#batter up arc

[electricgaunt]

Live Blog of Interstitial Infinity #17 - The Baseball Car, Pt. 2:

s3 sailor steve and an elden rings character...only on interstitial....

pitch coach steve (ineffective) lmao

ohhh the digivolve thing is cool

agreed, Al and Winry hug is v important, thank you for the check-in about that 👍

had a bit of an out of body moment where I thought about how I was sitting in my car eating lunch at work listening to fictional baseball, lol. and i'm having a great time, no shame!!! 😤😄

shoka is so scary (positive)

i love you susie deltarune

thinking about the problematic ships question that Riley posted, there's so many new characters to consider with this car

hyrule homies!!!

the Jason and Shoka dynamic is so funny to hear after the baseball explainer bonusode akdhjajsh

nan is fun, I don't know them very well, but what I've heard is very neat

I don't know homestuck but hearing the reactions to emma's dave is very funny

dave left a corpse behind??? aaa wild

wondering now if a baseball game just has to be completed to leave the car or if only the winners can leave...guess we'll find out!

shoka and trish both sort of trying to help carrie (in their own ways) lol

IF YOU'RE SINGLE

united in trying to woo winry

ohh emma's announcer voice is a character? guessing this is a blaseball thing maybe

trish just dead on the field, god

luffy and audrey are amazing

thinking about how many of the characters in this game have never heard of baseball before now

millicent mistaking some monster factory'd character for kris deltarune is amazing

Al formally introducing Audrey to Winry, and Shoka butting in akhjajsh

Wow Women Moment

bring steve in!!!

steve's baseball bat trauma is real

remembering that Trish's body and Dave's corpse are just lying on the field (angels in the outfield, corpses in the infield-)

team photo 🥺

ohh shoka got her number!!

I COULD CUT OFF AN ARM, I COULD LOSE AN ARM

shadow went for Ed (at least in the poker bonus ep) and now Shoka is going for Winry, none of Al's siblings (pseudo or otherwise) are safe from Riley characters 😄

oh lol being knocked out will not stop Trish

oh this Carrie and Trish conversation is very sweet and funny, aw

heart link Trish and Mob, hell yeah

if steve ever goes home, he's now met several more psychics that he could tell el about

ohhh JoJo stand for Carrie!!! that's so cool!!!

Carrie has joined the party!!!

oh my god shadow letter in a bottle aaaa

😭😭😭

im sad,,,,

good game!!! 😭⚾😭💚

[cinnabeat]

the curse of listening to fairy tail ops and going man the anime was so good i should watch again as if the op songs give any indication of the quality of the show itself. dont do it girl thats the devil talking

[thebasilbuffet]

Are you (Zacharie) mortal?

- Stinging Nettle

"Not in the slightest! Why do you ask?"

[p4ranxoia]

Breach and his partner saph [friends oc]

[yamujiburo]

Here's an arc I thought about doing but won't do because, it'd be a bit too sad and also it's too similar to the Turing Point Arc I already did and also it would be long. But I'll write it here for you angst enjoyers. This ended up being longer than I thought.

Despite getting the "okay" from Ash to date Jessie, Delia still worries that she's not doing the right thing or being a bad mom. Up until now she'd convinced herself that she had the right to be selfish for once after knowing only sacrifice and putting herself last.

Jessie and Ash, while not as antagonistic towards each other, still go at it. A Pikachu zap here, an angry "twerp" being uttered there. The guilt settles in for Delia and figures that it's best to just cut things off before things potentially get worse or before she gets too attached to Jessie. Her son comes first after all. That's what she signed up for when becoming a parent.

She sits Jessie down, eyes watery (it's the first time Jessie's ever seen Delia come close to crying). Delia says she thinks they should end things. Jessie is stunned but accepts it quickly. She sucks it up in the moment, puts a resigned smile on her face and tells Delia she'll leave immediately and not to worry about her. Delia's also broken up about it but promised herself she'd never cry over a goodbye and she wasn't gonna start now.

Jessie goes to James and Meowth's place greeted similarly to this, lightly teasing her about blowing it with Delia, and she breaks down sobbing. Oops it's real this time. James and Meowth do everything in their power to make her feel better. They let her know that things like this happen and they're ready to go wherever she wants to go (knowing that it'd likely be to painful for her to stay in Pallet). As much as she wants to leave, she doesn't want James and Meowth to lose the good thing they have going. She's not in the right headspace to make any decisions so she'll get to it later.

Ash returns home after doing a little training at Oak's lab. He notices Jessie's not around and asks his mom where she is. Delia is about to tell him but can't quite bring herself to say the truth out loud yet. She simply says "I don't know". Ash looks disappointed. "Aw man, I wanted to see if she wanted to battle. She makes a good battle buddy for all of my newer, baby Pokémon." Delia perks up that this. As quickly as he came, he leaves again to go train his Pokémon.

Later, Delia approaches Ash, asking him if he really meant that what he said about Jessie being a good battle partner. He gives her an enthusiastic "yeah!" and tells her that it's been nice having another battle ready trainer around since there's not many in Pallet. Delia starts to pry a little more. "I thought you and Jessie didn't get along?" Ash is confused, and tells Delia they get along great! "Jessie doesn't steal anymore! And she's getting better at battling which is cool." Delia brings up that she's head them argue before. "Oh... well I guess that's just how we are. I'd be weirded out if she was suddenly too nice to me all the time. Jessie's actually a lot like Misty. But taller!" This gives Delia a lot to think about but what's done is done and it's no use pressing on. It's easier this way.

The next morning Delia's getting ready for work. She must not have noticed that she was acting weird but Ash picks up on it. "What's wrong mom?" Delia's shocked he noticed (he's not usually this perceptive). She tells him it's nothing and that she just slept bad. "Hm. But Jessie says that when you're upset you get really quiet and intense." Delia notices that she was pretty intensely mixing the pancake batter. "Jessie told you that?" Ash nods. "Hey speaking of, where is Jessie? Haven't seen her since yesterday." Delia stops mixing and tells Ash that she and Jessie aren't together anymore. Ash is confused and upset at the idea of Jessie doing something that would hurt his mom enough for them to break up. Delia lets him know that Jessie didn't do anything like that and that them breaking up was just for the best. But Ash questions this, pointing out that he's never seen Delia as happy as she was when Jessie was there and also how Delia looks really sad now. Delia can't argue with that but then tells him that it's complicated. Ash, to Delia's surprise, looks a bit disappointed. He's bummed he wasn't able to say goodbye first and asks if she thinks Jessie would still be willing to come by and train with him sometimes. Delia asks him once more if he was really okay with her and Jessie dating. "Yeah I thought I said that already? Jessie's pretty cool when she's not being evil. And she really likes Pokémon which is a plus!" Such simple criteria. Delia's now worried that she might've made a mistake. She finishes making breakfast and heads to work.

At the restaurant she's met by James. She can feel an awkwardness hanging in the air. She knows that James knows. Before she can say anything James tells Delia thank you for employing him and helping him, Meowth and Jessie get back on their feet but that he's going to quit working at the restaurant and that they'll likely be leaving Pallet soon. Delia's heart sinks. There's now a ticking clock and she has to decide what she wants to do SOON. She asks James where Jessie is. James hesitantly tells her that she's at his and Meowth's place. Delia pleads with James to work the restaurant for one more day at least and to cover this shift. She has to go talk to Jessie. He agrees, hoping that this is a good thing.

Delia runs to James and Meowth's place. She knocks on the door upon arrival and waits. It takes a moment but she hears the door unlock. Jessie opens the door, disheveled, tears and snot all over her face, draped in a blanket. Jessie notices it's Delia and, frightened, slams the door. Delia's stunned for a moment and goes to knock on the door again but before she can the door opens. This time Jessie's tears are gone, her hair's fixed and she ditched the blanket. "Oh hey, Delia! What brings you here?" Delia can't help but be charmed. But this is serious. She shakes it off and asks if they could talk. Jessie invites her in. They get to the couch and Jessie starts frantically cleaning up all the crumpled tissues and dirty dishes off the ground. "Heh I caught a cold yesterday. A one day cold. I'm fine now." Delia doesn't call out the obvious lie and gets straight to the point.

She tells Jessie that she's worried she made a mistake. She made a panicked decision that she was hoping would protect Ash and her future self. But now realizes that she was afraid of the idea that she'd made a selfish decision by dating her. It was a selfish decision but that didn't mean it was a bad one. She was the happiest she'd been, Jessie and Ash were learning to get along and were getting along much better than she'd though. She acknowledges that Jessie has been there for Ash in a way that she can't quite be and is also grateful to her for managing to keep Ash home a little longer. She asks if Jessie would be willing to take her back (despite the distress she caused). Jessie starts sobbing with happy tears. She tearfully says she'll try even harder to get along with Ash and be a better person. Delia reassures her that she's doing just fine.

They kiss passionately but then realize it's weird that they're making out in James in Meowth's place and say they'll continue later. Delia tells Jessie to head back home and that Ash is looking forward to battling with her (and she also needs to let James and Meowth not to quit their jobs).

The end~

[v-writes]

Captured King Snippet

DPXDC inspired by this post by @mokulule

It's probably going to be one long one shot when it goes up on ao3, but here's a little less than 1k of the beginning (by snippet I do mean most of what I have written so far lol)

Pt 2 Pt 3 ao3

Phantom had been quiet since he was apprehended.

Silent in a way that someone who needed to breathe, someone with a beating heart, could never be, and Batman could tell it had Superman on edge as he stared through the one way glass into the interrogation room. But then the uncanniness of the young man they had captured was probably a minor stressor compared to the concern of what would happen if Phantom got loose, his arrest had been brutal. Clark shouldn't even be in the observation room, any fight that left him as battered as he was should land him in the Fortress of Solitude's medical facilities, but getting that through to him when Phantom was still present was a losing battle.

So many of the League's heavy hitters, including dipping into Justice League Dark for magical support, and Phantom had danced around them.

The only reason they had been victorious in the end was because-

~~~

After several failed attempts at capture based on power match ups leaving the league member unable to land a meaningful hit, or arriving too late to stop or catch him, an ambush had finally been successful.

The ambush location had been set up for them, pending inspection by their team, based on Phantom's history and pattern of attack.

A pattern that was too aggressive, to recent for Bruce to have time to investigate to his satisfaction before action was needed.

The research facility had been pre-cleared of civilians and intel, the latter of which irked Batman. Every instance of a League member beating Phantom to a facility location ended with Phantom fleeing, if only to return later. So why would the GIW need to clear their servers to the degree they did.

Each member of the ambush team chosen with the utmost care, carefully strategized, every outcome accounted for, and in the end-

The why was unknown, but Phantom couldn't use his intangibility on Captain Marvel, leading to Marvel turning the fight into a one on one grapple despite the close quarters limiting how much help the rest of the team could be.

Phantom had barely made a sound most of the fight, ignoring the team's attempts at communication, he'd barely hissed at the brutal slash Wonder Woman had landed, barely a grunt at Superman's blows, dancing around Green Lantern's constructs, a motley of growing bruises on his skin and seeping wounds. And Phantom had reciprocated in kind, Diana had come out of the fight bruised, but largely unscathed, but Green Lantern was only 'standing' due to his ring and will, and whatever Phantom had done to Superman's ribs wasn't healing without attention, at least Clark Kent calling in sick to the Daily Planet would help his cover.

But Phantom screamed when Captain Marvel called down lightning on him. Broken, and bone chilling even through the comms, the volume deafening. And Marvel had read the seizing muscles followed by going completely limp, the uneven and new breathing, the tears, the presence of any reaction at all as landing a disabling blow.

Phantom took advantage of the lowered guard, but then at their proximity, it probably wouldn't have mattered lowered guard or not. And Phantom reciprocated in kind.

Phantom's eyes shot open, glowing bright in the night sky, energy arcing off of him as he sent Captain Marvel's lightning back through him.

Captain Marvel's cry cuts off sooner than Phantom's had, quickly replaced by Billy's, having been so close to him when he transformed, Phantom catches him quickly, instinctively, as he begins to fall. Cyborg's drones catch Phantom's expression as he processes what just happened clearly, eyes widening, mouth opening slightly, shock shifting to horror as he stares crestfallen at the boy in his arms.

"We're too high up." The first words anyone on the Justice League had heard him say, despite the GIW claiming he had a reputation for chatting nonsense incessantly. "The atmosphere it's, the air is too thin, too cold, he-"

"Phantom." Superman's tone is unyielding, firm, Phantom's eyes dart to him, "hand him over."

Phantom stares at Superman for a long uncomprehending moment before startling into action, "right, of course," drifting closer to Superman he carefully places a stirring Billy in his arms, as soon as Phantom lets go Green Lantern wraps Billy in a force field.

Billy takes a deep breath, eyes shooting open, twisting in Superman's arms his eyes snap past Phantom, but the warning his glance gives the ghost isn't enough.

Cruel, was not a word that could ever apply to Diana. Ruthless however, was an apt description, her lasso wrapping around Phantom's throat, he didn't need to breathe, but it would prevent his sonic attack, and provided her leverage to swing him around like a dog with a chew toy, diving towards the Earth she slams him into the ground, creating a crater at his impact, and holding him still long enough for Zatanna to swoop in from where she lay in wait to contain him.

~~~

Because something wasn't adding up.

The petition for help from the US government had made Phantom out to be a recurring issue, yet hadn't reached out until his most recent attacks.

Research notes going back nearly a decade, tied closely with a branch of the U.S. government none of them had heard of before.

Laser focused on his target unless absolutely forced to shift his attention.

And it took a lot to draw his attention, he displayed a worrying number of powers and abilities, skilled in evasion and combat, he didn't hesitate to match any of the league blow for blow until he-

Phantom's face when Captain Marvel had transformed played over and over again in Bruce's mind.

There was a difference to him in fighting Captain Marvel, the Champion of Magic, Earth's Mightiest Mortal, and Billy Batson, the 14 year old out too late on a school night.

As there should be.

But there wouldn't have been to the menace the GIW had described.

The GIW would be expecting an update soon.

The league didn't have one for them.

Batman refused to have one for them until he had more information.

Unfortunately their greatest source of information was tight lipped and unresponsive.

[sashayed]

ok now it is time to air my grievances with severance s2, a season of television i thoroughly enjoyed and looked forward to every week. s2 is mr milchick putting on a spectacular drumline Just For Me and what do they get for it. trapped behind a vending machine (readmore cut) while i batter them with a trombone. classic ingratitude.

my umbrella gripe btw is that showrunner dan erickson's figurative innie is actually Ricken and he won't admit it and until he does we are never going to see the show that severance Could Be. like ricken is a pretentious nightmare who is insulated from the consequences of his own actions. he's also got a fascinating way with words (fond, derogatory) and a heart that yearns for love and he is really trying to Say Something. ok well that's what this show is. accept this and reconcile with yourself Dan Erickson (or should I say DAN: SO RICKEN??? boom anagrammed!!) or keep displacing all your sins onto that one character and doom this show to eternal alienation from its own core themes.

i think we can all admit that pacing in this season sucks and they had enough time to do it better. and the thing is imo if you were really committed to storytelling you would have to cut some of the most fun/fanservicey individual scenes of the season. i can see why you might choose not to do that! like for instance the baby goats thing. i get it. it looked soooo fun to film with the baby goats. visually the pasture room is great. gwendoline christie is a gift. it's fun! but it doesn't actually uhhh serve the story to spend all that time on it. it doesn't shed any new light. "they are sacrificing the goats because lumon is a creepy cult." we KNOW they are a creepy cult. "lumon thinks innies are non-people who don't experience love and care, but they DO experience love and care and that motivates them." brother we know that too!! "ok but wasn't it all worth it for that heavyweight christie/olafsson finale fight scene." i will concede this point. that ruled.

pacing problems never worse than in "sweet vitriol," an episode i actually enjoyed more than everyone else, but it didn't need to be a standalone and in fact was badly served by the format!! many in your audience have forgotten to give a shit about ms cobel so the revelation that she invented severance doesn't hit for them. splitting her storyline up and dividing it among episodes starting earlier would have kept her more consistently in play and opened up space for underserved character arcs, like dylan aND IRVING—

—because as much fun as burving demon threesome is it is so underbaked and wastes one of the show's coolest characters. WHO IS IRVING. WHY IS HE SLEEPERAGENTING LUMON. you're gonna put him on a train to the farm for old dogs and be like "all was well because love is more important than revenge :)" ??? like sure but again it DOESN'T HIT because it doesn't require the viewer to struggle with WHAT IRVING'S DRIVING FORCE ACTUALLY WAS. and he doesn't even get to kiss. let him kiss!!!!

I actually think having reintegration move at an unpredictable pace and having its side effects be unclear is not the worst idea, and in fact as an allegory for like, real life healing and becoming a Whole Person i maybe even prefer it. but the pacing problems move it beyond "this process is unfolding gradually and erratically" into "we have forgotten this is happening" and it just didn't have to be that way, man. side note there is something fascinating going on with helly's uncomfortable, unwilling quasi-reintegration from the innie side! from the moment she finds herself in front of that gala to hearing jame say he doesn't love his daughter, she is accepting the fact that SHE IS HELENA. she is thinking about how She as a first-person experiencer of the world could find herself in helena's position (which helena—who is less of a grownup than her innie—is still unable/unwilling to do). i've read some criticism of that final scene (which i loved btw) that was like "helly's goal has always been to dismantle lumon, why would she give that up for A Man? wouldn't she push mark s. out the door and be like BURN THIS PLACE TO THE GROUND?" sure, but i think that doesn't engage with helly's arc either—which is not about revolutionary conviction OR about A Man but about about discovering that SHE wants to live, she doesn't want to hang herself in the elevator out of spite, she wants her half-a-life even if it means a degree of complicity with her evil outie. on the other hand, does the WRITING actually engage with helly's arc? or am i getting all that from britt lower??

speaking of making actors do all the work: we as a show are going to grapple with corporate racism and the Black experience :) no we're not :) or are we? ;) you're welcome :)))

i don't love gemma's backstory boiling down to Woman Want Baby. "Greatest Agony for Woman Is Want Baby and Can't Have Baby" is a storyline that makes me personally grimace. but i accept that that's a personal preference and honestly dichen lachman sells her character/s so beautifully that i didn't even remember to bitch about it when i originally wrote this. i just remembered it and had to edit this post because god forbid i don't complain about something. (although. now that i AM complaining about it: putting someone through three years of torture and then being like "we'll prove this fresh consciousness is unaffected by suffering by going all the way back to the baby thing, because 'no baby,' not years of torture and isolation, is the fundamental pain at the root of this woman's being," is...........a choice!!!!! it's a choice. and if it were a deliberate narrative choice, like if it were about how the lumon ideology fundamentally conceives of women, that would be one thing! but i just don't think it is.)

did i mention i really liked this season and had a great time. i did. i am bitching about it because i have a fun time rotating it in my mind. maybe it's actually very brave and artistic to make a show that is not as well-crafted as it could be because then you are opening up intellectual/creative space for your viewers. what about that. if you think about it maybe a slightly less good show is better than a great show. in a way. checkmate haters

[januaryembrs]

NEARLY BROUGHT ME TO MY KNEES | Spencer Reid x Prentiss!Reader [2]

Description: FIVE times Spencer thinks he might like you + the ONE time he knows.

Word length: 20k

Trigger Warnings: death, murder, Lauren arc, spencer's addiction mentioned, Diana's schizophrenia mentioned, vomit, alcohol, blood, usual criminal mind warnings. mommy AND daddy issues in the prentiss family.

previous chpt | next chpt

‘so sweet with a mean streak

nearly brought me to my knees.’

The one where he tries flirting

Emily tutted at her as the girl blindly shoved the Lucky Charms in her mouth, her tongue staining a gross blue-green colour from the additives as she read from a battered copy of Anna Karenina. Bugsy had been living with her for just two weeks now, since her impromptu fleeing from the altar, and Emily’s certainly had a good insight into the life of the twenty three year old. 

Yes, it was her birthday next week. No, she didn’t act her age anymore than she had at twenty. 

“Bug, slow down.” Emily urged, a rogue orange marshmallow dribbling down her chin as she plunged the spoon in before she’d even swallowed the last mouthful, “You get sick when you eat too fast,” 

Bugsy waved her off with the utensil, not even ripping her eyes away from the page in front of her, scooping up the marshmallow with the side of her finger and popping it into her mouth. 

Emily rolled her eyes, downing a few sips of her coffee and heading for the stairs, knowing her ride would be here any moment and she still had yet to change her shirt from the one she’d spilled toothpaste down not ten minutes earlier. 

“Niko needs breakfast when you’re done,” The older of the two shouted down to the breakfast table, a streak of tabby grey running under her feet at the sound of food. Bugsy had insisted she bring her new feline friend into Emily’s apartment, and as much as she’d hated the way she nearly tripped over the chubby bastard almost every day they’d been here, she certainly had a fondness for him. 

Bugsy hummed in acknowledgement, though she scraped the edges of her bowl clean by the time the cat in question hopped up onto the counter in search of her leftover milk. 

“This is not for you, you have too much already,” She scolded, shovelling the last few sugary pieces of cereal into her mouth right as the door knocked. 

She dogeared her page, gulping down a quick sip of Emily’s coffee, cringing when she caught it was much too strong for her liking, and heading for the door, her sister yelling to her again. 

“Bug, can you get that- wait- are you wearing pants?” 

She certainly wasn’t, having rolled straight out of bed in a pyjama shirt and underwear, and towards the promise of breakfast, nor as she swung the front door to the apartment open before Emily had a chance to rush down the stairs.

Spencer could have laughed when he saw her, all too reminiscent of the first time he’d met her. The boxers that hugged her legs beneath a large top he was entirely convinced was not hers, though her face lit up in excitement to see him. 

“Good morning!” He thrust a coffee to-go into her hand, still warm even from where it had been jostled around in his car.

“You’re my saviour,” She grinned, sipping on the sweet beverage with bright eyes, “Cute sweater vest-” 

She was quickly manhandled behind the door by two firm hands, Emily’s face enraged as she glared down at her sister where she was now out of sight from the doctor. 

“What did I tell you about wearing pants? Huh? You nearly gave Mrs Jensen a heart attack last week,” Emily hissed, as Bugsy shrugged, remembering the look of horror the old woman across the hall had given her when she’d taken the trash out in a hoodie and booty shorts.

“It’s Spencer,” She poked her head around the door, despite Emily’s shoving, like she was taming a wild animal, “You don’t mind, do you?”

He shook his head, an amused and easy smile on his face as he watched the sisters bicker, not entirely unlike the way he and Emily tended to pick at one another. 

“Not at all; I agree pants are loathable,” And he wasn’t lying. He tried to go for looser fitting trousers or sweat pants, hating the way the tight fabrics restricted his legs, rubbed his skin, making him want to itch and squirm inside his body. 

“Don’t you start,” Emily pointed at him, huffing as she stepped out of the apartment, “You know she gets all worked up and weird on sugar,” 

“Hey, I’m the last person to deny someone a coffee,” He replied, and the two turned to head back to his car, not before he threw the younger woman a look over his shoulder and a wave. 

“Go save the world, kiddos.” She waved back, sipping her coffee indeed with bare legs that would have a nun blushing, “Curfews at nine, Doctor Reid, I expect both of you home for dinner!” She nudged the door closed with her hip before Niko could run out after Emily, and Spencer chuckled to himself, shaking his head. 

“See, told you,” Emily sniggered, rolling her eyes, “Weird,” 

Though that wasn’t quite the word he’d have used. 

–

A killer, so far as they had been able to profile from the four bodies, was targeting women he picked up in night clubs in Atlanta. Most of the team, except Derek, had outgrown the clubbing scene, though Spencer didn’t quite think he’d ever been in it to start with. They all went to O’Keeffe’s usually once a month or so for a quick drink, but it was not big on his list. 

Rossi, Reid and Derek stared at the puddle of blood on the sidewalk, wincing as Emily leaned over the balcony, the five story drop making her tug her lip in between her teeth. 

This woman must have been terrified by something, someone, to see this as a better way out. 

“Maybe she fought back,” Hotch speculated behind her, drawing her attention back to the cleaning equipment scattered over the floor, entirely different to the last three crime scenes where they had been arranged neatly into a triangle, “And when Becky fought back, his routine was compromised, cause he knew the police would respond,”

“Or she could have jumped,” Emily responded gravely, shaking her head at the carpet beneath her boots, “Her nervous system is pumping adrenaline, her fight or flight response kicks in?” Both were equally plausible options, but not ones they had time to entirely pick over. 

“He’s struck two Fridays in a row, and if his routine’s been interrupted, it might compel him to strike again,” Hotch said, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his brow furrowed deeper than it usually was. 

“It’s Saturday, the clubs will be packed tonight,” Emily replied, her eyes sad, worried. 

“Take a look at the classes the Unsub might have taken, we need to generate a suspect pool as soon as possible,” Her boss ordered, and she nodded heading for the door before she stopped, looking at him with a grimace he didn’t quite understand, “What is it?”

“Bugs-my sister used to work as a shot girl in a club.” She said after a moment of thought, “She could smell a rat from a mile away; said most girls who work in bars get this sixth sense about guys with bad intentions, so they know when to cut them off earlier than most,” 

Emily looked at him for a moment, and he seemed troubled, hesitant as she was to even tease the idea to him, before he sighed, rubbing a hand over his forehead. 

“Call her in.” He said through an outbreath, gritting his teeth the way he did when he was in between a rock and a hard place. 

Rock being another girl murdered by tonight with a huge opportunity to catch the guy in the act missed. Hard place being a twenty-three year old risking her skin for his team for a third time. He hated the paperwork she brought him, hated the look on her face the day Spencer and Derek had dragged her out of that chapel bloodied and shaken even more. 

