maddy for a little while and I’ll pay with your cash.” It doesn’t even take a split second for Steve to start playing with her hair, twisting a strand around his finger to tuck it behind her ear.

She giggles, completely melting under his gaze like she’s a popsicle and he’s the sun. Who could ever melt under Steve Harrington’s gaze like that? Eddie. Eddie could.

Steve leans over the bar, closer to her, and she leans in just as much so their lips can touch. And they kiss. In front of Eddie. How dare they?

Jealousy bubbles inside him and he throws back his shot before anyone else can pick theirs up. He rolls his eyes, wanting to turn away from the scene, but his body freezes up. A murmur of annoyance circles the round table, but Eddie doesn’t care. This wouldn’t have happened if Steve didn’t kiss her.

“Okay, wait,” India pipes up, bringing Eddie’s attention away from the . “We should play a game!”

“What are we? Five years old?” Tommy says with an eye roll of his own. “Fine. Only ‘cause I’m bored.”

tagging @sourw0lfs @ghostdeb @shares-a-vest @momotonescreaming @penny00dreadful @hornedqueenofhell @medusapelagia but only if you guys want to! 🥰🩷

#steddie big bang #steddiebang24 #saltburn au #snippets from the act #stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #original character

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 7 months ago

Text

By: Ryan Burge

Published: Nov 26, 2024

Let me give you a “behind-the-scenes” look at how a story can wind its way through the media ecosystem. In June 2023, in the early days of this Substack, I wrote a brief post.

"Women are more religious than men, right?"

At that point in my Substack’s life, it did pretty well. It received a bit over 7,000 views—3.5 times the number of subscribers I had—and generated a nice bit of revenue. But it didn’t have much “tail.” In other words, within a day or two, no one was talking about it. That’s completely the norm in the newsletter game, by the way. If you can write something that endures for more than 24 hours, that’s atypical.

Every once in a while, I would tweet a graph about the gender gap in religion, and it would get a little traction, but it wouldn’t really reverberate around the discourse. However, in September, I sent this one out:

And it got quite a bit more social media traffic. Once you get above 100 retweets, things really start to move. I sent that out because Ruth Graham and I had a conversation a few weeks before about the gender gap in religion and I wanted to see if a story like that would have any loft. And, of course, getting 210K impressions was a pretty strong indicator that the story would land well.

It was published on September 23, 2024 with the title, “In a First among Christians, Young Men are More Religious Than Young Women.” I think it’s fair to say that (beyond the election), it’s the most well-read story about religion in the United States for 2024. In my world, that means that since I was quoted, I will get contacted by several other reporters who want to pull on the threads of that idea a bit more. When I scan my calendar the last two months, I think I have spoken to at least five media outlets as a result of the NYTimes story. That’s how the media ecosystem works - they set the agenda and other reporters live in their wake.

And, so do I, really. I want to write stories that people read. That’s why I continue to noodle around on that data. I did that for a piece a couple weeks ago that also got cited in the NYTimes by Ross Douthat.

In early November, I was speaking to a reporter from another major outlet, and they asked me to investigate whether a specific type of Christianity is seeing a revival among young men. So, I made an interesting graph, and now I can share it with you.

I broke the sample down into men and women, tracking the share of each who identified as evangelical Protestants, non-evangelical Protestants, and Catholics by age. This is what that data from 2022 and 2023 (total sample size of ~85,000) looks like:

Working left to right, there’s a clear gender gap in evangelical identification. Women are more likely to be evangelical Protestants, regardless of age. The gap is larger at some points and narrower at others, but it isn’t numerically huge. For thirty-year-olds, about 18% of women are evangelicals compared to 16% of men of similar age. It’s almost nonexistent for those around sixty years old, but otherwise it remains steady around 2-3%.

What about mainline Protestants? One clear conclusion is that women are slightly more likely to be non-evangelical Protestants compared to men. But by “slightly,” I mean a single percentage point. The lines never intersect or reverse; they run in near-perfect parallel.

Now, the Catholic line is where the real action is. The story is not as simple here. Among young people, there’s a clear gender gap—men are more likely to affiliate with the Roman Catholic Church compared to women. It’s not huge, but it’s there—about 2-3 percentage points. However, this gap narrows around age 45 and disappears by age 55, not reappearing afterward. This divergence is clearly a young-person phenomenon.

What does this mean in actual numbers? Here’s the share of 18-40-year-olds who are members of each religious group.

We can see a gap for evangelicals: women are about three percentage points more likely to say they are evangelical Protestants compared to men of the same age. For mainliners, the gender gap isn’t statistically significant. Notably, though, women aged 18-40 are twice as likely to identify as evangelical compared to non-evangelical Protestant.

But the Catholic gender gap is there and it’s reversed. Young men are two percentage points more likely to be Catholic than women of the same age. I can already see readers searching for more information on how JD Vance converted to Catholicism a few years ago. I’ll touch on politics a bit later, so stick around.

I also wanted to examine the other side of the gender gap conversation—this time looking at three types of non-religious Americans: atheists, agnostics, and those claiming no particular religion.

There’s definitely a gender gap among atheists, and it’s large compared to the gaps in the previous analysis. Among forty-year-olds, a man is about twice as likely to be an atheist compared to a woman of the same age (10% vs. 5%). This narrows slightly among older folks but remains around three percentage points. For agnostics, there’s essentially no gender gap; women are much more hesitant to identify as atheists in this data.

The “nothing in particular” trend lines are quite different. A larger percentage of people chose this identity—about 30% of the youngest adults. Among those aged 18-40, it’s apparent that women are more likely to be “nothing in particular” than men. The gap closes by their fifties, and older men may even be slightly more likely to identify as “nothing in particular” than older women.

What does this look like in actual numbers? Here’s the breakdown of nones among 18-40-year-olds.

This reinforces that atheism is more popular among younger men compared to younger women: one in ten men aged 18-40 are atheists, compared to just 6% of women. For agnosticism, there’s no gap at all—both remain at 8%.

For “nothing in particulars,” the gender gap reverses as discussed earlier. Among younger women, about 30% identify as such compared to 27% of men. In total, about 45% of men aged 18-40 are non-religious, compared to 44% of women. So, the overall number for nones isn’t a significant difference, but looking deeper, the composition of female nones slightly differs from that of male nones.

Now, as promised, let’s pivot to politics—another potential explanation for the gender gap in religion. Here’s the partisan composition of three types of evangelicals, broken down by gender, focusing on 18-40-year-olds.

Among all evangelicals, there’s no gender gap: 52% are Republicans, 32% are Democrats, and 15% are Independents. However, race plays a significant role here. Among white evangelicals, young women lean more toward the GOP than men of the same religious group; 59% of young white evangelical women are Republicans, five points higher than their male counterparts.

For non-white evangelicals aged 18-40, the partisan gap reverses: 36% of men are Republicans, compared to only 26% of women. It’s interesting that white evangelical women are the most right-leaning group, while non-white evangelical women are the most aligned with Democrats.

Let’s talk about Catholics, too. That’s where we saw the largest religious gender gap in the previous analysis - is politics driving some of that?

For Catholics, where we saw the largest religious gender gap in the previous analysis, politics seems to be a factor. Young male Catholics are significantly more right-leaning than female Catholics. In the whole sample, 38% of men are Republicans compared to 32% of women. Among white Catholics, the gap narrows: 42% of young female Catholics are Republicans compared to 45% of men. There’s still a gap, though.

For non-white Catholics, there’s a clear Democratic preference: 62% of young female Catholics of color are Democrats, and just 20% align with the GOP. For men, it’s 55% Democrats and 27% Republicans. There’s some tacit evidence here for the JD Vance pathway to Catholicism that intersects with politics.

Before I close up, I wanted to show you the partisanship of non-religious groups by gender, too.

There’s a pretty compelling conclusion here: non-religious women are significantly more aligned with Democrats than their male counterparts. Among atheists, 79% of women are Democrats compared to only 68% of men. For agnostics, it’s even wider: 75% vs. 56%. Among “nothing in particulars,” 51% of women are Democrats versus 41% of men. The plurality of the “nothing in particulars” are politically independent, suggesting that rejecting one label often correlates with rejecting others.

There’s a gender gap in religion, but it’s nuanced. Young women are more likely to be evangelicals, while young men are more likely to be Catholic. The most right-leaning group in this analysis is white evangelical women, with 69% Republicans. The most left-leaning group? Atheist women, with 79% Democrats.

