#blood orange rogue

[acesandfairydust]

hey let's bring back sim shaming coz i got a LOT of it this round

yes, I meant Peninsula broke a plumbot's heart, but i'm too lazy to fix it. bleh

[yansurnummu]

just had to do a quick scribble of my durge because he always looks .4 seconds away from bursting into tears and I love him. I like to think that his charisma stat comes solely from his sad wet puppy eyes

[corvigay-art]

Sketchbook attack again!!! I am not dead and I am still (kinda) making art!!!

Asinda belongs to @twodragonsmessingaround Jaelyn and Arid are mine Char and Cass are irl friends'

[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.

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‘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

[dollfacefantasy]

DREAM INCARNATE ♡

pairing: logan howlett x fem!reader

summary: you're all logan has left of the past. and when he has nightmares about that night at the mansion, you're the only thing that can keep him from falling victim to the memories that haunt him.

cw: nsfw (18+), smut, dubcon, p in v, thigh fucking, somnophilia, cockwarming at the end, nightmares, brief descriptions of blood, injury, and death

wc: 2.7k

kinktober slot: day 14 - somnophilia

The second he steps off the bike he hears your scream, and he already knows he's too late.

The sound echoes across the open expanse of land in front of the school. It's the two syllables of his name, shrieked with pure terror. His feet pound against the stone driveway as he begins sprinting to the main entrance.

Behind the school, an orange glow radiates. It flickers every few seconds, making shadows dance across the lawn in front of him. He knows it's from a fire. He could smell the smoke for miles down the road.

As he reaches the big wooden doorways, that scent morphs into one of blood. The metallic odor is so strong it nearly makes him nauseous. He swallows down his disgust though in favor of getting inside.

He couldn't be too late. He just couldn't be. Everyone's gonna be ok. It's bad, but not as bad as he thinks.

In a way, he was right. It wasn't as bad as he thought. It was so much worse.

His claws are out as soon as he swings the heavy door open, but it's in vain. There's no opponents there waiting for him. Instead, he finds Charles's wheelchair knocked over and empty. He swears his heart drops and his stomach hollows out. In his entire life, he never recalled feeling such horror.

He continues down the entrance hall. The interior of the building is quiet. All the noise, yelling and chanting, comes from outside, probably wherever that fire is. As he walks, he peers into rooms that have been left open. He sees blood smeared across the floor and spattered onto the wall. Bodies peek out from behind ransacked furniture.

When he turns the corner, he finds the first victim. Jean lies there, crumpled up and lifeless. He doesn't have to check on her to know she's dead. Several feet away against the wall Scott sits slumped over, also motionless and morbidly unresponsive. His glasses rest on the floor beside him, the right lens cracked.

He walks faster. The gravity of seeing his teammates like this weighs him down, but he has to get to you. He heard you. There's a chance they haven't finished you off yet.

On the way there, he passes Beast and Rogue and Storm and finally Charles, all in similar states to the first two of his friends he saw. Each one feels worse than any of the bullets he'd taken in his nearly two centuries of life. His mind grows frantic the farther he walks through the aftermath of the massacre. He's desperate to find you when he finally reaches the last room he hadn't checked.

The classroom with large glass windows along the back wall. It had always been your favorite. You loved all the plants in there and how sunlight bathed the room in warmth through those transparent panes.

Now, the desks that had been in neat rows pile on top of each other in haphazard clusters. The board at the end of the room displays some message about killing all mutants. He doesn't catch the specifics because he doesn't care. The only thing he can see is you, limp and mangled below it.

The words above are scrawled in red, and the puddle of scarlet surrounding you leaves no question as to what kind of ink they used.

When he gets to you, you're still twitching. Your eyes are fading, but for the moment, he can still see you inside them.

"I'm here," he chokes out, "I'm here, baby. You called for me. I'm here."

You blink slowly. Without seeing the surrounding scenery, it would look like you were just sleepy, waking up from a lazy afternoon nap. But unlike those occasions, your gaze doesn't hold any love. All he can feel radiating off of you is fear.

"Logan?" you whimper before coughing. Your chest rattles with the urge to clear the blood making it hard for you to breathe. He tries to soothe you through it as best he can, but there's not much he can do.

You regain yourself and continue on with what you had been trying to say.

"Where were you? Why didn't you help us?" you ask, tears gathering in your eyes.

"I- I was- I'm sorry," he says instead of answering the questions. He doesn't want to waste time with any of his pathetic explanations. "I'm here now. We're gonna get you out of here, and it's going to be ok."

Tears leak from your eyes, one rolling out from the inner corner. He can see the streams of water trailing down your face from the glow outside the windows.

"Why didn't you help us?" you cry again, "Why did you leave us to die? Why did you leave me?"

Then his eyes open.

Unlike his usual nightmares, he doesn't yell or shoot straight up when he regains consciousness. His claws don't pop out ready to tear apart the imagined threat. This time, he only jerks a little with a strained gasp. After that, he feels frozen, as if his joints locked in place.

His chest puffs with shallow breaths. It takes his mind a few minutes to catch up. While staring at the dark ceiling above, the image of you dying begins to fade away. That hadn't happened. That wasn't how that part of the night had played out.

The rest of his dream, however, had been more based in reality. Those images of the others strewn across the mansion are harder to clear. He rubs his rough palm over his face, trying to push them away. But he can already feel the ache of self-loathing and guilt gnawing at his insides.

He tries to remember the things you told him on the few rare occasions you had to console him. There's nothing to do about it now. It's in the past. All you can do is try to be better for the future.

Your voice plays these reminders through his head. They help bring him back down a little. He feels the plush comfort of your mattress beneath him and your blankets draped over him. The room is silent except for the muted hum of the air conditioner. There's no screaming or chanting or fire crackling. The smell of death is gone. All there is now is the scent of you.

As he goes through this list, he feels some movement beside him. His head turns, and his eyes land on you. You had shifted around a little in your sleep, rolling onto your other side so that you're facing away from him. He hears you let out a little unconscious sigh.

Even though he couldn't see your face, the vision of you lying there peacefully, completely unaware of his turmoil, brings the slightest bit of softness to his eyes.

He reaches over and rubs the small of your back. You look so delicate right now. He rolls onto his side in the same way you're facing, scooting closer.

The sight of your clean pajamas puts him at ease faster than anything else. There's no blood, no torn seams or other signs of pain. The thin baby blue fabric clings to your figure. He tucks his fingers beneath it, sliding his hand up the warm, smooth expanse of your back. They drag up and down along the path of your spine. He feels you melt a little, growing more relaxed as he strokes you. The idea brings him more comfort, that you were just as soothed by his presence as he was yours.

He doesn't understand how you still feel that way about him after everything. Most days he still questioned why you didn't hate him after what happened to the others. He wouldn't blame you for casting him aside like everyone else did.

But he's trying to do as you often tell him and not dwell on the past. So instead, he focuses on the fact that he needs more of you.

He removes his hand from under your shirt and uses both arms to pull your body to him. His muscular arms encircle your smaller frame and situate you right against his chest like a little teddy bear. Nuzzling into the back of your neck, he can smell your lotion. The light and airy aroma loosens the lingering tension in his shoulders.

He lays some kisses against the skin too. You're so precious in this condition, limp and pliable, easy for him to hold and love on. He needs you like this when he feels this way. As much as your words bring him peace of mind, sometimes he just wants to feel you. To feel that you're still here and that you're safe.

Plus, the physical aspect of holding you also calms him down more than he'd probably ever admit out loud. It's just so hard to be upset when he has the round curve of your ass pressed up against him. Nothing wards off the bad memories like you in his grasp. 

He smooths his palms across your belly, gliding them upwards beneath your shirt to cup your breasts. His large hands squeeze them gently. Though the touch is inherently sexual, it's also comforting. He kneads them for a moment before bringing one back down to your pelvis and tucking it under your panties.

You squirm a little from the sudden feeling of being confined and explored. He hears you mumble something incoherent and spots your eyes fluttering a bit.

"Shhh, it's ok, baby. It's just me," he whispers while laying lazy kisses up the column of your throat to below your ear, "You're ok. I've got you."

That's enough to get you to close your eyes again and settle in his arms, but you still babble something he can barely make out.

"Mhm, I know," he murmurs, "You just go back to sleep for me, honey. You're being such a good girl. Giving me just what I need."

He watches you deflate back into your dreams. By now, he's started to fill out beneath the pair of loose sweatpants he had on. He grinds his bulge against your ass with measured rolls of his hips. A soft sigh fans over your shoulder.

At the same time, his fingers in the front swirl around your clit. He teases the little bundle of nerves, drawing tiny patterns of pleasure over it. Your hips push back against him in response. The increased pressure against his cock only drives his need for you more.

His digits drag down your slit and back up to your little nub. He works on you until you're nice and slick between your thighs, ready to take him.

He shifts around a little, adjusting the waistband on his pants to pull his length out. The thick appendage throbs with need for you. He strokes it a few times, feeling the heat beneath his fingers. His other set of digits hooks around the seat of your shorts and panties and pulls them to the side. Pushing his hips forward, he slides his shaft between your thighs.

Your folds engulf him perfectly. He groans softly before beginning to rock his pelvis. He moves in small strokes. The motion isn't rough or primal, just slow and needy. Each drag against your velvety skin coats his cock in your arousal.

His arms get tighter around you. He makes sure he's not holding too tight, not wanting to accidentally snap a rib during this process. You just feel so fucking good. He has to have you so close it feels as though he's trying to absorb you. 

He buries his face in your neck, little puffs of air blowing on your skin with each grunt he makes. More wetness gathers where the two of you meet as he keeps thrusting. He feels the fat tip of his cock nudge your clit. He can feel the way your legs squirm at that sensation too.

In your sleep, your hands drift up to hold one of his forearms. You whine softly, but it's crackly and broken. It's not a choice, just a subconscious reaction to the pleasure sizzling between your hips.

He works a little faster now, back and forth, back and forth. Without thinking about it, he lightly bites your shoulder. He doesn't use enough pressure to hurt, but he also is pretty sure there will be marks when he finally lets go.

The dull ache on your shoulder combined with the teasing flicker on your cunt still doesn't wake you. Your eyes don't open until he angles himself back and pops the first couple inches of his shaft into your entrance.

That's when your gossamer lashes lift from your cheeks in the direction of your brow. It takes you a few blinks to comprehend the sensation. You feel the heat of him all around you right away. The mild stretching down below makes your head spin.

He sees you waking and swoops in again, mouth releasing your flesh and migrating to the shell of your ear.

"That feel good, princess?" he mutters as he bottoms out.

After a few lazy blinks, you're able to nod. Your fingers dig into his forearm a little harder.

"Good. Just relax and enjoy it for me, ok?" he mumbles.

He starts to thrust, pumping himself into you at a slow, steady pace. His movements remain controlled. Now wasn't the time to fuck like survival depended on it. That's not what this is about. He has all he needs like this, and he can tell you do too.

You nod to that second question before shutting your eyes again. He feels your head going limp against your pillow and rewards your compliance with some soothing kisses to the area he had bitten before.

"Sweet, sweet girl," he grunts. It's more to himself than you. He's not even sure you'll hear it.

Your body is relaxed again with a handful more thrusts. He doesn't think you're fully asleep, probably drifting on some middle ground between lucidity and sleep.

His cock throbs within you. You're so tight and warm, wetter than you were on the outside. He knows he probably won't last much longer, but that's ok. There didn't need to be a big finish right now.

He pants against your skin, his face tensing with the need to release. His fingers dig into the skin of your chest. The heat in his stomach keeps rising higher and higher as the pressure does the same.