“But she wears a vest under her clothes, and she stays with Reid and Morgan,” He reasoned, “And just purely scouting; if the Unsub strikes, she gets out there like any other civilian.”

Emily nodded, her hand routing through her pockets for her phone already, “Couldn’t agree more,” She said, hitting the call button with a sigh. She just hoped this time her baby sister wouldn’t be making any drastic calls like throwing herself in the Unsub’s way. Though, Emily knew Spencer wouldn’t let her take another hit for him ever again. Not after the way he’d seemed so distraught the moment she’d been dragged from that room, his eyes all but glistening with tears when he’d seen her on the bed, bloodied and beaten for his sake. 

No, Emily could stake her life on the fact Reid would go down swinging before that ever happened to her again. 

-

“When you think about the nature of serial crimes, it’s amazing there aren’t more predators in clubs,” Spencer said, hoping the pretty girls he’d managed to snag into conversation didn’t hear the way his voice stuttered. This was so far out of his depth, the entire club atmosphere suffocating him worse than any tight pants ever could. The music was too loud, the heavy bass making him wince, the air was too close, too warm, the bodies that kept shoving past him made him want to shower for two hours straight and then wash his hands as well. He’d turned down the drink Derek had offered him, knowing the exact amount of bacteria that swarmed the ice behind the bar, on the rims of the glasses, on the taps- 

Spencer was more than overwhelmed. And talking to beautiful women was not helping his flushed demeanour whatsoever. 

“I mean, excessive amounts of alcohol, countless opportunities for date rape drugs, not to mention suprisingly risky behaviour being pursued,” He counted off, his satchel strapped tightly to his side, “All right, so who wants a flyer?” The three women turned their nose up in awkward smiles, the tallest pushing past him with little more than an outright scoff, the other girl following her like lost dogs, “Nobody? Okay, all right,” He said, his face crestfallen at their reaction, though he wasn’t so unused to it. Girls tended to react that way when he spoke, his entire high school career had been the same. Infact, the only girl other than his co-workers who ever bothered to listen when he spoke was-

“I’ll take one,” A voice came from behind him, the same one he had incidentally been thinking of since they’d left Emily’s apartment, and he could already tell she was smiling before he whipped around to see her slinking through the crowd. 

He was ready to retort something clever, but felt his words congeal in his throat. He had thought, that day when he’d stopped the elevator and seen her in a sodden wedding dress, that he had seen her at her most beautiful. Yes, her makeup had been tracking down her face with her tears, her hair sticking to her cheeks, her expression weepy. But she had reminded him of a star, glistening with the rain, the water shimmering off the snow white fabric, it had taken his breath away then, even when she’d thrown her arms over his shoulders, as if he was the only thing that she could grab on to for safety. 

But that dress was nothing like the one she wore now. 

It was nothing extravagant, and truthfully he’d seen at least ten girls in this club alone that had gone way more lavish than she had bothered to on such short notice. But, Spencer couldn’t help but take her whole image in as she shoved her way in front of him, an easy smile on her face. 

“Beats boxers and pyjama shirts, huh?” She twirled cheekily, warming under his gaze that blinked heavily at her. The dress had been an old thing she’d bought for a frat party, when she’d felt particularly sorry for herself and was going out looking for a bonehead jock to take home. It fit her nicely, complimented the areas she wanted it to, hid the others. A good fail safe option for a last minute night out like this. Covered the kevlar vest Hotch and Emily had wrangled her into.

Not her finest moment, being jumped on by her older sister as her boss forced the bullet jacket over her head; the new girl, Jordan, staring in discomfort as she’d cursed both of them out colourfully for ruining her outfit, but the way Spencer seemed to gulp heavily made her smile wider. 

“You look…” He swallowed again, his fingers digging into the flyers in his hand. Hot. She looked hot. Hot enough that he felt his face flush with the same feeling, he hoped she couldn’t see the way he blushed beneath the club lights, “Beautiful,” He settled on, because ‘hot’ was an entirely Derek word to use. 

“So you keep telling me,” Bugsy preened under his gaze, grinning like she knew something he didn’t. Grabbing one of the flyers from his sweaty palms gently, she took a look at the general sketch, not noticing the way he had yet to tear his eyes off her, “Alright, this the guy?” 

“Yeah, we think he has a mark of some sort- like a birthmark or a scar over his left eyebrow,” He informed, corralling her towards where Morgan stood, his own eyes widening at the girl’s attire. 

They knew she was coming to help scout the scene, they didn’t realise she’d come so ready. Derek immediately felt stupid for doubting her. 

“Woah, did someone call the fire department, because you’re about to set the damn sprinklers off,” He teased, her face lighting up at the man she knew had a way of making her feel a million bucks every time he saw her. 

Emily said he had little sisters of his own, and maybe that was how he knew just what to say. He had many years of experience being the best big brother. 

“Oh, please, you guys spoil me,” She snickered, though her eyes scanned the crowd for a general scope of the club. Safe to say she did not miss the eight pm till four am shifts she used to pull, nor did she miss the drunk bodies swaying around her, the men who would get handsy, the girls who would get scrappy, “So, how’s it going?” 

“Not good, I gave the profile to one woman and she asked if I was the unsub,” Spencer sighed, running a hand through his rogue curls, the humidity of the stuffy bar making them tighten around his ears just that bit more. “How are you doing?” 

“Well, I gave out all my flyers,” Derek said smugly, though Spencer’s eyebrows raised, a smile teasing at his lips. 

“Oh yeah? How many phone numbers did you get?” Bugsy snorted at his words, looking between the men with a smirk. 

“None, I’m working the case here, kids,” Derek tutted, to which Spencer and Bugsy looked at eachother with identical doubt, flicking their gaze back to Morgan. He huffed, “Okay, four were offered, but I didn’t take any of them.” 

Spencer’s jaw dropped, face scrunching in confusion how Morgan was so charismatic with women even when he wasn’t trying. 

“Alright, I’m gonna go grab more flyers from the van. You,” He clapped a hand on Spencer’s shoulder, “Need to relax, man. Remind me to teach you the basics on picking up girls. And you,” Derek pointed to where Bugsy nodded patiently, “Make sure wonder boy doesn’t get eaten alive. And stay together.” 

She nodded again, watching him leave through the crowd; already a woman grabbed on his arm for his attention, where she watched him politely decline with one of those flirty smoulders he’d mastered. 

“I don’t get how he does it. I mean, I get he has the whole body of a God thing going for him,” Spencer sighed, as the two of them went back out into the crowd, scanning for a group of girls who looked particularly sober enough to listen, “But, he just has this way, you know. I’ll don’t think I’ll ever have the way,” 

“Don’t put yourself down like that,” She chastised, nudging him affectionately with her elbow, “You’re very beautiful yourself, you know? You don’t need some stupid way, you just need to be yourself,” 

She said it as if it was nothing, as if it hadn’t just hit him in the chest that she thought he was attractive, though he still remembered that first day they’d met when she assumed he was a stripper. 

His heart swelled in his chest. 

“You really think so?” He asked unsure, waiting for her to laugh in his face and tell him it had just been a tease, she was good at those. But she was never cruel. Never to him. He didn’t know why he’d expected it. 

“Absolutely! I’ve seen like three girls already giving you goo-goo eyes. Believe me, you got the looks,” She simpers, watching his eyes scan the crowd to look for the supposed culprits. 

“So, what, it’s my personality they don't like?” He asked, though he knew that was more than likely the case. He’d always been told he buzzed in people’s ears like a fly, like he was simply background noise the greater population wanted to tune out. 

He knew that would be it. It didn’t stop the small stab of hurt in his stomach however. 

“If someone doesn’t like your personality, that is a them problem, Spencer, not you,” Bugsy was quick to snap, the joking lessening in her eyes as she caught his dejected expression, “Girls like it when you talk about something you enjoy, something you know what you’re talking about. Which should be easy, since you know everything. What do you feel most comfortable talking about?” 

“Statistics,” He said with a nod, to which she looked at him fondly.

“Okay, we have statistics as a backup option. Anything else?” She looked at him, the light bouncing off her eyes in a way that had him pause to think. 

“Magic?” He offered, and she smiled even wider, if that was even possible. 

“Magic! Perfect, girls love feeling magical,” She beamed, nudging him again with her elbow, and the two of them walked over to the bar, “Show me then, Gandalf. What moves would you pull on me if I was a girl?”

He blinked at her, “Are you … not a girl?” He asked, pure bewilderment on his face as he stole a few napkins from the counter. 

She snickered, “Okay, if I wasn’t me. If you didn’t know me,” 

“If I didn’t know you, I’d be way too nervous to even talk to you. And you definitely wouldn’t want to talk to me,” He said as he fiddled with the paper between his obnoxiously long fingers, folding the sheets into miniature shapes. 

She chuckled at him, shaking her head. It had never been like this with them before. Sure, she teased him, like she always had, but he was teasing back. Complimenting her with a seriousness beyond just being nice. 

Something was different in him since the day Cyrus dragged her away. And if that hadn’t done it, then seeing her every morning for two weeks had changed the boyish anxiety that had lingered even then. 

“Stop stalling and show me these tricks of yours,” She bit playfully, though the grin she gave him was genuine as she saw something mischievous flash in his eyes. 

“Patience is virtue, patience is virtue-” He murmured, fiddling with the short, plastic straws they kept at the bar, “Now for this to work, I’m going to need a beautiful assistant. Do you think you could find one for me-” 

She smacked his arm, and he snickered. She shook her head, fighting her own laugh overcoming her. 

Maybe she was right. Talking about something he loved made him feel entirely at ease, like he controlled every angle their conversation took, and the air between them had taken this odd electric turn he wasn’t expecting like someone had pumped a thousand volts under his skin.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” He replied, holding out one of the straws, about as plain and simple as it would be if it were in a drink, “But I will need some magic words,”

“Ofcourse,” She drawled, her cheeks hurting from how tight she was smiling, “What are they?”

“Magic words are, ‘I’ll be there’” He instructed, fiddling with the cuffs of his sleeves as he watched her frown, and he pointed the straw at her mouth like a microphone, “You got it?” 

“Yep,” She responded, even though the confusion read clear as day on her face. He tapped the straw on her nose and cleared his throat. 

“3, 2, 1,” He tapped it to her temple, then to each of her shoulders, “Go on a date with me?” 

“I’ll be there,” She responded, and in a strobe of light the single instrument became a trio of origami roses, stuffed into the straws as stems. 

Her brain caught up to her as he gently placed them in her hand, her eyes gazing at him like he had just presented her with a 24 carat diamond, though in reality it was nothing more than a silly trick with napkins and plastic. 

“Spencer,” She said earnestly, and he could have sworn her voice quivered for a split second, before she shook her head at him, punching him on the hip gently, “You are the most humble man I’ve ever met. You do that to any other girl and you’re getting laid, I’m telling you,” 

He rubbed his chin bashfully, both of them catching the way the waitress behind the bar watched him with large, blue eyes Bugsy could have bathed in. She was gorgeous, and she stared at Spencer as if she’d been the one given roses. 

Attracted. Interested. 

“Talk to her,” Bugsy whisper-yelled, nodding over to the barmaid who busied herself with another order, though they both saw the way her flicking glances to the two of them as she scooped ice, “She would have seen if a guy like that frequented somewhere like here, talk to her,”

“What- no-” He protested, but his eyes widening as Bugsy leaned over the bar to flag the woman down with that playful charisma of hers, not missing the way a few heads turned as the dress tightened around her ass as she bent forward. 

He felt his chest flash with anger, glaring at the men, hoping it was enough to ward them off. Her hand enclosed around his wrist, drawing his attention back to the bartender who watched him with a sweet face. He had to admit she was attractive. 

“This is my very best friend, Spencer,” Bugsy told the woman, who smiled at him, and the Prentiss girl lifted his hand up to wave at her like he was a ragdoll, “Spencer, wanted to show you something, didn’t you, Spence?” 

Raising her eyebrows at him, nodding to the flyers in his hand. 

“I’m gonna go dance,” She fibbed, knowing she was going to go scout out the crowd to see if any guys fit the profile, nudging him a little harder than before, “Remember what we talked about. I’ll be by the DJ,” 

Grinning encouragingly, he watched her swoop into the crowd like it was second nature, not missing the collection of guys who watched her every move; she captured the room when she moved, when she smiled, when she politely excused herself past a group of girls that tried to pull her into their circle with friendly cheers. 

He did another one of his tricks for Austin, he’d come to learn was the name of the girl behind the bar, but it hadn’t felt the same, not even when she gave him her number unprompted, even as she flirted, smiled prettily, batted those sea blue eyes at him. It wasn’t the same. 

He worried for a moment that the electricity he’d felt was reserved only for Bugsy, but he squashed it down faster than he could confront the idea. 

2. The one where he nearly dies

“I don’t know how to do this,” JJ confessed, her bluebell eyes filled with tears as she stared out of her boss’ office and into the bullpen full of officers, scientists and even the damn military tearing through pages and pages of resources for answers. 

Anthrax. A weapon of mass destruction they’d already had a small dose of, was on the move through the BAU’s own city. And they each had strict instructions to not alert their loved ones. 

“I can’t stop thinking about Henry,” She whimpered through a strong facade as she turned to Hotch, and she saw the same guilt eating him up in those dark eyes of his that rarely let anything slip. 

He had Jack. He had Haley, even with the divorce papers signed so long ago. He had people at risk too. And yet she couldn’t stop seeing her precious little boy’s face as he lay back in his pushchair and enjoyed the sights of the park, the same park that had just been targeted with an airborne disease-

“He goes for a walk almost every single day at Potomac Park,” She sniffed, the nausea chewing away at her brain as she recounted the lesions on that poor teenage girls skin, that's going to be Henry, that’s going to be Will, “What type of mother am I if I don’t atleast call and tell them to stay home?” 

“JJ, we can’t,” Hotch said, though he felt his own dam start to tear down as he tried not to think of what could possibly happen to his own sweet son. 

“I know, but-” Her throat bobbed, “It-it’s not just me- Emily’s worried about Bugsy. She told me she cuts through the park on the way to her lectures- she has one every day this week- Hotch-”

It was true. She had caught Emily in her own turmoil as the woman sped off to grab a drink seconds after chugging down the dose of Cipro they’d all been given that morning. She’d caught her filling a glass of water until the liquid started leaking down the sides and went over her shaking fingers, and even then she’d had to tug her friend out of whatever rabbit hole the words ‘Media Blackout’ had sent her down. 

“I understand you both have people you want to protect,” Hotch was the voice of reason, as he always was, and it stung her to see his face so cold since she knew he was drowning his own sorrows behind it, “But if we all called home and used this information to give us an advantage other people don’t have, is that the right thing to do?” 

She bit her lip, knowing he was right. She just prayed on everything she had Will would stay home with Henry today, Haley would have a movie night with Jack, and for whatever she had seen in Emily’s eyes earlier, a pure, unadulterated self-loathing, that Bugsy at least took the day off teaching.

JJ prayed, and prayed, and prayed. 

–

She shuffled her notes together as she marked papers at her desk. They let her take the office to herself since she’d been at the University for five months now, gave her free reign of her lectures without having a supervisor like they had the first eight weeks or so. Bugsy enjoyed, surprising as it was to her, the feeling of somewhere that wasn’t the laboratory. Emily and Spencer had forced her to apply for jobs when they caught her binge watching real housewives for the sixth time back to back, of course lacking any bottoms. 

Emily didn’t know why she thought twenty-four year old Bugsy would be any different. They had thought at least that Derek holding her hair back on the night of her birthday party as she threw up copious amounts of jello shots on the sidewalk would be an eye opening moment, but it hadn’t deterred her in the slightest. She had just chucked a handful of gum in her mouth, patted the man on the back and asked Emily to hit up the drive thru on their way home. 

It wasn’t until she got the job did she feel a little bit more responsible, like what she was doing actually affected the people around her. Teaching first year college students was so very different than she’d expected, she was the authority figure. 

She could hear her mother laughing at her now. 

She almost smudged the little smiley face she’d drawn beside one of her student’s B+ as the phone rang on her desk, because she had an office phone believe it or not, and she cleared her throat, trying to sound as grown up as possible whilst also trying not to grin how excited she was to use her new landline. 

“Miss Prentiss speaking, who’s calling?” She said, almost not recognising herself as she squeezed her gel pen in delight. She had this grown up thing down to a tea.

“Hi, Bug.” Spencer’s voice sounded out of breath, and she heard his converse slapping against a linoleum floor fast, as if he was pacing, “I got a quick hypothetical to run through with you,” 

“Y-yeah, sure- Where are you?” She asked, her brows furrowing when he gave a wheezy cough, “Spence?”

“I’m not allowed to tell you, but I’m fine- for now,” He winced as he said the last part, as if it had slipped unintentionally, as if he knew what was coming next. He could practically hear her brain ticking over, “So, when you’re in the lab-”

“What do you mean for now?” She cut him off, standing up from her desk, already collecting her pencils back into their little pink case, “Where’s Emily? Is she okay? Is anyone hurt?”

“Everyone’s fine; as I was saying, hypothetically, when you’re in the lab where would you-” He talked over her right back, his slender fingers flicking through the piles of work, hoping he stumbled on a formula, a sticky note, a damn cheat sheet, anything. 

“Don’t avoid my question, Spencer,” She snapped, and she could already feel the worry lines on her forehead. 

He sighed, hoping she couldn’t hear the way his chest rattled and he choked down a cough. It would only make her worry more. 

“I promise I will tell you what’s going on if you just answer my question,” Spencer rushed, feeling his face growing sweaty, opening the entire cabinet of drawers. “Okay?”

She nodded, biting her nail, as she sat back down. “Okay fine, shoot,”

“Where would you put your valuable items if you didn’t trust your lab partner while the two of you were working together?” He asked, wiping his brow with his sleeve as he held the phone tight to his ear with his shoulder. 

She paused for a moment, “Well it’s standard practice that all jewellery comes off before we get scrubbed, so as not to contaminate anything. I usually put my scrunchie through my rings and tied it back into my hair so they wouldn’t get stolen. I knew some guys who put their watches around their ankles. Basically anywhere we could feel it on us,” 

He cleared his throat again, and she heard him take a few steps, “How’s grading papers going? Did you get a fax machine yet?” 

He was trying to change the subject, trying to take her mind off whatever it was he was doing that required such an urgent and peculiar question. 

“It’s going good, I miss you bringing me coffee; it was like I had a maid who helped me with my crosswords,” She said, biting her bottom lip squeezing her thumb in the middle of her fist to slow the nerves. He tried to pretend he wasn’t smiling hearing that. “Now tell me what’s wrong. Did you go running without your inhaler again? I told you to leave a spare at ours so I could rescue you if you ever-” 

“Bugsy, you’re a genius!” He cried, ignoring the way it made his throat burn, “Remind me to tell you every single day how smart you are- I have to go,” 

“Spence- Spencer-” She tried to cut in, but he had already put the phone down. 

So much for not worrying her, she thought, as she got on the phone to Emily within seconds. 

-

Bugsy all but burst through the hospital doors, apologising when she nearly knocked a stack of files from a nurse's hands, wishing she had an inhaler herself after she had ran all the way from the car park, including the three flights of stairs. 

After calling in sick the rest of the day, and practically volleying her rucksack into the passenger's seat of her car, she had blindly called Emily four more times until the woman answered with a frightened lilt to her voice. 

Spencer was headed to the hospital. Spencer was headed there on full blues with lungs full of an even deadlier strain of Anthrax. Last Emily had heard he was getting worse. Bugsy put her foot down on the pedal even harder. 

She knew the speeding ticket would come any day, and didn't even want to think about the state of her parking. All she cared about the second the lady at the desk had said what room he was in was seeing he was okay, that he wasn’t growing lesions or choking on his own blood or having half of his brain boiled alive. 

Bugsy felt a small spike of panic, if it could even get worse, as she yanked the curtain back to see him asleep, a cannula tucked into his nose, a hospital gown tied over his shoulders. 

Diving for his file that was attached to the end of his bed, she looked through his information to check what meds he’d been given. He once told her he was allergic to narcotics, said he had been since birth, and while she trusted one of the team to have passed the information on, she had to see it for herself that he was stable. 

No narcotics given. Only paracetamol for his fever that was rapidly coming down. She could breathe again. 

She jumped out of her skin when the curtain rail was pulled back a second time, and Derek seemed to startle for a moment too before a tired smile met his handsome face. 

“Where have you been, Baby Prentiss?” His breath knocked out of him when she threw herself at him, a sigh of relief coming from her bitten lips. 

“Oh, thank god you’re okay,” She murmured, and his chuckle echoed through his chest into her ear, “You all worried me half to death,”

“You’re looking very grown up,” He teased as he patted her on the back. And she was. She had taken to wearing maxi skirts and tights, even throwing on a cute blazer for affect, she was the teacher after all. She shoved him away with a smack to the chest. He laughed, holding up the opened pot of jell-o to her face, “Jell-o?”

She gagged, filled with memories of her birthday. 

He shook his head with a smile as she sat down in the seat next to the bed and he spooned the first mouthful of the fruity dessert into his mouth. 

“Is everyone else alright?” She asked, wringing her hands together. She fought back the urge to tuck Spencer’s curls behind his ear, knowing he was sleeping peacefully.

“Stop worrying. Team’s fine; we caught the guy and confiscated his supply. Even saved the last few survivors with you telling Reid where to look,” Morgan watched her jaw feather, and she picked under her nails. 

“I keep telling you guys, I didn’t do anything. I just… spoke to him. He’s the genius, not me,” She said solemnly, staring into her lap with a frown. 

“Not to him. Whole journey back, before the aphasia kicked in, he kept telling paramedics to tell Doctor Kimura it was you who’d figured it out.” Derek said, but it seemed to make her sulk more. 

She said nothing, pulling out her book from her bag to continue reading as she waited for him to wake up, and Derek took it as a sign she was in no mood to talk, god forbid even take a compliment, and opened the magazine he’d grabbed from the cafeteria. 

–

Half an hour and another pot of pudding for Morgan later (she gagged again at the sweet strawberry smell of it), the pair of them sat in silence, reading their own materials when a very sleepy, doe eyed man looked up and frowned.

“Are you eating Jell-O?” Spencer asked, barely noticing the girl on the other side of the bed, who shot up out of her seat as he came around. 

“Hey doc. You have a visitor,” Morgan said with a small smile, Spencer’s face falling into a frown. He looked to the other side of him, just in time to see a worn copy of Middlemarch being flung to the floor and a hand grabbing his clammy ones tightly. 

“Spencer I’m- I’m so mad at you-” She gasped, every soppy feeling of sadness she’d been stewing in leaving her body when she saw his hazel eyes fall to her, “You put the phone down on me and next thing I know you’re in the back of an ambulance nearly flatlining- I’m so-” 

She breathed when she saw his eyes soften. He didn’t think she knew it but he saw the way her eyes glistened, her voice trembled underneath her anger. He felt the way she had yet to let go of his hand, how nice and warm it felt in his palm. 

“I’m sor-” He hadn’t even finished his apology when she had latched onto him, trying not to hug him too tight but hard enough she could tell herself he was still here. He was okay. 

And he could understand. He’d felt the same when they’d found her in that church, when Cyrus had hauled her away after she’d practically offered herself up in exchange for him. He’d known she was braver than she gave herself credit for, but that had stopped his heart right there and then. He had grabbed her in a hug the first chance he’d got even then, even when he barely knew her, when she was Emily’s sister and not Bugsy. Not the woman he’d spent every morning with for weeks bringing her a coffee just the way she enjoyed it, the woman he’d sat with on Emily’s couch with her legs across his lap as they did the puzzles in the morning paper together. She tried to do them, and he would finish them when she got too annoyed by the ones she couldn’t answer. 

“I’m sorry,” He said, his arms gently hugging her back and he felt something wet on his shoulder blade before he knew what it was. He felt even worse for worrying her, squeezing her tighter than was even comfortable for him. 

“Don’t do that to me again,” She said through tears as she settled in his arms. 

He really hoped she couldn’t hear the way his heart pounded. 

3. The one at Haley’s funeral

She had no idea what to say. Emily had always been the one who knew how to talk to people. She had this horrible habit of saying the first thing that came to her head, probably because a lot of the time it was the most real, and people liked real. 

But now wasn’t the time for what was best for her. Haley Hotchner had been murdered. 

She hadn’t spoken to Hotch yet, she’d only met the man a handful of times. But he’d invited her anyway, for the team. For Emily, maybe even Spencer; Emily said he liked when she was around. She couldn’t imagine any other reason she would be there. 

Other than, ofcourse, to be Spencer’s crutch. Literally. Since his real one had broken and he was still limping around with one knee weakened by the bullet wound in it. 

She’d nearly had a heart attack when he’d called from the hospital, again, though this time he’d waited until he’d gotten the all clear to tell her so she didn’t panic quite as much as last time. She’d cursed him out for being so reckless, and requested another week's sick pay to take care of him until he was able to actually walk. It was only a one year contract with the university anyway, she didn’t care if she missed a few days to make sure he was okay. 

“You look very handsome today,” She whispered to him as she hauled him out of the car, minding that he didn't hit his head on the ceiling. He gave her a small smile and tucked her own hair behind her ear seeing it come loose from its braid when she’d leaned down to grab him. 

“Just today?” He asked, and she finally smiled back. She’d been stuck in a bubble in the car; her and Emily both had. They had the same thinking face, he’d realised. 

“Just especially today,” She answered honestly, and he worked on adjusting his black jacket so she could hold onto him comfortably. She was quieter than usual. Feeble, almost. 

“Thankyou, you do too,” He replied, his face scrunching after a moment, “Look pretty I mean,” 

He leaned on her arm, looped it around hers as he tried to be the least amount of imposing as possible. That went about as well as you’d expect for a six foot one bag of bones. 