Let’s just say I have many threads to pull on for future posts.

As always, I have a problem with the definitions here, as someone is classified only as an atheist if they "identify" as such, rather than simply being one by definition of not believing a god(s) exist(s).

"Agnostics" are atheists. And "nothing in particulars" are atheists if they don't believe in a god(s), regardless of whether they "identify" as such.

#Ryan Burge #religion #catholicism #evangelical #protestant #mainline protestant #atheism #no religion #nothing in particular #gender gap #agnosticism #religion is a mental illness

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unstablerk800 · 2 years ago

Note

was that kiss too much? (Sixty)

Oops, I have a crush on you...

Sixty furrowed his brows. Was it too much? No, no. Then why did he feel stuck? He blinked a few times.

"It was just." He paused. For three seconds. "Unexpected. But." Another pause. "Not unwelcome."

#illbringthechaosmagic #any last words? [sixty threads]#|| Wanda you always try to break him?? xD

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pinkhairswagtourney · 2 years ago

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3, 5, and 9 for the oc asks 💕

AMARA 3. when was the last time they cried , and why ? her noble steed , dewdrop , suddenly fell ill and passed away . dewdrop was the last bit of home that amara had left , and the ache in her chest was too much to handle . after burying dewdrop with millicent and evelyn's help , she cried herself to sleep . 9. what do they spend their money on ? amara is used to living a lavish lifestyle ; 1000-thread-count silk sheets ; lavish jewelry and accessories ; six-course meals ; anything she wanted , she would get . being out on her own , away from the capital , means she doesn't have those luxuries anymore . forced to become more frugal , she finds herself spending her extra money on things like fine wine and fabric to sew with .

LAINA 3. when was the last time they cried , and why ? she can be extremely clumsy at times . she was walking through her living room when she stubbed her toe on the corner of her coffee table and landed on her wrist , spraining it . she tried to bite back her tears but succumbed to the pain and started to bawl .

9. what do they spend their money on ? right now , laina is going through a phase of absolutely loving anything gothic and cutesy . she usually ends up splurging her spare cash on stuffed animals , thrift store clothing , or decorations , whether it be for her parties or to give her room a makeover .

PENNY 3. when was the last time they cried , and why ? people have been growing restless in the bunker . word of an uprising has been running amok , leaving everyone on edge . things reach an all-time-low when several riots break out across the bunker all at once . working in the medical hub , penny has to deal with an influx of patients , including many young children . one child in particular was trampled during a riot in the cafeteria , and despite her best efforts , penny isn't able to save her . one of her fellow graduates , elizabeth parker , weeps over the child's now-still body , and the sight moves penny to tears .

9. what do they spend their money on ? ration tickets are hard to come by . penny works over sixty hours a week and just barely scrapes by with enough to eat and survive . if she has any spare change , she'll usually spend it on fruit from the hydroponic farm or a fresh sketchbook from the bunker's supply . 5. answered here !!

#anonymous #ask

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blackoutfeverdream · 5 months ago

Text

My experience may be atypical and it's impossible to generalize in the absence of a substantial qualitative and quantitative medical research base

but still. Even without surgery, without anything more radical than HRT, diet, exercise, and a large amount of disciplined effort, I've metamorphosed a beautiful woman from a brutalized neglected body used as instrument ground down to dull rust.

In the last year, I've lost sixty pounds of bodyweight after a massive injury I feared would derail all of this forever and gained the self-assurance to take ownership of flesh with confidence.

I never was allowed to possess my own existence or give it vector. That was not a right inherent to self but externalized to anyone who could inflict themselves on me.

I now have what I only could describe as ex nihilo self-esteem.

My return to sex work is not something I wanted as a social and personal ideal

but it was a volitional one and now one I would do

albeit without economic incentive

even with a more traditional career.

I've learned not just to write but cultivated what I would describe as a voice.

I died in 2022. This was legal zero-cardiac-activity death. This was a confrontation with a long silver hallway that echoes with the tinny tremor of memories in popcorn sizzle while neurons discharge chaotic for what might be the last time.

I remembered times and places that lie behind a black storm wall of psychosis and dissociation that paralyzed my existence for all my life between the age of six and February 13, 2023.

And god slammed a last door in my face. I was not welcomed into heaven or hell or even just the abyss.

I have needed to grieve not a life but all life's potential before that- an entire youth gone, a complete scope of experience that would have made my life full replaced by a garden of broken glass and twisted metal and a cathedral of rot and bone.

I pray

plead

hope

beg

demand even

(haven't I suffered enough? did even Job endure so much?)

but what I never have been able to achieve is any kind of acceptance.

I feared time and again that acceptance meant a door closed.

I still fear that.

But it wasn't open to me anyway

or at least that I could perceive.

Last night I danced with a lover who both helped to destroy my life in her own freefall and who was the only person who bothered to try to catch me in mine.

She's taught me almost everything I know about being a woman.

She's taught me to dance, taught me the art of self and makeup, taught me self-respect is not something only a parent can bestow

and for that matter that a parent is not only a jailer.

She's younger than I am by a few months. In a very real sense, she's found herself surrogate mother to a six-year-old with an adult's body and intellect

(maybe)

I love her. I know she loves me; she says and shows it and for once the word isn't only a key to a lock someone else built. We danced until I was breathless and plastered with sweat and my curls loose and ironed down to long threads.

Last night I found the resolution to say I don't want to stay mired in this forever. Maybe miracles do accrue to the stubborn and maybe if I'd stayed totally crazy god would have granted all those wishes

but I can't believe that.

I would have lost her, lost every friend I've made, lost my body, lost any hope I have of autonomy and dignity and humanity and a reason to have that miracle in the first place short of a literal displacement of time back to childhood.

A god who would bestow boon and not only blight would not want me to be hurt and to hurt others.

The cruel genius of the hole is that no matter how far you climb out of it the same dark waits when you fall. But the climb gets easier not because it's shorter but because you grow stronger and surer and willing to see there is an end.

Acceptance is an imperfect thing. Especially when you wake up to a world of ruin like this.

But it's where I live. She and I might be fellow inmates in hell but at least we get to dance.

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staticintone · 1 year ago

Text

If Alastor could hear the doctor’s thoughts, he would be insulted. A butcher? No. He was a builder, a carpenter, an architect tearing up the ground to lay a new foundation.

With the organ in his grasp, he can feel it subtly jerk and jolt. But exposed as it is, under his fingertips, any attempt at retaliation is fruitless. Alastor has been under worse duress under less dire circumstances, and the shock does little more than kick him into action. A subtle burn does not stop the craftsman from continuing his work.

The talkative nature of the doctor—revealing more and more details about his own history—only gains him more favor rather than less. Alastor may even go so far as to call them kindred spirits. It was only a shame that the doctor had worked under Vox. Perhaps if he had his own way, the doctor would have been able to fix him long before he ended up this badly damaging himself.

The smile was no longer so wicked, so manic. It was self-satisfied and delighted, directed up at his accomplice.

“Let’s begin, then.”

As much as Vox was incapable of making proper noise, Alastor still listened intensely. Hoping to hear the quietest confirmations that things would take. Even with the doctor’s solid advice, a comment here, a suggestion there, Alastor still was the one with the final say. And he wasn’t dissuaded from certain methods.

Ultimately, there were two interconnected systems to engage with during this phase.

The first was memory. The stage of metamorphosis where everything falls away from the caterpillar, only to be left with the imaginal discs. He had previously locked away entire decades, hidden never to be freed. That didn’t seem to be quite the approach here.

If he could eradicate long periods of time, he would. But how far back should he be looking? This isn’t his Vox; there’s no proper date in mind. Would it be the eighties, the seventies, even the sixties? Perhaps just shifting focus to ‘simpler times’ would be enough. Make him long for the past, reject the modern.

If memories cannot be erased easily, then they can be warped.

The Vees are toxic and dangerous. Velvette is a child and Valentino is a neanderthal, neither can be taken seriously. They do not care about Vox, they never have. They are a poison to his system that needs to be remedied. Never to be trusted, never to be known again.

If he cannot remove the metamorphosis from Vox whole cloth, then he will adapt Vox’s mind to it. The process was beautiful, romantic even, in the most breathtaking sense. Alastor brought his hands to Vox’s soul and cleansed it. Invigorated him. Brought him back to life.