It gets to a point that it finally snaps and his hips jerk, clapping against your ass. He spills deep inside you. The warmth floods your belly. He feels your legs go taut and the way your walls spur him on by contracting around his cock.

He fucks it into you slowly. His body also feels tense for the moment, taking care to remain gentle with you. His hips move in slow rolls to work his cum deeper into you, but they eventually slow down to the occasional twitch. And then finally nothing.

"Gonna be all messy now..." you grumble.

He chuckles against your skin, the sound raspy and low. "I'll clean you up in the morning," he whispers and kisses below your ear, this time the peck chaste. Nothing but pure love in the gesture.

You hum with acknowledgement before yawning. There's a brief pause after that. He stays inside of you, needing to feel that snug embrace for a bit longer. No sound comes from either of you. He's pretty sure you're trying to sleep again, but then you speak.

"Did you have a nightmare?" you whisper.

He hesitates. You already knew the answer. There was no other reason to ask if not to confirm. That doesn't change the fact that he doesn't like showing weakness.

But he's honest with you anyway.

"Mhm," he hums.

You nod, contemplating your next words. "Do you feel better now?" you decide to ask.

"Yeah, baby. You fixed me right up," he responds just as quietly. 

And it's the truth. For the moment, he's better. Tomorrow he'll probably have another one of these things, but for tonight you've cured him. He keeps holding you close and finally shuts his eyes again.

[thefreakandthehair]

He spots Eddie before he realizes Steve is there leaning in the doorway, so he takes a moment to drink it in.

It’s still shocking, now and then, to see Eddie without all of his armor— without his leather jacket, and battle vest. It’s a little startling, even now, but it’s also… well, it’s nice. He looks soft, warm around the edges, as he stands at the kitchen sink with nothing but the orange glow of the light over the stove illuminating the little details.

Steve sees the tiniest hint of flesh through a threadbare spot in the heel of his right sock. His shorts are bunched up and sitting a bit crooked on his hips. He washes dishes like he’s mad at them for having the audacity to be dirtied in the first place. The shirt Steve gave him weeks ago is a little loose in the shoulders and wet down the front, no doubt from a rogue spoon in the sink.

And Steve fucking loves him.

He’s known for a while now, probably before they even got together, but it’s always come to him in the big moments. Like when Eddie showed up at a big game that no one else besides Robin bothered to attend, or when he has his tongue down his throat, or like tonight, when he’d been riding the high of oxytocin-induced euphoria.

It’s never been the right moment to let himself fully feel the weight of it all, but there’s nothing special about this moment that might trick Steve into falling in love.

It’s only special because he’s already in love.

Steve clears his throat and walks across the linoleum floor to join him at the sink, his socked feet echoing alongside his pulse. Blood rushes to his ears, drowning out the sounds of everything but quiet mutterings as Eddie tries to scrub the dried cheese of an old aluminum pot.

↳read the rest of chapter four of slipped between these ribs of mine [explicit] on ao3! written for @steddiesmuttyseptember!

some people asked to be tagged and I can't for the life of me remember so just tagging some peeps who expressed interest (lemme know if you don't wanna be, of course!): @sageclipse @pearynice @steddieasitgoes @stervrucht @runninriot

@lunaticmarunatic @lihhelsing @steddie-island @kas-eddie-munson @sidekick-hero

@spectrum-spectre @hbyrde36 @queenie-ofthe-void @absurdityaddiction

@just-my-latest-hyperfixation @steddieas-shegoes @vecnuthy @hotluncheddie @griefabyss69

@imaginary-maggie-waggie @fkinkindagauche @pluckedstrings @blossomingblueberries

[softfem-dom]

heyyy Ii love you and your writting and I was wondering if you could write something? it's kinda a different rq from what I saw you writing but would you be willing to write sepparate headcanons/a short blurb for different Logans? (esp the xmen 97', origins, worst wolverine, patch if u write for him and the dofp logan)

if youre comfortable with this rq style, could you write something for the different moment they/someone realized they were a girl dad™ with a platonic!teen!yn? if not that's okay dw <33

different wolverines, same cub different!logans x fem!teen!reader

a/n : okay this is diferent from the requests I usually get but it's a very welcome change in format! pd: i love you too anon <33

wc : aprox 500 words for drabble.

FLUFF , GIRLDAD!LOGAN(S) , TEEN!READER , MUTANT!READER , TW FOR PAST ABUSE MENTION IN ORIGINS LOGAN.

xmen97'!logan . origins!logan . dofp!logan . patch!logan . worst!logan

XMEN97'!LOGAN HOWLETT

Ever since Proffesor Charles' death things were a bit tense in the team. Scott, even as hard as he tried, wasn't all that ready to be a leader and with a baby in the way and Logan acting like a jerk to him anytime the opportunite arose, things weren't getting that better.

However, strangely, today the team wasn't that much of a team. It was more like the family you all were. And the way you were playing on the basket court was something to see. With two of the men without shirt, Jean as a ref, and Jubilee and you bursting with energy things were about to take an interesting turn. Especially when Gambit and Logan were placed into opposite teams.

You spent the majority of the time in the sidelines, talking about the latest gossip with Jubilee, while you cheered for Gambito —who seemed to be eating it all up. But then the orange ball bounced your way, and you grabbed it before thinking of the consequences. So now you were running for your life, trying to evade the opposite team's players —which was a difficult task given how good Beast seemed to be at this.

And just when you were about to reach the basket and score, you bumped into a solid wall of muscle. You groaned under your breath, already knowing who you had just bumped into, before you were suddenly being lifted into the air. The ball fell to the ground for Morph to grab.

"an' what do we have 'ere, hmn?" Logan laughed, his voice gruff and deep as he looked at you with a smug ass smirk on his lips. He tilted his head, narrowing his eyes playfully and making you scoff, before deciding to throw you up into the air and catch you.

"LOGAN!"

"what? too much action for ya, princess?"

Jean could only watch from the sidelines, a hand resting over her round belly. Rogue caught onto that, her eyes having been trained on your laughing form as Logan kept throwing you into the air and catching you —like a father with his baby. "seems like Scott ain't the only father around, huh, sugah?"

Jean chuckled softly, a fond glint on her eyes as she stared at the scene playing before her. "it does seems like it, it does" she sighed with a smile on her face.

___

ORIGINS!LOGAN HOWLETT

Since the moment James entered his homely cabin, finding it oddly silent, and walked right onto his girlfriend —Kayla— trying to convince a blood and dirt covered teenage girl into eating he knew he was in for a wild ride. His girlfriend had always been alright with the fact a mutant was living with her, and now it seemed like that number had leveled up to two.

They still hadn't been able to get much out of you, just the fact that you were an experimented mutant that had escaped and was probably being searched for. Still, his sweetheart of a partner didn't seem to mind the risk —just like she didn't mind his adamantium claws.

He was sitting on the couch, the fireplace lit up and casting a gentle warm glow over his face. However, his hazel eyes weren't looking at the hypnotizing flames, but at you. You were way more healthier than when Kayla had found you lost and scared out in the woods near the cabin, less sickly-looking. You were simply minding your bussiness, seated on the floor —on the warm and fluffy carpet— as you read one of the books that Kayla had kept from her early teenagehood.

"what're you reading, kid?" his voice was calm, soft, and with a bit of the usual rumbly tone it held. You looked up from the pages to the man sitting on the couch. "the princess bride" you spoke quietly.

You didn't speak all that much, short sentences and direct meaning behind them. But Logan still found himself humming along to your simple answer. "that one's good,"

"yeah"

"you met iñigo yet, bub?"

"uh-huh"

He found himself sporting a small smile at your responses, you weren't a troublesome kid you just had trouble opening up. But it was fine, he had all the time in the world to coax you out.

"you know what Kay' used ta' say 'bout him?" he asked you, his voice soft. Hoping to keep the conversation going for a while.

Your curious tilt of the head and the way you lowered the book slightly —subcounsciously— was enough answer.

"she used ta' say I was like tha man" he hummed, looking at you with a smile. His girlfriend did use to say that he reminded her of the spanish henchman.

A beat of silence. A wrinkle in your brow and your nose scrunched up. "you're way better" was your quiet response before you went back to reading.

He would never deny the way those words made the rest of his day, and his week, and his month. He didn't even know it yet, but when the day came that all of him but blurred parts was lost, he'd still remember a girl telling him he was way better than the swordman.

___

DOFP!LOGAN HOWLETT

Yes, he had traveled back in time to save the future from the centinels. And yes, he was on it. But while Charles and Hank tried their best to track Magneto to get him to collaborate, he decided it would harm no one to have a bit of fun with this version of you.

He knew you in the future, and you were the dictionary description of a real woman. You knew your abilities, had self-confidence, and had that damn smile that could challenge the sun. But, right now, in the past, you were nothing but a feisty 15 year old that he was having the time of his life bothering.

He walked through the empty halls of the lived-in School with that confidence and 'no-one-can-sweep-me-off-my-feet' attitude he carried everywhere, his tinted aviator glasses resting idly on the bridge of his nose. He was in search of you, and he knew exactly where to find you.

He opened the door to your room with his usual carelessness, not even bothering to knock just for the sake of annoying you, and laughing —loudly— at the way you almost jumped out of your skin.

"Logan! fucking god-!" you screeched from your place on your bed, hand grabbing at your chest. "you almost gave me a fuckin' heart attack, you asshole!"

"yeah, yeah, whatever you say, bub" he laughed, shaking his head in amusement. Before his eyes fell on the pink —glittery— notebook open wide infront of your crossed legs. "ohhh, and what is that?"

He smirked at the way you scrambled to close the thing, pink gel pen falling to the covers without a sound, as you clutched the notebook to your chest. The words written on the cover exposed you. A diary.

"nothing!"

"is that a fuckin' diary, bub?" he snorted, walking over to the bed with an amused smirk on your face.

"no it is not!"

"yes it is"

"no"

"yes"

"nah"

"yeah"

"nuh-huh" you shook your head. "yeah-uh" he replied, noding his head with a smirk on his face.

You two stood in a silent stare competition for a few seconds, but he had reflexes way better than yours and much more strenght aswell. And he ended up snatching the pink notebook from your gasp. "HEY!"

You were quick to scramble up to stand over your bed, trying to pry the glittery item from his hands as he kept dodging your hands with mocking ease while he opened it on the last page. The page you had been writting about him. When you saw his eyes start to read the words written in girly pink you sighed, a red hue creeping onto your face and growing more and more intense with each second that passed before he looked up at you again. His smirk had turned even more cocky and smug if that was even possible.

You groaned loudly before dropping back onto the bed, pulling a pillow over your face. "you think that 'bout me, bub?" you groaned in embarassment as an answer, getting a deep chuckle in return. "yeah, well, I appreciate you too, ya little feisty thing"

Your embarassment eased up a little, knowing athat at least he was not going to ridiculize you over the way you had written about him and the way you wanted to be like him when you were older —the way you held him over a gold pedestal. AS a role model.

"but, let me tell ya a thing real quick" he added. You heard the sound of him closing the diary and placing it safely on your desk. Then the bed dipped slightly. "when ya grow old, don't be like good ol' me, be like you. That's how I met ya in the future, remember?"

Just when you were about to pull the pillow off your face, and thank him, he went back to his jerk behaviour and decided to playfully suffocate you for one or two seconds. "I'm still gonna make fun of ya, though" he added. You could hear the smirk on his lips as you groaned a loud "fuck".