She gave up after just a few steps, moving his arm to wrap around her shoulder as she walked with him. To anyone else they would easily pass as a couple, especially as she squeezed him tightly to her when the men laid down Hayley’s coffin, and the service began. 

“W.S Gilbert wrote ‘It’s love that makes the world go around’ and if that’s true, then the world spun a little faster with Hayley in it.” Aaron began, his voice strong as his large hands gripped the eulogy like it would give him any comfort. She smiled softly, her eyes glued to the man who stood unmoving for his son, “Haley was my best friend since we were in high school. We certainly had our struggles but if there’s one thing we agreed on unconditionally, it was our love and our commitment to our son, Jack,” 

Bugsy smiled sadly when Jack looked to the floor bashfully. Glancing between the photo on top of the coffin, a beautiful blonde woman grinning back at her with brilliantly happy eyes and a soft face, she saw where he got most of his looks from. 

“Haley’s love for Jack was joyous, and fierce. That fierceness is why she isn’t here today. A mother’s love is an unrivalled force of nature, and we can all learn much from the way Haley lived her life. Haley’s death causes each of us to stop and take stock of our lives. To measure who we are and who we’ve become.” She felt Spencer’s head knock into hers, felt the sniff run through him, and she searched her pocket for a tissue, “I don’t have all those answers for myself, but I know who Haley was. She was the woman who died protecting the child we brought into this world together; and I will make sure Jack grows up knowing who his mother was. And how she loved and protected him. And how much I loved her.” 

If Haley were here today she would tell us not to mourn her death. She would tell us-” Aaron cut himself off with a watery voice, his resolve finally melting as he realised this would be some of his final words to his wife. Bugsy felt her bottom lip quiver in remorse, “She would tell us to love our families unconditionally. And to hold them close because in the end they are all that matter.” 

Spencer felt her tug him closer as she hid the lone few tears from the rest of the mourners and wished more than ever he could press a small kiss to her brow.

–

No, Bugsy was not good with knowing what to say and when. Wasn’t good at cheering people up no matter how much Spencer told her she always made him feel better. Didn’t really know much about how to make someone understand that she cared other than showing them with her whole body. 

So by the time it was her turn to offer condolences, she didn’t bother shaking his hand. That meant nothing to her. That was a business deal, that was an agreement, a formal way to pretend you cared. But she did, she felt terrible for Hotch, wanted to fix him and his sweet son until Haley was right back there to thank her. 

She didn’t shake his hand like everyone else had. He held his hand out for one, his eyes soft and warm, like he could see she was struggling. She brushed past his hand and just pulled him in for a hug, and he wondered if she was always going to greet him that way. 

“I guessed that sorry wouldn’t make anything better so I brought you the biggest bottle of wine the store had,” She murmured into his chest, and she was gobsmacked to hear him chuckle weakly. She felt his hands pat her on the back gently, and he appreciated her candour. “I’ve got some Xanax if you’d really like a treat,” 

She was a breath of fresh air. Aaron truthfully had been sick of people saying they were so sorry for his loss, and he felt like shaking them and yelling, screaming that they hadn’t been the one to kill Haley, Foyet had. 

He pushed all of it down, focusing on the way she’d tucked herself to him like she had the day she’d become a runaway bride dripping rainwater over his bureau floor. 

“She would have really liked you,” Aaron confessed, and they finally parted, and she saw he was smiling like he meant it, not just saying it to make her feel more comfortable being here. “You would have made her laugh,”

He saw the easy expression on her face fade, and she turned to look at her heels, nodding quietly. 

“I would have been lucky to have known her,” She said, handing him the gift bag with a very heavy present inside. “I only wish someone would ever love me the way you love her,’ 

And with that she bid him a smile, and returned to her seat in between Emily and JJ, the pair of them mother henning her all day.

Aaron wished he could have said more to her after that, but before he knew it, someone else was offering him their condolences, and the sadness in her voice was forgotten.

–

The team sat around the table, nursing their beers, or in Spencer and Bugsy’s case a tea. Spencer didn’t want to affect his healing process with alcohol, not that he’d ever been big on the stuff, and Bug said she struggled driving even without the help of a beer, so they chatted between sips from two very fancy china cups. 

Emily and JJ sat to the other side of her talking about how beautiful the flower arrangements were when a small, fawn haired body came wandering over to where Will held a one year old Henry on his knee. 

“Would he like to play?” Jack asked shyly, trying to peer up onto the adults table to see if there were any other kids his age that would like to do something with him. His dad had been busy talking to all those people, and auntie Jessica had been trying to make it round to every table to thank people for being here. He didn’t entirely understand what was happening, in all honesty.

“He’s still a little too small yet honey. In a year or so, you guys can be best friends,” JJ said sweetly as he pulled his chin up to the tabletop and spied the younger woman sitting next to uncle Spencer.

He tottered over to her, where she sat unaware she had a shadow until Spencer's face softened as he looked behind her, and she swivelled around in her seat. 

“Hello,” Jack said quietly, looking up at where she seemed to buffer, feeling eight pairs of eyes on her as she interacted with the small boy.

She had never been good with children, had never been around them since she was their age, even the kids she taught now were all at least eighteen. 

The mantra to absolutely not fuck up the next few moments reverberated around her head. 

She gave him a soft smile, holding out a hand for him to shake, “Hi, Jack. I’m Emily’s sister. You can call me Bugsy,”

His tiny nose scrunched as he watched her, shaking her hand the way dad had shown him how. 

“Bugsy? That’s a weird name,” He said, and she chuckled, “Like the bunny?”

She shrugged, “I guess like the bunny, yeah,” although she had never thought of that before. 

“Would you like to play with me?” Jack asked, and she felt her chest warm unnaturally. He had such a sweet face. It was just like the woman in the picture.

Smiling at him crookedly, she rooted around her bag for the notebook and pens she kept for her to-do lists. Maybe Spencer was rubbing off on her. 

“We could do some drawing if you want?” She offered, showing him the pad with kind eyes. That seemed to satiate him as he grabbed her knee and started pulling himself up to sit in her lap, and she paused. 

Kids were so funny, she realised, she would never just start grabbing someone she just met and asking to climb on their lap. 

She got him comfortable on her knee, not noticing the flashing glances Spencer gave her between his conversation with Kevin, Garcia’s beau, as Jack started drawing a bunny with a human face, that was supposedly meant to be her. 

Spencer watched her giggle as he gave the rabbit a pretty dress, like the one she was wearing, and Spencer had to admit it was a pretty dress she’d gone for today. Had he not been so mournful earlier he thinks he would have blushed how tight she’d held him. 

She showed him how to play noughts and crosses, and she let him win most of them, laughing when he asked to tear out the page from her notebook to show his dad later. 

That is, until the man himself came over to the table of his work colleagues, only to see the group watching their youngest playing with his sweet son. 

“Bugsy,” Hotch said, and her head shot up to him, a guilty look passing over her face, worried she’d overstepped, though the fact he hadn’t said her real name said otherwise, “Can I talk to you for a moment outside, please?”

She blinked, straightening in her seat “O-ofcourse!” Shuffling Jack off her lap as fast as she could without hurting him, smoothing out her dress down as she followed him to the small balcony the funeral home had. It was a classy manor, but she guessed Hotch would have only had the best for Haley. 

“I’m sorry if I overstepped, Jack asked to sit on my lap- and- I’m not good with kids anyway I just didn’t want to tell him no, especially not today-” He put his hand on her shoulder to shut her up, a small smile spreading on his face. It was fatherly and calming, something her own father had been much too busy to ever bother with.  

“Not at all, that’s not why I called you out here,” He reassured, squeezing her gently as he leaned against the railing, taking a deep breath of the midnight air, and he felt his professional mask begin to slip. “I’ve been thinking… about how much help you've been to us over the years. Reid would be dead if it wasn’t for you.” She opened her mouth to protest, and he flashed her a look that said he was serious. “Let me finish,”

She wrung her hands guiltily, “Sorry,” 

“You’re very resilient far beyond your years, you’re incredibly charismatic when you need to be, and you’re by far one of the smartest people your age,” He said, watching her face to see how she felt. He knew she didn’t take compliments well, for some other reason they could dig into any other day. But he needed to say it now, needed her to know now for what he was about to ask her. 

“Whether that is true or not, why are you telling me this?” She asked politely, without the usual bite that went with it when they tried calling her something she wasn’t. 

“I need to take some time off to spend with Jack, try and help him…” He trailed off, unsure as to what he wanted to say. “Help him understand Haley’s not coming home,”

She nodded with a glistening lash line, and grabbed onto his arm gently.

“My team looks to me to be their glue, but I know I can’t keep everyone together and look after my son. Emily said your contract at the University was ending,” He cleared his throat, looking at her again with something vulnerable in his sable black eyes, “So I was wondering if you would reconsider the FBI academy? It’s only twenty weeks, but Rossi and I can put you forward to do the written exams earlier if you’d like, and then Strauss can have you assigned a trainee position at the BAU-” 

“Anything,” She nodded, “Anything you need, I’ll do it,” and he hugged her for once. Maybe it was the way she had said it so willingly, no matter her own reservations about joining the academy, no matter her stubbornness and resistance to her sisters pestering, or even the fact they all talked weekly about how much easier their job would be if she was there. Her and Reid’s brains together were a force to be reckoned with. 

And he knew, the surprisingly kind girl that clutched at him back, would keep his team together, would be the glue to keep their heads on while he took some time to watch his son. 

“Thankyou,” He murmured into her hair, and she forced herself not to get weepy at the grief in his voice. Of all people here, she was the last person who should be allowed to cry. Least of all to him. 

He pulled away from her eventually, cursing himself for letting the front slip, but it was as if she had that effect on everyone on the team, like she had this little way of worming her way between that gap in their chests where their hearts once were before they’d seen the things they had, dealt with the people they had. 

It was for that reason Aaron knew they would be just fine. 

“You know, when I was a kid, mom got letters every day from people with their own agendas against her,” Bugsy said once they’d taken a gulp of cool night air, “They all said the same thing; that they were going to take me for ransom unless she left the country. She didn’t think much of it until a guy started following the car home from school and she decided to get me trained in self defence,” 

Hotch frowned, his chest tightening. He knew how it felt to be a parent on edge for his kid’s safety, but to hear it from the other side cut deeper. 

“Which was fine, I got a pretty mean shot if I say so myself, but eventually it progressed into hostage training, in case…” She swallowed dryly, clearing her throat and picking her nails, “I wet the bed the first time they grabbed me, the whole idea was that I wouldn’t know it was coming. They let me go pretty fast, I don’t think they’d expected the eleven year old to reach for the kitchen knife,” 

Hotch scoffed, shaking his head in horror, though he didn’t doubt her for a second. 

“I slept with it next to my bed for a year, so that next time they came for me, they would think twice and let me sleep in,” She said with a thoughtful smile.

“And did it work?” He asked, watching her run her hands along the stone wall beneath his  elbow. 

“I dunno, but the one guy left pretty quick when I almost took his eye out,” She giggled, and the sound made him laugh quietly as well, “My point is, you’ve got nothing to worry about with Jack. Kids like us, we get made tougher, resilient. And with parents like you two, I’d say he had a pretty good head start.” Bugs said, smiling to herself flicking a glance up to his face that said just how touched he was. Deciding he was likely waiting for her to turn around before he let himself cry, she took a step back, heading towards the reception. “I mean look at me, I turned out alright!” 

She barely heard his small chuckle that faded into a weep before she shut the door behind her, heading back over to the table where the team sat, Jack now with his auntie Jessica, and their eyes fell on her, waiting to hear whatever it was she had to say. 

Taking a deep breath, she gave them an awkward smile, “Guess I’m joining the academy afterall,” 

And that was all she got out before Garcia dived on her with an excited cuddle. 

4. The one with his new hair

He knew he was sweeping his fingers through his hair much more often than usual, his hazel eyes flickering to his reflection in car doors in a way that was almost obsessive. He liked what his barber had done, but that wasn’t the point. 

He was hoping she liked it. 

Bugsy had passed the academy with flying colours, not that anyone had ever doubted her, and had been part of the team for all of two weeks, though he would argue she was BAU way before that. Hotch had figured out a staggered schedule where he could take care of Jack four days a week and work the rest until Jack settled back in at school. 

It had been nearly five months since Haley had died, but it hadn’t gotten any easier for the boy. 

Spencer definitely, definitely hadn’t spent the last two weeks practically breathing down her neck whenever they went out into the field, nor had he definitely not found himself fighting off the grin that threatened his composure when he caught her scribbling notes down to herself whilst Penelope presented the cases. 

And he most definitely hadn’t gone out to get a new hair cut in the hopes she would find him more attractive. 

Definitely not.

And yet, her face was the first one he found himself looking at as he stepped into the office, watching as it trailed up from her notebook, her pink gel pen paused mid sentence as the rest of the team went silent, her face spitting into a grin the minute she saw him. 

“What, did you join a boyband?” Hotch asked in a rare moment of teasing, Derek snickering as Emily nudged his arm with her own chuckle. 

“Can I be your groupie?” Bugsy asked, which made them laugh harder, though she stared at him with a small twinkle in her eye the way she always did when he squirmed under her compliments. 

He hadn’t thought she was being mean, not even when they took a moment to settle down, not even when she smiled wryly at him, her eyes flicking up to his hair twice more before her attention was stolen back by Garcia switching the board. 

“Okay, so what are we looking at here? Late twenties, early thirties?” Emily asked after they quietened, adjusting her bangs over her brows. 

“All single, though two are in committed relationships,” Rossi added, flicking through his own pack of notes. “All living on their own,” 

“Looks like normal suburban houses. Give the Unsub privacy,” Morgan added, his face scrunched in disgust as he looked at the crime scene photos. 

“The differences are more striking than the similarities. Different hair colours, different body shapes.” Reid noted, Bugsy’s handwriting scrawling over her notebook as she tried to capture everything they were saying. 

“What do we know about his MO?” Hotch asked JJ, the blonde woman shaking her head with a grimace. 

“That’s why we were invited in, the abduction sites are pristine,” She said gravely, looking between her team as they seemed to balk at the information. 

“No DNA besides the victims, and there’s no sign of forced entry or struggle,” Bugsy noted in the pack Garcia had given her that morning, along with a little pat to the head for good luck. Before now, in those two weeks, they had only dealt with one kidnapping and one group homicide that had turned out to be one very stupid teen spiking drinks at a pool party. This case would be the worst one she’d seen yet. 

“And the victims aren’t reported until two or three days after they’re abducted,” Emily tailed off the end of her sister, her eyes serious as the team came to the same conclusion. 

He had days to spend as much time with the bodies as he wanted. 

“Two or three days? Women like this don’t just disappear without somebody noticing,” Rossi chimed in again, as JJ clicked onto the next screen handing the remote to Garcia. 

“Yes, which is why I had Garcia dig into their lives a little,” She said, taking a seat next to Hotch to let penelope lead. 

“And I took a look at their online activity, I could easily see what the Unsub was doing,” Penelope said, clicking onto a screen full of the women’s profiles. 

Bugsy couldn’t even say she was shocked. Ever since she was in highschool, friendships, or her lack thereof, had been entirely decided on who had the most likes on their status update. Apparently no one found the girl who read Russian Literature for fun cool, nor did they want anything to do with her. Emily didn’t know she’d sat in the school toilets to eat her lunch for three years straight. Turns out kids from every country were bitches. 

“Social Media profiles?” Her older sister asked, though the surprise was evident on her face atleast. 

“Yeah, facebook, twitter, you name an online life-sharing time suck, these victims were on it,” Penelope said, enlarging the screen for the team to see the specifics, “And if you look at each of their last posts, they say kind of the same thing, ‘Going out of town, Going on a business trip, Going on vacation,’ but when you look at the time and date stamps on each of these, queue the twilight zone music because they were all posted the morning after each of them went missing,”

“The unsub posted them?” Hotch concluded, his natural frown deepening. This Unsub had a way to keep all of his victims hidden for much longer than they’d anticipated. Who knows what he could be doing as they spoke. 

“You know, social networks are an easy way for an unsub to target his victims. These women were especially open, they posted everything from what they had for dinner to where they were going on dates,” Spencer said, looking at the print outs Pen had handed to them. 

“The unsub ‘Friends’ his victim, and then uses it as a cover once he takes them,” Derek said, as Bugsy’s face scrunched in disagreement. 

“What are you thinking, Kiddo?” Rossi asked from her left, as he head shot up to see the team watching her, waiting for her input. 

Surprising to everyone, she was somewhat nervous when she’d started at the BAU. The Bugsy Prentiss, the woman who had caught out parts of the Russian Mob when she was just a college student, was nervous to not mess up in front of them. 

“I understand what Derek’s saying, but nowadays you don’t actually have to be friends with someone to follow them.” She said, picking her fingertips in thought, “A lot of people have hundreds of total strangers they’ve never met on their page; some settings mean you don’t even need to be ‘friends’ in the first place to see what they're posting. The UnSub probably wouldn’t even bother implicating himself in the first place by following them, he could just access their profile and see what they're up to. I think he profiles as patient and organised, and somewhat tech savvy if he’s up to date on the way these medias work,” 

The team watched her carefully, Spencer beating down the proud smile he wanted to flash her, knowing he needed to be focused on this case, but she seemed satisfied with her answer when Penelope nodded in agreement.

“So you don’t think he’s an old guy like me, is what you’re saying?” Derek asked with aghast, knowing full well mid thirties wasn’t too old. Hadn’t stopped his pride hurting. 

She shook her head, “I just think he wouldn’t be as old as you. Mine and Reid’s age maybe. But he seems obsessive, and he also must have a job that affords him the spare time to spend the following few days with the bodies, but it means we should also assume that these women are likely already dead,”

She looked to Hotch hopefully, to see him staring at her unreadably for a moment, before he looked to Rossi with a nod. 

David slapped her on the shoulder affectionately, “You just put together your first profile, kid,” 

And before long, they were heading for the jet with her deductions in mind to hand over to the cops. 

–

“Can someone explain to me the appeal of these sites? ‘Eating sushi tonight, yum!’ ‘Boss is keeping me late at work, grr,’” Rossi stared at the status updates, perplexed, as the team snickered to themselves. 

“Now, wait a minute. How did you find my profile?” Bugsy asked jokingly, and she drew a fond smile from Aaron her way when Rossi chuckled to himself. 

He wished she would stop looking so nervous to contribute. She fit right in with the furniture. 

“Whose life is so important that we’d be interested in this kind of detail?” Rossi asked seriously, though Bugsy supposed even the coffee machine was a new useless piece of technology to the man who liked his espresso fresh. 

“That’s just it, no one is. I guess everyone just wanted to believe it to themselves that they all have an audience out there waiting to hear every update of their day. Some of them even have GPS tracking systems in place to make it even easier for people to find out exactly where you are,” Bugsy said, her eyes flicking to Spencer who watched her intently, automatically floating up to take in his new hair again. 

She couldn’t help think he had stopped looking cute, and started looking hot. He’d always been cute, god knows she’d always thought he was good looking. But now he looked… dreamy. It had made her double take the minute he’d walked through the door, hoping it wasn’t too obvious she was staring. 

“That explains how he’s finding them, but it doesn’t tell us how he’s getting into their houses,” Hotch nodded along with her, eying her carefully as she looked through her own notes she’d made once she’d brought herself round to ripping her eyes off Reid. 

“At the very least I believe he has copies of their keys,” Spencer said, his finger trailing the information in his file, “Doris Archer had a home security system installed, but the disable code was entered at 1:56am, so he knew that too. He also found a way to deal with her dog, a German Shepard she adopted from the pound last year, it went missing the night she did,” 

“Did they find the dog?” Bugsy asked, her face in a frown as Emily looked up to her.

“Why? What are you thinking?” She asked her little sister who played with the ‘TRAINEE’ lanyard around her neck. 

“If he hurt the dog, it likely meant the dog had been on alert to him as an intruder, since opportunistic violence isn’t in his profile of being collected and organised. So if he didn’t hurt the dog, and he was found alive and unharmed, it means the dog knew him,” Bugsy explained, and Derek stroked his face in thought. 

“This guy’s gotta be in and out of the house well before the night of the disappearance. He comes up with some ruse, talks his way inside, and then once he’s familiar enough with the house he knows he can come back and kidnap them without disturbing anything,” He said, the girl nodding in agreement with him.

“Think of people you let into your home you don’t consider a threat. Home repair guys, dog walkers?” Rossi offered, but JJ was quick to flick to her own pack. 

“Detective Fordham looked into that too. No one came even close to being a killer,” She shut down, not wanting to waste their time running through avenues that had already been explored. 

“Alright,” Hotch started as he glanced at his watch to see they were landing in around ten minutes, “Morgan and Prentiss, start with the last abduction site, see if anything points to his MO.” 

Bugsy raised her hand politely, as if she were still in class, and he nodded in her direction to speak, “Do you mean as in me when you say Prentiss or as in Emily when you say Prentiss?” She asked, and Emily seemed to be having the same issue as she flicked a glance between the two of them.

“I mean Emily, for you I guess I’ll have to say-” But he stopped himself with a frown. What would he say? Bugsy? No, too informal on a case. Baby Prentiss? Absolutely not. He thinks she might just hit him if he said her first name too much. “We’ll workshop it for now. Dave, you, Prentiss, Reid and JJ go back over the women’s lives. Start with asking around their friends on the sites. If this is how the Unsub is finding them, maybe they’re connected to him without even realising.” 

The team was quiet for a moment, before Spencer pointed to Bugsy with his pen, “So that time you meant Bug, right?”

Dave wished he could protest but he had also been a bit confused, as Hotch rubbed his head tenderly. 

He felt the headache coming already. 

–

“What was it about these women that made him choose them as targets?” Bugsy asked as she and Spencer sat in a small room in the Boise precinct, the three victims' profile pictures staring back at them from the board. 

It was their second day working on the case, and other than Garcia tracking a very disturbing snuff film of the last murder being streamed from the victim’s own IP address using camera’s he’d set up in the home, they had yet to have a big breakthrough. Hotch had told her to leave the room when they’d shown the footage, knowing it was one of her first weeks on the case, and despite having a strong stomach, he wanted her to ease into the role rather than drop her in the deep end head first. 

Even seasoned agents like Morgan and Rossi had both winced, JJ even gagging as they watched it happen. They usually dealt with the aftermath, not have front row seats on the act itself. 

She had been allowed in once the tape had finished, but Reid had immediately shuffled her into the small office they’d been permitted to use by the Boise police, his face a little more peaky than usual.

She wished he wouldn’t worry so much about her, wished he would hide it better when he fretted over her. She was sure he would burst a vessel if he kept flicking his head to look at her, though she just sat staring at the women as if the answer would jump out at her. 

“They’re all pretty, aren’t they?” Bugsy said, swinging her legs beneath the table, her eyes roving over the three faces, “Though unconventionally, they’re still pretty.”

They weren’t his type, Spencer thought, they looked almost nothing like her. She had removed the last of the pink hair dye she’d managed to keep on top of for a year or so before she’d started at the university. Her nose piercing had progressed to a little thin silver hoop, though her earrings had been dialled down for safety reasons in the field, and she kept her hair tied back away from her face most days. She looked older, which was a dumb thing to think, since of course she was older. But she had grown into her face, and Spencer was entirely convinced she took after her father since the only thing she shared with Emily was the same pout when she thought too hard. 

He’d watched her grow for all of three years into the twenty five year old that sat before him, and yet her face had never really changed shape. She still had those pretty eyes that seemed to glint up at him, those soft lips that pursed when she tried not to giggle at him, that perfect nose he would trace the edge of using just his gaze when she had come over to his apartment to study for the academy. She was still as beautiful as the day he’d met her, he thinks part of him had always thought of her in that way. He had just put it down to a pretty girl giving him attention. But girls gave him attention all the time, he had realised since that stakeout at the club, when he’d given her those napkin roses. He just didn’t care for them. 

He only cared about what she thought of him. 

Only cared what her face looked like-

“Wait,” He stopped his thoughts that could go on for days, weeks, about her. They already had, it was difficult to pull himself out of it sometimes. He stared at the photos of the victims, his mind revelling in her own face that he didn’t doubt had guys swooning and falling over their own feet, as he zeroed in on their eyes, cheekbones, septums, “Their faces are all an identical structure,” 

“How did you figure that out?” She asked, wide eyed and he ripped down the photos before she could catch him blushing. 

He thought he might take it to the grave what he’d been thinking about. 

–

“He’s going live,” Hotch seethed, clicking a button on the remote and the whiteboard in the centre of the room lit up with video footage, a small red dot flashing slowly in the corner telling them they were watching it being streamed. 

Bugsy stood behind Spencer, her eyes glued to the small computer at the desk that played the same screen, her heart rate spiking when she saw a small body camera pointing at a house, the UnSub cutting across a lawn in a near sprint. 

He’d lost control completely, and he had another victim set in his sights. 

“He’s not slow, deliberate. This guy’s pissed.” Rossi said, his jaw hung open in horror as the streamer headed straight for the front door. 

“All right, what do we see? Determining markers?” Hotch snapped the groups focus back from the gut wrenching panic that everyone felt, and it was like a switch flipped.

“A one story cottage,” Spencer noted, his eyes glued to the screen so tight he missed the way Bugsy’s face changed colour, and she looked like she was swaying on her feet. 

“That could be anywhere,” Detective Fordham commented back, his face grimacing. 

“Is there a number on the house?” Morgan asked, and everyone leaned in closer to the footage. 

“No, he’s already at the door,” JJ said, running a hand through her long blonde hair. 

Bugsy thought she might be sick. 

“Garcia,” 

“He’s using twice as many proxy servers,” Her shaky voice came through the speaker, furious typing in the background.

“Wait, this window in the background, is that the chat room?” Emily asked, pointing to the small screen at the bottom that flooded with comments from at least forty different users, and more began entering the stream. 