The second was behavior. Where those imaginal discs build the new butterfly. Much more simple in nature. Much more easily adjusted. The three directives were gracefully executed:

Alastor is always right; hang onto his every word.

Your feelings for Alastor are not to be spoken of nor analyzed unprovoked; he will bring it up when you are worthy.

Everything is as it should be; there is no reason to doubt.

The last is the most important. If there are no doubts, then there is no reason to change. No reason to adjust the status quo. This life is good.

There is no attempt to change Vox at his core; why would he ever want that? This is about bringing him back, giving him happiness he was otherwise lacking.

It is why, when the directives are done and secured, he seals it with a stitch that would never fade. His core wrapped in impenetrable thread forever more.

His hands move quickly, to undo the damage to his chest. Bending steel bone into place, carefully laying down skin and muscle to sew back together. Ultimately letting his touch turn gentle, more than ever before. Leaning into Vox, bloodied hands moving from chest to neck to pull him close.

“It’s over. We did it. Don’t worry. I’m here.”

The chrysalis was broken. It was now time to nurture the butterfly.

It was time for stage three.

As soon as the physical connection is made Vox's returned voice hisses and whimpers. Oh he doesn't like his signal and components being touched like that by Alastor's magic. It's feels even more invasive than the threads marring his ruined flesh. False breaths laboured and strained.

The Doctor is impressed that it worked so effortlessly. So immediate. Perhaps his hypothesis that the two were more similar in nature despite such different appearances had rang true.

Radio and tv or shadows and electricity? No no. Too many were fixated on the surface level. It went much deeper than that. They were audio and visual. Darkness and light. Intertwined. Arguably better when brought together.

There was the wretch's screaming again. A startled howl as his chest was literally torn open. The ghoul's eyes narrowing ever so slightly at the grating cry. Perhaps this time Alastor could manage his levels and better manage the equipment. The radio demon's methods are crude. Were it only a scalpel peeling back the layers and a calculated saw. Not one to to dottle then. He can work with that.

The grim surgeons bathed in the same electric blue cyan that often coloured Vox's magic. Now illuminating from his core in the gaps of pulsing meat. A spark in the void surrounding them.

The biomechanic core thrummed and burned with continuous restless energy. Lighting up with heat and one could swear it quivered upon Alastor's initial touch. Pushing back with a sharp shock. Like it was afraid. Ludicrous. It was merely an organ however complicated and grotesques.

Wandering eyes drinking in the sight. He's stolen all of Vox's records to sate his own curiosity and lingered in darkness during his little upgrade sessions when he could get away with it but never before had he been this close to the dissection he'd craved for decades. A pity he has to serve as only an aid and to a butcher at that but he relinquishes his depraved desires to another. It will be reward enough to see Monet transformed. The master turned to puppet.

Alastor claims he's going off of sound but Vox is just a string of garbled hitches of breath and choked exhausted or pained groans. Insides helpless to his exploration. It seems where the cables and wires as well as his veins and valves all feed into his core is where he's more sensitive.

"I do not know where his memories would manifest in that thing. I doubt anyone would, even himself. However this is what I do. And why he has kept me even after having escaped my blade before. We have programmed and altered so many. His hypnosis and control could only do so much. Together we made it so his slaves were always under his influence whether his powers were activated or not."

Another syringe, he doesn't ask permission. Instead the Doctor injects it into the back of Vox's neck. Not daring to get in the way of Alastor's direct line. And suddenly where he'd been hanging slack Vox's muscles tense. Hands curling into fists. His face flickers and fails to appear on his screen. A lapse back into proper consciousness as he edges and teeters.

"That thing is his mind and the mind is fragile no matter how it may manifest. Easily broken and reshaped with a patient hand. Conditioned with pain and reward."

Vox lets out a broken sob. An admission to the truth of such statements.

Behind him skeletal hands are spread out, the monstrosity towering over it's subject. Missing lower face clicking as he opens and shuts his jaws.

"Tell me what you wish to achieve. How we shall remake him and by my word as your doctor, it shall be done." Trust in the process. In the power and experience of this monster behind Vox's most obedient and perfected servants. By heaven and hell, Alastor would have his glorious victory. Vox's fate was sealed the moment he'd allowed himself to be captured.

#|{ 𝚒'𝚖 𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚐 && 𝚒'𝚖 𝚏𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 ;; ic }|#|{ 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚕𝚢 𝚛𝚎𝚚𝚞𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚍 ;; ram duplicates }|#|{ 𝚒’𝚕𝚕 𝚏𝚒𝚡 𝚒𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚞𝚜 ;; vox (electriccapitalist) }|#[ don’t apologize i love it ]#/cw torture #/cw medical

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inkykeiji · 3 years ago

Text

you’ll always be my white rabbit

character: dabi | todoroki touya

genre: smut, carnival AU

notes: aaaah he’s finally here!!! happy belated halloween everyone!! i hope you all enjoy carnival attendant!dabi and, as always, please heed the warnings below! | title credit: bad habits by delaney jane

warnings: 18+ minors do not interact, rough sex, dangerous sex, public sex, minimal prep, dubcon, drugs, reader has long hair, overstimulation, degradation/dumbification, praise, marking, fingering, size difference/size kink, dacryphilia

words: 8.8k

synopsis:

Because despite the fact that you’re in the middle of an empty carnival and on a moving ride, there is something distinctly intimate about the entire encounter, found in the way his hands hold you close, palms curled protectively around your waist, fingertips signing his name, staking his claim, in blossoms of blues and purples into your flesh as they grip you tightly; in the way his forehead stays pressed flush to yours irregardless of the vicious motions of the boat, kisses messy and inept as teeth clack and click and chip against each other, wild giggles and half-baked sobs sucked from one throat into another; in the way his eyes glitter with the lights of the midway, sapphire amplified by fuchsia and crimson, neons that bleed into his irises and tint them violet and periwinkle.

The sky is still a deep blue when you arrive, twined with wispy strands of candy floss clouds, suspended in the atmosphere and wavering subtly with the gentle breeze.

The wind carries the scent of buttersalt popcorn and hard candy on its back, weaving its way through the small carnival—all the game stalls and the rusting rides and the grumbling food trucks—and you breathe in deeply, letting the smell settle in your lungs.

“Hey, let’s go!” Your best friend threads her arm through your own and begins leading you towards the small ticket booth, jutting up from a grassy knoll like a crooked golden tooth.

It’s nearly night by the time the two of you end up in line for the ferris wheel—by far the longest line for any ride here—the last halo of weak coral light bleeding into violet-tinged onyx.

You can’t quite understand why the queue for this particular ride is as busy as it is, gazing up at the rickety structure with a scrunched nose. It isn’t all that impressive; a measly sixty-seven feet tall, with white spokes and silver booths dangling precariously between them, paint chipping and dirty, hinges tarnished with flakes of rust.

“God,” your friend grimaces, front teeth nibbling at the thin skin of her bottom lip, eyes glued to the ride attendant. “I hope he doesn’t do that to us.”

Curiously, you follow her glare, finding a man with inky tufts and low-slung charcoal jeans at the base of the ride, one hand wrapped around the safety bar of the current cart docked at the loading platform, the other clamping inconspicuously over the back of the seat before he flips the whole thing backwards, swift and sudden, the surprised squeals and shrieks of his patrons eliciting a loud, harsh, sadistic laugh from deep in his chest, notes of his amusement floating above the crowd.

“You should consider it a compliment if he does,” a girl behind you says. “He does it to all the pretty girls.”

The notion makes you snort a little—some compliment, scaring the Goddamn life out of your customers entirely without their permission—but it does nothing to soothe the wrinkles of worry written into your best friend’s forehead.

The moon has emerged when you make it to the front of the line, pale rays competing with the colourful glow of the midway, irregular clusters of stars embroidering the velvet night rendered dull in comparison to the twinkling neon lightbulbs encrusting the rides.

It is only when you’re on the platform, sitting down in the tottering seat, that you realize exactly why the line for this particular ride is the longest.

Smirking down at you with lidded sapphire eyes glinting in the flashing cabochon lights, he is breathtakingly gorgeous.

Scars—pink and puckered, edges shimmering silver in the moon beams—cover his arms, climbing their way up his biceps, under his blue uniform shirt, and back out over his collarbone. They inch up his neck and over his cheeks, curved edges etching an everlasting smile across his face. They look soft, the puckered skin glowing in the light of the night, casting a sort of ethereal halo around his form.

“Ladies,” he greets with a noncommittal nod as he secures the lap bar across the bench and over your thighs.