___

PATCH!LOGAN HOWLETT

You had gotten admited to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters when you were a kid, finding a family closer than the one bound by blood. If someone, anyone, had told you that you'd be going on missions with the X-Men when you grew a pair you wouldn't have believed them.

But right now, you realized that maybe you did aspire to be someone in the hero world. Especially when it's the Wolverine —the X-Men— the one taking you with him on his side quests.

It wasn't beacuse you had some kind of insane, min-blowing mutation that made you invincible, nah, not really. The thing was that your mutation allowed you to locate mutants and perceive their powers and level, and that did damn come in handy when it came to tracking down the targets of his missions.

And that's how you had endedp up staying in a hotel room with Logan in Madripoor. The city of crime and casinos.

You were currently all dolled up, pretty as ever by his side, with a fancy white dress with black buttons that matched his white shirt and his black eyepatch. 'Patch' is how they knew him here, one eye hidden beneath black cloth and his characteristic cowlicks slicked back. He was hidding his identity quite well.

You two were at one of the fancy casinos on the highlife streets, 'lady luck' they called it, and Logan was hoping he had enough of said luck to catch the target that frequented the place before midnight —you had a damn bedtime he was always going to stick to.

Seated at a poker table with some greedy men surrounding him, Logan had you seated prettyly on one of his legs. Holding his deck of cards with one hand while the other was firmly planted on your hip, so no dirty rich man got any 'brilliant' ideas.

Your young eyes were moving from place to place, admiring the fancy decorations in rich reds and golds. Looking at the pictures of famous people that had visited the place hanging from the walls, the gorgeous chandeliers and oogling the pretty dresses the women there wore. Logan thought it was cute how shy you got when one of those women caught your gaze and smiled your way, waving sweetly, but what wasn't cute was the way you were getting distracted. And not because of the mission at hand, but because he saw the lascivous glances sent your way —those perverted men made a low growl start to rumble in his chest.

"Eyes on me, sweetheart. Can't have you gettin' distracted here" he explained in a low tone, not even taking his eyes off of his deck —intending on at least winning the game if the target didn't show up in the end—.

"that's some serious arm candy you've got there, Patch" one of the men in the table spoke up, pushing a few more red coins on the table to to add up to his bet.

Logan growled, his hand suddenly tightening up on his hip, squeezing you to his side. "with all respect, I'm not a sex toy, mister" you huffed, frowning in disgust at the man.

Said man quirked an eyebrow at your 'attitude' before looking back at Logan, as if epecting him to scold or chastise you for speaking up. Still, he was only met by a grumble of Logan and a shoulder shrug.

"you heard the girl, she ain't no sex toy" he hummed, adding another few gambling coins to the pile in the middle of the table. "so stop tryin' to fuck her with yer eyes or I'm leaving you without 'em"

The man fell silent after that, probably a bit intimidated, while you just sat there kepon his leg and kept your eyes on his deck. You knew that if you were obedient and let him concentrate on winning this game he'd let you order as many sweets as you wanted from the hotel service. And you were really looking forward to those chocolate cookies.

___

WORST!LOGAN HOWLETT

You thought that the worst scent of all was the scent of blood. A sickeningly cloying and metallic smell that whafted into your nostrils and forced your mouth to taste of iron, so strong it was dizzying more often than not. But, lately, you've started to repulse the scent of whiskey much more.

You hated the way that alcoholic brevage clung to him. To every cell of his very being. To his breath, his skin, his clothes, everything smelled like whiskey. It wasn't a particularly unpleasant smell, but just like blood it was the thought of what came behind it, was it corpses and death or drunkeness and slurred speeches.

You both had managed to crash in an old appartment that used to belong to Cyclops before, well, his death. Except you weren't allowed to call it that, as long as you were in Logan's presence you had to talk about it —think about it— as 'the accident'. Who could've guessed he'd end up drunk out of his mind on Jean and Scott's old queen-sized bed.

He doesn't know how long he's been laying on that bed, drunk off his ass, he just knows he's sober and awake now —and without a hangover thanks to his metal bones. It's half past 4 in the morning, and he just sits there for a moment as he tries to make out what has woken him up. He waits for a few seconds before he hears the creacking of the wooden floor of the appartment coming from the kichen.

You. He doesn't know why he jolts out of bed, almost loosing his balance and falling face-first to the floor. You two are in an appartment in the city centre, you two are safe, but just the thought of you awake at half past four in the morning has something in him stirring and clawing at his insides.

"bub?" his voice is rougher than usual due to sleep, raw with the disorientaame with waking up so abruptly. "bub, s'that you?"

He blindly reachs for the doorknob to the small kitchen, pulling the door open to reveal you there. In the middle of the kitchen. Still in your pyjamas and looking as sleepy as he did and with a mug in your hands. He looks to the side slightly, spotting the bottle of milk on the counter and the opened door of the microwave. Oh, so that was what had woekn him up, the beeping of the stupid microwave.

You stood there, like a deer in highlights, with your mug of warm milk in your hands. You weren't about to admit to him that you were still childish enough to believe a warm glass of milk would send you to bed after a nightmare.

"what-?" he started, rubbing a hand over his face. "what're you doing? it's fucking 4:30 a.m, bub" he groaned tiredly—pretty much using the doorknob as support for his sleepy body.

"I-" you breathed out, voice groggy with interrumpted sleep. "-wanted a glass of milk" you mumbled, cringing at how childish you sounded.

His gaze seemed to both soften up and clear up at your words, and he found himself walking past the fog of sleep that his worn out brain was still trapped in, to join your side and close the microwave's door gently.

"nightmare?"

"yeah.."

"you want a hug or something?" he suggested, not really knowing what to do.

"yeah.."

And with that, one big arm was drapped over your shoulders —a bit awkwardly but still— while you sipped on your warm milk. His free hand reaching up for the liquor cabinet, yet stopping when he caught the way you looked at him. He sighed at that, redirecting his hand's trayectory to the cabinet next to where the alcohol was kept, and grabbing a bag of instant coffee.

Yes, you hated the smell of blood. And yes, you hated the smell of whiskey even more. But you could get used to the smell of cold winter nights shared over a glass of warm milk and a cup of coffee.

[pupsmailbox]

SCENE︰EMO ID PACK

NAMES ⌇　acid. adder. adrian. aisling. alex. alice. alix. amethyst. annabelle. aqua. ash. ashlee. ashley. aspen. astley. avril. awe. axe. ayesha. bates. bell.���bella. belladonna. bellatrix. billy. blade. blair. blitz. bloodie. bloodscene. blythe. bow. bree. butterfly. callie. candi. candy. celeste. chase. checkerz. clarity. click. coraline. couture. crow. cyril. cyrus. dakota. demi. demonia. devin. dino. dizzy. doge. dom. dominic. ebony. electra. elliot. emery. emmett. emo. epic. erin. evan. flash. fred. galaxy. gavin. gerard. ghostie. gif. gloom. gray. grayson. grim. gutz. happy. havoc. hazel. heyley. hunter. hyde. indigo. ink. iris. ivory. ivy. jack. jade. jason. jasper. jax. jeff. jet. jett. julie. kai kandi. kandiz. kat. kayden. killer. kit. kitt. kobi. kyler. lady. lapis. lee. lexie. liam. luna. lurk. lynx. lyric. lyxzen. mace. maddox. madeline. mae. malice. marceline. marcie. mars. mavis. meow. mia. midnight. mika. mill. nana. neo. net. nick. nina. noah. noob. nora. nyan. nyx. obscene. octavia. olivia. onix. onyx. opal. orange. orchid. pearl. phantom. phoenix. pierce, pierce. pitch. pixie. pop. punk. pusheen. rain. rainbow. raine. rainer. rave. raven. raver. rawr. razorz. reaper. ripley. river. rogue. ronnie. rose. rouge. roux. rubi. ruby ruby. sable. salem. sally. sapphire. sash. sasha. scythe. silvi. silvia. smiley. smoke. smokey. snap. snow. sonya. soot. sparrow. spike. splatter. spook. stella. steve. stripe. sunny. suzi. suzie. suzy. taffi. taffy. tag. tech. tempest. travis. trend. tyler. vesper. vine. vista. vivi. waffle. wave. web. wentz. wesley. wild. willow. wound. xander. z!m. zach. zack. zade. zaire. zak. zander. zara. zero. ziggy. zim. zircon. zoe. zoom. zyair.

PRONOUNS ⌇　awesome/awesome. ay/aym. bark/bark. bi/bim. bite/bite. black/black. bling/blingee. blood/blood. bone/bone. bow/bow. brace/bracelet. bright/bright. bright/colour. byte/byte. cat/cat. cata/catatonic. ce/cer. check/checkered. chem/chem. cir/circut. color/color. computer/computer. cool/cool. cos/cos. creepy/pasta. cringe/cringe. cry/cry. cut/cut. dead/dead. death/death. die/die. dino/dino. emo/emo. emoticon/emoticon. epic/epic. ev/ev. exe/exe. ey/em. eye/strain. fang/fang. fringe/fringe. game/game. gamer/gamer. ghost/ghost. gir/gir. girr/girr. glit/glitter. glitter/glitter. gloom/gloom. glow/glow. glow/stick. gore/gore. grr/grr. gun/gun. gut/gut. hor/horror. hx/hxm. hyper/hyper. hyperpop/hyperpop. internet/internet. it/it. ix/ix. kan/kandi. kand/kandi. kandi/kandi. kill/kill. kit/kit. knife/knife. lix/lix. loud/loud. luv/luv. mask/mask. meme/meme. meow/meow. mew/mew. mlp/mlp. mon/monster. mspaint/mspaint. music/music. neo/neon. neon/neon. net/net. nostalgia/nostalgia. nya/nya. nya/nyan. nyan/cat. old/old. online/online. pika/pikachu. pix/pix. pixel/pixel. plur/plur. pony/pony. pop/pop. pop/tart. queen/queen. quiet/quiet. rain/rain. rainbow/rainbow. random/random. rave/rave. rawr/rawr. raz/razor. red/red. rei/reina. scene/scene. scene/scenester. scenecore/scenecore. scream/scream. shx/hxr. si/silent. silly/silly. skull/skull. slash/slash. slice/slice. sound/sound. spi/spider. spook/spook. stab/stab. stick/sticker. sticker/sticker. stud/stud. swag/swags/swagself. thxy/thxm. troll/troll. tutu/tutu. txt/txt. vamp/vamp. video/game. virtual/virtual. vocaloid/vocaloid. web/web. windows/window. x3/x3. x]/x]. xD/xD. xe/xem. xey/xem. xP/xP. xy/xyr. youtube/youtube. ze/zem. ze/zer. ze/zero. zi/zim. zim/zim. zom/zombie. zomb/zomb.

[zorosdimples]

DUSK, RESPLENDENT

pairing ⟢ astarion x gn!reader

warnings ⟢ minors: please do not interact! i will block you. not sexually explicit, but highly suggestive… smut-lite! descriptions of blood, blood sucking, bite marks, scars, etc. this occurs after astarion first feeds from tav. reader has breasts and a vagina and is called “beautiful” once (i swiped a line from the game).

word count ⟢ 1208

notes ⟢ this particular scenario has been rotting my brain since september. my first official bg3 fic—please enjoy!

It’s impossible to miss the heat of his crimson gaze scorching your flesh.

You’ve felt it ever since the night you discovered his secret: that quiet evening when the stars shined as silent sentinels, the embers of the campfire danced into ash, and the ghost of a breath roused you. You offered Astarion your neck—swanlike, untouched, vital—prey allowing predator a taste of divinity as he buried his glistening fangs into your skin. Agony bled into a hazy euphoria as the vampire fed on your lifeblood. You barely had enough stamina to push him off (lest he leave you drained and lifeless), rivulets of you the color of his irises running from his gums to his chin, dripping onto the forest floor.