Get that bitch. 

Show her a good time. 

Teach the pigs a lesson for sticking their nose in. 

Bugsy wished she hadn’t been so fast at reading, as she felt her skin go cold at the sight of the comments. 

“People are getting off on it,” She said quietly, but no one heard her, too focused on finding out where the UnSub was. 

“Uh Huh,” Garcia confirmed, as the footage flicked to show a kitchen view, a pretty fair haired woman stood chopping peppers none the wiser to the sick people watching her life before it was about to be ended. 

“He’s in the house, guys,” Reid ran clammy hands over his trousers, his stomach churning as the video went on.

“He’s completely changed his MO,” Derek added, and the team could do nothing but watch in terror, “There’s too much light, what happened?”

“Someone asked the wrong question at the press conference,” JJ explained from beside Reid, her nails bitten to hell. 

“Oh my god, turn around. Just turn around,” Emily begged, and part of her little sister thought she might have been talking about her. 

“Maybe she can fend him off,” Derek said, though even his tone of voice wasn’t convinced. 

“New kitchen appliances, maybe we could check the work order?” Spencer was grasping at straws he knew that, but he couldn’t sit back with that big brain of his working overtime and not try to help at all.

“He’ll be gone by then,” Rossi said, and he wasn’t entirely wrong.

“Garcia, can you give me anything?” Hotch asked, and the sound of typing got even faster if that was possible.

“I’m stateside now, I’m almost to Idaho, I just need more time,” but Garcia was cut of by the man in the video lurching at the innocent woman, his hands wrapping around her neck with a venomous grip, her every moment of pain and terror captured on his body cam for his audience to see. 

His audience including the team. 

Bug felt the bile rise then, felt her eyes burn as she watched the woman’s face freeze in fear, a yelp of “No!” leaving her oesophagus, her small hands coming up to his wrists to try pry him away from her, anything to gasp for another breath of air. 

She wasn’t listening as Hotch barked orders at Garcia, her eyes were stuck on the woman that writhed in pain, pleading with the masked man to spare her. But her rebuttals got weaker, her whimpers began to grow quieter, and soon he’d tackled her to the ground in a blood curdling scream, his whole body weight crushing her throat. 

Her own hand came up to cover her mouth that dropped open in shock, her eyes burning with tears that she couldn't let fall. It was this woman who was suffering, not her. 

There was a bit more struggling from the woman, her eyes bulging from her skull, lips turning blue, until she slumped beneath his hands, and he released her. 

She took a step back, bumping into a chair she hadn’t even known was there as her eyes fixed to the screen, and Spencer’s head shot around to see her shaking on the spot, her eyes haunted. 

Emily followed suit, but Spencer was already out of his seat, rushing forward to grab her arms and lead her outside. 

“I’m gonna get her some air,” He called behind him to the team that watched her go with forlorn glances, and he hated how he felt her trembling beneath his grip, grabbing onto his jacket just as tight. 

They made it halfway down the stairs before she bolted for the bathroom, and he heard her retching as he dipped into the room after her, not caring that the sign clearly stated it was for women. 

“I’m fine, Em, just give me a minute,” She said, and he heard the sniffles between her words. 

“It’s me,” He said, finding the one stall on the end that had it’s door engaged, pulling a cup from out of the dispenser and filling it at the water fountain, “You should drink some water, the cold helps reset your body’s instinct to fight or flight,” 

“Or in my case, make a complete fool of myself and take time away from a time sensitive investigation because I’m such a wuss,” She said cynically, coughing chestily and he heard the toilet flush. 

His forehead creased as he frowned. The door unlocked and she stepped out, her eyes red and teary as she gently took the water from his hands, and he rooted around his pocket for a stick of gum to give her. She chucked it in her mouth, letting the peppermint clear the vile taste from her mouth, hoping she didn’t look too gross. 

“You shouldn’t stand so close to me, toilet bowls are like full of germs and my heads just been in there, I know it makes you feel funny to be around germs-” He pushed her hair behind her ear as if to tell her to stop thinking so loud, and she couldn’t help smile sheepishly at him. “Do you think Hotch will be mad?” 

He shook his head instantly. 

“Mad? No. Worried? Incredibly.” Spencer replied, stroking her hair a little the way his mom used to when he felt sick. 

Bugsy shook her head, sniffing to herself a little more. 

She couldn’t stop seeing that woman’s face as the life slipped from her, the hands around her neck. The yelps and pleads and begs and she fought with everything in her.

“How long was it until you started feeling like this?” She asked earnestly, running a sleeve under her nose, “You’re so brave, I always knew you were but, since I started, it’s like I realised nothing really touches any of you anymore.”

He fought the incredulous laugh, him; brave? The man scared of the dark and elevators brave? 

“We all take things home with us at the end of the day,” He said, wiping under her eyes for her with his own cardigan cuff, “If you didn’t feel anything for the victims we help, you wouldn’t be human, Bug,”

She nodded, “I know. I just don’t want to let anyone down. Not you guys and especially not the people we’re helping,” 

“It’s for that reason I know you’re going to do great,” He said, giving her one of those small Spencer smiles he reserved for when he wanted to see one of hers. 

Her forehead thumped onto his chest as he pulled her a little closer, and his cheek fell on top of her hair as he ran gentle hands over the sides of her arms, calming her until her breath started evening out. 

“You never said,” She pointed out, “How long it took for you to start getting cold feet. Bet I beat some kind of record, two weeks is absolute dog shit,” She chuckled to herself, not noticing how his face evened out in sadness. 

It was Tobias Hankel that had done it. It was getting tied up and injected that had made him feel like a failure, like he wasn’t cut out for anything let alone the force. Like his life was taking a huge spiral downwards. 

But he wouldn’t tell her that, not yet at least. 

“Come on, let’s get you back,” He brushed off, and she figured it was a sore spot for him. She cursed herself for asking in the first place. 

Nodding, she downed the rest of the water and got herself a refill, following him out of the bathroom, looking back up at him for a moment.

“I forgot to say,” Bug said, nudging against his side with her whole body, knocking into him lovingly, “Your new hair is very… dashing. I really like it.”

He swore his face went crimson in a single second.

5. The one with his migraines

“Let me pay for your fuel at least,”

“Spence, just shut up and get in the car,”

That was around about how the past eight months had gone. Every day, she would drive by his apartment, Emily in the passenger seat of her little sisters beat up Renault Zoe, affectionately named after its model, the back seat reserved for Spencer’s lanky legs and satchel bag as she drove the three of them through through roads of Virginia, to work and back again. 

Sometimes he surprised her with coffee, sometimes Emily brought them donuts.  Either way, they all enjoyed their morning routine that had stood the test of time about as much as Bugsy had as part of the BAU. 

It had gotten easier after that first case; she still had her moments, but her skin had thickened to a point she barely remembered what her life had been like before that day Hotch asked her to join the academy. 

Things were going well, she felt settled, even with the new girl Seaver replacing JJ while Jareau was away on business in the pentagon. She couldn’t say she was the girl’s best friend, but they got along. And that was good enough for her. Her team was a well oiled machine. 

That was, except for Spencer. Spencer she worried for every day. 

She hated the way he twitched in the passenger seat, now his since she’d forced Emily to get the subway to work today, bitching eachother out in the way sisters did until the older woman left in a huff but without asking questions, and she left to take Spencer to the hospital. 

The sunglasses did little to stop his eyes hurting, his brain quite literally feeling as though it was pressing against his skull. He even turned down coffee this morning, and her stomach had dropped when she realised just how serious it was. 

He didn’t even question her when she held his hand tightly in hers as she walked him into the office, knowing he would hate every second of having this MRI done. 

“Everything’s going to be absolutely fine, they’re going to find what it is and we’re going to get you fixed right up to your perky self again,” She said, as they sat together outside the doctor’s office, keeping her voice calm and quiet as not to upset his delicate head even more. 

He nodded, appreciating her gentle touches on his hand, and he jumped in his seat when the door opened, his name being called through and he wished she could come with him. 

“You got this,” Bugsy smiled at him reassuringly when he looked hesitant, and nodded again, squeezing her hand once before he let go, following the nurse into the MRI room, wondering how he got so lucky to have a best friend like her. 

–

Spencer sighed, leaning back in his seat. The flight had not helped the building pressure in his head in the slightest. He looked up to the ceiling, closing his eyes as the harsh office lights beat against his face mercilessly. 

Two bodies found sacrificed to a 'higher being', their tongues and fingers cut off, shells put over their eyes and mouths. They had seen worse, perhaps not as odd, but they had seen worse. And yet this was the case that made him feel like his brain was about to explode right out his ears.

He hadn’t felt like this since he had been on Dilaudid, since he’d be on a come down and his whole body would sweat cold, and his head would rattle with every movement. And even that almost paled in comparison to how bad his head hurt right now. 

Spencer had wondered if that was what had done this to him, if it was a long term side effect of its use. He knew it wouldn’t be, but the self punishing part of him couldn’t help but fill his head with it. 

He just wanted answers. He just wanted it to stop. He just wanted to crawl into bed with an ice pack over his face and never surface again until this thing had subsided. 

Spencer felt hands in his hairline, fingernails weaving and massaging until he almost moaned, the touches releasing some of the metaphorical knots like magic at their fingertips, and he knew who it was, because that was how she always made him feel. 

He opened his eyes to see her very upside down as she looked down at him, their eyes inline with one another as she continued running her fingers against his temples gently. 

“You okay, handsome?” That was somewhat new, not that he was complaining. Part of him said she just felt bad for him and his weird brain, and maybe that was how it had always been, but ever since he had started getting these migraines she was impossibly even softer with him now. Like she was his comfort blanket he cuddled to when he was feeling particularly sorry for himself, and she knew it too. They were rarely not stuck together like velcro, where he moved, she moved. Where he sat, she was pressed against him like the concept of personal space had never been such a huge deal for him. 

And when his pain struck him down into the embodiment of a wounded doe, she was right there fluffing his pillows, grabbing him aspirin, massaging his head like she could grab the bastard migraine right out of his skull and say leave my precious boy alone. 

She was too sweet on him recently, but then he never wanted it to stop. It felt like a relationship without the kissing and especially without the sex. The thought of it made him want to moan again. 

“This one’s a stubborn one,” It had lingered around for three days straight, and the Miami heat wasn’t helping as he looked up at her inverted face, and he could tell she was smiling gently at him. 

She ran her thumbs over his eyebrows, smoothing them out and he sighed in delight as he felt the muscle begin to relax beneath her touch. 

“You make things better,” He confessed, her fingers tracing down his pretty nose, and he closed his eyes as she went over the bags beneath them. “You always do,” 

He felt her kiss his forehead for good luck, and he knew she hated seeing him in so much pain. He could have whined when she pulled away, letting go of him gently as Rossi stepped into the room, hoping he hadn’t seen the affection before too much teasing could come. 

But he said nothing, even if he had seen, just raised his eyebrows and grabbed the file off the desk for his own thorough look through. 

He sure as hell missed the way she interlaced their fingers under the desk though. 

–

Spencer twisted the bracelet around his wrist as they sat together outside the doctor's office. Orula’s ide. That was what Julio had called it. Said it would protect him from the bad spirits that clouded his head. 

Spencer was a man of science, a man of logic. But even he couldn’t quite explain how Julio had managed to figure out he was having migraines despite him not letting any infliction of pain cross his face, even more confused when Julio had said his body had been a conduit for a higher spirit who wanted to help him. 

He was glad to be back in Virginia where everything made sense to him. Where she could hold onto his knee at the doctor's office to stop it from bouncing and his team couldn’t tease or ask him what was wrong or make her stop touching him so much. 

“I say we get some ice on your head and put on whichever Doctor Who episode you want, don’t even care if we’ve seen it before,” She offered, smiling over at him and hoping he couldn’t see the worry in her eyes. 

He could. He just nudged her shoulder with his forehead to say thankyou without ruining the solace the quiet brought him. 

That is until his name was called, just as it was the last time he was here, and he stood to enter the office, not letting go of her hand as this time he’d made sure she could come. 

“That doesn’t make any sense,” He said as he sat on the bed, his doctor showing him the clear brain scans that hadn’t flagged a single neuron out of place. 

“I’m not sure what you want me to say,” His doctor replied, watching the way his female accomplice frowned, squeezing his hand tightly. 

“Isn't there any tests that would look for a specific prognosis we could try?” She asked, and the man shook his head. 

“Not unless we’ve ruled out every other option, and in this case I’d like to suggest that Dr. Reid’s condition might be psychosomatic in nature,” The doctor explained, wary of the way the two agents screwed their expressions up, almost identically, hearing his explanation of Spencer’s headaches. 

“Psychosomatic…” Spencer echoed softly, in near disbelief. 

That couldn’t be it. It had to be the Dilauded. Or a tumour. Or a long standing concussion. Something physical and tangible he could point out and get fixed.  

“It just means a mental or emotional cause-” The doctor explained, only to have Spencer cut him off. 

“No I know what ‘psychosomatic’ means Doctor, but it's not that,” He said, his voice tired; the idea he was making up his problem in his own head bothered him. 

“Well, I think it’s something we should consider.”

“Listen, I’m not crazy,” Spencer insisted, and he felt her tugging his hand closer to hers, her own way of comforting him when she couldn’t grab at his hair or face or jaw. 

“Dr Reid, I’m not saying-” But he was stopped by Spencer’s voice that was slowly growing more irate. 

“No, listen, I have headaches. I have increased sensitivity to light, because there’s something wrong with me physically. Not mentally. It’s not that,” He corrected the doctor, his sweet face pulled into a grumpy pout, almost offended that the professional was willing to write his pain off as a hallucinations. 

“That?” The doctor asked, a frown on his face as Spencer continued.

“Listen, doctor, my mother’s a paranoid schizophrenic who’s been institutionalised. So I know very well what mental illness looks like, maybe even better than you. It’s not that, it’s not.” Spencer said in a huff, standing from the bed and grabbing his satchel, all but pulling her from the room as she sped walked after him, her hand still tightly in his. 

She was gobsmacked. She didn’t know how she hadn’t seen it before, and suddenly every single instance of her whining about her mother to him entered her head and she felt a pit growing in her stomach that only had room for guilt. 

They sat in the car in silence, her hands at ten and two as she tried not to stare at him. 

She couldn’t stand the quiet in which he stewed, murmuring to himself every now and then about how that most certainly wasn’t what was causing his state to decline. 

“You never told me that before,” She said after a while, and it was quiet, whether to satiate his headache or because she didn’t know if she was allowed to say it he wasn’t sure. 

“It never came up,” He said in a way that left little question. He didn’t want to talk about it. 

They sat in the quiet some more, the only sound being the way her engine hummed beneath the bonnet, the music turned low for his pounding head, and he saw the way she chewed her lip and flicked glances at him from the driver's side.

He sighed, not wanting to snap at her the way he had the doctor, “Bug, would you please stop looking at me like that, like you pity me-”

“No, it’s not that it's…” She started carefully, her gaze flicking ot him for a moment as they stopped at a red light, “Every time I forget you’re the strongest person I know, you just seem to remind me,” 

And just like that his heart swelled all over again, and he felt like maybe his head wasn't an entire failure to him.

+1 The one with the eulogy.

This was hell on earth. 

She sat around the table at the funeral home with her mother to her left, her father and Stephanie to her right. 

She could feel the team’s eyes on her; she hadn’t spoken in days, her face shallow and off colour, sick looking. Speaking to her mother and father was difficult for her on a good day, let alone when she was all alone. 

Because that was how she looked, as if she were half a person now, her face bitter and angry as she tried to take up the least amount of space at the table as possible, her mother inspecting her finger beds as if they’d scorned her. 

“Sit up straight,” She chided, nudging her daughter's knee, but Bugsy made no move to adjust her posture. She just stared blankly at the ugly floral tablecloth, waiting for the other mourners to arrive, to give their sorrows, before they could move to the church. 

Emily was right next door. Cold. In a box. Her entire body was likely in rigour mortis now, her face was probably white as snow with the blood pooling away - pallor mortis Reid had called it - her hands were probably twisted and ugly like a raven's foot-

She couldn’t keep doing this to herself. And yet the thoughts wouldn’t stop, not even as Stephanie, step mother from heaven as she was, began to chime in to try lighten the mood. 

Her dad hadn’t said a word to her yet, just patted her on the head the way he hadn’t done since she was five. 

“It’s a lovely day for a funeral, don’t you think?” She commented, but her voice was too sweet, too soft, too normal to have the charm she’d intended. 

Stephanie wasn’t a bad person. Not evil or horrible like Bugsy had always thought a step mother would be. But she was the person her father had left little Bugsy for, and though she knew almost all of her anger had been displaced onto the poor woman when he’d told her he had a new wife, Stephanie had never exactly bothered to remedy their relationship. 

Emily and Bugsy had been someone else’s kids. Had been Richard Prentiss’ problems, not hers. And no amount of kindness she bothered to overcompensate with today would change the past twenty years her father had been too preoccupied to even call for her birthdays. 

Bugsy scoffed, ignoring the warning look from her father. He knew very well how his youngest felt about his wife. 

“Mr and Mrs Prentiss,” Hotch came over, as if sensing the girl’s annoyance at the woman’s words, and she mentally could have planted a kiss right on Aaron’s lips when he made the effort to exclude Stephanie in his condolences, “I’m so sorry for your loss. Losing a child is a devastation I never would wish on anyone,” 

“Thank you for your kind words, Mr Hotchner,” The step mother piped up again, before either of them could say anything, and Bugsy shot her a look so full of hatred, Aaron thought she might have slapped her right then and there. 

Richard cleared his throat, moving to put an arm around Steph’s chair, one that she’d pulled up to the table herself. 

If there was one thing Elizabeth and Bugsy would ever agree on it was that Stephanie was intolerable. 

Her mother looked empty as she nodded at Hotch, crossing her legs properly and pursing her lip, not saying anything. She’d never seen her mother cry, and she doubted that would start today. Elizabeth was much too of a proud woman to weep in front of the masses. 

“Thanks, Hotch,” Bugsy said the first words she had in days, the only time she’d gotten out of bed was to feel Niko and Sergio or to use the bathroom. Her voice was raspy, ghost like, and it scared the crap out of him. 

He couldn’t see her getting through this alive. 

With Haley, he’d had Jack to get him through it, keep him going, if not to put on a front for his little boy that was the spitting image of his wife. But Bug had nothing left of her sister, nothing but herself and two parents that couldn’t stand to look at one another without screaming curses. 

The other’s had already given their condolences, had already bombarded her with enough letters, flowers, stuffed teddies to fill a house, and she knew she wasn’t being fair ignoring them when they were grieving too. If not just as much as she was. 

But she couldn’t do anything, couldn’t be anything except this shell of a woman once called Bugsy. Her sister gave her that name, she didn’t think she deserved it anymore. 

Spencer just wished she would cry. He had been sobbing non stop, even where his eyes were puffy and red as Garcia’s as they stood in the funeral home, the smell of incense too strong, the sounds of wails too loud. But she looked… he hated to say it, she looked dead.

“That poor little lamb,” Penelope sniffled, tears already streaking down her cheeks as Derek tucked her under his arm, pulling her close into his smart black suit, “I wished she would let us in,”

“That girl is a carbon copy of Emily, of course she’s going to take herself off to lick her wounds,” Rossi said, his own fancy blazer stuffed with tissues in case his dark eyes welled up with tears again. He’d already managed to save himself once this morning before leaving the house, but he didn’t trust himself anymore than that. 

Spencer missed her smile more than anything, though he himself was struggling to muster anything past a grimace. 

“The Spring flowers are all in bloom, isn’t that lovely?” Stephanie continued, an easy grin on her face as she looked out of the window to the graveyard, as if she was entirely unaware of the grief lingering in the room, “I think she'll like it here,”

That was it. 

That was what pushed Bugsy over the edge, even Elizabeth broke her cold facade to look at the other women in shock, her daughter’s eye twitching as her head snapped to Stephanie, a rage encompassing her entire face.

“What the fuck would you know what she liked or didn’t like, Stephanie? She barely even fucking liked you,”  Bugsy hissed, drawing the attention of a few of the mourners with her vitriol anger. 

That wiped the smile off the woman’s face harder than any slap could have. 

“You watch your mouth, young lady,” Richard snapped, his face a blazen rage as Stephanie cowered behind him. 

Bugsy scoffed, and Hotch knew by the sound of it alone, something had been lit inside her that was about to go off like a hand grenade. 

He couldn’t say he blamed her. 

“I don’t know why you even bothered showing up, Dad. You’ve not seen either one of us since Emily left college,” She spat back, her eyes wild like a cat ready to claw its way out of a fight, “Surprised you even remember my name now you have your shiny new family and your million honeymoons to keep you busy,”

Richard stood from his chair, his black three piece creasing as he pointed in her face, his hand shaking with rage, and she saw the tears well in his eyes that looked too much like her own for her comfort. 

“You are turning out to be just like your mother, pushing away anyone who ever cared about you.” He barked, not caring that a few mourners turned to look at him in shock, “Don’t come crying back to me when you end up alone, little lady,” 

And with that he took Stephanie’s hand, who was the patron saint of guilt as of now, a face like a scolded child, too naive for the grown woman she really as. At least she had finally shut up, Bugsy thought darkly as her father stormed out of the home, ignoring the way faces watched hers carefully, knowing every word he’d said had been true. 

She thinks for a minute if Emily was here she’d poke fun at the way Steph’s face had been hilarious when her smile had dropped, or that her dad still had the worst temper out of them all, Bug included. She thinks that if Emily were here, she’d tell her he’d said all that stuff out of anger, and that she won’t end up alone, and that she’d always be with her.

She thinks that if Emily were here, she wouldn’t feel the empty nothingness where shame and sadness would be after having that entire thing play out infront of so many onlookers. 

But Emily wasn’t there. And she couldn’t even say she was shocked when her mother stood from her seat besides her too. 

“Where are you going?” Bugsy snarled, the Ambassador looking somewhat concerned before the expression fell and she went back to an equally lost look of her own. 

“I refuse to be made a spectacle of today,” Elizabeth said detachedly, collecting her purse over her black midi dress, her painted nails skimming the handle gently, “I can say my own goodbyes to your sister later, when everyone has left,” 

Coward. Coward. Coward. Bugsy wanted to scream after her, wanted to tear her hair out, wanted to grab the two of them by the neck and make them feel the way her words trapped inside her and clawed at her throat, sitting inside like a moth bouncing against a window trying to escape. 

But she said nothing. Did nothing, as her mother left the home, left her sitting there alone, until the officiant came over to her not even a moment’s later and told her it was time to start the funeral. 

And then she truly felt as if she would never be whole again. 

–

Her hands shook as she got to the podium. She’d always hated public speaking, which Spencer thought was odd since she seemed to grab the attention of every room she walked into like it was second nature. She didn’t even bat an eyelid at chasing down a criminal or being shot at or evening chewing out a detective that wasn’t pulling his weight, but speaking to a handful of decorated officers that watched her with grieving eyes was too much. 

Adjusting the mic to a more appropriate height, they watched her eyes scan the room, her brows scrunched, her mouth dry. Trying to find Emily, Hotch realised with a crack in his chest. The way she always did when she was nervous. The way she did when she was looking for Emily to come save her. 

“H-hi, um,” Her voice shook, her fingers fiddling with the chord for something to do, “Mom- Ambassador Prentiss got called out on business so I guess I’ll be giving the eulogy,” 

No one spoke, not even the ones who knew it was a lie, her eyes falling to where Spencer gave her a sad smile, some sort of encouragement for her to keep going, though his eyes were red and bloodshot, and he was sure the burn in his throat was rising again. 

She hadn’t cried yet. Penelope had cried four times today alone. 

“I- um, I wasn’t really prepared for a speech, so I’m, um, I’m just going to read the letter I wrote to her if that’s okay?” Her head shot to the priest who had handed the spotlight over to her, the warm spring breeze pulling at his robes as he nodded, his hand gesturing for her to continue. 

She cleared her throat, tearing the envelope open, and the paper rattled in her fingertips with her shaking hands as she pulled out the double sided A4 that had been written on in neat blue ink. 

Unfolding it, she let her gaze rip off the crowd of people who stared at her, waiting for whatever it was she had to say, the final words her sister’s body would hear before she was put in the ground forever. The last goodbye. The only one that had ever mattered. 

“Dear Emily,” Bugsy read, her voice finding footing as she was able to look away from the hundreds of eyes that watched her tearfully. But it was the wrong move. Because the minute she’d prepared herself to say the words out loud she felt her eyes well up. 

This was it. The last chance she would ever get to tell Emily how she felt. How sorry she was. How she was so damn sorry for being such a shitty person for so many years, for never saying thank you enough, for never hugging her when she really ought to have, for never appreciating how lucky she was to have a sister like her. 

Her throat clogged, and she sucked in a deep breath, releasing a trembling sigh. Her bottom lip quivered. 

“Sorry-” She apologised to the watchers, rubbing her mouth nervously, hoping no one could see just how deeply she had broken, just how harsh the wound had gaped open, “Dear Emily,” She started again;

“Everyone thinks they know what a sister is; it's the woman you share fifty percent of your DNA with who you’re put on this earth to annoy the shit out of,” A small wet laugh reverberated around the crowd, and she flashed a small smile at her own words. “But the truth is you can actually share up to sixty-one percent of your genes with one of your siblings. Which is crazy to me, because I know no matter how hard I try, I will never be even one percent of the woman you are,” 

She swallowed heavily, and she heard Penny burst out crying again, her head buried in Morgan’s neck. 