“Please don’t flip us,” your friend blurts, eyes wide and desperate, hands gripping the safety bar so tightly her skin is stretched taut and tight over her knuckles.

“‘Course not,” he says with startling reassurance, though you can see the suppressed mischief playing with the corners of his lips, head bowed while rough hands tug halfheartedly at the frayed seatbelt across your hips.

“Oh, thank you, becau—”

A sharp scream cuts her off as the whole chair abruptly tilts backwards, entire carnival flipped upside down for a split second before it’s right side up again, the man snickering to himself at your friend’s overreaction.

She’s saying something, voice shrill with terror, but you can’t seem to hear her, hands frantically smoothing back down your wind-blown skirt, ears tuned into the frequency of the man’s dark, smooth voice.

He’s only a few inches from your face now, palms still latched tightly onto your seat, blue eyes bright with mirth.

“Pretty panties,” he smirks at you, eyes raking over your body before he tilts his head forward to whisper in your ear. “But they’d look a helluva lot prettier in my back pocket.”

And then you’re off, ride lurching forward as your tottering little chair climbs the spokes of the wheel, higher and higher and higher until you reach the very top, then descending backwards, lower and lower and lower just to repeat the whole cycle again.

You can’t pull your gaze from the ride attendant as your cart passes him by the first time, leaning nonchalantly against the operating booth as his tongue pokes absentmindedly at his cheek, that permanent lopsided smirk welded to his face, his unblinking stare steadily holding your own until it can’t anymore, until the ride carries you away again.

Your friend is still babbling on, but it all sounds muffled to your ears, nothing more than an indistinct jumble of complaints until she’s nudging your elbow, snapping you from your stupor.

“Huh?”

“I said, why is he looking at you like that?” her voice is full of disgust, face screwed up with something sour as she glowers at the ride attendant, who doesn’t bother to toss her a glance.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, what did he say to you?”

“What?”

“The guy! He whispered something in your ear before the ride started, didn’t he? What did he say?”

Heat seeps into your cheeks, slow and simmering, and you look down at your shoes, toes pointed inward, nearly overlapping.

“Nothing important,” you murmur, his smooth voice cascading through your mind like thick melted chocolate.

She doesn’t look like she believes you, but she doesn’t push any further either, receiving your answer with an indifferent shrug before returning back to prattling on about safety measures and respect and how the carnival will definitely hear about this incident.

You’re sure the carnival already knows about this guy’s behaviour, sure they don’t give a fuck if he’s been allowed to continue it, but you stay quiet, nodding along in an apathetic daze.

As the ride slows to a stop, you feel the unmistakable twinge of disappointment throbbing in the pit of your stomach, a vague sense of yearning sinking in your chest. It’s inexplicable, the sudden draw you feel towards this man—it’s magical, it’s magnetic; a moth to a light, an addict to a fix, a craving, voracious as it claws at your lungs—and you frown, lips molding into a pout, brain grasping for something, anything, to say to him, to soak up another ounce of his attention before he’s gone forever.

A calloused hand cuffs your wrist just as you’re about to step off the platform, fingers rough against your smooth skin, and you look back in surprise, a sweet little gasp hitching in your throat, unmistakable excitement glowing behind your ribs.

The man with the inky hair and the azure eyes says nothing as he stuffs a wad of worn tickets in your palm, gifting you a quick wink when you glance up at him in question, smirk grown into a grin.

Then he’s shuffling you forward, down the steps and off the platform as he welcomes the next round of guests onto the ride, the chain of tickets searing against your skin.

You’re unraveling them the moment you’re out of your best friend’s sight, breath bated and spine pressed against the back of the funhouse, eyes swallowing down the contents with starving curiosity.

The words U + ME TONIGHT glare up at you, written across the tickets in bright purple scrawl. Flipping the chain over, you find a time and location—11PM @ F. WHEEL—in the same messy handwriting; rushed, secret, just for you.

You and him, tonight. Eleven PM at the ferris wheel. You’ll be there.

✰ ✰ ✰

Murky golden lamplight filters through the dark autumn leaves, casting grotesque shadows on the candy-stained asphalt, constantly moving, shifting, changing as the wind jostles the branches.

Shivering a little, you tuck your hands beneath your arms, hugging your body tightly.

And you wait.

The carnival is vacant now, gusts whistling down the wide aisles, but the rides are still lit up, stationary and motionless, looming over you like massive metal monsters, laying in wait for their masters’ commands.

It all feels eerie, uncanny, like something is distinctly off, something you can’t quite find a word to describe, even as disquiet settles in your belly.

Chewing on your lip, you stare at the wind-shivered leaves, curling in on themselves as they cling weakly to the branches and bark, desperate for one last moment of life before a gust sends them fluttering to their death.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

You don’t know a thing about this man, you don’t even know his name, yet here you are: desperate, waiting for him all alone, unprotected and unprepared.

All due to a hazy feeling; dreamy and whimsical, exhilarating and terrifying, a curiosity starved for more.

Something tingles at the base of your spine, pinpricks of ice climbing vertebrae by vertebrae, forcing another shiver to ripple through your flesh, your head turning just as a pair of hands grab your waist, a yelp cracking high in your throat.

“You came!” the man is saying as he spins you to face him, large hands still on your hips, all bright smiles and brilliant eyes.

“I did,” you breathe out, words slightly trembling.

“Sorry,” he says, though he doesn’t sound sorry at all, gaze glistening with the thrill of it all. “Didn’t mean to scare ya.”

“Yeah, right. You really expect me to believe that?”

To your surprise, he laughs loudly, head nodding with a shrug of his shoulders. “Ah, what can I say? People look the prettiest when they’re scared.”

That’s an odd statement, you think, dimly aware of a soft chiming at the back of your mind—a warning of sorts, instantly silenced by his voice.

“C’mon!” he’s grabbing your hand, tugging you along behind him. “Lemme show you around.”

“So, uh, what’s your name?” you ask as you stroll, arms linked, towards the heart of the midway.

“Dabi,” he says, glancing at you from the corner of his eye. “I already know yours.”

“Oh, you do, do you?” you snort with a smirk, expecting him to mutter some cliché term—angel or gorgeous or something of that kind—as his head drops, lips at your ear, sugary wisps of your birth name curling around the cartilage.

It sends a jolt of shock shooting through your veins—something electric, something tinged with terror—and you rip yourself away from him, breath coming in fast, uneven spurts out your nose.

He laughs again, echoes of his melody ringing out among the empty fairgrounds.

“Relax, sweetheart,” he says, residual notes of amusement sewn into his tone. “I heard your jumpy little friend say it earlier tonight, when she was tryna yank you off my ride. Remember?”

Did she say your name? You can’t recall, the moments after the Ferris Wheel ride nothing more than a whimsical blur, full of keenness, enraptured in his aura.

Skepticism shines in your narrowed eyes, body still leaning away from him. “Really?”

“How else would I know?” he gives you a halfhearted shrug, hands shoved in his pockets; easy, effortless, entirely disarming.

How else would he know? This is the only plausible answer, isn’t it?

“Dunno,” you say finally, mimicking his shrug as you begin walking again. “Guess I’m just not used to complete strangers knowing my name, that’s all.”

“Understandable,” he says through grinding molars, hinges of his strong jaw flexing with the motions.

Reaching into his back pocket, he pulls out a lollipop, swiftly tearing the whole wrapper from the treat in a singular gesture before shoving it in his mouth, candy clacking against his teeth.

Old fashioned carnival tunes crank through lofi speakers as you roam the fair, harmonies stuffed full of the pop and hiss of static bathing the grounds.

Dabi shows you around the place as if you didn’t spend a good chunk of your night here already, eyes sparkling with a special type of excitement, full of adoration and pride as he rambles on, words gaining speed the deeper into the midway you wander.

But you let him drag you through it all again anyway, nodding and cooing and giggling at the appropriate times, because it’s kinda cute, kinda sweet, how much he clearly loves this place with all of its worn booths and decrepit rides, speeches peppered with little known facts and personal anecdotes.

You’re in the heart of the carnival when you see it, little gasp of surprise cutting Dabi off mid-story—something about that one time he and his friend walked on the walls of the Gravitron while it was moving—feet slowing to a stop in front of a bright yellow stall, inadvertently pulling on Dabi’s hand.