Many moons have since passed, though your mind always revisits the feeling of his weight atop yours, the strength of his jaw, the vitality in his sated stare. The sun starts its golden descent as you bathe in a creek by camp. You scrub your skin with vigor, almost without care as you seek to shed layers of sweat, grime, and gore. The midsummer air is stifling and the cicadas play their shrill song, but the chilly caress of the water makes you giddy.

It takes no small effort, but once your hair and body are stripped bare (clean enough), you remain in the water and watch pinks and oranges and yellows bleed and bloom across the wide sky. Some may say that resting for even a moment in a situation like yours—with a mindflayer parasite in your brain—is to accept death. But if you were to die at this very moment, surrounded by beauty? You couldn’t dream of a more peaceful end.

You feel your visitor’s presence before you see or hear him. It starts as an itch at your nape, nagging and unsettling—insistent. “Enjoying the view?” The playful lilt of Astarion's smooth voice never fails to set your nerves alight.

As you turn to face him, the water laps at your collarbone. You spy the pale elf along the bank, donning only his breeches. Cheeky bastard. “I could ask you the same,” you quip.

“I am indeed.” Lithe fingers tease the waistband of his pants. “But I can't help but feel as though something is missing.”

Walking a few steps toward the shore, you reveal more flesh, water skimming the top of your breasts. “It wouldn’t happen to be a rogue vampire, would it?”

“And if it is?”

“He should join.”

You sink beneath the creek’s surface, allowing him some privacy and urging your face to cool down. When you plant your feet on the silty ground and stand up, you rub crystalline droplets from your eyes and blink a few times before your companion comes into focus.

“Hello, beautiful,” he greets with a smirk before approaching you, dexterous fingers grasping and pulling at the fat around your hips. “I can't help but feel as though you’ve been avoiding me.”

Without thinking, your fingers weave through Astarion's moonbeam hair, gently tugging on the curls. The elf pulls you closer with a pleased hum. “Whatever gave you that impression?” you ask.

“Don’t play coy; I haven't so much as gotten a breath alone with you.” His gaze softens; you see a flash of vulnerability, but all too soon, it disappears. “Do you…regret this?” A chilly thumb grazes the puckered scar on your neck. The featherlight touch plucks a shudder from you, your spine bowing—strung for him.

“Quite the opposite,” you admit. Your attention flits down to his lips. Maker, you know they would feel divine dancing with your own, slipping down to carry the tune across your flesh, skating lower and lower until—

“So,” he says, palms sweeping up your arms and the slope of your shoulders until they rest on either side of your neck. He strokes the delicate flesh, his touch unhurried yet charged; restless. “You wouldn’t begrudge me another taste, hm?”

Perhaps you should be embarrassed by how eagerly you want this to happen, how many times you’ve envisioned him tasting your blood again—and perhaps tasting something more (such thoughts have fueled many solitary searches for pleasure within the canvas walls of your tent). But living in the dusky shadows of near-certain death has made you hopelessly brazen.

You lean in, petal-soft lips grazing one of his pointed ears. “It’s yours for the taking.”

Astarion’s irises darken at your words, pools of congealed blood. He drops his head and presses a lingering, open-mouthed kiss to your scar, his molten breath warming your body, melding you to his touch.

He bares his fangs and bites you, piercing the puffy tissue, a satisfied groan rumbling his throat and resonating in your veins. The pain is dizzying but dulls quickly, the jarring sensation of knife-sharp incisors tearing your flesh carried away by the flow of the creek. Fuzzy pleasure soon clouds your mind. The sloppy lap of the elf’s tongue against your wound is all you can discern; you want to feel him everywhere.

The vampire’s moans shudder deep within his chest and reverberate through your body from where you’re connected, vibrating lower until they settle in your core. A delicious pressure rocks against your belly and seems to relish the softness. It feels like he gluts for an eternity—like this is all you know—housed within a single, precious breath.

When Astarion surfaces, fangs retracting, you stumble in his embrace, coming down from your high. The ache of want remains as you rest your forehead against his freckled shoulder, and morphs into need as your vision clears. His eyes are unfocused, crazed with bloodlust; you’ve never seen them so red, glowing like moonlit wine. His chin is slick with ichor, and—absentmindedly or not, it’s impossible to tell—his tongue darts out to mop up some of the remnants of your sweetness.

One, two, three heaves of your chests pass before you crash together with a swiftness that betrays desperation, errant waves succumbing to the tide.

You never liked the tang of your blood until you tasted it on Astarion’s silken lips. It’s…cloying. The syrupy copper overwhelms your senses as the elf smears a claret gash across your mouth. He drunkenly sucks on your tongue, fangs nicking the muscle, urging you to give him more. Your fingers twist and twirl the pearly down that covers his chest as he squeezes your ass, pulling you so close that not even a whisper could get between you. You’re engulfed in a heady fire, one that can’t be put out by the cool water around you—especially as the vampire’s cock nestles between your clenched thighs, bumping against your clit.

A crashing sound in the surrounding forest interrupts your shared bliss. The moon ascended and the stars awoke while you were wrapped up in one another. Lightning bugs glimmer and flit through the dark woods, and you know that you both need to leave. Supper will be soon; any absences will be noticed. But before he pulls away, Astarion places a prim kiss on your lips.

“Meet me by the campfire after everyone else has fallen asleep,” he whispers against your cheek.

Your heart trills as you watch him disappear into the night—excited for the adventure to come.

[trashmouth-richie]

𝚕𝚎𝚝’𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚔𝚎𝚎𝚙 𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚛𝚎

older! college coach! steve x fem! reader

summary: your mysterious coach was always hot headed and pushed you harder than the other girls, after losing an important game, you both find ways to release your frustrations.

triggers: 18+ ; steve is thirty and reader is early twenties and plays basketball in college. smut, light use of pet names, no y/n, steve is a dick to reader and has a huge one, biting, hickies, p in v no condom. Very slight mention of blood, indication of simp behavior at the end.

  “Hustle girls!”

  “Box her out!”

  “Are you fucking kidding me 22?” 

  His workout tank was ringed dark around the hem of the neck, glistening drops of sweat travel from the column of his neck down into the gray cotton blend fabric. 

  He was pissed. When wasn’t he?

  A rogue strand of hair escapes from the style he had down to a science, red blotches flashed across his cheeks and neck, veins poked out from his vacation tanned skin. 

  Last night's game ended horribly. And today you were all paying the price for it. 

  -

With only 10 seconds left on the clock in the 4th quarter, the play he had drawn up on the marker board was the exact same one you had been practicing since your first year at college. Only this time you were getting the ball after Mel faked to Blair, with just enough time to shoot that beautiful three point shot you had been perfecting since high school. 

   The squeak from the black expo marker under his thick fingers wrote out his code: Hawkins for the play that was drilled into your brain by coach for the last year. 

  “Run it just how we’ve been practicing, I’m telling you it’ll work.” 

  Mel’s fake out didn’t work and you had gotten the ball late. Each dribble from the floorboards into your sweaty palm felt like a heartbeat. The girl guarding you swatted at the ball, missing just barely as she attempted to make a steal, trying to force you to foul her when she had the ball to waste more time and grant you your fourth foul, ending your playing time. 

  A quick move around her and a cross to your left hand had her stumbling over her ankles like Bambi, and you cut to the three point line, lined up your Nike’s to the hoop like your dad had taught you, and arched the ball into the air. 

  The buzzer was blaring when the orange ball left your finger tips, tongue poking out and your ponytail fluttering behind you. the gymnasium lights were hospital white, piercing your eyes and making you see dots as you landed on your feet, your competitor reaching for the ball at the last second. 

  Anticipation filled your lungs as the ball circled around and around the rim. The girls and coach all rose from the bench and waited with hands on their heads or holding hands watching the ball spin.

  And with a sick twist, it fell out. Landing to the floor with a silent thud as the bleachers erupted into a nascar loud roar. 

  Bulldogs: 60 Pirates: 58 

  He was furious. 

  Clipboards snapped on his khaki thighs as you all sat on the wooden benches of the sweaty walled locker room. He didn’t yell, he didn’t speak to anyone other than glaring into the ceiling. 

  “Pack your shit, bus leaves in five.” 

  No times for showering or debriefing, you and your teammates were hustled to the bus as he snapped his fingers, let’s go let’s go let’s go! 

  Refusing to let the bus driver stop to get water or any sort of snacks on the way home. “They don’t deserve it.” He preened, looking at your sad faces with a disapproval that cut so deep it had some of the girls in tears.

   His mossy green eyes stopped on yours and the disappointment brewed to hatred, his eyes burning emerald, he blew air through his nose and clenched his knuckles, “none of them.” 

  Mel had thrown up twice during Coach’s infamous Hellfire Sprints. Her and her boyfriend Trevor, who was practically your 5th suitemate, had stayed up until dawn doing pulls from a tequila bottle and hitting his dab pen. 

  You hadn’t slept either. 

  Laying on top of your comforter with wet hair and lotion slicked skin, racking your brain with how the shot felt a tiny bit off from your fingers, how coach’s eyes looked like a fucking demon’s when he glared at you on the bus. 

  How the Sunday morning practice, which was usually laid back and games of pig and watching game tape, was going to be hell on earth. 

  “22 if I have to tell you one more time to move your ass I’m cutting you from this team do you hear me?” 

  You rolled your eyes as you pushed yourself faster to touch the black line, beating out the other girls by a full few seconds. 

  After the sixth set of sprints he had you all go to the workout room and max out on squats. Your legs shook and nearly buckled under the heavy weights. And all he did was stand behind you and tell you how pathetic you looked, he shook his head and scoffed. 

  “We’re gonna stay here all day til you rack this up, don’t care if you fall on your ass— you’ll do it.” 

  His breath fanning your ear drove you mad. Spearmint gum and that rich boy cologne he always wore stung your nose as you grunted in defiance. 

  Through bared teeth and burning lungs you extend your legs to stand. 

  You wanted to kick him in the dick, make him shut the fuck up for once, but you bit your tongue. Driving the bar up and slamming it loud against the rack  Looking back at him with a glare in your eyes, you wouldn’t let a single tear wet your eyes, never giving him the satisfaction. 

  He looked you up and down quickly, but his eyes felt like hot pokers dragging against your skin. Before he crossed over to another one of your teammates to add more weight to their bar, he dipped his head, and muttered just above a whisper, “Thatta girl.” 

  -

  You didn’t know much about him but what you did know was that he kept to himself. 

  Coach Harrington was only a few years older than you, he had a small mustache that he more than likely grew to make himself look a little older than he was. 

  From what your suitemates had found out by spending hours scouring online archives from his hometown local newspaper to his social media footprint that didn’t exist— and even going as far to stalking his ex girlfriends Instagram— he had played college ball at Perdue for two years before blowing out his knee and ending a full ride scholarship and any rumored possibility of making it to the NBA. 

  From locker room gossip, you had learned that he drove a black Jeep Wagoneer, and lived in one of the newer apartments downtown. 

  The university had paid double what they had for the last coach's salary to get Harrington through the doors. The athletic director, Mr. Hopper, had picked him to coach because he was one of the best. But all he was to you was a fucking asshole. 

  The other girls had ooed and awed over him, the other teams coaches flirted with him before the games, trying to get his number and find out more about the brooding coiffed hair hottie. And maybe you would feel different about him if he wasn’t such a raging prick. 

  But he wouldn’t budge. 