“If I was as gracious as you, I’d probably say you’re in a better place now, and if I was as brave, we probably wouldn’t even be here, because I would have been able to save you that day instead of just watching like a fly on the wall.” The first tear fell then, her face crumpling in pain. “If I was as considerate as you, I would be able to look every one of your friends in the eyes and tell them it would all be okay in the end. And if I was even the tiniest bit as kind as you, then I would have told you all of this to your face when it actually mattered.”

She sniffed heavily, and Derek did the same, his own throat burning, picking the thread on his nice trousers as Penelope’s tears wet his shirt through. 

“Everyone thinks that true love is finding someone you want to marry and have children with, but I know now that’s not the entirety of it. Love is a person you want to spend every day making happy, and make them proud to say they love you too.” Her chin wobbled some more as she read the next few sentences with something darker than remorse in her glassy eyes, “I sometimes think, if we were given a second chance, if we could try again, I would be able to tell you that I truly love you, Emily, and that you’re the only person I ever cared about loving me too,”

Her voice cracked, and she regarded the paper with misty eyes, her cheeks soaked as she quickly wiped them with the back of her white, lace gloves. 

“I think maybe next time I wouldn’t be so spoiled and bratty, and you could have been more relaxed and maybe less like my mom at times, but I think if we could do it over, we could have done it right, the way sisters are supposed to,” She sniffed, missing the way Spencer’s face dripped with tears of his own, her words tearing him inside and out with the guilt in every line. “But I guess it’s too late for that now. I only got one chance to be your sister and I failed, no matter how many times you pulled through for me. And that’s a debt I’ll never be able to repay.”

She braved a look at the closed casket, imagining her big sister, the only person she ever truly loved laying in there with fair, snow skin, her noir hair sitting perfectly like a princess in the fairytales she used to read to her before bed. Only this one had no happy ending. This one ended with her heart torn from her chest, bleeding for the rest of her days until her own body was buried and everyone could mourn the girl who was barely half the woman her sister was, no matter what the statistics say.

“I’m sorry, Emily” It was the first time she’d said the two words that had been playing in her head on a loop for weeks, the two words that sang to her like a mantra, every morning, noon and evening. Even in her sleep she had dreams where she could do nothing but scream into a void of darkness, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It should have been me, I’m sorry. “I hope you can forgive me,” She whimpered through a sob, ignoring the way her cheeks gushed with fat tears now, as she wept freely at the podium, her hands no longer shaking. 

“Lots of love, your shitty baby sister, Bugsy.” She finished with a small whine, her expression broken as she folded the letter back up and placed it in the envelope, the cursive lettering of her big sister’s name staring back at her. Finishing where she’d started. 

Tucking the letter underneath a tulip wreath atop the coffin, she stepped back down off the podium, ignoring the way the eyes followed her back to her seat, ignoring the way Derek rubbed her shoulder affectionately, or the way JJ handed her a packet of tissues, even though her own face was flooded, and showed no signs of stopping. She felt Spencer grab her hand in his delicately, entwining their fingers together, and squeezing lightly. 

The priest continued with a hymn, though she didn’t bother singing it. She just stared at her shoes, as if her entire soul had been sucked from her the minute she’d ended the eulogy. 

Which it had, because that had been Emily’s last goodbye. 

She didn’t speak in the car on the way back to Spencer’s, not as Hotch pulled her in for a wide hug, rare and warm, even going so far as to stroke the back of her head with more affection than they’d ever seen him give her. 

“Call me if you need anything,” He’d murmured into the side of her head as he held her close, feeling two hands hesitantly wrap around his waist, as if she wasn’t entirely switched on which, going by the vacant look on her face she wasn’t. 

Spencer made her tea the moment they got in. She didn’t ask for it, she just sat on the sofa and stared at the beat up, old TV he kept only for the occasional documentary, and for the shows she liked to watch too of course. But she hadn’t even switched it on, just stared at the inky black glass like it would jump to life itself and tell her how to feel. 

He took a seat next to her, on the other end of the couch, flicking the screen on for something to stop it from being so silent in his home; the silence meant they were alone with their thoughts, and for once he and his thoughts couldn’t stand being together. He didn’t want to interrupt her, or be the first to break the quiet. Not even when he watched her tea go cold in front of her, or as she barely acknowledged the cartoon on the TV, or when he pulled out his copy of The Brothers Karamazov that he’d been re-reading for the third time. 

“Would you like me to read to you? Would that be better?” He asked tentatively, and she didn’t even blink, as if she were some sort of zombie or corpse sitting next to him programmed for instruction on acting human. 

She said nothing, but she did move, the act of it making him jump slightly, and it was then he realised she had been perfectly still for the past half an hour, barely even showing signs of breath. A puppet with no master. 

She leaned over, her body dropping onto the sofa softly as if she was taking a nap, only for her head to rest on his thigh, and his hand flew to pull the claw clip out of her hair like he read her mind. Her knees nestled to her chest, in foetal position, her pretty black dress, the same one she’d worn for Haley’s funeral riding up past her knees. 

He gently tucked his long fingers into her roots, stroking her hair like she were a tame cat curled in his lap, clearing his voice as he continued where he’d left off, making sure he wasn’t reading too fast the way he would if it was just him. 

His head still whirled around the eulogy she’d read. How watching her crack beneath the weight of her own words had hurt him more than his own grief, had made him bury whatever it was he felt and just need to put her back together again. 

Because he didn’t need an eidetic memory to have ingrained what she’d said into his head, not even as they went to bed, and she burrowed into his side in one of his sweatshirts he usually saved for his own bad days. 

“Bug,” He braved to say, watching her eyes force themselves open from where they were on the very lip of sleeping, “You’re my very best friend, did you know that?” 

She hummed, her nose digging into his arm that he wound under her head, pulling her close enough he could feel her heartbeat against his own where she was in the crook of his neck. 

“I love you,” She said, like those three words didn’t rip the air from his lungs. 

Not even as her breathing finally evened out, and he felt himself heave a sigh of relief; the bags under her eyes had been more noticeable today than ever. Not even when he dared a kiss to her forehead as she slept, the smell of her shampoo completely taking over his pillow as he allowed his own heart to hurt for just a few moments, missing his friend dearly as he looked after the woman.

Love is a person you want to spend every day making them happy, and make them proud to say they love you too. 

He knew then.

–

TAGLIST

@release-your-sweets @smileykiddie08 @caramelised-onions@the-tpd-bau @stephthepeach @sunflowersndpeaches @sammy-4103 @starmansirius @yeonalie @delusionallooney @hades-disappointment-child @sadbae-33

[sixxels]

babydoll

frat!gojo x shy!fem reader !!

part 1 ! part 2 ! part 3 !

final !!

wc : 11.8k (haha)

disclaimer !! SMUT FINALLY. slight sukuna x reader, slow burn, fluff, angst/comfort, yearning satoru, whipped satoru, satoru is just so enamoured with reader omg. follows the ‘was i just a bet?’ premise!! reader is implied to wear very cutesy kinds of clothings and enjoys very girly and feminine things !!

the party was booming.

music thumped through the floors, bodies moved in rhythm, and laughter spilled from every room. lights danced across the walls in a kaleidoscope of red and gold, and for the first time in a long time, you felt like you belonged. not because you fit in, but because gojo satoru made it feel like you did.

you were tucked into his side on a battered leather couch, sipping from a red cup that had long since gone flat. his hand rested on your knee, thumb brushing gentle arcs against your skin as he talked with someone from his econ class. you weren’t really listening to the conversation. you were too busy soaking it in, the way his laugh rumbled in his chest, the way he glanced at you every few seconds like you might disappear if he looked away too long.

occasionally he'd lean over and kiss your forehead, a gesture that was becoming pretty common for the two of you, never on the lips, but still just as sweet.

it felt real.

it felt safe.

until the front door slammed open like a gunshot.

you flinched.

the music didn’t stop, not right away. it dimmed only when the shouting started.

“yo,” someone jeered from the entryway, voice loud and slurred. “what the hell? no invite for us?”

you felt gojo go still beside you. his hand left your knee and curled into a fist as he stood, gaze narrowing.

a ripple of silence spread through the crowd as heads turned toward the intrusion.

there, standing under the dim porch light like a devil in designer, was sukuna.

his bleached pink hair was messy in that practiced way, a silver chain clinking around his neck. tattoos snaked up his arms, ink stark against skin, and his smug grin curled like smoke.

flanking him were a half-dozen beta tau guys, all posturing and laughing, like this was their turf too.

“great,” gojo muttered, barely audible over the silence. “this fucker.”

sukuna's eyes scanned over the crowd, smirking as he saw you. you didn't look, you just kept your head low.

“gojo,” came a new voice, toji, black shirt half-unbuttoned, eyes storm-dark as he pushed through the crowd. “you wanna tell me why beta scum is breathing our air?”

“relax, creatine,” sukuna sneered, lifting his chin. “didn’t know we needed permission to show up at some busted up house party.”

toji grinned, all teeth. “funny. you don’t need permission to show up, but you sure as hell need it to stay.”

sukuna took a step forward. “you trying to start something, fushiguro?”

“what if i am fuck face?”

the crowd shifted, some people backing away, others watching with wide eyes like it was a sport. tension coiled like a loaded spring.

suguru appeared beside toji, brows furrowed, calm but ready, putting a hand on toji’s massive arm. “this isn’t your scene, sukuna. you should leave.”

but sukuna only laughed. “you alpha boys always get soft when there’s girls around. is that what this is? a little date night for gojo and my left overs?”

your body tenses at that, shit, he saw you.

toji’s hand clenched at his side. “watch your mouth.”

“oh?” sukuna turned to him, smug and taunting. “don’t tell me you’re playing guard dog for her too. what, she making rounds through all the frats now?”

before anyone could move, toji closed the distance and shoved sukuna back a step.

“say it again.”

sukuna’s smirk turned feral. “you gonna hit me, asshole?”

toji leaned in, voice low and lethal. “i’ve been waiting to. since the day i watched you drag her out of the kappa mixer like a caveman.”

‘oh, so it was you.’ gojo thought, how did toji know that of all people?

that wiped the smile off sukuna’s face.

he straightened, eyes burning.

“she was mine.”

“no,” gojo said suddenly, voice cold and steady as he stepped between them. “she was never yours.”

sukuna turned to him, expression flickering.

and that’s when it happened.

he looked past gojo. past the crowd.

right at you.

it was like all the air got sucked out of the room.

his eyes, red and sharp like broken glass, locked onto yours, and for a second, you weren’t in the alpha phi house anymore. you were back in his car, staring at the dashboard while he screamed at you. back at that beta tau party, clutching your phone while he pulled you through the hallway like you were furniture. back in his room, being thrown around and told to strip. 'just take it and shut the fuck up.'

you froze.

heart in your throat. nails digging into your palms.

you hadn’t seen him in months, but just like that, the fear came flooding back.

like your body remembered before your mind did.

his mouth moved into something that might’ve passed as a smile to someone else. but you knew better. it wasn’t warmth, it was possession.

“hey, y/n… look at me.”

gojo’s hand touched your back. gentle. grounding.

you blinked.

he had moved back to you, eyes soft even as his jaw was tight. “you okay?”

you swallowed hard and nodded.

but your hands were shaking.

gojo turned back toward sukuna, something deadly in his voice now.

“don’t look at her. don’t talk about her. you don’t even think about her.”

sukuna rolled his eyes. “she’s not yours, dick head.”

“she’s not yours either,” gojo snapped. “and she never fucking will be.”

sukuna’s gaze darkened. “so this is the game now, huh? you’re playing boyfriend?"

gojo’s voice dropped an octave. “no. i’m being a decent person. and if you don’t walk out of here right now, i won’t stop toji from knocking your ass into next semester, regulations be damned.”

the tension was a wire about to snap.

sukuna looked around the room, at toji, suguru, the other frat boys who were closing in, all watching him like a lit fuse. he smiled.

sukuna’s eyes flicked from gojo to you.

that smirk didn’t fade, it sharpened.

“cute,” he sneered. “she’s hiding behind you now. bet you think you’re special.”

toji’s laugh was cold as he stepped into sukuna’s line of sight to obscure his vision of you. “nah, but i know you’re still a pathetic little bitch.”

the room snapped like a tensioned wire.

sukuna’s gaze shifted, deadly now, locking onto toji like a predator who’d just spotted something worth hunting.

“funny,” he said, stepping forward. “you still mad i fucked your girl, or should i say ex?”

toji didn’t respond. he just moved.

in a blur, he grabbed sukuna by the collar and slammed him into the wall. the entire party jolted as the drywall cracked.

“watch your mouth.”

“make me.”

the first punch landed with a crunch, toji’s fist slamming into sukuna’s jaw, hard enough to echo. sukuna staggered, then retaliated, kneeing toji in the ribs before throwing a savage right hook. the force sent toji stumbling into the snack table, knocking red cups and bowls everywhere.

and then it was on.

chaos detonated.

a beta tau brother lunged toward toji from the side, but suguru intercepted, grabbing the guy mid-charge and flipping him over the arm of the couch with a loud thud. another tried to tackle suguru from behind, but choso clotheslined him mid-run, beer bottle still in his other hand like a trophy. (🫦🫦🫦)

gojo’s head snapped around, eyes narrowing as the entire alpha phi living room turned into a war zone.

sukuna and toji were trading blows in the center like heavyweight fighters, each punch drawing blood or bruises. toji’s nose was bleeding now, and sukuna’s mouth was split, but neither was backing down. they circled like rabid dogs.

suguru shoved off another attacker, ducking a wild punch from a tattooed beta tau called shiu. “you guys came here to start shit?” he barked. “seriously? didn’t you get wrecked enough last semester?”

“you talk a lot for a guy who got benched half the season,” shiu hissed, lunging.

suguru cracked him across the cheek with a swift elbow, then ducked to avoid a flailing swing. “still scored higher than your gpa.”

in the corner, nanami had joined the dismay, elegant but deadly, blocking two punches like he’d done this before. “please refrain from bleeding on the rug,” he muttered, landing a clean, punishing jab to someone’s gut. “it’s antique.”

somewhere behind you, you heard glass shatter.

choso yelled something about the tv.

someone screamed “yo! get the baseball bat!—”

you flinched, ducking behind a tipped-over armchair. the room was spinning with bodies, noise, fists, and swearing.

you spotted itadori trying to pull guys apart. “dude, chill—CHILL!” he shouted, physically yanking a beta tau and alpha phi apart. “this is so not frat regulation!”

“frat regulation?” todo huffed, bear pawing someone across the chest. “those fuckers threw that out the window the second they stepped foot in here!”

meanwhile, gojo’s eyes stayed locked on sukuna.

he didn’t even flinch as someone swung at him, he ducked effortlessly, then shoved the guy aside, cutting through the disarray like gravity bent around him.

toji was on the defensive now, blood dripping from his temple. sukuna laughed, manic, high off adrenaline. “thought you were tough,” he goaded, grabbing toji by the hair and trying to knee him in the face.

gojo saw red. toji was his brother, and sukuna was playing dirty.

he moved.

sukuna didn’t even see him coming.

gojo grabbed him by the shoulder and ripped him away from toji, slamming him into the nearest wall so hard a picture frame fell.

“you want someone to fight?” gojo said, voice ice. “try me.”

sukuna spat blood. “finally.”

he lunged.

the two of them crashed into the coffee table, splinters and glass flying as gojo ducked the first blow and returned a brutal one to sukuna’s ribs. they rolled across the floor, fists slamming into flesh, grunts and swears flying.

gojo was everywhere, dodging, striking, blocking with clean precision. sukuna was wilder, bloodier, all rage and ego.

gojo’s knuckles were split. his lip was bleeding.

but he didn’t stop.

“dont even think about laying a hand on her you fucker,” he snarled, slamming sukuna’s head against the floorboards.

sukuna wheezed, grinning through the pain. “so that’s what this is? you fighting for your little toy? mad i fucked her first?”

gojo punched him in the gut.

“she’s not a toy,” he growled. “she’s a fucking person. and you treated her like fucking trash.”

sukuna tried to twist out of his grip, but gojo was faster. he pinned him down again, forearm to his throat.

“look at her,” he hissed. “go ahead. look at what you did.”

sukuna’s eyes flicked toward you.

you were crouched behind the chair still, shaking, pale, your eyes wide and glassy. you weren’t the same girl he’d dragged around like an accessory. you were trembling now, but not in the way he remembered. there was fear, yes.

but there was also disgust.

that finally did it.

sukuna’s grin cracked.

gojo leaned in close. “you don’t scare her anymore. you sicken her.”

the beta tau boys were pulling back now, dragging sukuna off gojo, yelling things about lawsuits and retaliation, but none of them had the stomach for a second round. their leader looked worse than he ever had, bloody, bruised, humiliated on the floor of a rival frat house.

and as gojo stood, breath ragged, fists still curled.

everyone saw the shift.

this wasn’t just a frat brawl anymore.

this was a line being drawn in blood.

suguru was the first to break the silence, glaring at sukuna and his lackies.

“come into our frat uninvited again and you’re getting put on a shirt.”

~

the beta tau boys scrambled out like rats, half-carrying sukuna, who kept swearing and spitting blood between gasps. one of them shouted something about calling their president. no one cared.

the front door slammed shut behind them.

silence fell like a dropped curtain.

a beer pong ball rolled slowly across the floor and bumped against someone’s shoe.

toji wiped his nose with the back of his hand, blood smearing across his cheek. he was breathing hard, leaning on the wall, chest heaving. suguru stood next to him, knuckles raw, eyes still hard. nanami had already pulled a tie from somewhere and was cinching it around someone’s arm like a tourniquet. choso was picking glass out of his palm and mumbling about his jacket.

“well,” todo grunted, brushing off his shirt. “that escalated.”

gojo didn’t move at first.

he stood in the center of the room, shoulders tense, hands still curled into fists. his lip was bleeding, and one eye was already starting to bruise. he looked like he was barely holding himself together.

until he saw you.

you were still crouched behind the armchair, arms wrapped around yourself, eyes wet.

gojo’s expression cracked.

he crossed the room in three long strides, dropping to his knees in front of you. “hey,” he said softly, voice rough from screaming at sukuna. “sweet girl, you okay?”

you nodded before you even thought about it, but your eyes were trembling.

“look at me.” his hand cupped your face, gentle even though his fingers were scraped raw. “you’re safe. he’s gone. he’s not gonna come close to you ever again.”

you nodded again. but the tears had already started.

he pulled you into his arms.

you went willingly.

the moment you were against his chest, it all broke loose,sobs wracking through you like a wave crashing into shore. you clutched his shirt, buried your face in his neck, and cried like your body had been holding it in for too long.

he didn’t say anything. he just held you. nothing else mattered anymore. not the bet, not sukuna, not anyone. only you.

arms wrapped around you tight, one hand cradling your head, the other stroking slow circles on your back.

“i’m sorry,” you choked. “i didn’t mean to—”

“don’t,” he said immediately, pulling back just enough to look you in the eye. “don’t apologize. none of this is your fault.”

“but if i hadn’t—”

“no.” he kissed your forehead, the gesture becoming common nower days. “don’t. he’s the problem. not you.”

you didn’t have the words.

but he didn’t need them.

across the room, suguru was already barking cleanup orders to the uninjured alpha boys. toji was still glaring at the door like he might chase sukuna down the block. nanami was helping itadori corral people who hadn’t left yet.

and in the middle of it all, gojo stayed with you.

sure he was the president, supposed to be helping out, but you were more important to him right now.

his voice was quiet now, just for you. “i’ve got you. okay? nothing’s gonna hurt you. not while i’m here.”

you believed him.

for the first time in a long time, maybe ever, you really, truly believed someone would fight for you.

and he had.

bloody knuckles. bruised lip. rage in his voice.

gojo satoru hadn’t just fought for you.

he’d drawn a line.

and he was standing on your side.

~

the house was quieter now.

not silent, too many people still muttering, too many footsteps creaking on stairs, but the chaos had passed. the storm was over.

gojo didn’t say much as he led you upstairs.

his hand held yours the whole time, warm and steady. a grounding anchor. he opened the door to his room with a wince,his shoulder was already stiff from the fight, but he still managed to flash you a small smile.

you were no stranger to his room by now.

he helped you sit down at the edge of the bed.

“stay right there.”

you watched as he disappeared into his closet and came back with a hoodie, one of his favorites, oversized and navy blue, worn soft from too many washes.

“here.” he held it out. “you’re probably cold.”

you took it with a quiet thank you and tugged it over your head. it smelled like him too. familiar and safe.

gojo crouched in front of you again, reaching out gently. “can i?” he asked, nodding toward your face.

you nodded.

his fingertips brushed your cheek, tucking hair behind your ear. “you’re okay,” he murmured, more to himself than you. “you’re okay, you’re okay…”

you caught his hand before he pulled away. “you’re hurt, satoru.”

he blinked, then looked down at his knuckles like he’d forgotten. they were raw and crusted with blood, split open in places. his lip was cracked, too, and a bruise was starting along his cheekbone.

“i’ve had worse,” he said with a shrug. “toji once clocked me so hard i couldn’t chew for three days.”

you didn’t laugh. your fingers tightened around his.

he sobered instantly. “i’m okay. swear. just a little bruised.”

“you didn’t have to do that,” you whispered. “not for me.”

he sat beside you, close enough that your knees touched. “yes, i did.”

“but—”

“he hurt you,” gojo said quietly. “and i saw it. i saw what it did to you. how scared you were.” his jaw clenched. “you’re the strongest person i know, but no one should ever have to be that strong just to survive someone asshole like him.”

your throat tightened.

“i couldn’t stand there and let him scare you again. not after everything.”

he looked down at his lap, hands resting there, flexing absently. “i’ve never wanted to hit someone so bad in my life, and i know the others hate him too, okay? this is not your fault.”

you leaned into him. slowly. carefully. until your head was against his shoulder and his arm curled around you instinctively.

he held you like that, quiet, steady, heart still racing under his ribs.

“thank you,” you said.

“you don’t have to thank me for loving you,” he said, barely above a whisper.

your heart stopped.

had you heard that right?

was he really talking about love?! you weren't even dating!

you looked up.

he didn’t flinch. didn’t backpedal. just looked at you with that same open, raw expression he always gave you when he meant something with his whole chest.

“i know it’s early,” he said, lips quirking into the tiniest smile. “but i don’t really do the whole slow-burn thing. when i feel something, i feel it all the way.”

your breath hitched.

“so yeah,” he continued. “i love you. and if that means punching my way through a room full of assholes to make sure you’re safe, i’ll do it. every time.”

before your eyes could tear up again, you kissed him.

gently.

like you were learning what softness could be again.

he kissed you back, careful and sweet, one hand cupping your cheek like you were something precious.

when you pulled away, he smiled.

“let’s get some ice on that bruise,” you said, brushing a thumb over his cheek.

“yes ma’am,” he grinned. “but only if you stay and watch the lion king with me.”

“deal.”

you curled up in bed together, legs tangled, your head on his chest, a bag of frozen peas balanced on his face, and a disney movie playing low on his laptop.

safe.

finally, finally safe.

~

the aftermath hit like the hangover no one wanted to have.

by monday morning, the entire campus was buzzing with one thing and one thing only, the alpha phi party that turned into a free for all.

it was in whispered conversations in lecture halls. it was in blurry snap stories that got deleted after campus admin flagged them. it was in the instagram group chats, the anonymous confession pages, and even the comments section of a rogue post on the university subreddit titled “gojo v. sukuna: ultimate frat showdown (ft. toji ‘breaks drywall for fun’ fushiguro).”

everyone had an opinion.

and no one really knew the full story.

but that didn’t matter.

what mattered was the image: blood on the floor, gojo stepping over sukuna like a final boss, and the way you, silent, shaken, but still standing, had stared down the monster everyone thought was untouchable.

you heard the rumours, but your mind was only filled with what gojo had said to you that night. how he held you in his arms after telling you he loved you. and god, that was all you needed. nothing else mattered,

until it did.

the next morning, sukuna didn’t show up to class.

but that didn’t mean he wasn’t scheming.

in the darkened interior of the beta tau house, sukuna sat with an ice pack pressed to his jaw, eyes unfocused.

he could still feel gojo’s fist in his ribs. still taste blood in the back of his throat. he hadn’t been humiliated like that since—well, ever. not publicly. not in front of half the greek system and the girls who used to throw themselves at his feet.

now?

now he was the villain in everyone’s story.

and he hated it.

“yo, you good?” asked jogo, dropping onto the couch with a protein shake in hand.

“no,” sukuna snapped. “fuck off.”

“dude, we tried to tell you, alpha phi doesn’t fuck around.”

sukuna ignored him.

he needed leverage. a way to claw back what was his, not the frat clout, not even the fear. you.

you had looked at him like he was nothing.

and that cut deeper than any punch gojo could throw.

he stood, ice pack hitting the floor. he needed air, or maybe just silence. something to stop the buzzing in his brain. he headed toward the back patio, lit a cigarette he didn’t even want, and stepped into the cold.

that’s when he heard it.

voices, just beyond the hedges by the fire pit.

two guys walking past to the gym situated next to the beta tau house.

toji’s voice, low, unmistakable, smug.

“—i still can’t believe you let that shit get out. gojo bet on her dude. 2000 dollars. now he’s head over heels.”

a scoff. choso.

“i don’t think gojo was thinking straight. he wasn’t supposed to fall for her.”

sukuna froze.

toji again. “yeah, well, now he’s acting like she’s the love of his life. not just some stupid bet.”

sukuna stepped closer, just behind the stone column.

choso grunted. “shit was supposed to be a joke. he was supposed to bag the shy girl, throw her a bone, and dip. i didn’t think he was even interested at first.”

“until she got cute.”

“yeah, or until sukuna started sniffing around.”

toji laughed. “classic gojo. can’t let anything belong to someone else. i like y/n tho, she's cool. got that whole girl next door thing going, didn't mind gettin abit bloodied up over her.”

sukuna’s hand curled around the edge of the wall.

there it was.

the angle.

the weapon.

he didn’t need fists. he didn’t need revenge porn or threats or violence.

he needed truth.

or what sounded close enough to it.