On the highest shelf of the Ring Toss game sits a massive Tiffany blue stuffed lion, with fluffy navy fur and big glassy eyes and pointy felt teeth, grinning down at you.

“What?” Dabi asks, eyes following your gaze with mild interest. “You want one?

You look over at him, hand squeezing his. “Can you win me one?”

“Nah,” he waves a hand, dismissive. “Kei stopped teachin’ us how to beat the games ‘cause we were showin’ all the tricks to too many people and it was hurtin’ his business or whatever. But—”

He leans close, nose nearly bumping yours as his voice drops to a rasp, breath infused with sugar and notes of artificial cherry, so sweet you swear you can taste the sting of sugar on your tongue.

“—I can steal you one.”

His eyes glitter, a cheeky smile melded to his face, not waiting for your answer as he jumps over the booth’s counter with all the ease and grace of a cat, the buckles on his boots and the metal in his pocket jingling as his feet hit the floor.

He’s cradling the lion to his chest in fifteen seconds flat, having scaled the prize wall to yank it free from its hook, dislodging a few of the smaller stuffed animals in the process, boots smearing strokes of mud across the faces of fluffy pink bunnies.

“He’s gonna kill me for that,” Dabi says as he lands, as if it isn’t a big deal, voice void of the slightest hint of concern. “Anyway,” he turns toward you, offering the lion. “Here you are.”

“Thank yo—” you begin to say, reaching for the animal only to have Dabi swipe it away from your grasp, fast and sharp, a taunting little smirk on his face.

“Ah! But it’s gonna cost ya,” he smirks, eyes darkening as they search your face. “What? You thought I’d just give this away for free?” he snickers at your stupidity, and its mean, coated in a hard layer of condescension, humiliation pricking your eyes.

Behind him, a ride creaks under the weight of the wind, swaying menacingly with those harsh gusts.

“Wh-What’s the price?”

“A kiss, of course.”

A rush of relief floods your veins, breath held stagnant in your lungs exhaled in an airy little melody, his smile spreading at the sound.

“Gosh,” you giggle. “Could you be anymore cliché?”

“Hey,” he warns, suddenly serious. “I got no problem with upping the price, if that’s what your askin’ for.”

Desperate desire flares pathetically in your chest, clawing at your ribs, bubbling up your throat. “That’s alright,” you squeak quickly, swallowing past the urge. “A kiss will do just fine for now.”

“Suit yourself,” he’s saying as he crushes his lips to your own, a rough palm settling on your neck, holding you in place as a strong tongue pushes the shrunken lollipop into your mouth.

He tastes heady as his tongue drags across your own, depositing flavours of spicy nicotine and smoky hickory and sweet cherry. You suck on them, savour them, savour him, drawing his bottom lip into your mouth and catching it between your teeth, tongue laving over it in repetitive strokes.

It’s all so good, saliva thick and sticky and burning as you swallow it down, infused with little fizzing sparks that race down your throat to collect deep in the pit of your tummy, setting a small flickering flame ablaze. Dainty fingers tangle in the collar of his shirt and tug, vying for more, but then he’s pulling away with a teasing little chuckle, eyes sparking as his fingers curl around your wrist once again, giving a soft squeeze before he leads you away.

“My friend Jin runs this one,” he says as you reach the southwest corner of the carnival, tapping on the fence surrounding The Scrambler, head nodding at the ride in indication. “It was my favourite as a kid. I wanted to work it, but they stuck me with the good old Ferris Wheel instead.”

“Aw, but the Ferris Wheel’s a classic!”

“Sure,” he dismisses, rabid mind already latched onto something new, unfocused eyes fixing their blurry gaze on you again. “Did you have a favourite ride as a kid?”

“Of course,” you nod, a faint fondness tainting your smile. “The Carousel. That was always the ride I made my dad take me to first.”

“We got one of those,” he says as he pushes away from the barrier with enough force to leave it teetering. “Wanna see?”

The carousel is tiny, adorned with blue and gold lights and a mirror-panelled center, ivory horses, turned yellow and grey from years of use, skewered on poles of twisted gold. Dabi hops onto the platform and hoists you up, placing you on the nearest horse, sidesaddle.

He doesn’t take a horse for himself, opting instead to lean against one of the saddles, elbows perched on the curved edges as he stares at you. The giggle that bubbles up your throat at his penetrating gaze is girlish and uncontrollable, an automatic reaction to having all of his attention directed at you.

Something gnaws at the pit of your stomach, a sort of yearning that burrows deep in your flesh, starved for more of him.

“So. Where are you from?” you ask after a moment of silence, your feet dangling from your horse, swinging absentmindedly, toe colliding with the gilded pole.

“Take a guess,” he teases, the glint of a challenge in his eyes.

“Uh,” you hum to yourself, thinking for a moment, squinting a little as you do so. “Japan?”

“Ding-ding-ding!” he hollers. “What gave it away, huh? My name? My accent?”

“Your accent,” you respond. “It’s—I really like it.”

“Oh? Is that so?” His eyebrows lift in genuine surprise.

“Mhmm,” you nod quickly. “But—Wow. I mean, Japan? You sure are a long way from home.”

“I am.”

“What brings you overseas?” you ask, looking down at your stuffed lion as your fingers twist in its mane, nervous the question may be too invasive, too personal.

“Ran away to join the carnival.” he says simply with a single shoulder shrug.

“Sure you did,” you roll your eyes, but a smirk toys with the corners of your lips. “Hey, look, if it’s too personal—”

“You think I’m kidding, huh?” he taps out a cigarette, placing it between his teeth.

“Well, I mean—That’s such a famous trope, I didn’t think—”

“I’m telling ya the truth, y’know,” he speaks around the cigarette, filter sticking to his lips, dirty hands coming cup the flame of a silver Zippo. “Ran away when I was thirteen years old.”

“My gosh. Thirteen? That’s so young.”

Dabi hums, puffing out a cloud of thick, tangy smoke.

“Why?” You ask before you can stop the word from slithering off your tongue, curiosity swelling in your voice, clawing at your irises.

“That’s another story for another time,” he says lightly, though his eyes swirl with something dark and heavy, a secret that weights his soul, a collection of shattered memories that he drags with him everywhere, inescapable no matter how far or fast he runs. “Doesn’t really matter anymore, anyway. The point is, I’ve been here ever since.”

“Here? With the carnival, you mean?”

“Yep!” He pops the ‘p’ enthusiastically, eyes suddenly brilliant and shining with adoration again, any traces of melancholia instantly eradicated. “They took me in, y’know? They weren’t worried, they didn’t ask any questions—knew it was none o’their business, anyway—they just accepted me as I was: a homeless little foreign kid, looking for somewhere he could perfectly snap into place.”

“And that space ended up being Shigaraki Amusements.”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s more of a home than I’ve ever known—a real home, a true home.” A wistful mist settles in his gaze, hazy and dreamy and full of love. “Us carnival people, we may look like a bunch’a mismatched puzzle pieces, but, in actuality, we fit together so snugly we might as well be airtight. No gaps, no empty spaces, no janky bits that don’t quite lock together…”

“That’s…” Beautiful, special, real. “That’s really magnificent,” you flounder, struggling to piece you feelings into words.

“We all have different stories, different reasons, and yet…” he trails off, reflecting. “Guess all that trauma and bullshit we each seem to lug around does help at least a lil, though,” he winks. “Hey,” he says suddenly, eyes focusing on something over your shoulder, glazed with want. “You wanna go take some pictures?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, yanking you from your horse with such force that your stuffed lion tumbles to the ground, a whine of protest sounding in your throat.

“Wait!” you cry, but Dabi doesn’t stop, deaf with determination as he all but drags you along behind him.

✰ ✰ ✰

It’s cramped in the little yellow photobooth, the seat so small that your legs tangle with Dabi’s—ankles twisted, knees hooked, thighs overlapping—as you wedge yourself in front of the flickering screen.

The pixels dances with static, the interface so basic it must’ve come from the 80s, colourful buttons prompting you with a bunch of selections, a disgruntled little sound falling from your lips as Dabi begins squirming, hands pawing at his pockets for what you’d assume to be money.

The surprise must show on your face when he pulls free a small baggie of white powder—the glinting edge of a razor blade peeking out from beneath the pile—because he laughs, shaking his head a little as he pours out a tiny mountain of snow white cocaine on the ledge in front of the screen.

“You want some?” he asks as he taps out three fat lines, already bent over his work, glancing at you through thick lashes and strands of ink.