  He didn’t get personal with anyone on the team, barely even talked to his assistant Dustin. Refusing to call anyone by anything other than their jersey number or their last name. 

  Practice lasted for three hours. And by the end of it his voice was hoarse and gruff. Having screamed practically during the entire time. 

  It wasn’t anything new. He was always high strung and losing his shit when it came to the girls, but mostly you bore the brunt of his anger. 

  He always used you as an example on what not to do. 

  “You’re doing it wrong 22,” he’d bellow, his voice echoing loud across the empty gym, his arms crossed tight across his chest, muscles popping under the strain of his tight gray shirt, “drive to the left then cut right, this isn’t fucking hard… do it again.” 

  You did as you were told, fighting through anger that seeped through your skin and riddled your face with shaking muscles of anger, a twitch to your eye.

  You were pissed and had had enough. Not only were you the youngest captain your school had ever seen, you were averaging triple doubles nearly every game. 

  Showing up to practice early to shoot free throws and leaving late to make sure all the equipment was put away. Spending weekends in the gym running drills or pushing weights instead of at the nearest rager popping pills and snorting coke like everyone else your age. 

  You put in the work and it showed, but he couldn’t see it. 

  It was equally frustrating and heartbreaking.

  When practice was finally through and all of the girls had either thrown up, left mid practice to go to the nurse or screamed that they were quitting, the locker room was an endless groan. Muscles were slicked over with the menthol burn of icy hot, and sore shoulders wrapped with bags of ice. Tape was torn from ankles and jammed fingers wadded up and tossed into a nearby waste bin. Sniffles were heard from some players and you stood in a sports bra and shorts when Coach Harrington entered the locker room. 

  “Don’t get too comfortable, we’ll be back here in 3 hours to run more Hellfire Sprints.”

  The girls groaned and slammed lockers, bitching under the breath. 

  “Hey!” Coach Harrington shouted, a thin vein bulging in his forehead, matching the ones in his arms, as he stood with his hands on his hips, the retro fit of his athletic pants swishing under his thick hands. “You want someone to bitch to? You can thank your captain.” 

  The room falls silent as all eyes land on you. And your breath hitches in your throat, cheeks burning with embarrassment. 

  “Me?” You question, “what the hell did I do?” 

  “The question you should be asking yourself is what you didn’t do. How did you sleep last night knowing you blew that game for your teammates?” 

  A gasp escapes from your lips and you stare at your Air Forces to hide your pained expression. 

  “Now, the rest of you get recharged, be back here at 5 o’clock, I don’t want any excuses.” As the room starts to file out, through the heavy wood door,  Coach Harrington still stands in the middle of the room,  eyes burning holes  into your skull, “22 meet me in my office in 10, we need to discuss your position on this team.” He turned on his heel and headed through the doors, pushing them open with a straight arm and his pants swishing down the hallway, 

  You wait til everyone has gone, Mel giving you a slap on the shoulder, her skin unusually pale on her olive complexion under her charcoal braids, “good luck.” 

  Lifting your chin you nod and wave, throwing an oversized crew neck over your head and pushing your arms through the holes. Gym bag strewn over your shoulder and you pull your socks up a bit before making the long trek down to Coach Harrington’s office. 

  Contemplating what you would do when you walked through his office and he kicked you off the team, your long basketball career over because your coach couldn’t fucking stand you. 

  Never in all your life had you had a coach like him. He pushed you to the limits and started to make you despise the sport altogether. 

  And since you were about to be booted off the team, you didn’t have anything to lose. 

  The gold plate reading: Coach S. Harrington- Women’s Basketball on the large mahogany door nestled between the cream cinder block walls almost made your stomach lurch. He never asked anyone to come to his office, not even when Zoey got pregnant last semester and had to quit. 

  Nerves shook your fist as you knocked on his door, your other hand fumbling your car keys around the silver ring. 

  “Yeah.” He barked curtly, anything but friendly. 

  Turning the enormous brass knob, you keep your eyes to the floor when you step into his office. For being down an abandoned hallway, it was almost cozy. The walls were painted fire engine red to match your school's colors. His college degree was framed and hanging on one wall, along with signed pictures of Michael Jordan that you knew cost more than your car. 

The oak desk was neat with a MacBook and cup of pens and pencils. A markerboard hung the expanse of one wall covered in scribbled plays and code names. 

  It smelled like musky expensive leather and cologne and neatly stacked paper  Pictures from his glory days were on the shelf behind him, and he cleared his throat when you stared at him flying through the air towards a hoop. 

  His hair was messy, tufts of brown sticking up, like his fingers had been raking through it so many times out of frustration that the flexible gel wasn’t holding anymore. 

  He peers at his screen without making eye contact with you, fingers tapping noisily on the keys. 

“Do you hate basketball?” 

  His question has your head spinning.  And when you don’t answer right away he asks again. 

  “N-no,” you stutter, voice shaky and on the verge of screaming at his stupid question. 

  “Sure about that?” He seethes, still not looking up from his laptop as he clicks away furiously on the keyboard, “The way you played last night could have fooled me.” 

  Moon shapes indent your palm as you try to keep it together without ripping his head off like a praying mantis “It was a mistake.” 

  “We don’t make elementary mistakes,” he says slamming his laptop closed and peering over his desk at you through his thick eyebrows, “a fucking third grader could have ran that play better than you did.” 

  Your throat is dry and chalky as you try to stick up for yourself, being accustomed to keeping rage boiled hot in your belly, “I-I’m..” 

His torment continues, pointing around the room at the awards from the last few years, “We’re a nationally ranked team, and your performance last night was embarrassing, and pathetic!”

  A single tear threatens to slip down your cheek, and he notices the watery look in your eye, and licks his lip, but he keeps going. 

  “I expected more out of you, 22– you let your team down last night, and most importantly, me.”

  You burst before the dam does, annoyed and sick of his threats, sick of his constant nitpicking of every move yoj make, “That’s not anything new.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You treat me like I’m a dog! It’s almost like you want me to quit, you don’t bitch at any of the other girls like you do to me, and I’m tired of it!” 

  “Watch your mouth.” He points, eyes squinted and nostrils flared.

  “No! I work my ass off for you, come in early and stay late. My game has improved and I’m top of the charts for scoring and rebounds, yet you fucking hound me and are constantly cutting me down.” 

  He doesn’t say anything so you keep going. 

  “Last night could have ended with us winning and you wouldn’t give a flying fuck, you’d still make us run your dumbass drills, you’d still wake up and find something wrong with what I do— stop taking your failed career out on me!” 

  he slams his fist into his desk and stands up quickly, the picture frames wiggle as his chair hits the shelf. He crosses the small office in one long legged step coming to stand before you as your back hits against the heavy door,  he points a thick finger into your face. 

  You struck the last fragile nerve he had like a guitar player busting a string playing a solo. Any reserve he had left was gone, his eyes clouded over into hue deeper than a dark forest. 

  His hot breath fans your cheek, spearmint intensely strong with each bite of his words.

  “Don’t you ever talk to me about my personal life again, you got that? You,” he surges pointing into your shoulder, “are supposed to be a leader for this team, and right now you’re acting like a spoiled fucking brat not getting her way.” 

  The tear you were holding back spills over over your lashes and, his eyes break from yours to watch its southward path on from your cheek to your chin. A low grown rumbles in his throat.

  “I’m not a brat!” you scream at him, wiping your cheek hastily,  “you’re crazy, and we all hate you!” 

  His eyes stay moody and dark as he peers into your face down the slope of his nose, “really?” he says no louder than a whisper, “you hate me huh?”

  A thick hand wraps around your ponytail, and his body crowds yours into the door, back flat as it would go despite your curves. 

  Your breathing is erratic, bubbled into your throat with anxiety like you might throw up. His face is so close to yours you can see the definition of each of his eyelashes, and tiny flecks of gold in his eyes. 

  He’s staring at you with pure hatred, like he’d kill you if ever given the chance, and you’re almost embarrassed by the way your pussy clenches.

  “Say it again,” he murmurs, mouth barely moving and barely an inch from your own, his eyes only leave yours when your mouth opens to speak. 

  “I fucking hate you, Coach Harring—”

  His mouth slams into yours with such force your teeth clack together and the taste of blood trickles on your tongue. Your back is pushed flush against the door, likely to bruise from the force alone. 

  His full weight is pressed against you, his taut body firm and rocked with muscles. He locks your hips in place with alarge hand, fingers gripping your skin beneath your sweater.

  Firm and taking what he wants without a second thought, his lips are intoxicating. The roughness of his mustache tickles your lip in an itching way, more than likely leaving a burn behind in his feverish take on your mouth. 

  His hair is soft in your grip, and you nearly roll your eyes thinking about his hair care routine, but you find yourself rolling your eyes in a different way when you feel his cock bulging through his pants.

  Thick and heavy against your thigh, if you had to take a guess it was probably as veiny as his forearms were. And you stifle a moan when it kicks up. 

  His teeth bite at your lip and you yelp in pain, a noise that only drives him further into you, his hand tightens around your ponytail and yanks your neck further back so your head hits the door. 

  His shirt is fisted into your hand and you pull him further into you, sliding your tongue against his—sharing the taste of your fresh blood and his spearmint spit. 

  You scratch at his scalp with your dull nails and he fights back a melty groan. 

  “Such a fucking brat.” He breathes, as his fingers work the hem of your crew neck up, his fingers feel like lightening strikes against your body, and you welcome the dulled pain with a moan, “Need’t be put in your place.” 

  You whine when your sweater hits the ground with a soft thud and the cool air of his office ices over your still sweat slicked skin. His lips suck deep bruises into your throat, and his fingers dip into the waistband of your shorts, shoving them down in a hurry. 

  Expert fingers find your clit and he smirks when you whine for more, “thought you hated me?”

  You pout when his fingers come to a halt, eyes flicking open to see his confidence boasting on his stupid perfect face.

  “But this pretty little pussy doesn’t, does she baby?” 

  “Coach,” you moan out for him, his title on your lips in a sloppy whine make him harder than he’s ever been. 

  His thick fingers dip into the silky warm folds of your pink pussy. The combined noises you make, echo loud in his office. “Fuck baby,” he groans, his fingers sucking up into your gummy walls, he pops them out licks the juicy wetness of your arousal from them. “So wet honey, all this for me?” 

  Your fingers pinch at his sweats and pull them down in a swift motion along with his boxer briefs. He’s hung more than you thought. Making any guy you had been with previous look like something in a funny museum.

   His abs are sculpted and dip into a hard cut v, leading to a small patch of trimmed hair, housing the longest, thickest dick you’ve ever come across. 

  And you were right it was veiny. 

  The pretty mushroom pinked head was presenting a pearl of pre cum, so pretty it could make an angel cry. When you try to lower yourself to wrap your lips around him, he stops you. 

  “Not today,” he groans, fisting his hearty length, your eyes going dumb watching him, brain numb and drunk on him already, “not enough time.” 

  He wraps your legs around his waist and hoists you up against the wall, your bare back stings against the rough cement wall, he’s grabby, his lips pressing heat into your neck, his moan tingling your skin. 

  With a quick shift of his hips, your tight pussy sheaths his thick cock. And you scream out. 

  “Shit, fuck honey..” he’s fighting to keep composure as you are practically lifeless against the wall. His thrusts are filled with purpose and want as your ass is slammed harder and harder into the wall, clapping along like a round of applause, ankles crossed around his lower back at your Nike socks and the laces of your air forces bouncing in tandem. 