~

by mid-week, the whispers about the fight had started mutating.

what started as 'gojo beat sukuna’s ass for being a creep' turned into 'gojo’s just territorial' and then warped into 'gojo and sukuna fought over some bet girl.'

sukuna was playing his cards well, whispering things to all the sorority chicks that still hung around him. he knew how they liked to gossip.

'gojo bet on some girl?'

you weren’t even the first to hear it, from yuki. she had sent you a post from a confession page of your university.

'i heard that gojo was only with that girl at the party because he bet $100 on her. that’s rough!'

another one stated.

'i knew gojo didn’t actually turn soft for some quiet wall flower. i mean come on, he’s a slut, that was never a thing.'

you swallowed as you read some more.

'yep, 100% a bet. and he’s winning so far, she seems like a clueless fucking idiot, still walking around with him like some lost puppy.'

you felt suffocated, your world was slowly darkening as your eyes went dull. of course this wasn’t real, he wasn't real. of course.

you shut off your phone, ignoring the sweet messages gojo was sending you. maybe that’s why he hadn’t asked you to be his girlfriend yet, he was never planning on longevity. he told you he loved you to keep you on your toes, and god damnit it worked.

you weren’t going to be strung along any longer. you promised yourself you were going to stop hoping for a change in men, especially ones like satoru. the heart break you were feeling wasn’t anything like when you were sukuna. it was more crushing, more defeating. like you were really just some stupid idiot who got played by the notorious satoru gojo.

one thing you knew for sure, you were done with satoru gojo.

~

the rumors were like weeds.

and gojo could feel them curling around his ankles.

every hallway he walked down came with a wave of hushed tones. every class, every lunch line, every stop at the rec center. he could see it in the way people glanced at him, more curious than impressed now.

he didn’t care about his reputation. he cared about yours.

and when he caught two girls in the library whispering your name followed by the words 'pity project', he saw red.

he slammed the book in his hands shut, making them jump.

“is there something you want to say to my face?” he asked, calm but dangerous.

they didn’t. of course they didn’t.

but the damage was done.

he needed to find suguru.

~

suguru was in the alpha phi common room, looking worse for wear, one knuckle taped, a gash on his jaw.

he looked up when gojo stormed in.

“yo.”

gojo didn’t respond right away. he just threw a screenshot down on the coffee table.

it was from an anonymous confessions page.

'the only reason gojo’s simping over her is cause of some bet. sucks she thought it was legit. pretty brutal.'

suguru stared.

then sighed. “fuck.”

“yeah,” gojo snapped. “fuck.”

“i didn’t say anything. i swear. neither did nanami or choso. i—I don’t even think toji would’ve. not to sukuna.”

gojo’s jaw ticked. “someone did.”

suguru was silent.

“do you know how this looks?” gojo hissed. “she was scared, suguru. she saw that bastard’s face and shut down. and now she’s the one being dragged for it?”

“i know.”

“she’s not even talking to me.”

suguru blinked. “what?”

gojo dropped onto the couch, ran a hand through his hair. “she won’t answer. i’ve been texting her since sunday. she's left me on read.”

“shit.”

gojo stared at the floor.

“i never really thought about that bet,” he muttered. “i never even thought about her like that at first. i didn’t even want to be part of that stupid shit.”

“i know you didn’t.”

“i thought if i just stayed quiet, it wouldn’t touch her. but i was already in too deep.”

suguru nodded slowly. “and now sukuna’s using it.”

“yeah.”

silence.

then suguru stood. “we’ll fix it.”

gojo looked up.

“you’re not the same guy you were when you shook on it. she knows that. she’s just… scared. and not just of him. she’s scared of being played again. of being humiliated.”

“i would never—”

“i know. but she doesn’t. not completely. not yet.”

gojo swallowed. “so what do i do?”

“tell her everything. the whole story. before that bastard sukuna does.”

~

sukuna didn’t go for a direct attack.

no.

he started planting seeds.

a stray comment at a mixer: “gojo really did that, huh?”

a post on his burner account: “it’s crazy how guys can fake a personality just long enough to win a bet.”

and then the cherry on top: a note slipped under your dorm door.

no name. no return address.

just a single sentence:

ask him if you’re worth $2000.

you read it twenty times, hands trembling.

you didn’t know what it meant in this context, but you knew who “him” was.

and suddenly, the rumours, the whispers, the edge in toji’s voice the night of the party, it all clicked into place.

you’d been a bet.

a checklist item.

you had guessed as much, but this note seemed to really put things into perspective…

you had never felt so humiliated, so torn.

~

about two weeks had passed.

the weight of it hit him hardest in the quiet moments, when his phone buzzed and it wasn’t you. when he passed your building and saw your window dark when he'd go on walks at night around campus, when his own reflection in the mirror stared back hollow-eyed and bruised, with no one to hold his jaw and tell him to sit still while they pressed frozen peas to his face.

gojo had never been afraid of much. not pain, not humiliation, not even losing. but the thought of losing you? of you thinking even for a second that he’d played you, used you, humiliated you? that fucking petrified him.

he sat at the edge of his bed now, elbows on his knees, fingers laced and red from stress. the party lights, the noise, the crowd’s laughter, they were all static now. all he could think about was how soft your voice had sounded when you said he didn’t have to fight for you. and how wrong you were.

he had to fight. because he’d failed you once already, the moment he’d let a stupid, careless bet ruin the bond you two shared.

the more he learned about you, the less he could stomach the bet. you made him want to be better. softer. real. you didn’t give a shit about clout, didn’t care about who he was to everyone else, you looked at him like he was just a guy. and for the first time in his life, that was all he wanted to be.

just your guy.

but now you were gone. and he didn’t blame you, how could he?

what he’d said the night of the fight wasn’t a performance. it wasn’t just adrenaline. he meant every word. he loved you. loved the way you spoke when you finally let your voice rise. loved the way you always folded your hands in your lap when you were nervous. loved how fiercely you loved, even when you were afraid to.

now he had to prove it.

~

step one: own it. no dodging. no half-truths. if he wanted to make things right, he had to be honest, about the bet, about how it started, about when it stopped being a bet.

he started with a letter.

not a text, not a dm. handwritten. honest. the kind of vulnerability he used to flinch from.

he didn’t overthink it. he just wrote.

' hey,

i don’t even know how to start this. i’ve written and rewritten this stupid thing a dozen times... every version sounded either too rehearsed or too pathetic. but i guess when you screw up as bad as i did, there’s no pretty way to say it.

you deserve the truth. the real one. not the half-story people are whispering about. not the twisted version sukuna is spreading. and definitely not the one where you end up painted as a joke.

so here it is.

when i first asked for your number, that wasn't the first time i had seen you. it was actually a few days before and you were sitting alone under an oak tree at the cafe we had our first hang out at. you looked so fucking breathtaking y/n. never in my damn life had i looked at someone and felt that captured by them. you just existed in your own quiet world, and somehow that made me want to crash into it.

but i didn’t. not right away.

because i didn’t know how to approach someone like you. someone real. someone who looked as fragile and beautiful as you. so i just ignored it, ignored you. it was easier than being the guy who gets too attached, who feels too much. the guy who ends up caring more than he should. and god, i thought about you all day, and my friends were starting to notice.

then came the bet.

it was stupid. it started as a joke between suguru and choso. something like, “gojo is thinking too heavy about this girl he hasn't even made a move on yet, how comical.” i laughed it off. i always do with them. but then it became a thing. they threw money down, $500. said i couldn’t get you to sleep with me.

and i should’ve shut it down. right then. i should’ve said no, sweetheart. i should of said no.

but i didn’t.

i quadrupled it. because i felt my whole take a hit. it's so fuckijg stupid, i know. i said 2 grand says i can sleep with her by the end of may, and me and suguru shook on it.

i did it because part of me was curious. not about winning, about you. the bet was just a personal excuse to get myself to actually work up the nerve to speak to you.

so yeah. that’s the ugly truth.

it started with a bet.

but that’s not where it stayed.

because from the moment i actually talked to you, really talked to you, i felt like an idiot. you weren’t some game or conquest. you were funny in this adorable, shy way that made me want to cradle you and keep you in my arms forever. you said what you meant, in the most sincere and honestly cute way. you made me want to be quiet just to hear what you’d say next.

and somewhere in there, i forgot about the bet.

it wasn’t important anymore. it wasn’t even a thing in my head. not when you smiled at me for the first time. not when you let me walk you home. not when you touched my hand like it meant something, when we spent all this nights curled up on my bed watching movies together.

i never told you about it because i was ashamed. because i didn’t want that to be the lens you saw me through. and maybe that was selfish. maybe i should’ve come clean earlier. but i kept thinking 'i’ll tell her tomorrow. i’ll tell her when she knows me better. when she knows i’d rather bleed on a frat house floor than see her scared again.'

but then, somehow sukuna found out.

and i knew it was only a matter of time before it all came crashing down.

he got his ego stomped on when the fight broke out and he weaponised what he heard to the max. spreading the rumour like wild fire.

that note he left you? yeah, i knew the second you got it. yuki called me and screamed at me for hurting you so bad. you didn’t answer my texts for two days after, and i felt like i couldn’t breathe. i know that sounds dramatic. but you don’t understand, you were my air. the first thing i thought about when i woke up, the last before i crashed at night. every time you touched me, i wanted to ask if i was dreaming.

and now? i’ve lost the right to even text you without a response.

so here it is. all of it.

i didn’t kiss you because of a bet. i kissed you because i was falling. hard. i told you i loved you that night because i meant it. i would’ve said it again the next morning. and the one after that.

i didn’t ask you to be mine yet because i was scared. i know, me, satoru gojo, scared. but i was. you made me want things i never thought i could have. a quiet morning. a bond full of love and trust instead of a fling full of lust. a life that didn’t revolve around proving anything to anyone.

and i thought maybe i had time. time to earn your trust. to show you i wasn’t just another frat guy who got lucky with a pretty girl.

but i don’t have time anymore, do i?

because now you think i lied to you. played you. used you like some kind of trophy.

and maybe i deserve that, because it's true, and i know how fucked uo what i did was.

maybe i’ll never be able to wipe that stain from us.

but i needed you to know it was real. you are real. every second i spent with you, every laugh, every night we talked until your eyes drifted closed against my chest, that was mine. that was ours.

i love you.

not because you’re the kind of girl a guy wins bets over, but because you’re the kind of girl a guy loses them for.

and i would lose that bet a hundred times over if it meant i got to hold you once more.

if you never want to see me again, i get it. i do.

but if there’s any part of you that still believes in me,still believes in us, then come to me.

even if you don’t show, i’ll sit and wait. for as long as it takes.

—satoru '

~

he folded it carefully, wrote your name on the outside, and dropped it at your dorm with the gentlest knock he could manage.

he went to yuki. he apologised for the way this all dragged you through the mud. asked her, quietly, if she’d let you know his letter was waiting. not to pressure you, just so you knew.

then he called in a favor from shoko, who ran the school’s unofficial gossip-stopper group chat. a screenshot from her burner account landed on every platform within hours.

'bet or not, gojo’s been yearning for this girl for weeks, defending her name even after everything came out. maybe ask why sukuna’s the one pushing the narrative so much? is he jealous? vengeful after his beat down the other night?.'

it didn’t make the problem go away, but it made people pause from the constant gossip.

gojo knew it wouldn’t be a single moment of redemption. no one cheers for a frat boy with a redemption arc. and that was fine. this wasn’t about them.

he still brought you a cup of your favorite coffee the next morning. left it outside your door with a napkin under it.

he wrote: 'still here. still yours. —s.g.'

he still paused outside your classes, just to make sure you were getting in okay.

he still left you space.

because he knew this was going to be on your terms now.

he had made damn sure of that.

and if you never opened the letter, never texted back, never looked at him again, then he’d carry that.

because the only thing worse than losing you was knowing he’d made you feel small. made you feel like a bet when you were the best thing that had ever happened to him.

but if you did open that letter… if there was even a chance you’d let him say it all to your face, he’d be waiting. always.

because loving you wasn’t a game, it was the end of one.

and the start of everything else.

~

you read the letter once.

then twice.

by the third time, your tears were soaking into the ink.

your chest hurt, tight and aching, like it might collapse in on itself. because this—this—felt more honest than anything you’d ever been given before. raw and bleeding. scared and unfiltered.

the silence in your dorm room was thick.

you reached for your phone with a trembling hand.

it had lit up earlier with his name, his sweet messages, each one ignored in your panic and heartbreak. you hadn’t even read the last few.

now, you scrolled through them with a new lens.

gojo: hey. i miss you.

gojo: please just let me explain.

gojo: i didn’t mean to hurt you. i swear.

gojo: you’re not some bet. you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

your heart cracked.

you grabbed the note again, fingers brushing the last line: even if you don’t show, i’ll sit and wait.

it was nearly 9:30pm, you didn’t even think, you just moved.

sweatpants. hoodie. the jacket he once draped over your shoulders without asking.

you left your dorm and ran, not because you forgave him. not yet. but because something deep inside you, some aching, lonely, tender part, wanted to believe that love could still be real, even after it started wrong. and maybe, just maybe, gojo satoru was brave enough to prove it.

~

you didn’t knock.

you couldn’t.

your hands were trembling too hard. your thoughts were a storm, your pulse a drumbeat in your throat. you stood outside the alpha phi frat for longer than you cared to admit, the cold biting at your fingers, that letter clenched tight in your hand like it might vanish if you let go.

you didn’t know what you were expecting.

fireworks? rain? a crowd?

maybe you thought he wouldn’t be here.

but when you opened the door (it was always unlocked), quiet, slow, he was right there.

sitting on the steps inside the house, elbows resting on his knees, head bowed like he’d been carved from stillness.

like he’d been waiting.

you didn’t say anything at first.

just stood in the entryway, frozen, every breath in your lungs trying to claw its way out.

he looked up.

his eyes met yours.

and your whole world stopped.

his lips parted, like he wasn’t sure you were real.

like he’d imagined this moment too many times, and now that it was happening, he was scared to believe it.

“hey, y/n,” he said, voice low, soft.

barely a whisper. barely air.

your throat closed up.

you should’ve had something prepared. something biting, something powerful, something that would make him feel everything you’d felt, betrayal, grief, confusion. but all of it collapsed in on itself the second he looked at you like that. like you were everything.

you swallowed.

“satoru... can we? talk?” you whispered.

his eyes burned.

“anytime,” he said. “always.”

he stood, slow, like he didn’t want to spook you. like one wrong move might send you running again. he gave you space. didn’t step too close. didn’t reach for you, even though you could see the tremor in his hands, he wanted to.

he just didn’t think he was allowed.

you looked around. the common room was empty, the TV still glowing with some paused menu screen. papers were scattered on the table. a water bottle. someone’s hoodie.

so normal. so stupidly normal.

your gaze snapped back to him.

his face looked worse up close. the bruise on his cheek was fading yellow now, and there was a scratch just beneath his jaw that looked like it hadn’t healed right.

he didn’t say anything. just watched you, waiting.

you lifted the letter. “i read it.”

he nodded once, slow. “okay.”

you searched for words.

but your chest was full of thunder and broken glass, and everything that wanted to come out was a sob or a scream.

“was it true?” you asked, finally.

his eyes didn’t leave yours. “every word.”

you clutched the paper tighter.

“you bet on me,” you said. “you made me into some stupid game.”

his breath caught.

“i didn’t know you then,” he said. “i didn’t—i didn’t even want to be part of that shit. i just—i was trying to keep things easy. and then you walked into my life and everything stopped being easy.”

you blinked hard, trying to hold back the tears building behind your eyes. “so you just… forgot to tell me?”

he flinched like you’d slapped him.

“i was scared,” he admitted, voice breaking. “i didn’t want to lose you. i thought if i never brought it up, if i just showed you how much i cared, then maybe it wouldn’t matter.”

“but it does matter,” you said, finally letting your voice crack. “it matters so much, satoru. i trusted you. you were one of the only people i could actually talk to without getting choked up and nervous..."

he nodded. once. hard.

“i know.”

“i let you in. i—I believed you when you said you loved me.”

“i meant it,” he said, desperate. “i still mean it. i love you. i didn’t even know it was love until it was too late and i was already in too deep and—”

you stepped forward. “you don’t get to say that just to fix it.”

he stopped.

you were close enough to touch now. your fingers ached to reach for him, but your heart couldn’t move.

not yet.

“you don’t get to write me a beautiful letter and stand here and wait and think that’s enough.”

he swallowed, throat bobbing.

“it’s not enough,” he said. “i know that.”

you looked at him, really looked at him.

the boy with the cocky grin and stupidly beautiful eyes. the boy who wore his heart like armor until he ripped it open for you. the boy who bled for you. fought for you. lied to protect a truth he didn’t know how to tell.

“i thought you were different,” you whispered.

“i am,” he said. “because of you.”

you shook your head, blinking back tears. “you hurt me.”

he stepped forward this time. just one pace. close, but not too close.

“then let me fix it.”

your bottom lip trembled.

he reached out, slow, trembling, and took your hand, folding it gently into his.

“please,” he said. “i know i don’t deserve a second chance. i know i fucked this up. but if there’s even one part of you that still believes in what we had—”

“have,” you said quietly. “not had.”

his breath caught.

your voice was shaking. “i don’t want to stop feeling this. i don’t want to pretend you don’t mean something to me. i just, I need to know it’s real. that i wasn’t some project. some stupid fucking conquest for your frat friends to laugh at.”

he stepped in.

this time you let him.

his hands cupped your face so gently it almost undid you his soft fingers cascading over your delicate cheeks.

“you are everything to me,” he whispered, forehead leaning into yours. “this isn’t a game. it never was. not after i met you, sweetheart.”

your breath hitched.

“you made me want to be better,” he said. “and i know that’s such a tired fucking line, but it’s true. you... you saw something in me no one else ever tried to. and i want to spend the rest of my life earning that.”

you closed your eyes.

and the tears slipped out anyway.

he kissed them away, feather-light, mouth trembling against your cheek.

“i’m sorry,” he breathed. “for the bet. for the silence. for letting someone like sukuna get in your head. i should’ve protected you better. told you sooner. i should’ve told the world you were mine and never let them question it.”

“i’m not yours,” you whispered.

he froze.

but you lifted your hand and pressed it to his chest.

“not yet,” you said. “but i want to be.”

his breath left him like he’d been shot.

and then he kissed you.

not with hunger, not with fire—but with devotion.

soft and slow, like a promise being made with lips instead of words.

you kissed him back, fingers curling into his hoodie, anchoring yourself in the only thing that felt steady.

him.

when you broke apart, he pressed his forehead to yours again, both of you breathing like you’d just run a marathon through hell.

“so,” you said, voice wobbling, “this is the part where you ask me to be your girlfriend y'know..."

he laughed, breathless, eyes wet. “fuck, no. i’m way past that.”

your brows rose as you looked up at him through your pretty lashes.

“i’m asking you to let me start over,” he said. “properly. no bets. no lies. just… me. loving you. no matter how long it takes for you to trust me again.”

you stared at him for a long moment.

then: “okay.”

his breath caught.

“okay?”

“yeah,” you said, smiling, watery but real. “okay. one slow start.”

he laughed again, and it broke open something beautiful in your chest.

and when he hugged you, arms around your waist, your face buried in his neck, you held on like maybe, just maybe, this time love was something worth holding onto.

~

later that night, you sat curled into him on his bed, still in your hoodie and sweats, with a bag of chips between you and the Lion King playing very quietly in the back.

he had one arm around you, the other lazily twirling your hair.

“i was going to show up outside your dorm like a rom-com loser,” he mumbled.

“you kinda are a rom-com loser,” you teased, leaning into him.

he grinned, that stupid, perfect, heart-cracking grin. “yeah, but i’m your rom-com loser now.”

you rolled your eyes, but didn’t deny it.

because yeah.

he was.

your eyes softened as you curbed into his touch.

"i missed you, toru."

he let out a soft laugh. "toru, huh? only suguru calls me that. it's cute coming from your pretty little mouth."

you giggled and kissed his cheek.

'god, this is bliss.' he thought.

he finnaly had you. all to himself. no stupid bet hanging over his head, no sukuna swimming around in the shadows waiting to pounce, and no expectations.

just you, and him.

~

you don’t know when the laughter fades.

you’re still curled into him, your head resting on his chest, his heartbeat steady beneath your cheek. the ice cream’s melted, the movie’s long since ended, but neither of you moved, not really. just soft touches, occasional whispers 'i love you', the silence warm instead of heavy.

his fingers trace lazy shapes against your back.

your hand plays with the hem of his shirt.

and somewhere between a breath and a heartbeat, everything shifts.

his touch lingers a second longer. your fingers slip beneath the fabric, barely there, but enough to make his breath catch.

he tilts his head, just enough to look down at you.

you meet his gaze.

and the air between you thickens.

your lips part, but you don’t say anything. don’t need to. not when his eyes are already dropping to your mouth, like he’s waiting for permission.

you give it without a word.

his kiss this time is different.

not soft. not slow.

hungry.

like the dam finally cracked and all the restraint he’s been holding back with both hands floods loose.

your hands slip up his shirt, palms skating over warm skin and muscle, and he groans against your mouth, low and wrecked, like he’s been dreaming of this.

he pulls back, just enough to search your face.

“are you sure?”

your heart stutters.

you nod. “i want you, toru.”

his expression twists, like that means more to him than it should.

“you have me,” he says, voice rough, reverent. “every part.”

he kisses you again, and this time he lays you back, gentle but firm, like he’s terrified you’ll vanish if he isn’t careful.

and when his mouth trails down your neck, hands slipping beneath the hem of your hoodie, he looks up one last time,

waiting.

you nod again.

this time, he doesn’t stop.

his nips became focused, pulling adorably pornographic moans from your sweet mouth, groaning himself at the sounds.

he made his way down your neck and whispered the softest, sweetest words you'd ever heard during intimate moments like these.

'god, y/n you're perfect sweet heart...' 'you look so pretty baby girl.' 'so sweet for me'

he gently lifted up your hoodie, removing your clothes like he was worshipping a goddess. he feathered his fingers over your skin, taking in your half naked body with hungry yet appreciating eyes. you stared at him as if you were waiting for him to hurry up and tear your underwear and bra off, but he didn't. he traced his fingers up and down your sides.

"are you comfortable taking these off baby? we can leave them on if it makes you feel better."

your eyes almost welled over with tears. almost.

because it wasn’t the question itself, it was the way he asked it. like it mattered. like you mattered. like your comfort was just as important as his desire.

you nodded slowly, shyly, a little embarrassed by how much that question meant to you.

“yeah,” you whispered, barely audible. “i want you to see all of me.”

his eyes searched yours for a beat longer, just to be sure. then he leaned down and kissed your temple so gently it made your chest ache.

“thank you,” he murmured, brushing your hair back. “for trusting me.”

you couldn’t look at him when you slid your underwear off. not at first. heat burned at the tips of your ears, your throat going tight as you lay back against the pillows, arms twitching with the instinct to cover yourself.

but then you felt his hand slip into yours.

“hey,” he said softly, coaxing your gaze back to his. “you don’t have to hide. you’re… god, you’re beautiful.”

you swallowed hard. the raw way he looked at you made you feel fragile, but not in a bad way. in a held way. like he wasn’t going to break you. like he’d never even try.

“it’s okay,” he added, brushing the backs of his fingers along your cheek. “i know it’s different. i know he—” his jaw twitched, but he caught himself. “you don’t have to be scared of being touched anymore. not like that.

you blinked up at him, breathing shaky.

“it wasn’t always rough with him,” you whispered before you could stop yourself. “at first, he made me feel wanted. and then… he started pulling away. touching me when i didn’t want it. saying it was my fault if i wasn’t in the mood.”

gojo’s expression darkened, but he didn’t interrupt.

“he said i was cold,” you added, eyes fluttering shut. “and selfish. that if i really cared, i’d let him—” your voice cracked. “so i started pretending to want it. just to make him happy.”

you waited for disgust. for pity. for him to recoil.

but all you got was a fierce, aching tenderness.

he kissed the center of your chest, right over your heartbeat, and stayed there for a long moment.

“you never deserved that,” he said finally, voice thick with emotion. “none of it. you weren’t selfish, you were scared. and he used that. twisted it.”

his hands cupped your sides, warm and steady.

“i’m not him, y/n. and this isn’t about proving anything. it’s just us. just this moment. and if you ever want to stop—if you even flinch—i’ll hold you and we’ll watch cartoons instead. deal?”

you laughed, choked and watery, but a real laugh all the same.

“deal,” you whispered, threading your fingers through his messy white hair.

he kissed you again, slow and sweet and grounding.

and as his lips moved back down your body, there was no rush. no pressure. just love, in every brush of his fingertips, in every kiss he pressed to your bare skin, in every gentle whisper that reminded you this time was different.

because this time, you were safe.

this time, you were wanted, not as an obligation, or a trophy, or a conquest.

but as you.

and god, gojo satoru was going to make sure you never forgot it.

he too took off his clothes, peeling back his shirt along with his sweat pants. your eyes blew out at just how gorgeous he was. he was smooth, pale, clean. like his body was sculpted up in the heavens by an old greek-man. he was a stark difference to sukuna. he was leaner, prettier. no tattoos to hide a fragile ego behind, no flashy clothing. just him, and the delicate silver chain he always wore that seemed to perfectly reflect his persona.

you found yourself running your hand over his chest. he smiled and cupped your cheek. with the both of you now naked, satoru had you pulled right against his body as he kissed every naked inch. he made his way down to your adorably perky nipple, taking one into his mouth, and rolling it on his tounge, earning a long drawn out whine from you. he could feel his cock ache with each little moan, every little twitch of your body.

he trained his tongue down your torso slowly until he was down by your heat. he looked up at you, smiling softly as he slowly prayed your legs open, holding your lower calf and kissing the inside of your ankle.