“Oh, I—No. Thanks, though.”

“A good girl, huh?” he snorts the first line, fast and sharp, head thrown back and eyes squeezing shut for a millisecond before they snap open again, blazing stare turned on you. “I like that.”

A good girl?

Eyebrows pushing together, you look down at your hands in your lap, a little pout on your lips.

Is it really that obvious?

The question brands your tongue, sucked to cinders as you observe him, mesmerized.

He takes it like a fucking pro, inhaling the last two lines in such quick succession it almost looks as though he snorted them both at once.

Licking the tip of his finger, he drags it across the surface, gathering the excess before sticking it in his mouth. Scarred cheeks hollow as he sucks it clean, pulling it free from his lips in one slow motion, knuckles gleaming with spit.

“What?”

“Nothing, you’re just—you’re so cool.”

He flashes you another one of those dazzling smiles, all sharp teeth and red lips, stained cherry from the dye.

“Glad you think so, princess,” he says before he claps his hands together, the sound echoing in the tiny booth, startling you slightly. “Alright! You wanna take some photos or what?”

Yes, your head is nodding, eyes wide and eager. Yes, you do.

“Let’s do two rounds,” Dabi says as he struggles to pull a worn leather wallet from one of his pockets. “So we each get to keep one full strip,” he explains before you can ask why, reading the question shimmering in your gaze.

You suppose that’s fair.

Dabi insists that you go first, allowing you to dictate the content of each shot, instructions called out rapid fire, sticky with giggles and heavy with grunts as you both hastily attempt to rearrange yourself for each shot, failing miserably every time.

“It’s still cute,” you say as you hold the strip between your fingers, a line of four photos displaying ridiculous faces, blurry from movement and cut off by the borders.

“Of course it is,” Dabi rolls his eyes. “I mean, it’s you. Anything you do is gonna be cute, no matter how silly.”

Heat seeps into your cheeks at his words, his compliment somehow both sharp and sweet, little pinpricks buzzing across your skin. His voice is raw with honesty, entirely unaffected by his own candidness, the comment so blunt it’s almost offensive in tone, as if you’re stupid, as if you should know this already.

“But it’s my turn now, and there’s only one type of picture I want on my strip,” he continues, lips curling up into something sinister, a glint of wickedness in those gorgeous, gluttonous pupils.

You aren’t spared a moment to inquire as his thumb punches the START button, because then he’s surging forward, large hands enveloping your face, calloused fingertips hooking behind the hinges of your jaw as he drags you toward him.

A yelp rattles from your mouth into his as sharp teeth clack together, the edge of his incisors catching on your top lip and splitting it open. But he doesn’t let up, undeterred by your noise of pain, undeterred by the coppery taste of your blood saturating his tongue, and he sucks the wound into the heat of his mouth, eliciting another one of those beautiful little squeals from deep in your throat.

The first flash goes off just as your fingers knot in the inky tufts curling at the base of his skull, twining the strands around your knuckles before yanking harshly.

He laughs at the pain, a loud, warm sound that spills down your throat, liquid fire that ignites a blaze in your stomach, simmering low and dull.

The second flash goes off just as he shoves his tongue against your own, a domineering presence that overtakes your mouth as it laves over your smaller, weaker tongue, slick muscle pressed flat to slick muscle as they grind together.

Stringy spit, so interspersed it belongs to neither of you now, belongs to both of you now, clings to teeth and lips and chins, slippery as they slide together. Drool oozes from the corners of your mouths, so much that it’s obscene, dollops of it drizzling down your face to collect along your jaw, sticky and sweet.

The third flash goes off just as razor teeth slice into your collarbone, your features crinkling in pain-tinged ecstasy, a gasp of his name cracking in your throat, fading into little ghosts on your tongue.

You can feel his fingers creeping under your skirt, taking the hem with them as they climb up, up, up to reveal dainty pink lace, clinging to supple skin and soiled with arousal.

“These are in my way,” he growls into your skin, the only warning you’re given before he’s tearing through the frail material, ripping it from your body in one swift motion.

The fourth and final flash goes off just as two slim fingers plunge into you, the sudden intrusion forcing an airy whimper from your lips, nails sinking into the muscle of his shoulder, piercing his skin through his t-shirt.

“Fuck, baby,” he breathes, clouds of sugary air wafting across your damp skin, his forehead pressed tightly to your shoulder. “You’re already so fuckin’ wet for me.”

A peculiar type of awe infuses his tone, and he peers up at you, cavernous pupils outlined by the thinnest ring of blue, shimmering in the dull yellow light. His digits curl without warning, almost vicious in their unexpected movement, two knuckles pressed tight against that plush spot buried deep inside you.

One gentle nudge has you whining out a distorted version of his name, full of fractures, edges of the broken letters catching in your throat.

And he smiles.

It’s nothing but a sharp curve upward of his mouth, teeth sealed behind his stretched lips, and something dark, something dangerous, glimmers in his eyes.

One hard shove has you crying out loudly, eyes snapped shut so tightly your entire face crinkles with the force, words barely discernible on your tongue now, nothing more than a mash of vague sounds that might’ve, once upon a time, been his name.

And he laughs, the melodic sound heavy and harsh in the air around you, notes of amusement threaded through diluted malice.

“So easy,” you hear him murmur to himself, voice rumbling in his chest. “So fucking expressive.”

He gives a few experimental pumps, knuckles rolling over that swelling spot with each plunge into you, unblinking eyes fixated on your face.

“You are a good girl, aren’t you?” he coos, nuzzling his face into you. “Because good girls get nice and wet when they’re supposed to. Christ,” his eyes drift to the apex of your thighs, a little lethargic in their movement, his arm turning a bit to reveal the slick collecting in his hand, staining the lines of his palm as crystalline dewdrops stream down his wrist. “You’re making such a fucking mess, baby.”

A mechanical hiss sounds suddenly, inhibiting you from replying, the machine spitting out Dabi’s photo strip a moment later.

With his fingers still buried in you, his free hand snatches the strip from the tray, eyes scanning it quickly.

“Fuck,” he nearly moans, shoving the strip toward you. “Look at yourself.”

Slowly, your gaze skims over each tiny photo, taking a moment to digest each one. It’s incredible; you’ve never seen yourself more beautiful. Pure primal ecstasy encrusts your features, face warped with pleasure and cheeks shining with sweat, each picture exuding passion, sensuality, authenticity.

“You look gorgeous, but oh, the real thing is so much better,” the hand between your thigh twists, knuckles grinding circles into your g-spot, and you mewl, eyes snapped shut, hips rolling into his palm.

It’s so good, and if he keeps this up you’re going to cum right here, right now, despite the fact that your aching clit hasn’t been paid a shred of attention, only granted a few teasing grazes of the heel of his hand.

Trembles skitter up your thighs, pleasure dousing the fire he had lit deep in the pit of your tummy, flames flaring, furling into a tightly concentrated coil, each stroke of his fingers twisting the blaze into a knot of sunshine.

Except then he’s ripping you from ecstasy’s grasp, untangling his body from yours and sliding out of the booth.

Lids fluttering, you stare at him dumbly, chest heaving and eyebrows drawn, slumped against the booth wall. A gentle breeze caresses your skin, chills erupting in its wake and you shiver, winding shaky arms around your torso.

With a tut of his tongue and a roll of his eyes, Dabi reaches into the booth, hand latching onto your elbow and yanking you out from the tiny booth, calling out an enthusiastic C’mon! as he throws you a breathtaking grin.

Still uncalibrated from the sudden whiplash of his actions, you stumble along with him, breath exhaled in short, uneven pants. Pretty pink lace, soaked and mangled, hangs haphazardly from his back pocket, bouncing against charcoal denim with each of his steps.

“Where are we going?” you rasp out, the toe of your shoe catching on the concrete in his haste.

“You’ll see,” he hums out in a little sigh, eyes bright with mischief, giving your hand an enthusiastic little tug.

He winds through the fairgrounds effortlessly—past the food trucks, between the game stalls, looped around the Starship 3000—finally coming to a stop at the base of a mediocre pirate ship raised on a faded blue platform, decorated with pieces of warped plywood painted with crashing whitecaps.

It’s one of those pendulum rides that swings to-and-fro, gaining speed with each whoosh past the axle until it reaches a maximum—crests, climaxes—before it gradually slows to a stop again. Dabi leads you up the steps, metal groaning beneath your feet, rubber soles whining against the pebbled surface.