  He’s sweaty and grunting, with each pull from his cock brings more deep and pretty noises from you and he sucks into your shoulder again, knowing damn well his mark will last for weeks. One you’d have to explain to your friends and your teammates, and your boyfriend. 

  He didn’t know if you had a boyfriend and frankly he didn’t give a fuck, you were his for the time being and he would do as he pleased. 

  He was fucking you stupid and you were letting him, holding his neck in a lazy grip as he hammered into you, and when you tightened around him, he knew you were close, “look at me,” he begs of you, “you’re gonna come for me, yeah?” 

  “Yes,” you choke out, barely registering what he’s saying from the tight coiled pleasure of your orgasm ready to fire away. 

  His cock drags slow as your eyes connect, yours lazily spilling over with fresh tears, “who’s makin’ you feel this good, 22? Huh?” 

  “Y-you Coach!” you whine, nearly ready to crumble under his thick fingers when he rubs your sensitive clit. 

  “What was that baby girl?,” he croaked, holding back his release, “couldn’t hear you.” 

  “Oh fuck oh fuck mmm you, Coach Harrington! Fuck I’m coming!”

  Your orgasm breaks and it’s like a dam has busted, his dick is soaked by your arousal and he’s losing any bit of cockiness he had left when your face smooths and your lips blur a pretty round ‘o’  as you hum and your body tingles. 

  He follows not far behind you, muttering sentences that make no sense, drunk on your pussy as he paints your walls with his release. 

  You’ve never seen him look hotter, his forehead rests on your chest as you both catch your breath. For a split second he shows you a sly smirk, like he actually was enjoying himself.

  “you might just be my fav-”

  before he can finish, before he can pull out and offer you a towel, a loud knock scared everything in him stiff. Besides his cock that went instantly soft..  his blood ran cold.  

  His face stares at the door, and you stare at him, your grip on his shoulders tighten.

  “Steve?”  

*let me know your thoughts on this, should there be a part 2? I love hearing your comments ♥️

[acesandfairydust]

…I think this family has a drinking problem.

[the-amazing-digital-guardians-au]

The Amazing Digital Circus: Guardian AU

My TADC AU is now up and running! I will be making a poster, character cards, general art, and possibly comics based around the storyline. Here’s the information!:

Description:

Caine is the ringmaster and ruler of The Amazing Digital Circus, but there are some things that even he can’t control. NPCs go rogue all the time, often acting out and trying to genuinely hurt the circus members as they go on adventures. Because of this, Caine has always appointed two circus members he deems the most worthy to protect him and others from danger. They have been different over the years (mainly due to abstractions), but currently Jax and Ragatha are his Guardians. The two of them are more privileged than the regular circus members: they are allowed to wield weapons, swear, indulge in vices, and the like as long as they do so in private, do their jobs well, and don’t disrupt the "family-friendly" atmosphere of the circus. Caine trusts them…or so he says. And to make matters worse, it looks like NPCs are forming an uprising to overthrow Caine, led by none other than a revived Gummigoo! Travel through the colorful world of TADC, but covered in a grimy layer of violence, corruption, and deception.

Who will the story focus on:

Caine

Abel

Pomni 

Jax

Ragatha

Kinger and Queenie

Princess Loo, Gummigoo, and other/more NPCs as the canon Digital Circus web series progresses

Genre:

Religious and psychological horror

Comedy

Action

Philosophical(?)

Content Warning - Anything produced for this AU may have any of the following elements:

Religious themes

Implied/referenced torture 

Blood (No gore, but this may change in the future)

Mental health issues 

War themes

Gambling

Alcohol and Drugs

Foul Language

This AU is recommended for ages 16+

…Wait, there’s more?!

FAQ:

Can I make fanart?

Yes, fanart is encouraged and always appreciated! Just make sure to credit me as the creator when needed. Do not use my creations if you are hateful/racist/sexist/anti-LGBTQ or just problematic in any other way. I don’t want what I make to be associated with these things. As for NSFW stuff…I would prefer if you didn’t. (Okay, well…now that I think about it, sure, go ahead, go crazy. But please don’t send it to me, I don’t really wanna see it. And tag it appropriately! Be mindful of others!) Ocs are allowed!! Ships (Canon x Canon, Canon x OC, OC x OC, whatever) are allowed! Tag me in anything as long as it’s SFW. Seriously, do whatever you want!

What are the religious themes?

Christianity. I am a Christian myself, but I also really enjoy religious horror and researching different religions. Does Pomni represent Jesus in this story? Not really. But, I will be using themes/images of Christianity (like angels, for example) to enhance the horror. I also like studying Japanese and Chinese mythological figures, purely out of interest. I will never try to push my beliefs onto the audience in any way. People can believe in whatever they want!

Are there any ships?

Bunnydoll (Jax x Ragatha) is the main ship. It is mostly implied/referenced and nothing overly romantic happens. The story focuses on their emotional bond since they are both Caine’s guardians. If you don’t like the ship, please don’t be rude to people who do. And if you do like the ship, don’t be rude to people who don’t! There’s enough hate on the internet already. Just be mindful that we all like different things, and have fun!

How will the story be told?

Through comics, probably. It’s easier for me to write things in a document (as a script) and then draw, so it will take time. I will also make art on the side that may or may not have canon information or events. It depends.

What inspired you?

The 70s (lots of yellow, orange and brown colors), Skinnamarink, religious horror, vintage Las Vegas, vintage snacks, and other random stuff. I have specific inspirations for different characters. But my inspiration to even start this project is definitely @/burrotello and The Amazing Digital Fight Club AU. It’s awesome!

Can I ask questions about characters, the story, etc?

Yes, but if it’s an answer I don’t want to reveal yet…well, we’ll see what happens. Sometimes, I will make drawings where a character reacts or responds!

[hxney-lemcn]

Fake Dating — General! Scarecrow, Riddler, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Catwoman x gn! reader

summery: an excuse to pretend to date the rogues (some scenarios go better than others)

tw: Harassment, bad intentions (scarecrow), toxic ex

a/n: do some of these count as fake dating? It's more like kissing to throw someone off but same deal ig.

wc: 2.2k

Master List

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ Scarecrow

❥Your stupid boss made you stay back late. They didn’t care that it was dangerous at night, and you had to walk home. No, only work came first, safety was barely a thought. You were rightfully pissed, and the thought of quitting briefly fluttered through your mind. 

❥Which led to your current predicament. The streets of Gotham were dark as you walked along the wet pavements. Your paranoia was proved correct when a catcall was heard from behind you. You kept walking, hoping that ignoring them would deter their unwanted advances. You heard two more pairs of footsteps fall in sync with your own. 

❥Your heart started beating faster, eyes frantically looking for a way out. You were on a main street, but the people of Gotham don’t look twice when someone needs help. The men continued to harass you as you walked faster. You didn’t want to lead them to where you live, but nowhere was open this late at night.

❥That’s when you saw him. You didn’t know who he was, but so far he was better than the men behind you. It was a 50/50 chance that he was gonna kill you. So you jogged up to him, a fake smile on your lips as you greeted him, “Hey…love.”

❥When Jonathan had gone out for some fresh air, the last thing he expecting was someone coming up to him and calling him…love. Remind him that perhaps staying in his lab was better than taking a break. Jon stared at you like you had two heads, but the way your breath was rapid, your pupils constricted, and your eyes kept glancing behind you. You were scared, something he found amusing. Eyes trailing behind you, two drunken men leaned against a wall, seemingly waiting for you to be alone again. 

❥Jon wasn’t a good man, he found the fact you ended up looking to the master of fear for help hilarious, but he didn’t let that show on his face. You clearly didn’t know who he was, otherwise you would’ve taken the two drunken idiots. He could’ve had his fun, deny you help and watch as your fear grew. Hell, he could’ve taken you in for his own heinous experiments, but there was something about you that made him reconsider. Perhaps it was the fact you trusted him (at least enough that you weren’t just running away), or maybe it was a tinge of selfishness. He wanted to be the cause of your fear, not some lowlifes.

❥”Hello…dear,” Jon replied back awkwardly. He wasn’t used to helping people, less so treating a stranger like a loved one. You felt your body relax when the stranger complied. Not to mention the fact that he looked intimidating. He was outrageously tall and his expression was grim. The two men groaned loudly, crying out about maybe next time. 

❥For some reason, that rubbed Jon the wrong way. You weren’t his, not in any way, he didn’t even know your name! But for some damned reason, he didn’t like the thought of those two coming back to haunt you. He was supposed to be the one who haunted people's nightmares, not some nobodies. It was a matter of pride. And so he walked over to the two men, hand fiddling with the new fear toxin he had created. It was a dust, that once ingested, it would take immediate effect. He needed some test subjects for it anyway.

❥You felt your blood drain at the sight of your two harassers start screaming as the stranger blew an orange dust at them. No, he was no stranger, he was the notorious Scarecrow, and when he turned back around, he felt utter delight at the fear that shone through your eyes.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ Riddler

❥It was hard focusing on the mechanical work when Eddie wouldn’t stop talking. When his fans found out you were his assistant, they blew up, drawing art and speculating about your relationship. You’ve been a part of fandoms before, so you didn’t think much of it. But seeing fanart of you and Eddie kissing did take a bit of a toll on your mental health. 

❥Eddie had a harder time ignoring it, which made it harder for you to ignore it. Whenever he would look himself up, you seemed to pop up with him. It irritated him greatly. I mean he was supposed to be the one getting all the praise and attention, not you. And the fact that they put you on a pedestal right next to him? Were they even really his fans? You were a mere assistant, he could swap you out for anyone! 

❥He’s read multiple fanfics of you two. He would never admit it. He’d also deny how they would make his heart pitter patter like an absolute sap. You bet your ass you walked in on him one time, laying on his stomach, feet kicking in the air as the fanfic he read concluded with the two of you kissing. He totally has an alt account that likes and shares all the stories he really thinks make him shine. 

❥”Maybe if we pretended to date they’d get off our backs,” You offered. It was absolutely ridiculous and you knew it, but you’d do anything to get some work done in peace. Eddie scoffed, looking at you with a slight sneer. Really, how idiotic could you get? Why should he give those morons what they want? Absolutely not.

❥Yeah he caved pretty quickly. There was no other reason than to quench the masses. Nope. Nada. Why would he want to date you? He’s a man of intellect, not emotion. Mhm. Totally. And when he went live one day (obviously he covered his tracks so no one could find his location), and when you kissed his cheek on said live, the masses went crazy. In fact, your little plan had the opposite effect.

❥Eddie ate up all the attention you were bringing him. The revelation blew up on social media (much to Batman’s disarray). This caused Eddie to be even more annoying, and you found yourself completing even less work than before. He’d stop you to show how well someone drew him, he showed you praise, that was meant for you both, but twisted it to be about him only. He was a menace, but he was a charming menace. 

❥The line between reality and fake blurred between you both. Now your role as assistant included showering Eddie with affection, on and off camera. You’d huff and puff about it, putting on a show of how much you didn’t want to kiss his cheek goodbye if you left the hideout, but deep down you loved it. No one was as close to the green clad man as you had become, and you felt a sense of pride that you had managed to overcome those barriers. Maybe you should thank your fans for aggressively shipping the two of you.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ Harley Quinn

❥You found yourself dreading friend night. You and your friends would take time out of your busy schedules and catch up. Whether it would be about work, dating life, or any wrong doings you encountered. It was all fun…until they all started dating. Of course you were happy for them, that they were happy with their partners and wanted everyone to meet them. But that made you feel more of an outsider. 