'you're perfect.'

you were starting to get embarrassed at how sensual he was being, but god did it feel good. you couldn't help the groan that escaped your mouth when he started massaging the plush skin of your bare thigh, his eyes locked on your dripping pussy.

"awhh baby, you're so wet for me. didn't know something as cute as you could get so messy." he teased, moving his hands higher and higher up your thighs until his long finger tips were brushing over the skin of your labia. his fingers were like electricity. he hadn't even gotten to the sweet part yet but you could feel a tight coil tightening in your stomach. he was going tantalisingly slow, licking his lips as he ran his fingers over everywhere but your clit.

you looked up at him with shy eyes, like you wanted, needed to ask him to keep going.

he just smirked, looking down at you with eyes full of a bubbly kind of lust, he was high on the moment.

"what is it baby girl? you need me to do something?"

you covered your mouth out of habit, nodding shyly as you fought the urge to just grab his hand and place the pads of his fingers over your clit yourself.

''oh yeah? what is it sweetheart? you seem a bit hot and bothered. want me to touch... here?" as soon as the words left his mouth his middle finger pressed down hard on your clit, finally letting you release the choked up moan you were holding in. he smirked even wider as he started rolling the sensitive bud under his finger. "you look so fucking cute... squirming around just from a little pressure? wonder what you'll do when i actually slam my cock into this pretty little hole..."

you almost choked at how vulgar he suddenly got, nothing like the soft satoru you were used to but god, it was hot. all sense of slowness disappeared after that moment, and satoru, without warning, slammed two of his long thick fingered up into your tight little hole.

"f-fuck! t-toru oh my-"

you couldn't finnish, strangled moans was all that came out of your mouth as he pumped his fingers in and out with precision and skill. "gonna make you feel so good honey. so fucking good."

he curled his fingers, hitting that spongy spot deep inside your cunt making you gasp and grab at his navy bed sheets. he moved his head down and begun to suck on your clit with his long tongue rolling it backwards and forth. you were shaking from the pleasure, right coils about to burst inside your stomach were becoming harder to ignore as you moaned louder and louder, the shy girl everyone knew was long gone as your silky voice became wracked with pretty moans. satoru lied into your pussy as he felt you start to get closer and closer, he missed your clit and picked up the pace with his fingers, making you groan and cry out. 'toru- you're hah amazing... holy shit you're so- fuck- good!"

his eyes rolled back at the sound of your voice, slamming his fingers deeper inside, finger fucking you so good. "s-shit toru! i'm gonna- i'm gonna!"

he didn't let you finnish, he sucked harder on your clit and fucked his fingers impossibly deeper, finally, you came undone all over his chin.

he looked very pleased, still staring at your cunt with heart eyes.

he was quick to lap up every drop, sucking your entrance with a satisfied groan.

"shit- y/n... your pussy is so perfect baby. you're so fucking perfect. need to fuck you honey- so bad."

as you caught your breath, body slightly shaking beneath him, you watched as he sat up, pulling off his boxers to reveal the most perfect cock you had ever seen... it was long, with a red angry tip already covered in translucent pre. he smiled as he watched you stare with wide eyes.

"think you can handle it sweet thing? if it's too much we can always-"

"no! no. i want you toru. i want you so bad, please fuck me."

the look of disbelief on satoru's face was priceless. never in a million years did he expect such a blunt statement from the shy girl he grew to knew, but holy fuck, was his cock 10x harder now.

"as you wish, precious."

he took his position back inbetween your legs, hovering over you. he placed one hand beside your head, the other on his aching cock.

"i'll go slow baby. just relax for me sweet girl, i'll make you feel so good."

he was honest, he slipped the tip in slowly, you let out small moans as it stretches you out, he kissed your temple as he whispered reassurance in your ear.

'you can take it baby.' 'you can do it y/n'

he slid the rest of his length in, bottoming out with a deep groan.

"so fucking tight."

you could only manage hiss through clenched teeth, you felt so deliciously full. he looked into your eyes for permission to move, and the look of pure lust he got in return was all he needed before he started to slowing thrust on and out of your perfectly tight heat.

your hands gripped the sheets beneath you as he pushed his hips down further and further into you, pinning you down in a mating press. you could form no words as he picked up his pace, the only noise coming from your mouth was strings of moans, 'nnnghh- toru!' 'f-fuck- so good- i-'

he held your hips as he pounded deeper and deeper, holding you still as he abused your g-spot. your velvety walls clenched around his long cock, making him grunt with each thrust. "holy fucking shit y/n hah, so good for me, so fucking good for me baby. holy fuckkk you're so goddamn tight- hah!."

he slammed into you at a feverish pace, you could feel your world dizzying as his movements fucked into you in all the right places. he was so dominant, yet so gentle. his pace was controlled, his hands didn't grip you crushingly, and he peppered small kisses over your forehead as he thrusted in and out. it was perfect.

"baby- fuck- you're so pretty like this honey. so cute looking so fucked out for me- hah-"

you bit your lip as you tried to respond, but your climax was coming too quick, you couldn't even think. a hand flew to his shoulder as you squeezed tightly. satoru could feel your walls closing in harder on his cock, and he smiled knowing you were close. he rutted his hips deeper, faster, chasing your high like it was the only thing that mattered, because to him? it did. your pleasure was the only thing concerning him.

he looked into your eyes and saw them dilate, you were right on the edge.

"cmon baby. you can do it sweetheart- cum for me- cum for toru baby. you can do it-"

his words sent a shiver down your spine as you let out a loud and very sexy moan, your high crashing over you like a tidal wave. satorus came not long after, he pulled out quickly and stroked his length, coming undone onto your lower belly.

you were too fucked out to notice, you had just revived the best dicking down of your damn life.

before he had a chance to calm down, satoru was already grabbing for wet wipe beside his bed to clean you up. he wiped the cum off of your body and kissed your forehead softly.

"sorry for not cumming in a tissue baby, i just-"

"shh toru. it's fine, it's fine, i'm on birth control you could of just finished inside."

you smiled up at him as his sorrowful expression faded. he chukled and kissed your cheek. "i'll keep that in mind sweetheart."

he rushed off to grab a hot cloth and came back, tenderly washing off your body as he whispered sweet words into your ear.

'you were so perfect baby.' 'that was so perfect.'

~

your head was tucked under his chin, your body still humming from the moment you’d just shared. the room was dim, washed in gold from the lamp on his desk. the covers were tangled around your legs, your skin still warm where his hands had touched you like you were something breakable. something precious.

you were quiet, heart pounding against his ribs like it was trying to break free, like it didn’t quite believe it was safe yet.

gojo’s fingers traced idle patterns along your back, slow and feather-light, like he didn’t want to disturb the silence but still needed to be connected to you somehow. his other hand was curled around yours where it rested between your chests, your fingers interlocked like the spaces between them had been made just for this.

“you okay?” he asked softly, breath warm against your hair.

you nodded.

then, after a moment, you whispered, “i didn’t know it could be like that.”

his hand paused, then resumed its path over your skin. “like what?”

“gentle.”

your voice was so small, so fragile, he almost missed it.

gojo’s chest rose and fell in a slow, steady breath. “was it too much?”

“no,” you said quickly. “no, it was… it was perfect.”

you pressed your face into his chest, ashamed of the tears building in your eyes. you weren’t supposed to be crying right now, not after something like that. but you couldn’t help it. your body was still trying to reconcile softness with safety. intimacy with kindness.

his arms tightened around you instantly.

“talk to me,” he murmured.

you hesitated. “with sukuna… it was never like this.”

gojo didn’t speak, just waited, patient and still.

“it was always rough. like he didn’t care if it hurt. like he wanted it to.” you swallowed hard. “he used to tell me i was lucky he even wanted me. like i should be grateful.”

gojo’s jaw clenched under your cheek, but his touch never changed. he didn’t pull away. didn’t interrupt.

“he didn’t see me,” you whispered. “not really. not like you do.”

gojo kissed the top of your head, long and slow. “i see you,” he said quietly. “i see everything. and i want all of it.”

your throat tightened.

“you’re not something to be tolerated, or controlled, or used,” he said. “you’re not here to make someone feel bigger by making yourself smaller. not anymore. not with me.”

you clutched his hand a little tighter.

“you don’t have to thank me for being kind to you,” he added after a moment. “that should’ve been your bare minimum. and i hate that it wasn’t.”

his voice cracked at the edges, like he was holding something in.

you looked up slowly.

his eyes were red-rimmed, glassy with unshed tears. “i hate that he made you feel like you were hard to love.”

your chest broke open.

“you’re not,” he said. “you’re easy to love. so easy, i don’t even know when it happened. it just… did.”

your lip trembled. “i was so scared to want this. to want you.”

“i know,” he said softly. “but you’re safe now. i promise.”

he kissed your forehead, then your cheek, then the tip of your nose—each one slower than the last, like he was memorizing you piece by piece.

“you can be quiet,” he murmured. “you can be shy. you can be soft, and unsure, and afraid. i’ll still be here.”

you let the tears fall then. not because you were broken, but because you were healing. and healing always hurt a little.

he wiped them away with the pads of his thumbs, then pulled you even closer, if that was possible.

“do you want to talk about him?” gojo asked gently. “or anything else?”

you were quiet for a long time. then, your voice barely audible:

“there was this one night… i said i was too tired. it was finals week and i hadn’t slept in two days. i could barely keep my eyes open, and he just... he laughed. said, ‘too tired? who the hell do you think you are?’ and then he grabbed my arm.”

gojo didn’t speak, didn’t even breathe too loud.

“he didn’t hit me,” you said quickly. “not that night. but he left bruises on my wrist from how tight he held me. and after… he made me apologize. said i was being dramatic. that i needed to learn my place.”

a sound tore from gojo’s throat then, low and wrecked.

your breath hitched, embarrassed suddenly, but he leaned in, touched his forehead to yours.

“you never had to earn love,” he said fiercely. “and you never deserved that. not ever.”

you looked at him, eyes shimmering.

“you’re not dramatic. you’re not wrong for needing rest. or comfort. or boundaries.” he touched your hand where it rested on his chest. “you don’t ever have to explain why something hurt. if it hurt, that’s enough. that’s valid.”

your lips parted, stunned by how simple he made it sound. how obvious.

“i’m so sorry you went through that,” he whispered. “but you’re not alone anymore.”

you nodded, voice thick. “i know.”

“you can tell me every memory, every scar. i’ll hold them all.”

you curled in tighter to him, face pressed to the curve of his neck. “i think that was the worst part. not the bruises, not the yelling. it was how small he made me feel. like i was disposable.”

gojo’s voice was hoarse. “you’re the most irreplaceable thing in my life.”

you blinked up at him, heart cracking wide open.

“i love you,” he whispered. “so much it hurts.”

your breath caught.

“but i’ll wait until you’re ready to say it back. no pressure. no expectations.”

you squeezed his hand.

and for the first time in a long time, you believed it, fully, wholly, in your bones.

you were safe.

you were seen.

you were loved.

and for the first time, you weren’t afraid to be soft.

"i love you too, satoru. so much."

RAHHHH CHAT MY FIRST LONG FIC DONE WAS THAT GAS?!🫦🫦🫦

seeing the sweet comments literally made me giggle and kick my feet i love you ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

[huxhsz]

✈ — weightless paradise

transmigrated non-mc!reader x caleb

prev ch: 06 - name┆series masterlist ┆next ch: 08 - fear

This isn’t how the game was supposed to go. You're not supposed to be here. You're an anomaly. But if you’re already here, then… can’t you just enjoy it for now? Just for a little while? Before the main story begins? Before everything inevitably falls into place? ...Right?

— content warning/s:

n/a

cross-posted on ao3! ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و ♡

CH. 07 — DREAM

The shelter smells faintly of metal and disinfectant, the lights overhead flickering unsteadily. It's cramped, the thin walls barely holding out the noise of the chaos outside—the distant screams, the sharp cracks of gunfire, the low rumble of something massive moving through the city.

You sit near the back of the room, knees pulled to your chest. Eden is beside you, small and quiet, her head resting lightly against your shoulder. Caleb sits across from you, legs stretched out, a book open in his hands.

It’s been days since the Chronorift Catastrophe. Days since the world fell apart.

Outside the shelter’s narrow window, the sky is hazy with smoke. Occasionally, sleek black shapes cut through the gloom—fighter jets. The only organized response left, streaking through the sky like sharp lines of silver and black.

“Look!” Caleb’s hand shoots out, finger tracing the sky.

You follow his gaze, squinting into the glare of the sun as a sleek, gray aircraft cuts across the sky. Twin afterburners flare behind it, leaving a faint vapor trail in its wake.

“The F-22 Raptor,” Caleb breathes, eyes alight with rare excitement. “Fifth-generation stealth fighter. Twin-engine. Thrust-vectoring nozzles give it insane maneuverability. Those wings? Delta configuration for reduced radar signature.”

He grins, teeth flashing as he watches it arc into a sharp bank. “Mach 2 top speed, internal weapon bays for reduced drag. And the AESA radar? Practically untouchable in a dogfight.”

He’s glowing—animated in a way you rarely see, his hands moving as he explains. You can’t even pretend to understand half of what he’s saying, but you don’t stop him.

“Imagine flying that,” Caleb murmurs, voice soft with wonder. His gaze follows the jet until it disappears beyond the clouds. “You wouldn’t have to answer to anyone. Just you and the sky.”

Freedom. That’s what he means.

“You really know your stuff,” you say, glancing at him.

Caleb shrugs, but the edge of his mouth lifts in a self-satisfied tilt. “I read.”

He taps the battered book on his lap. A technical manual of some sort, the cover worn from overuse. You’ve seen him pouring over it for days now, flipping through diagrams and schematics. The people at the shelter didn’t have much to give, but someone handed Caleb a box of old books, and he’s been devouring them ever since.

“You want to fly?” you ask, and you already know the answer.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice soft with longing. “If I could…” He trails off, shaking his head.

You think of the facility. Of the cage you lived in. Of the walls that Caleb once tried to tear down with his bare hands. Flying—leaving it all behind—wouldn’t that be… freedom?

Caleb sighs, stretching his arms behind his head. “Guess I’ll have to settle for the next best thing.”

“And what’s that?”

He smiles. “Learning how to fix them.”

He says it so casually, like it’s normal to talk about high-level military tech. Like it’s not strange for someone who was raised in a lab to know this.

“You’re seriously into this, huh?” you say.

Caleb’s gaze follows the fighter jets until they vanish behind the smoke. His expression softens, a rare crack in his guarded exterior.

“You want to be a pilot?”

“Maybe,” he says. Then, quieter: “I want to know what it feels like. To leave.”

You don’t know what to say to that. He’s never known freedom. None of you have.

“I’d become a Deepspace Hunter.”

Eden’s voice is soft but steady. You and Caleb both turn toward her. She’s sitting up now, her dark eyes bright despite the dim light.

“To protect myself,” she says. “From the Wanderers. So I don’t have to rely on anyone else.”

She’s so sure of it. Like she’s already decided.

Caleb hums, his mouth curving into a small smile. “Good plan.”

She tilts her head toward him, her expression earnest. “And you? Would you protect people too?”

Caleb’s smile fades. He looks back toward the window, his gaze distant.

“I don’t know,” he says. His voice drops lower. “I think I’d just want to go where no one could reach me.”

Silence settles between you. Eden leans her head back against your shoulder. Caleb’s eyes linger on the sky.

And you—

You don’t know what you want.

You were pulled from your world and dropped into this one without warning, without preparation. You’d adapted to the lab because there was no other choice. But now?

You stare down at your hands. They’re shaking.

“I don’t know,” you whisper.

Eden closes her eyes, breathing evenly. Caleb’s hand shifts, resting lightly beside yours on the floor. Close, but not touching.

It’s not much. But it’s something.

[electricgaunt]

thinking about Jason and Shoka talking about being brought back from death

[slapintoaslimjim]

Can i request best friend katsuki finds out we are dating shoto BUT he has had a crush on us since 1st year of ua (can we be in 2nd year in this?)

Absolutely love love LOVE your fics <33

a/n: oh holy shit a possible tension/angst fic? “everybody gotta die, including me” or wtv cory said because angst WRECKS me but yk what? HELL YEAH! also thank you soooo much for your love and support ! <3

let it happen

now playing: bad religion by Frank Ocean

fem reader is implied ! angst is the only warning 2nd year based so this is post war arc!

Katsuki may have never been the best with words, or displaying his emotions, or even identifying them as a matter of fact, but after the war he knew one thing for sure. He didn’t just like you- no.

He loved you.

Seeing his own classmates battered on the battlefield during the war did more on him mentally than he thought it would. but what really affected him the most was the bloodcurdling scream of his name you let out when his body hit the ground after shigaraki basically destroyed him.

he couldn’t even see anything. he couldn’t hear anything else; but he knew there was a lot of noise. but the last thing he remembered hearing was you. your scream of pure horror.

so if the whole war arc wasn’t already enough mental baggage, why did the universe decide to be so unfair and make his heart feel so much more heavier than it already is?

sure, katsuki pushed you away the first few months at UA, he did with everyone. he was only there to be a hero, didn’t want to mingle with people who he thought were below him. he didn’t think he had time for all of that.

keyword; was. not is.

because quickly, during katsuki’s time as a first year at UA he made friends with his classmates, even rebuilt his friendship with Izuku. but you? you had a mind of your own that you weren’t even aware about. you found a way to sliver into his heart, soften edges around him, and lighten his day a little bit without even noticing it.

but after eavesdropping on a conversation he had no business listening in on, katsuki is tempted the universe is just trying to give him karmic lesson after karmic lesson of some sort.

“but you and todoroki are so cute together!” uraraka, ever the supportive best friend she was, said with an adorable eager smile to you as you talk to her about you and todoroki.

he felt his heart drop to his stomach at those words and suddenly the popsicle he wanted was unappetizing. he started listening in further to your conversation with uraraka subtly from the common room kitchen; forcing himself to look busy before just straight up leaving since he felt the air clawing out of his throat with every passing gushing word you spoke.

your happiness mattered so much to him, but goddamnit he would be lying if he said he didn’t wish it was him you were gushing over instead of todoroki.

you were never his. and he was never yours.

and that fact pained him so terribly much, and affected him more than he wanted to. the one person he finally let his guard down around, opened up to, gone to someone else.

“kats?” your voice cut through his racing thoughts, where he sat on the dorm rooftop watching the sunset; this was your activity, your spot, where the two of you found a routine in debriefing your days while watching the sunset.

and god, katsuki couldn’t ignored you even if he wanted to. and he really and truly wanted to. but his heart spoke before his mind could and he turned towards you.

“yeah?” he replied with his usual softer gruff that he had when he was around you.

you made your way closer to katsuki, sitting beside him as you two usually would do before speaking again. “you’ve been.. distant as of recently. is everything okay?” you ask softly and carefully, not wanting to sound accusatory.

katsuki pulled his gaze away from you with a scoff under his breath. of course you would notice his behavioral changes, you always did. both of you did with each other’s moods.

“s nothin” katsuki replies to you with a head shake and a soft chuckle; the soft chuckle aimed at himself for how pathetic he feels like he’s being right now. “don’t worry about it”

“suki you know you don’t have to hi-“ you didn’t even get a chance to finish before katsuki cut you off.

“y/n.” katsuki starts firmly with a sigh before looking over at you. your soft beautiful features, and worried expression. you have a boyfriend, shoto todoroki even, why were you so worried about him?

“i’ll be fine. just give me time to get over myself” katsuki speaks softly, barely above a whisper. you’ve never seen him like this before, so distant and obviously mentally battling something.

you let his words simmer in the air for a moment, resting your head on his shoulder. katsuki mentally debates the want to push you away or get up and move away for the sake of his own sanity, his own stability, and maybe the hurt won’t be so bad anymore. but he doesn’t. he lets your head rest on his shoulder, wrapping an arm around your shoulder like he usually does. it felt so natural, so normal for him to do.

“i’m not going anywhere, and im here whenever your ready to talk” you spoke softly, looking out at the sunset in the distance as katsuki rests his head against yours.

he inhales softly “i know” he says. and lets himself believe it. that no matter what; your relationship status, or the uncomfortable and painful emptiness that only you could fill in him, that you aren’t going anywhere.

a/n: hiya! this ruined me so i had to end it on at least a sort of bright light. there might be a possible part 2 depending on what people think of this and if i get another ask/comment on how i should write it!

[maxwell-grant]

There's a trend people have pointed out in superhero stories over the past 20 or so years that is the death of "regular" supporting casts, an increasing absence of un-powered sidekicks or people involved who aren't in the thick of the action or in the hero's secret. Everyone who interacts with superheroes is a couple issues away from becoming one, every story involves a supervillain encounter or several dozen, every hero's gotta have a lunchbox-ready "superhero family" made from these characters, and every side character that doesn't join them is either going to die or become a supervillain.

The defining example people use for this is Spider-Man's supporting cast, with every Spider-Man cast member short of Aunt May and J Jonah Jameson getting some kind of powered upgrade or symbiote, and I'm gonna say Amanda Waller is an excellent case study of how this kind of thing happens, and I think it helps to explain why Amanda Waller has been, Like That, for the past 30 years.

She’s wearing a grey shirt underneath a blue blazer and it’s tucked into a similarly blue skirt that stops at mid calf. She reminds me of the neighbourhood aunties I used to see leaving for church every Sunday morning.

My mom used to say that you are the company you keep. So what kind of person does it take to keep a variety of bruised, battered, and dangerous personalities in check? - Amanda Waller: DC's Most Terrifying Woman

To those of you who haven't read John Ostrander and Kim Yale's Suicide Squad, there once was a time where Amanda Waller was something more than a powerful antagonistic force able to butt heads with the biggest superheroes, and something other than a heartless establishment face out to make superheroes miserable for ill-defined reasons. Structurally speaking, Suicide Squad is a comic about marginal DCU characters forced to deal with actual real life problems, and it's central character is a marginalized person forced to deal with DCU problems and characters. The members of the Squad are a rolling parade of costumed misfits and maniacs assigned to go around the globe to fight and kill and die on dirty missions to deal with dirty laundry and stop war zones from erupting, while Amanda Waller is forced to shuffle around her cadre of D-list supervillains and disgraced superheroes and get into stand-offs with secret spy societies, living nukes, voodoo cartels, and Batman.

Amanda Waller neither looks nor acts like the kind of character that stars in a superhero comic, and she is the central character throughout the 66 issues of the run and we follow her character arc from beginning to end as she's forced to spin plates to accomplish her goals and prevent bad situations from getting worse. She is the most fully realized character in the run and everything rests on her shoulders. We spend a lot of time inside her head, her team, her associates, she is the center holding together an extremely chaotic book with no two characters on the same page. She is, and has to be, an extremely powerful person, someone who stands her ground no matter what, an unbeatable force of will because that is the only way she's going to survive the situations she's in, the only way she can be "The Wall", the kind of person who can repel Batman, command a platoon of monsters, talk her way out of Deadshot's contract, someone who can stare at Darkseid and credibly threaten the President into letting her live.

That's the part that everyone is more or less familiar. But there is, or at least used to be, much more to Amanda Waller than just being The Wall, not in the least because being The Wall is also hampering her effectiveness as well as straight up killing her.

"Amanda's toughness has taken her a long way" "It's taken her as far as it can. But it can't take her no further. It's actually starting to drag her down. I'm scared for my baby sister, rev - scared that the anger in her is congealing into hate." - Suicide Squad #31

We get to know her backstory, her plans, her points of contention with the system, her relationships with people around her, and how deeply she cares about things and people even as she sends them to the meatgrinder. From the start we learn that Waller staffs her team with people she's prone to getting into disagreements with, like Simon LaGrieve and Rick Flag, specifically so they can cover her moral blind spots and pick up the slack in emotional intelligence she's lacking, be the heroes that she can't afford to be. It is unspeakably crucial that the Squad is led by Rick Flag as well as Bronze Tiger, a fallen hero who owes Waller for his recovery who eventually takes Flag's baton. Waller stands up for her team, gets into fights with her superiors when they decide to terminate them, and takes the fall for them when necessary. Waller is a person who does Bad Things - but she is not a Bad Person.

The book in no uncertain terms frames the Suicide Squad's existence as monstrous in a scale Waller doesn't understand until the very end, and it digs deep into the unethical things Waller has to allow for and perpetrate in order to keep it running no matter how many lives it saves, and she spends the first half of the book on a downward spiral. But then there's the 2nd half of the book:

In the first 39 issues, Amanda’s flaws are her undoing. As she pushes away the people she hired to act as a balance, she grasped tighter and tighter to her uncompromised vision of the Suicide Squad despite the constant changes and derailment. Her choices had consequences: the death of Rick Flag, her demotion, employees quitting, and finally, the disbandment of the team.

The last 27 issues have Amanda rising up from the ashes after a year in jail. She’s less in her own way – she communicates, her anger isn’t driving her, she’s more receptive of alternative perspective and recognizes when she’s wrong in real time – but she’s still just as scary.

Waller rebuilds her relationships with the people she drove away, takes a different tack to how the team works, and starts going out into the frontlines with the Squad. She brings Oracle (who actually made her debut in this comic) into the fold, saves her life and plays a big role in Barbara making progress in overcoming her Joker trauma. She genuinely puts in the work to improve as a person and do things a better way than before, even if there is an inescapable immorality to the very existence of the Squad and what they do. That immorality never goes away, and it only further horrifies her when learning how badly her project has gone. In fact, it's that very inescapable immorality that ends her arc.