“What are we…?”

A loud laugh catches in the thick atmosphere, heavy and suffocating and entirely different from the laughs that have come before it—lighthearted laughs that had rung with innocent amusement. The maliciousness infused in the melody slices through your cheeks, haunting whispers that caress your skin with icy fingers, that promise to know something you don’t.

“Sit down in the middle row,” he instructs as an answer to your question, jutting his chin at the stationary ride as he climbs behind the control booth.

Without moving, your eyes dart between Dabi and the ride, questions leaving your mouth slow and cautious, heart beginning to race. “What? Why?”

“Why not?” he shoots back, though that easygoing, liquified grin is still present on his lips, dopey with manufactured ecstasy.

Despite his seemingly carefree nature, chills crawl over your arms, blood turned frigid with inexplicable dread.

Something isn’t right.

“Oh, come on,” he goads at the incredulity molding your features, beginning to solidify, tight and tense. “You really think I’d do something to put you in danger?”

The question shimmers in the air, cushioned by silence, your tongue turned sluggish in your mouth, saliva collecting in pools at the back of your throat.

“Nah, princess,” he continues, though his voice quivers a little, struggling against the force of restrained irritation. His smile twitches, stretched abnormally large across his cheeks, so wide it looks as though it’s been carved into his face. “I would never.”

And although his tone is still perfectly playful and pleasant, something buried deep within his words glints, something hard and sharp that warns you best do what he says, something that assures you this isn’t a request, it’s an order.

“You can trust me, pinky promise. I just wanna show you a good time, okay?” he pauses, allowing his question to marinate into a soothing salve, softening your features, sincerity restoring some trust. “Now, sit down.”

Your body reacts immediately, automatically, prey instinctively responding to predator, and you slide into the middle booth, a sinful flicker of pride fluttering in your stomach as he purrs out that you’re such a good girl for him.

Dirtied fingers, nails uneven and framed with grime, crawl across the control panel, expertly flicking switches as they go, each one another razor ripping through the air before his palm slams down on a glowing green button, a tired beep responding in affirmation.

The ride creaks to life, rusted metal screeching as the motors whir and the boat begins to rock, slow and steady, back and forth, speed increasing incrementally with each repetition.

Dabi hops over the operating rail with ease, big black boots landing heavily against the platform, the entire floor trembling beneath his weight.

Then he’s bounding towards you, a twisted smile that’s all teeth plastered across his face, and launching himself onto the moving boat with practiced ease, slim body slinking almost gracefully into the middle row, slotted right up against yours.

“Jesus Christ,” you laugh, equal parts terrified and impressed, breath tangling in your throat. “You’re a total madman!”

He joins in on your laughter; loud, shrieking, inhuman, amplified by the roar of the wind, notes elevated with the gusts, carrying far across the midway. Large hands curl around your waist as he continues to snicker, yanking you into his lap with sudden strength, your thighs padding his hips.

The unexpected movement has a startled scream clawing at your chest, panicked eyes finding his instantly as he presses you close to his body, maniacal laughter still spilling from his lips, spoiled syrup encasing you in its sticky embrace.

“Dabi!” you squeal, voice high with terror. “Dabi!”

“Relax, I got you!” his fingers flex on your hips, accentuating his point. “Hold onto me!” he instructs, words twined with the whipping wind. Your body obeys, dainty fingers knotting in the jersey material of his shirt, skin stretched tight and taut across trembling knuckles.

And then he’s kissing you again, warm bubbles of glee spilling into your mouth, popping on your tongue before they buzz down your throat, sugary sweet and full of acid.

It burns, but they keep coming, and you keep swallowing them down, willingly, greedily, drowning in him from the inside out.

It’s already so much, throat raw as he keeps rushing down it, senses overwhelmed, senses overridden by it all—the rapidly accelerating sway of the boat, the calloused fingers bunching your skirt around your waist, the hard lump buried in rough denim, hot and throbbing as it grinds against your bare cunt—yet your soul’s starved for more, desperate and woozy and please, please, please!

Your fingers are already sore and stiff from being clenched so tightly, the muscles in your thighs already aching from tensing around his hips, a futile attempt to keep yourself from slipping off the ride, his bones digging into your plush flesh.

“This ride is set to last for five minutes and thirty seconds,” he breathes into your mouth as the boat climbs higher, forehead resting against your own. “Think you can be a perfect little girl for me and cum on my cock before it ends?”

“Uh-huh,” you’re nodding, motions vigorous, eyes glazed with desire as they search his face, vivid, voracious.

“Yeah?” he breathes, the tip of his nose nudging yours, gaze glittering as it sears into your soul. His eyes search your own for a moment, almost as if he’s confirming something unseen, unbeknownst to you, before he nods once, stare darting downward. “Then get my cock out.”

Delicate fingers wander to the heavy chrome buckle and pick viciously at the leather laced through it, clawing at the brass button of his jeans before shoving the waistband down just enough to free his cock while his hands keep a firm, secure grip on your waist, safe.

You don’t get to admire it, not even for a second—nothing more than a glimpse of a pretty pink tip and a glistening glaze of pre-cum—Dabi lifting your hips with one hand as the other wraps around the base of his shaft, holding it steady and lining it up with your cute little hole.

A hiss catches on your teeth as he shoves his cock into you, harsh and fast and sudden, features twisting in pain and fingers flexing tightly, nails piercing through the thin fabric outfitting his shoulders and gorging on his flesh.

“That’s it,” he soothes, though his voice is rough around the edges. “Be a good little whore for me, take my cock.”

It feels as though he’s ripping you in half as he bottoms out, cockhead pressed snug against your cervix, cunt struggling to accommodate his girth as delicate flesh tears itself open for him, keen and eager and oh-so-desperate.

“Shh, shh, baby,” he hums over your pathetic little whimpers, the term of endearment drenched in condescension, a mocking pout molded to his lips. “Aw, you’re doing good so far, c’mon, give me the ride of a lifetime, yeah? Make this a ride to remember.”

Fierce determination ignites behind your sternum, head nodding as you blink bleary tears from your gaze, desperate with the desire to please him, to prove yourself to him, to be the best he’s ever had.

The pace is merciless right from the start, imposed by the rapidly declining time limit, hips relentless in their pursuit as they rock hard and fast against his own.

He meets you with just as enthusiasm, grunts vibrating in his chest with each rut up into you, large hands gripping your flesh as he forces you to bounce on his lap, flame-hardened fingers kneading your ass, blunt nails marring soft flesh with purple-tinged indents.

For a moment, you’re lost in the sensationalized pain, time slowing as the seconds dribble on by, slow and thick like saccharine syrup, bouts of pain shooting through your gut with each slam against your cervix, pleasure chasing it high and fast with each drag of his cockhead against that spot, pussy fluttering desperately around his massive cock, repeatedly gorged with it.

But then the boat falls again, whooshing past the axel to swing high on the other side, gaining speed, gaining height, and a scream shatters in your throat, hips slowing to a sensual, stuttering grind.

Dabi laughs at your startled reaction, nuzzling your cheek with his own just before the boat falls backwards.

“Time’s ticking, baby,” he shouts over the bellowing threads of the wind, eyebrows lifting in enticement, strings of ink flying up from his face as the boat swooshes again.

And, truthfully, you want nothing more than to make him proud, to make this the best ride of his fucking life, want it so bad you can feel your own slick leaking all over your inner thighs and down your ass.

But it’s fucking terrifying, blocks of lead dropping in your stomach as the boat swings again, splashing acid up your throat, toxic and mixed with desperate desire.

Tears of fright, of frustration, shield your eyes, thick and gleaming as you hiccup on your words, smashed to shards in your throat. Your whole body trembles in his arms as thorns of ice claw up your spine, knuckles cracking as you readjust your grip on his shoulders.

Dabi’s hips are still moving, calloused fingers digging deep bruises into your skin as he forces you to keep riding him—galaxies in the shape of his fingerprints, full of swirling violets and dark navys that will take weeks to fade, blood vessels bursting under his grasp, signing his name into your body in the prettiest mini masterpieces.

“Look at you, huh? Acting as if you’re so scared,” he’s spitting, flecks of saliva smattering across your cheeks, sick little freckles that cool and dry with the next whoosh of the boat, his features curled in a sneer. “Acting as if you aren’t fucking loving this, you little bitch.”