❥You frowned as the group chat bounced with more and more texts. You all were going to hang out tonight, and you were the last one to have a partner to bring with. Harley had noticed that your lovely smile was gone, so she asked about it. When you explained the situation to her she looked dumbfounded. “I’ll just go as your partner then, silly!”

❥That’s how you found yourself nearly sitting in Harley Quinn's lap during karaoke. Some of your friends were off put by the fact that Harley freaking Quinn was there, but the others welcomed her with open arms. She was loud, rambunctious, and never failed to sing loud and proud, even if she didn’t know the song. She also was being overly affectionate…well if she wasn’t already.

❥When she noticed one of your friends and their partner getting lovey dovey, she’d lean over and give you a kiss with a loud ‘mwah’. She held onto you tightly the entire night, boasting about how great you were and she was lucky you picked her. It was nice, but it felt bittersweet. She wasn’t saying that as your lover, she was saying that so your friends bought the story. 

❥As the night finished, you found yourself in a worse place than you started. Bringing Harley made you realize just what you were missing. But Harley was a woman who knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to take it. So as you waved goodbye to all your friends, she wrapped her arms around your waist, leaning her head on your shoulder. “How about we do this for reals?” 

❥Did you really think she’d let the night end there?

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ Poison Ivy

❥You glared at your phone. They just wouldn’t leave you alone. You had blocked them from everything, and they still managed to contact you. It was over between the two of you but they couldn’t get the hint. No, it wasn’t even a hint anymore. You were practically screaming into their face that you were over them. 

❥It went too far when they had reached out to you via your address. Even worse, you were having a day in with Pamela Isley, better known as Poison Ivy. Even worse than that? They had sent you a bouquet of red roses. Ivy frowned from where she sat, eyeing the vase with disdain. You yourself felt very similarly. 

❥You didn’t even notice when Ivy walked up to you, taking the card that was imbedded in the dead flowers. Her expression continued to sour as she read the note. “You have quite the taste,” She murmured, tossing the card into the bin. “That taste has changed quite a while ago,” You replied back, unsure what to do with the flowers. 

❥Ivy asked you to explain. So you told her about your previous relationship, how you ended things, and how they seemed to cling to you desperately still. She only let out a small ‘tsk’. She wasn’t jealous, no. She had no reason to be. She had the world at her fingertips. She could also tell when someone was lying, and you were telling the truth. 

❥”Show them you moved on,” Ivy offered, taking a seat on the couch once more. You placed the flowers on a table, you’ll decide what to do with them later. You asked her how you could do that when that’s all you’ve been trying to do. She beckoned you closer, then grabbed your phone. Unlocking it, she pulled you closer into her, causing you to fall onto the couch. Then, she brought your face towards her and pressed your lips together. You felt like your problems vanished in an instant, unaware of the photo Ivy took. Then she pulled away, finding the unwanted admirer of yours quickly and sent the photo. 

❥You watched with slight terror, only for Ivy to shut your phone off. If your ex was truly smart, they’d realize the woman you’re kissing in that photo was Poison Ivy, and that if they didn’t back off she wouldn’t take it lightly. But who knew, they were never the smart type. And you couldn’t help but long for more than just the taste Ivy had given you, your ex a distant memory.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ Catwoman

❥Catwoman ran solo, everyone knew that. She worked best on her own. So when she asked you to accompany her on one of her heists, you did a double take. When you had asked her to clarify, she only winked. Oh how you hated how she had you wrapped around her pinky finger, but that’s how she likes them. She also promised a cut, which was more than enough to entice you.

❥She had you on watch guard. Not too bad you suppose. It wasn’t until the jewelry stores’ security alarm went off that you felt yourself double thinking this. You’d never leave Selina behind, but the thought of getting caught made your blood pump faster. You glanced around for witnesses, and only watched as people scuttled away. An alarm blaring was never a good sign, especially in Gotham. 

❥Selina slinked down, civilian attire helping her blend in. You furrowed your eyebrows, not sure how she normally stole, but this seemed out of the ordinary. Selina pulled you away into the alley. Before you could ask her what the plan was, her lips were on yours. You gasped in surprise, sirens starting to ring out. Even scarier was the fact that a dark shadow overpassed you both. 

❥Although, it was hard to think when she held you, when her lips pushed into yours so fervently. But you knew who she really was hiding from this time. Batman passed over, not even giving you both a second thought. Selina pulled away, she sent you a wink before sashaying away. You followed quickly, trying to ignore the way your heart pounded faster.

❥”If you’re really good, you might see more of those in your future,” Selina smirked.

[midnightsapphire]

here’s a small snippet of my Hades x Persephone au with Aemond! I’m having so much fun writing this but I need help coming up with a title :c any help would be appreciated! 

-----

Aemond Targaryen, first of his name, rider of the largest war beast in all of Westeros, Vhagar, Prince Regent, Kinslayer. The list was growing endless as Aemond cast his single eye along the burning castles of Harrenhal, the orange flames that cast a glow against the blue sapphire he no longer felt ashamed of hiding away behind the leather eyepatches. He let out a victorious laugh atop his beast as his arms spread as wide as the wing’s of his dragon, relishing on the victory he had achieved for the crown, for his family, for his king. 

He watched as the people screamed, pleading with him to show mercy as they watched their homes, their fields, their livelihoods be swallowed in a gust of orange as Vhagar swept low enough to breath her hellflame along their borders. Aemond made note of their fear-stricken faces, the curses thrown at him, the bodies falling with every moment. 

Dare he say he relished in the destruction that followed his shadow. 

It had been long after the death of Rhaenyra Targaryen, the Realm’s Delight, the Half-Queen no longer. The entirety of the Black’s reign whipped off the face of Westeros, a shell of an alliance that was never to be spoken in the King’s presence should they wish to keep their tongues, generously speaking on their part. The rule of Aegon the Second was rocky, but wholly accepted as the reign of the “true king” rose with Aemond’s assistance in allying themselves with the most powerful houses, keeping their own close and ridding the world of those that opposed them. 

“My brother, you’ve graciously returned!” Aegon slurred, his hefty cups of wine spilling with every word as he waved his hands graciously at the sight of his armor cladded brother, covered with soot and grime from the grueling fires that once again found itself on the ground of the Riverlands. Aemond bent the knee to his brother, casting his winged helmet at his side as he bestowed a sealed paper to his brother, that unceremoniously pushed the whore off his lap as he snatched the paper, lilac eyes skimming over it’s words as he felt a sickly smile grow on his face. 

“The fools had finally bent the knee.”

“They had no knees left to bend when I had stepped foot on their lands.” Aemond confirmed as he stood tall once again at the foot of the throne, his head held high as he glared at the whore that laid at Aegon’s feet, letting out a soft gasp and diverting her gaze away from the glimmering sapphire that ordained his face. 

“Perfect, they should remember with fire and blood who is truly meant to rule the seven kingdoms.” Aegon snickered as he stumbled upon the throne again, leaning his cheek along the top of his fist as he swallowed more swigs from his chalice, narrowing them at Aemond’s from above the rim. 

“Take it. Harrenhal.” Aegon spoke seriously, his head tilting as he eyed his brother. The ever dutiful son, the golden child, the one their mother clearly favored when he had bestowed the head of Daemon Targaryen after their fitful fight above God’s Eye, effectively ridding the world of the Rogue Prince and his blood worm, Caraxes. “You.. always had a knack for ruling, a taste for duty. Take it as it is, the barren wasteland. A gift from one brother to another.” He said with a brush of his hand. 

“It is no longer of any service to me when you have stripped the land bare of its forests and homes. Consider it.. your very own little underworld.” 

Thus he had become Aemond Targaryen, first of his name, rider of the largest war beast in all of Westeros, Vhagar, Prince Regent, Kinslayer, Ruler of the Underworld.

[luveline]

if you are taking suggestions, I would love to see a steve zombie!AU blurb!!

for you my love, steve zombie au — the college collapse and the fallout afterwards. fem!reader, 5k words tw for zombie apocalypse typical violence and gore, cuts/bruises, mentioned extreme violence/death, mentioned sexual assault (implied to have been attempted, no graphic description), hurt/comfort

You can hear people crying from the quad. 

You don't blame them if they look anything like you right now. Your hands are crusted with blood, your knees more cut than skin. Evidence of the dead marrs the floor, and evidence of the living stains the walls, black gore streaks across the linoleum and bullet holes like inverted stars in the walls, backlit by the bonfire lit in the centre of the quad.

There hasn't been a shot in hours. Still, you hide, and still, you bite your tongue to stop from crying. Crying isn't going to help. 

A familiar sound echoes from the east. A geek, the undead monsters that haunt what's left of the world, groans and sputters somewhere you can't see. Your skin crawls —sounds bound off of the tiled floor and walls, and in the dark you fail to pinpoint the exact origin. The smell of carrion is pervasive. You can't stay here. When the sun rises, you'll be plainly visible to foe rather than friend; raiders and geeks are waiting for morning to find you and whoever else survived. You have no choices, no weapons, nothing more than the clothes on your back. 

By now, the dormitory that you called your bedroom will have been seized, your meagre possessions gone. Each precious gift, every book and blanket. You'll never get to see it again. All those memories–

You bite your tongue again. The pain doesn't count for much. You're already in agony. Your lungs ache from screaming, from running harder than you've ever run, and you've been cut from head to toe by shards of glass. You're in the worst state you've ever been in minus one risky head injury, but you're far from hopeless. 

You've prepared for this. You know what you need to do. You'll do more than crawl across glass if it means you can reach the rendezvous point by morning. 

Taking quick, terrified breaths, you bounce to your feet and hold out an arm. It's a bad strategy. If you get bit, you can't fix it. You don't have a knife, and if you did you don't have the nerve to amputate yourself. But your choices are to lead via hand or face, and hand seems wiser. You step over slippery tile in your ill-fitting shoes until you find a wall, your panting echoed back at you. 

The sobbing has stopped. An eerie quiet takes its place. Something bad has happened. 

Something bad already happened. Something is over. 

You freeze when you hear chuckling. It's quiet but unquestionable. 

Who could laugh? After seeing the carnage of the cafeteria? The bodies lining the east gate? 

The pitch blackness wanes the closer you get to the door. A rogue tear races down your cheek as you squint against the flickering firelight. There's a herd of men standing at the pit of the quad, warming their hands with the spoils of the lives of the hundred who found shelter here. You hide your body behind the wall, the glass door of the gym you'd been secluded in stuck half open. They likely hadn't meant to, but the raiders tripped the electricity, and it hasn't come back on since. It likely won't come on ever again. 

You squeeze through the door, so afraid of being out in the open that it makes you physically retch. 

You rag your body through the door and wince at the deep gouges it feels like it leaves behind. Your knees don't want to bend, they're so shredded, but you've no choice but to sprint to the side of the gym, and then the fallen gates, and the treeline behind it. 

You step over the heavy metal gates that once protected you slowly. Each grind of fence into the asphalt below feels like a siren call. 

The only light is the orange flicker of the fire cast between the trees like grabbing fingers. You step in the shadows, flinching at every snapping branch under your feet, every dry leaf. You don't look back —you can't. You're terrified of what you'll see. 

Please, you think, over and over, a prayer if there's ever been one, please, please. You're so afraid of not getting what you're asking for that you can't finish the sentence. Your head is a loop of pleading, begging, offers to someone who isn't listening. 

I'll never complain. I will never wonder why. I won't cry, or ache, or so much as sigh. So please. 

It happened at dinner. The entire community, what felt like every member of The College gathered in one place for 'thanksgiving dinner'. There was thanks to be said, sure, but nothing that aligned with the original celebration. Thank you for a place to call home. Thank you for the meal. Thank you for a safe haven. Thank you for– 

But a shot rang outside. 