She learns that the CIA has started using a new Suicide Squad to support a brutal regime in South America, and when faced with the full extent of her complicity in Western imperialism? She decides right then and there to end the Suicide Squad for good after they liberate the population of said regime from said Squad. She is the only person who gives a shit about the country enough to start the assignment for free once she knows about it, force the Squad along, lead the mission in field, and personally (and even gently) usher the villain to his death at the end, to end what began with her.

She does bad things, and she does good things. She cares about people, and she uses people. Her decisions ruin as well as save the world. She spins a million plates to match wills and wits with the strongest, wickedest, most cunning humans and superhumans alike, and she still has superiors to answer to and people close to her she hires to judge her for what she does. She endured racism and misogyny and poverty for decades and rode whatever she could to attain as much power over her own life as someone like her could possibly attain, and to have it, she must be a willing tool of the state and bend the knee to Ronald Reagan, the man she derides for what he did to her community, hating every minute of it.

She lost her family to sexual and racial violence, and now she wrangles a penal battalion comprised of some of the worst people on the planet to inflict violence on her orders. She has saved and redeemed people, and she's haunted by the corpses she's left in her wake. She is oppressed and oppressor, someone who could only escape the ravages of American imperialism by becoming one of it's chief enforcers, and still she rebuilds herself into a better person from it upon confronting and challenging her role in it. She is not a bad person, she is not a good person either, she is just afforded a degree of agency and complexity unpowered characters in superhero books simply don't get.

Okay cool, now what is she up to these days?

That, I guess. That is what a strong but unpowered person who does not allow themselves to be bossed around by superheroes or supervillains looks like now. Everytime there's a call for a military bad guy, Waller gets tagged in to be DC's Henry Gyrich. There was a point where Waller was made to contrast the likes of Sarge Steel and Wade Eiling, someone who butted heads with them because she was a well-meaning person working for and committing evil as often as she attempted to stop it. These days, the most consistent beat with her is that she is the most dangerous person alive and worse than the villains she wrangles into working for her. She is a thing to be overcome, a hypocrite to be exposed, a challenge to the natural order of the universe, and she is too terrific at it to be shuffled off quietly. She is a Bad Person and so everything she says and does is Bad (and thus can be ignored).

Integral to Suicide Squad's structure was the fact that Waller was the center holding everything together, the ultimate third party: spinning plates working with, for and against all of the others so she can bend rules and be bent by them. Bent, but never broken, because The Wall doesn't break, others break first. Waller was a one-of-a-kind character, and that broke her, because beating Sarge Steel and Wade Eiling at their own game means replacing Sarge Steel and Wade Eiling. Waller doesn't look like them, she doesn't look like the superheroes either, and so she can't be one of them. She can't even look like herself a lot of the time, they try to slim her up everytime they think they can get away with it.

Suicide Squad was preoccupied with exploring a perspective from a world outside the superhero worldview, but we no longer have her perspective or that of people around her, we only know her through the superheroes she inherently defies and has had an adversarial relationship against from day one. She is someone with a viewpoint that is charitable to neither superheroes nor institutions, and thus, the universe is increasingly less sympathetic to her, the less utility she has to the grander narrative where everyone has to pick between one of two options. If she wasn't powerful and assertive, she'd be another Leslie Thompkins, another Jiminy Cricket the heroes passively ignore. But because she is powerful and doing morally compromised things without asking Batman's permission, she must have a personal grudge. She must be a government monster. She must attack the superheroes for no reason, no ideology, no motive.

So now she's just The Wall 24/7, the mean icy establishment boot who is strong and clever and cruel and hates superheroes and wants to destroy superheroes and rule the world from the shadows. Everything she does is a fuck-up she refuses to take responsability for, everyone is right to hate and distrust mean old Waller, and now everyone gets to look good by dunking on her. They couldn't make her a superhero, so they made her a generic supervillain instead. And now that she's a bad guy, she no longer has to believe anything, she doesn't really have to mean anything, they don't have to write stories about something other than superheroes and supervillains, and they don't have to let a fat woman of color take up space and screentime they could be giving to Harley Quinn and Slade Wilson instead.

Even by the time of Waller's debut on the tail end of the 80s, her career opportunities were on their way to extinction

Days Of Future Past marks the triumph of the superhero comic that's pretty much concerned with no-one but superheroes. Where Ditko and Lee's Spider-Man featured a single costumed crimefighter in the context of a commonplace existence, the X-Men of the 80s focused on a huge cast of mutants who had little if any lasting involvement in the everyday world.

By the 21st century, the corporate superhero comic would largely - if not exclusively - concern itself with little beyond a large class of superhumans and their fantastical existence. I suspect there's a significant correlation between that and the continuing cultural  peripherilisation of the superhero comic - Colin Smith

Amanda Waller is one of the strongest characters in all of comics, she was as powerful as an non-superpowered character given center stage could possibly be, a perfectly designed character from which an entire corner of a shared universe was developed out of with her as the center making it work, but as the room for civilian casts and unpowered protagonists got smaller and smaller, so did Waller's options. If she was a Spider-Man character and somehow didn't get killed or made into a villain, they would have slimmed her up and given her a symbiote, because you're nobody unless you're web-swinging. Characters didn't look or act like Amanda Waller, and unfortunately, they still don't. It's just instead of making more characters like her, they gutted Waller to be more like the rest. If she couldn't make it, who else even could.

Keep your eyes peeled for this summer when she'll team up with two meaningless robot baddies to burn down the Justice League and I guess the universe for the next reboot or something.

[usoppsstar]

HI!!! I hope your healthy and happy :) your fics make me happy and I check to see if you've updated all the time 💗 but I got this stupid idea for a fluff drabble were a fem reader x Sanji is just the biggest hugger ever. Literally anything =hug Hes made a really hard dish? Hug. something made him really sad? Comforting Hug. Something really cool happened? Jump up and down hug. She just LOVES hugs but if he catches on and gives her one back? She will literally die and melt into the floorboards. Nah, she'll probably just turn into a blushing mess lmao

It makes me happy that my fics make you happy, thank you for requesting and I'm sorry this took so long!U⁠ ⁠´⁠꓃⁠ ⁠`⁠ ⁠U (⁠≧⁠(⁠ｴ⁠)⁠≦⁠ ⁠)

Sanji with an affectionate reader🌱🌱🌱

Pairing: Sanji x f!reader

Word count: 1.2k

Tw: Spoilers for Skypiea arc

Notes: I've had this 90% finished in my drafts FOREVER, but couldn't think of a way to finish it until just now; This is not proofread cuz it's 3 in the morning and I wanted to post this instead of waiting any longer. Sorry this theme is so wonky🌱🌱🌱

The first time Sanji ever received a hug from you was the day Luffy brought down Arlong Park. You had been by his side during the lasts of Luffy's fight and the moment Luffy broke out of the rubble and it sunk in to everyone that he'd won, you threw your arms around his neck. You both were battered, bruised,and floating in the water, but you wrapped your arms around him and cheered loudly along with the townspeople and usopp. Sanji had been in too much of a happy(bleeding) daze back then to really compute anything else that had happened after that.

The second time you hugged Sanji was only a few days later and caught him completely off guard. He pretty much thought that the first time was a fluke, that you hugged him in the heat of the moment, so he wasn't expecting you to embrace him again. He was just setting down everyone's plates for breakfast while the crew was shuffling into the kitchen,when you walked in.

“Good Morning Sanji.” You greet him softly, in the middle of stifling a yawn, and surprise him by holding your arms open. Sanji just pauses and for a moment he wonders if you're even talking to him, even though you said his name, until you walk over and wrap your arms around his lean torso. It's like the entire kitchen stops and stares, Nami, Zoro, and Usopp not believing what they're seeing. That someone of the female gender actually,willingly wanted to hug Sanji. Sanji himself is standing there like a statue,his principle of not wasting food being the only thing keeping him from dropping the plate he's holding. Your warm body only presses against his chest for a second before you're pulling away and happily taking a seat in front of your plate, ready to start breakfast. Again, Sanji can hardly recall the rest of that meal, not even the masterfully cooked food he personally made. From then on whenever Sanji received a hug from you, he just about melted into a pile of goop.

After that, Sanji finds out that you hug not just him but everyone rather casually. Even if they're just side hugs, you can be found wrapping your arms around anyone that you deem needs you to. He's seen you console Usopp this way, comfort Vivi, and wrap even the newest member, Chopper, into a welcoming cuddle. He guesses you're just an affectionate person and proceeds to indulge in your hugs with all the heart eyes and goofy declarations of love you can think of, skillfully ignoring any disappointment he had felt in that moment of realization. Still, despite his antics and how happy he seems, he never initiates a hug first. He never even really returns them either actually. He usually just freezes up in a lovestruck state, just happy that he's being touched by a woman at all. Too happy to notice that you hug him just a little more than everyone else.

It isn't until after the battle in Skypiea that Sanji finally notices that you've got a soft spot for him. He was unconscious for a long while after taking a direct bolt of lighting from Enryu when protecting Usopp, so he has no recollection of when you first saw him. All he knows is that you're holding his charred body tight against you when he wakes up, your gaze on the way Luffy was trying to climb the beanstalk leading to the Golden ship. It wasn't until he grunted quietly that you cut your eyes towards him. He didn't even have time to ask what was going on before you hugged him into your neck, accidentally squeezing an injured person harder than you should but Sanji didn't care. You could've been crying so hard and holding him like that because you thought of him the same way as everyone else,sure, but Sanji has a harder time convincing himself of that this time.

Sanji is a little more appreciative of your hugs now, proceeding a little calmer when your arms wrap around his torso while he's cooking, or when the crew is having a drink. It was no longer just receiving a hug from a pretty woman, but now being shown affection by someone he cared deeply about, not necessarily his friend, but someone important to him nonetheless. Maybe that's why he finally decided to reciprocate that affection.

“Ugh it's so hot! Someone please shave all my fur off!” Chopper complains as a few of you walk through a desert city in search of Sanji, Zoro, and Robin. As per usual, you'd all gotten spilt up while exploring, Luffy started a problem, and now you all had to find the rest of your crew so you could hightail it out of here. You're currently checking near the docks with Chopper. You pout sympathetically at your furry crew mate.

“Don't worry Chopper, we'll find them soon.” You attempt to console him, right at you hear a smooth voice call your name. Both you and Chopper turn your heads and find Robin jogging down the pier.

“Y/n! Chopper!” She calls out with a wave of her arm. You wave back while chopper cheers gleefully and runs over to her. You're walking over to her too when you finally notice the two men behind her. Sanji and Zoro are busy butting heads and you don't have to be a lip reader to know it's because Zoro got them lost.

“Sanji!” You call out happily, excited to see him after these long hours. Sanji stops bickering immediately at the sound of your voice before leaving Zoro to meet up with you. You jog to meet him halfway before stopping once you both get close enough.

“It's good we found you! C'mon we've gotta get out of here-!” You say with a smile before your face is suddenly cradled into the crook of a shoulder.

“God, I'm glad you're alright! I heard from a local that there was a fight near where your group had head off to.” Sanji sighs in relief with an arm wrapped around your shoulders and a hand cradling your head against him. You just squeak with round eyes, for the first time not knowing how to respond to a hug.

“I-I’m alright!” You assure him with your heart thumping so hard in your chest, there's no way Sanji doesn't feel it against his own. Sanji lets you go with a warm hand on your head.

“Good. Hey mosshead! It's time to go!” He says with a cute smile before turning to wrangle over Zoro. You just stand there wide-eyed before placing your hand over your beating heart. You're still processing what just happened when Robin clears her throat beside you. You look over and she's standing with a pleased look on her face, chopper beside her and covering his mouth with a giggle.

“W-what?” You ask, already knowing why they're smiling like that. Robin just sighs happily with a hand on her cheek.

“Although one can't see the blood that's undoubtedly rushing to your cheeks, the look on your face says it all-.” She sighs eloquently before you cut her off with a whine. Sanji had gotten you good.

A/n: Again I'm so sorry for waiting so long to finish this, I overthink my writing so much that it takes months and months and months to finish anything, even something I have lots of ideas for. Thank you for requesting, hope this was satisfactory! Thanks for reading!🌱🌱🌱

[busybecomingbones]

kenji sato x reader 1.3k words

You ignore it the first handful of times. The way Kenji's eyes flicker over to his father every couple of minutes. Between running bases with Emi or pitching her the ball, he'd glance over and look away just as quickly.

“It's the Grand Slam!” Ken cheers as Emi dives onto an imaginary base, “And she's safe!” He sweeps his arms, and you clap as Emi squeals happily. It's quick, and you wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't been o in tune with him but his gaze sweeps from the baby kaiju to the lawn chair Professor Sato is cheering from before swiftly snapping back.

You sidle closer to him, keeping your attention on Emi as she runs toward the lake, ready to take another swing. “You should go talk to him.”

The rocks shifting under his bare feet are the only response you get. “Ken, we couldn't have done this without him. And I think there's some things you need to unpack with him.”

You hadn't been in the room when Kenji and his dad had spoken, but you had seen the map on the wall scattered with red twine and pictures of his mom when the doors slid open. Their voices were just soft enough so you couldn't catch anything as you'd watched from the engawa as Emi chased Mina around the yard but when they emerged minutes later, the air around them was warm and mellow—no longer tainted by the sharp sparks of tension and anxiety that usually followed them when they were together.

Ken sighs, and the rocks shift again.

“Kenji?”

His hand falls on your shoulder when you turn to face him. It's probably only for a moment, but distantly, you worry about how long your eyes stay glued to him. The cool tones of the moonlight wash over the planes of his face and catch in his pale eyes, making them seem as if they're glowing. You can't seem to tear your gaze away, even as his shining eyes meet yours. “I know.”

There's a soft squeeze to your shoulder, and he's turning around to head toward his father.

“It's okay, you guys just keep playing!”

You give him a little thumbs up when he sits down and try your hardest to ignore the fluttery feeling in your chest when he smiles back. Partially to distract yourself but mostly because Emi was starting to whine at how long it was taking for someone to throw her a pitch, you scoop up a baseball from the ground, and call out a loud Batter up!

Unsurprisingly, she hits it dead on, sending it careening into the mass of trees behind you.

Your and Mina’s voice meld into one as you throw your hands up and cheer.

“Home run!”

Emi runs in a wide arc, stomping the bases only she can see as she celebrates and critters happily when Mina praises her while she rounds them out. After tossing her a couple more balls, eventually, you run out. There's more in a bag leaning against the drink cooler that Kenji is sitting beside, but there's no way you'd interrupt him. The soft look he has as he looks at his dad is something you'd hate to spoil, so you leave him be.

Emi, however, seems to have other plans. Something in the sky catches her eye, and she makes a confused noise, which causes the ever attentive Kenji to perk up.

“What's wrong, girl? What're you lookin' at?”

It takes a moment for you to zero in on what Emi seems so fascinated by. Lights are moving across the dark backdrop of the sky, no bigger than pinpricks. Stepping closer to the lake's edge, you try to get a better look.

Professor Sato calls Mina over, “Scan for incoming.”

Faintly, you hear the robot beep, “My radar systems have been jammed.”

Your stomach churns, “Emi, come on honey, we gotta go.” You reach to brush your hand against her giant paw. She only squawks in response, still curiously eyeing the now red blips in the sky. Drones.

Shooting a glance in Kenji's direction, you hope she'll listen to him as his frantic voice calls her back. She whines this time, feet shaking the gravel as she stomps closer to the lake and leans over.

“Emi!” Kenji's beside you now, and the baby turns around and displays what she'd been picking up. Bunny. The gesture would have warmed your heart if you weren't being surrounded by the beady lights of the KFD's drones. “Behind you!”

Her face scrunches up in frustration and shoots a hot pink laser from her mouth, effectively destroying the robots and sending their useless husks into the lake with resounding splashes. Air pushes past your lips in a breath you didn't realize you were holding. All that training seemed to pay off.

Your relief is short lived however when Emi starts whining, dark eyes flickering to Kenji in a panic. He doesn't notice right away, so she looks to you instead. A high-pitched, anxiety-ridden cry has your heart cracking. A pulsing wave of pink emanates from within her, and she clutches a claw to her chest.

Kenji doesn't seem to notice, waving his arm desperately, “C’mon sweetie, it's time to go!”

“Emi, what's going on, honey?” You grab her elbow with both hands, running your fingers up and down as far as you can reach to try and soothe her. She cries again and looks at Kenji before collapsing. Strange pulsing vines appear from her, someone grabs your arm and pulls you away from where you're still holding onto the kaiju before the vines conglomerate into one mass and harden, enveloping Emi in a cocoon of some kind.

Slender fingers tighten around your bicep in anxiety. At the same time, Kenji yells, “Dad what's happening?”

“She's entering a pupil stage, Kenji. She's changing.”

“Changing! Changing into what!”

“Is she going to be okay?” Kenji's dad nods his head toward you.

“She'll be fine! But she's vulnerable right now. We need to get her someplace safe.”

“Firing up the jet.” Mina pipes up, and Professor Sato starts in its direction. The uneven gravel beneath his feet and his walking cane cause him to stumble as he makes his way across the beach. Instinctually, you move to help him but are stopped by the grip still around your arm. Kenji’s anxiety is palpable, if not by the firmness of his grasp on you, then by the furrow between his eyebrows or the swollen bottom lip he'd been chewing on.

“Kenji,” Your hand lands on top of his, “she'll be okay.” His clasp loosens, and you pull free but quickly slip your hand into his.

“I can't lose her.” He meets your eyes, they aren't glowing anymore.

“You won't, Ken,” with a gentle squeeze to his palm, you try your best to reaffirm him, “but we need to get her out of here, okay?”

He squeezes back and sighs, “Okay.”

You part from him with a soft smile and jog to catch up with his dad when you notice something familiar in the sky. Blazing pinpricks of red.

“Professor Sato!” A cry rips from your throat as he turns around, features stricken in panic. He yells out Kenji's name when the first shot explodes a meter away from him, sending him tumbling forward.

“Dad!”

You aren't quick enough to stop him from hitting the ground, heart in your throat when he remains still, but you do make it in time to throw your body over his smaller one. Effectively blocking him from the explosions that erupt around him but leaving you exposed. Pieces of rock are flying everywhere, and the raging fire is blistering. You think you hear Kenji scream your name, but it's drowned out by the deafening boom of a missile exploding, not a foot from you. You're out cold before you even feel the searing burn of the flames or the impact of your body being hurled onto the rocky beach.

[merakiui]

perverse phantasmagoria: a tentacular theatre for the timid.

yandere!azul ashengrotto x (gender neutral) reader cw: yandere, nsfw, unhealthy behaviors/relationship, somnophilia, mentions of death/murder, obsession note - something short to satisfy the craving for shadow monster azul.

The monster under your bed is a marvelous magician.

Most marvelous indeed—for he can ensorcell with all manner of fantastical tricks! In flickering candlelight, shapes shift in shadow—a rabbit hopping to and fro or a bird taking flight in a flurry of feathers. A ship sinking in a sinister sea or a worm wriggling through soil. Illusions waltz upon your wall in a graceful ballet, a comforting distraction meant to soothe you to sleep when you grow somnolent.

You are the only one to witness the magnificence of this tentacular theatre. It is confined within the cubic space that is your bedroom, a nightly display projected onto the walls and ceiling, just beyond the curtains of your creaky four-poster bed. He entertains until you’re properly heavy-eyed, slipping through the slivers of reality into fruitful slumber.

While cradled in a sea of sheets, buoyed by curious, curling limbs, you dream of devilish pleasures—of treacherous temptations so visceral they would certainly scandalize the sisters at the church.

The monster under your bed never utters a word, but you know he is there.

He is cold and calm like Death, yet merciful and mystical like an angel. He carries with him odors of the ocean, enveloping you in his briny embrace every night. Tentacles loop gently around your body, sliding beneath silken nightwear, and he plays in the same skillful way he manipulates shadow. You’re strung along the highs and lows of bodily bliss, rocked gently by a creature who dwells in the darkness.

The monster under your bed does not possess a true form, but he holds bright shallows in his eyes.

Shapeless and transient, wavering through dozens of features, he mesmerizes with his stunning hues. They blink at you in the darkness, twin beacons set into a towering lighthouse. You reach for him, pushing past pitch-black phantasmagoria, and beg to see his face. He swallows all light sources, so you will never truly know if there is anything more to those beautiful blues.

The monster under your bed does not have a name, so you call him Azul. Much like his eyes when they pin you to the bed, the name sticks.

A terrible tempest rages outside, rattling the windows in their frames, battering the glass like bullets, and howling through the trees in a most fearsome gale. You lie in your bed, wide-awake and disturbed, and gaze at the canopy. Lightning cracks across the sky in a violent arc, brightening your room for a single second. The thunder follows, rumbling in deep, foreboding notes. With a shiver, you pull your duvet up to your chin. Fear is encroaching. You steel yourself, steady your pounding heart, and inhale sharply.

The monster under your bed is gentle.

He has never hurt you and you suspect he never will. But he is vindictive, a dangerous force who lurks in forgotten corridors and corners during the day. Though he remains out of light’s reach, avoiding the sun’s fingers as they spill in from windows with parted curtains, nothing escapes his glance. He is always watching. You can feel it.

The monster under your bed is brilliant pest control.

He rids the manor of rats and insects alike, swabs the ceilings of cobwebs. He feasts on venomous spiders and snakes, blood drained from carcasses small and large. Trespassers wander far enough to find themselves tangled in the tendrils of a beast. Skeletons snap and shatter in his grasp, so startlingly fast and brutal. There isn’t a scream. No tears. He does not grant them the permission to confess last words.

Flesh rots away, stripped clean from the bone. There is no distinction to be made here. Suitors are trespassers. Thieves are trespassers. Trespassers are trespassers, and they will die as such.

The monster under your bed has a sweet tooth, a discovery you’ve only recently determined. You plate pastries and slide them under your bed, and the porcelain china is returned by morning, licked clean of crumbs.

For all of his mysterious qualities, the monster under your bed is your paramour.

“Azul,” you whisper, your voice much louder in disconcerting quiet. “Are you there, Azul?”

Shadows slither up the expanse of your mattress, crawling over wrinkled linens, to meet you in the gloom. The tip of a tentacle nudges your cheek. The monster—your monster—is here.

“A detective came by today…” Blue meets you in the dark, snapped open at once. “To inquire about a select few.”

He blinks, offering silence as his stubborn reply.

“Missing lords and ladies. They say my manor is cursed and that it is these very disappearances that keep the grounds so lush. An immature accusation.” You search the shadows for a response. “You mustn’t send them to their graves, Azul.”

Another tentacle peels the duvet back to find your hand. It fits into your palm, wrapped tight like a bow on a present. Slowly and slyly, more appendages rise from the space beneath your bed to coil around your person. They massage soothing circles into your skin, exploring eagerly and peppering your flesh in frigid kisses. The effect is soporific. You slacken against the sheets, eyes fluttering shut.

“Mmh… Azul, I’m quite serious…” You close your hand around the tentacle. “You mustn’t—oh!” Your legs are yanked apart then, and a thick tentacle presses up between your thighs. You peer into his narrowed eyes. If you could see his mouth, you’re certain it’d be turned down in a petulant pout. “Won’t you listen to me?”

The tentacles curled around your thighs constrict. He teases your special spot, fine-tuning your body to sing the sweetest of songs. Two more attach to your chest like lecherous leeches, tweaking your nipples under soft suckers. You sigh, pent-up emotions unfurling from their ravel. Lightning flashes again, the rain insistent, and so he drapes a tentacle over your eyes.

“There’s no need to do that.” You run your fingers over it, but you don’t pull it off. “I want to see you. I want to hear your voice. Tell me—” you whine in relief when he pushes in, your anatomy accustomed to his size after months of midnight whimsy— “Let me… Oh, won’t you speak to me, Azul? Tell me—promise me you won’t act so callous the next time I welcome visitors.”

“Intruders,” he finally answers. Despite the malice shot through those three syllables, it is a musical intonation. His voice is deep and dulcet, tickling your ears in the best way.

“You’re being rather unfair in your narrow-minded assessment.”

“And you are not narrow-minded enough,” comes his rumbling reply, synced flawlessly with the thunder just outside. “I shall protect you and this property for as long as I continue to exist. That is my priority.”

Your lips part in a retort, but all that comes out is a shuddering sigh.

“Visitors are not villains,” you manage after you’ve found your voice. “P-Please—aah—be kind… You mustn’t hurt them. They’re—haa—only visitors. I promise you I’m safe.”

“Visitors are the same as intruders. They’re unwanted. Unnecessary. Nuisances. Pests.”

Azul rocks the tentacle deeper inside you. Your nails dig into the one in your hand, and you heave a wobbly sort of groan.

“I won’t arg—ooh—won’t argue with you. I only ask that you understand. They are not dangers.”

“They are,” he snaps, pistoning roughly. You cry out when he pierces a specific spot nestled within. “They will take you away from me. Poison your head with foolish ideas. Destroy our home…”

“T-That will never happen. Not if I can help it.”

Another beat of lightning. Thunder follows suit. Gingerly, he lifts the tentacle veiling your visage. Blue blinks back at you.

“Promise.”

His whisper is broken and sad. Strangely, your heart aches.

“Only if you promise to cease your slaughter. It’s not—” A tentacle presses against your mouth, silencing you. When it draws away to give you another chance, you sigh, knowing just what to say. “Thank you…for protecting me, Azul.”

Satisfied with your submission, he smooths his pace out into slow, sensual lovemaking. You ride the waves of mutual merriment alongside him, no longer fearing the raging storm beyond your room. The world shrinks down to fit inside your bedroom, where paradise is found in the sheets, and nothing else matters here. Swathed safely in shadow, wrapped around the monster under your bed, you drift off into sleepy delirium.

He remains, ever-present like a parasite, the sole actor standing on the stage in this thrilling, tentacular theatre.