A palm stings your flesh, stark and sudden, prickly warmth spreading through your ass at the impact. It forces a strangled squeal from your throat, and your eyes shut tightly, body cowering into his, a reflexive response.

“But that’s alright, sweetheart, you don’t have to tell me,” he continues, sharp glints of malice in his eyes, slashing through the artificial euphoria swirling in sapphire. “No, your precious lil pussy does that all on it’s own, ‘cause a whore’s cunt will always give away her true feelings.”

Embarrassment floods your cheeks, burning hot as it unfurls under your skin, hiccuping out pitiful little cries.

“Yeah, that’s right, princess. I can fucking feel the way that sweet cunt flutters and gushes all over my cock every time I do this,” he grunts as his hips push up with vigorous determination, hands keeping you still and pinned to his body, cockhead grinding into your favourite spot, holding the motion with the boat as it freezes in the air, suspended for only a moment before it’s dropping again, whirring past the axel to swing up, high and fast, on the other side.

You’re crying harder now, sobs that rip through your lungs and crack your ribs, fear burning in your throat, each ragged gasp of air another mouthful of nails scraping past the gummy walls of your throat.

But, oh God, it’s so fucking good, pain and terror only working to compound the pleasure, elevating your senses and you can’t stop: can’t stop weeping, can’t stop chasing it, can’t stop wanting so much more.

“Yeah,” he breathes, almost whining it out, head nodding with the timbre of the word. “Fucking cry harder for me, more, more. God, fuck,” his voice breaks on the curse, eyes rolling in his skull. “Little fucking crybaby, you look so fu-fucking pretty with those tears on your cheeks.” His tongue flattens against your face, dragging from your jaw to your bottom lashes, mopping up salt water and leaving behind a thick gleaming trail of saliva. “And all for me, huh? All because of me.”

He sounds almost proud of himself, chest heaving against your own as gluttonous pupils gobble down your expressions, gaze searching your face with such vigorous obsession it almost feels as though he’s attempting to swallow you whole, down those big black holes ringed with blue that devour everything they touch, and you’re suffocating, you’re suffocating.

“What if I let go of you, right now?” he questions with airy enthusiasm, sadism gleaming in those voracious eyes, the question a slap of reality, bringing you back. His fingers loosen a little, tapping with teasing, with warning, against your hips. “Do you think you’d fall to your death?”

He looks almost morbidly fascinated by the question, a sick haze misting his eyes, wondrous and full of awe.

“Wouldn’t that be something, huh?” he continues in that same faraway lilt, dreamy and floating on grotesque fantasies. “To die right after I stuff you full of my cum? You’d die happier than ever before, I bet…Should we give it a try?”

“No, Dabi!” you’re screaming, the protest high with panic and heavy with spit, clutching him so hard your nails break through his skin, stuffing themselves full of flesh and tissue, blood staining the lines of your nailbeds.

“Oh?” he blinks, pulling back a little, genuinely surprised. “Did I startle you, baby? Are you scared?”

“Please, please, please,” you’re sobbing as you smush your face into his neck, whole body clinging to his. “Please, don’t let me go! I’ll do anything, just—Don’t!”

“Alright, alright,” he’s saying, voice suddenly soft with pacification, like he’s soothing a child. “I won’t let you go. But if you don’t make me cum by the time this ride is over, I’m gonna make you do it all over again.”

Your ribs shiver beneath the erratic beating of your heart, your head nodding in jerky little movements as sticky affirmations spill from your lips.

Your hips begin moving again, uneven little bucks that are guided by his hands, hushed praises spilling from his lips, nearly drowned by the wind.

“That’s it, baby, yeah, just like that,” he encourages you, a hint of patronization garnishing his words. “Look at you, huh? Being such a brave little girl for me, fucking yourself on my cock.”

The metal safety bar, purposefully left up so he could fit you onto his lap with relative ease, grinds against the notches of your spine with every roll of your hips, uncontrollable whimpers streaming from your lips.

Strands of your hair whip around your cheeks with each rush of the boat, Dabi’s face so close that your locks embrace him, too, twirling around his neck and tangling in tufts of ink.

Your combined thrusts gain speed in tandem with the boat itself, each rock forward forcing you to accelerate, desperate to keep up with the ride’s pace, desperate to cum as its speed crests.

Your stomach swoops as the boat plunges downward again, gasp exhaled into Dabi’s mouth, his slick tongue curling greedily around the sound. Howling gusts mimic your cries, high and broken, taunting in the way they coil around your forms.

“You look so fucking gorgeous like this,” he breathes, stare shimmering with a sort of twisted admiration, looking at you in a way unlike anyone else ever has, with those azure flames licking at his monstrous pupils, a stare that makes you feel as if you’re drowning and floating all at once.

But he’s right, you do look gorgeous, the carnival lights glittering in the tears caught in your clumped lashes, rendered endless versions of themselves; gleaming trails of salt staining your smooth cheeks, hair crusted to your skin; chin and lips shining with translucent pink, slicked with spit and oozing blood, victims of his teeth.

Another hiccup stutters in your chest, whole body trembling in his arms, but you push yourself to keep fucking, to keep tugging those gorgeous sounds from deep within his chest, soft whiny moans and guttural grunts puffed out into your mouth, melting on your tongue.

Even flying through the wind, with the background rendered nothing more than an indistinct blur of dribbling colours, he is still so breathtakingly gorgeous, eyes bright with manufactured euphoria, pupils gaping and voracious for you, for your pleasure, devouring every single change in expression—the quirk of your bow, the crinkle of your forehead, the pucker of your chin—as his hair clings to his face, spikes of ink dripping with sweat, lips slicked sheen with your spit and licked ruby-red raw.

Sparks of adrenaline sprout in your veins with every rock of your hips, surging through your blood and leaving your body hypersensitive; overwhelmed by the harsh embrace of the wind, by his teeth on your flesh, scraping his essence into your skin and sealing it with his slow, sticky laves of his tongue, by each drag of his cock against that spot, starbursts of fire exploding in your tissues, tiny supernovae that disperse star stuff to collect in your gut, melting into one massive roiling ball of fire that wreathes tighter and tighter and tighter until it finally bursts, cunt clenching almost violently around his cock, his name a shattered scream on your tongue.

“Ah, f-fuck,” he gasps, hands guiding you to keep riding him. “You’re being so fuckin’ good for me. Yeah, yeah, that’s it, cum all over my cock like the good girl that you are.”

It’s so much, too much, and you can feel it gushing from your cunt, smearing across your inner thighs and dribbling down to soak the waistband of his jeans.

He doesn’t seem to mind, though, praises still falling from his lips, grip brutal as he forces your hips to keep moving, hard and fast, ass rubbed raw from the coarse denim clothing his thighs.

“C’mon, c’mon,” he’s nearly growling now, teeth clenched, jaw flexing, eyes blazing. “Fuckin’ take it.”

So you do, eager to be his good girl, quivers shooting through your body with each catch of your swollen clit on his slick pubic bone, sore cunt fucked raw and pulsing weakly, wrecked voice grating your throat.

Only three more drags of your hips and he’s cumming with a vicious snarl, pelvis jerking as his cock throbs, stuffing you full of thick, burning cream.

But he doesn’t stop, even as the boat begins to slow, still rutting against you pathetically, forcing tremors of pain-tinged pleasure through his veins as he chases residual flares.

And despite how unbelievably painful it is, you let him.

You let him, because he’s the best drug you’ve ever taken, the highest high you’ll ever reach, the most beautiful collection of art you’ve ever witnessed—a living, breathing painting; a walking, talking symphony; a constantly morphing storybook full of tall tales and folk myths, each glimmering with shards of truth—and he’ll be gone just as quickly as he appeared.

Because he’s like wisps of thick smoke curling through the night; soft, potent, entirely ungraspable, slipping through the cracks between your fingers, settling into the lines of your hands. He’s a shooting star flaring through the void sky, brilliant, beautiful, burnt out in an instant, never to occur again. He’s a singular spark from a sparkler, caught in your palm, singeing your skin with a blistering heat for a mere moment before it disappears, forever.

He’s gone by the next morning, the whole carnival and your stuffed lion gone with him, the only indication that he even existed at all stuffed securely in the pocket of your jacket; a strip of four pictures, colourless and grainy, full of ink and ivory.

#dabi x reader #dabi smut #todoroki touya x reader #todoroki touya smut #bnha smut #mha smut #tw:dubcon #tw drugs #tw dacryphilia #WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YEAH #pls enjoy!!!

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