Heads bobbed. Adults and children alike shifted at the cafeteria tables to try and see which of the patrolling gate guards had needed to fire. 

It was like rain after that. Pop pop pop. 

You grip the present like a bouy and hold on tight. You can't think about what happened while you're still in it. The fear will paralyse you. 

Your shoe steps onto something soft. You look down though you don't want to, and it's too dark now to make it out. You bend at the waist and let out an involuntary whine at the pain that lances up your abdomen. 

It's a blanket. You don't think it's one of yours, though you had so many you can't be sure. It's green and rough and the best protection on offer. You wrap it around your shoulders and keep walking. 

You know where you are only because it has been drilled into you so thoroughly. 

I'll meet you at the bottom of the hill… Do you remember, we ate vegetable soup and dumplings cold? It was the best meal we'd had in months. 

"Oh, fuck," you say, losing the strength in your legs. You grasp at the rough trunk of a tree and gasp for air. You can't breathe, you can't think. "Fuck." 

Your sniffling whispers are lost in the wind. 

"I don't think I can do this," you mouth. 

I promise I'll meet you there. 

"I can't." 

But you have to. You can see it all laid out in front of you. Eating sour cherries on the floor, bare-legged and brimming with love, his hand on your straggly knee. His hand on your back, guiding you through doorways and under tree branches. His hand on your cheek, your shoulder, your thigh. 

His hand in yours, a hundred miles of highway behind you. Pulling you along. 

You walk for what feels like hours but can't be so long. Your shoes are doing more harm than good, blisters like pebbles on your heels and toes. You step out of them and carry them down the hill, grass sharp under the soles of your feet. The socks you wear are threadbare. 

You hadn't realised you'd have to do this, and that was a mistake. You could've been prepared for this; you should've been carrying a knife in your belt everywhere you went, and you never should've left yourself open to the elements. How many jackets do you have under your bed? 

The convenience store beckons like a beacon. The night is heavy but the moonlight strives to lead you, and you follow it to the white walls one exhausted step at a time. 

You circle the building. 

There's no one waiting for you. He isn't where he promised. 

You try to open the door but can't find the strength. Everything hurts more than anything has ever hurt before. Your hands are immobile now, your shoes falling to the concrete beneath with a dull thump. One springs away too far to reach. 

You sit down against the back of the convenience store, drained of everything you have. If he isn't here, he's dead. If he's dead, you might as well die. He was everything, and he's gone. 

You fall asleep sitting up against the wall, face smashed to your shoulder. Let whatever comes across you first finish you off while you sleep… 

There's a pressure around you. You wake in a struggle, still too tired to move, to flail, completely encompassed. Your first thought is that you've died, but the pressure tightens, and you feel all your hurt reawaken. 

"I know, baby," Steve murmurs. You must've made a sound. "I know. It's okay. I got you." 

You really have died if he's here. 

You grab limply at his back, trying to pull him away so you can see his face. It's a geek chewing through the juncture of your neck, and whoever's looking down on you feels sorry enough to let you see him before you go. It's a raider, tying you up and hanging you from a pike, the ropes constricting your blood flow. It's not Steve. 

"What fucking happened to you?" he asks, his voice shaking. "What happened? Did someone–" 

"Steve," a familiar voice says, "come on, man, she can't understand you." 

Steve pulls away from you and it's him, his face, his pale cheeks and almond brown eyes, one ringed in a purple wine stain, the white bisected by an ominous red. 

"What…" Your mouth won't cooperate. A cold hand grabs your face. It can't be Steve's, his hands are always so warm. Water is tipped into your mouth, the majority of which runs down your neck to your clavicle. 

"Do you have, um, do you have that bottle of malt still?" Steve asks. 

"She'll pass out–" 

"Maybe that's best," Steve says. 

"Not if she doesn't wake up again." 

"She's gonna turn septic, no doubt. I have to go back, I can get antibiotics." 

"You can't go back, are you stupid?" 

You groan, their words rushing in one ear and out the other, indecipherable from the whooshing that feels like it's originating behind your eyes. 

"Y/N," Steve says gently, "can you understand me, honey? Do you know what I'm saying to you? Can you nod?" 

You nod as best as you can. 

Steve puts a hand on your shoulder and squeezes gingerly. "I'm going to make everything better, I promise. I promise." 

You try to say sorry, you should be really fucking sorry, he has to save you all over again, but the only thing that wants to come out is shattered breath. 

Things are spotty after that. You have the sense of being moved flat on your back and dragged. It's not pretty, the distinct memory of a hand over your mouth, and then, when your bearings are coming back, you remember that you'd been screaming. 

You have your head in someone's lap. You don't fall asleep or wake up, it's like you're treading water and your head's been under. Now you're breaking the surface, and it's to the tender touch of a fingertip climbing up and down your nose bridge. 

Something crackles. It takes you right back to the bonfire in the quad, is it the bonfire? You try to lift your head and the person holding you startles. 

"No, stay still," Steve says gently. 

"Steve?" 

"Who else?" He says, still gentle but a hint of his usual derision peaking through. "Do you let other guys treat you this way?" 

"Steve," you mumble, tears pricking your waterline. 

He can't hug you from the way he's laid you out, but he leans over slightly as though he's shielding you from the grey above. You try to turn your neck and find the white hot pain a quick deterrent. 

"Look at you. Fuck, look at you," he says. 

You cry a little, unsure if you can speak. Tears sting an abrasion beside your eye. 

"Don't upset her, Steve," says a girl's voice. Your heart skips a beat as Robin Buckley comes into view, lip split and without a jacket but otherwise unscathed. "Hey, Y/N. Don't worry, you're not stuck solely with him." 

You laugh, but you're crying so you cough, and pain zips up and down your arms and legs. 

Robin kneels down beside you and hugs you lightly. Her hair, scraped back into a pony tail, tickles your cheek. 

"I love you, I'm so glad you're okay," she says. 

"Me too," you mumble. 

Robin pulls back and smiles at you. "You gotta eat something, killer." 

"I don't really think she can move, Robs," Steve says quietly. 

"She won't be able to if she doesn't eat." 

Steve sighs and helps you up painstakingly slowly, his hands under your armpits. He sits forward rather than pulling you back, supporting you like a Steve-shaped chair.

You realise for the first time since you woke up that you're inside, rather than outside. 

And there are lots of survivors. 

Jonathan and his mom are standing across the room. Jonathan has two little kids in his arms, and you're so shocked you actually try to ask about it. "Did he have babies while I was out?" you croak. 

Steve hums near your ear. "He saved nearly all of the kids all by himself… Most of their parents are dead. I think he feels responsible." 

"Most of them?" you ask. 

"Yeah." 

Lots of survivors doesn't mean all. It doesn't even mean the majority. The College had almost four hundred people living in it. This room houses what couldn't be more than a fifth of them, and there's at least a dozen children. You don't say it aloud, but you feel it thick in the air like an electric charge. 

This is not good. 

"Don't worry," Steve says, hands crossing over your stomach. "Please, honey, just– just think about yourself for now." 

"I can't believe it." 

He shushes you. 

"Steve, all those people…" 

"I know." 

You use him as impromptu furniture and Robin returns with a can of peaches and a fork. She loves you enough to feed you. It makes you want to cry again. 

You're relieved to be far away from what happened, but there's a feeling of unreality that won't cease. You keep looking at the corners of the room like the light will dim and the blood caked to your hands will reappear. Someone wiped them clean while you slept and bandaged them with care. 

You feel sick after the peaches. 

"Throw up if you gotta," Steve says mildly, his nose resting against the back of your head. 

You fall asleep again. 

When you wake up, it's night. You feel stronger than you had as soon as your eyes open, digging your elbows into the blanket tucked beneath you and hiking up to look around. Steve's asleep to your left, his hand screwed in the bedraggled fabric of your shirt, and Robin's asleep to your right, her hand touching your elbow. 

A woman you couldn't name from the back sits in front of the door. The muzzle of a long gun sticks out over her shoulder. 

The room isn't big enough for this many sleeping bodies, and so the group sleep toe to toe and hip to hip. The only people with blankets are the children and the badly injured. You have two. You have no idea how Steve managed it, one under you and one over your legs. 

Or, you don't think you know how he managed it until you slide the blanket down and realise you aren't wearing any pants. Underwear that aren't yours have been pulled up your thighs and cinched with an elastic band. 

Poor lovely Steve. He always does the gross stuff. 

You pull the blanket back up for the sake of decency and swallow. You swallow again. You're thirsty and in an insane amount of pain, the intensity increasing the longer that you think about it. You don't want to wake him, but you know it's what he'd want, and he's saved your life for the millionth time, so. He should get what he wants. 

You try to be sweet. You can barely breathe, your chest hurts that badly. 

"Stevie," you whisper, tugging his fingers from your shirt and squeezing them imploringly. "Stevie, please, are you awake?" 

It's Robin who rouses. 

"He–" She yawns and her jaw clicks. "He might not wake up, I made him take a quarter of an oxycontin." 

"Yeah? What for?" 

"He wrecked his knee, and he made it worse carrying you up the stairs here." Robin scratches her eyes with her hands. "Not that it's your fault, it's not your fault. Just what happened." 

"Oh." You pull Steve's hand to your lips and kiss it. Wincing, you turn onto your side to face Robin, pulling his slack arm over your tummy. He doesn't hug you closer in his sleep, and it feels wrong. "I know you look after him 'cos he's yours, too, but thanks." 

She smiles, her cheek appling against the hand she's using as a pillow. 

"Do you want a quarter of an oxycontin?" Robin asks. 

"No, you should save it." 

"I know you need it. It's not all superficial. Jonathan's mom gave you stitches, did you see?" 

"Everything sort of throbs right now." 

She pulls a half of a pill from her pocket and apologises that you have to bite it in half. She can't give you the full half because this is the full capacity of painkillers and she's lucky she has that. 

"It's okay," you say, accepting the water she offers. 

"I really don't know what we're gonna do, Y/N." 

"I don't even know what happened, I… don't even think I want to know. I remember the beginning." The gunfire and the shattering windows. The shouting. "I don't remember where you went." 

"We didn't know where you went." 

"Sorry. I don't know." 

"It honestly might be better if you don't remember any of it," Robin whispers wryly. "I wish I didn't." 

You grab her hand with your free one, pretzelled between her and Steve. "I'm sorry, Robs." 

"Me too. But we'll be okay. We're together."

"Do you want to talk about it?" 

Robin blows a curl of her hair from her face. She looks young, sun tanned and freckled as she is, and scared, which isn't her style. She acts like nothing ever gets to her. It's a privilege to be let in. 

"I was terrified that you were dead," Robin whispers. "And then I thought me and Steve were gonna die anyways, and he got into a fist fight with a geek and Dustin almost died." She stops abruptly. 

"Is that how he got the black eye? From a geek?" you ask. 

"No. There was a man," she says, "trying to pin me down. I don't know what he… Steve pulled him off of me." 

You rub the back of her hand with your thumb. "He hurt you?" you ask, eyes burning with heat. Angry and sad tears at the same time. 

"Nah, Steve saved me. He's good at that." 

"I'm so sorry."

"I'm sorry. You really don't get how bad you look, I shouldn't be telling you anything. You need," —her voice takes on a saccharine but not ingenuine pep— "to get better, and to worry about yourself. I'll be surprised if you ever walk again."

"Really?" The oxycontin must be working (if a quarter even works), 'cos you're not nearly as disenfranchised by this possibility as you should be. 

"No. But think about how much that would suck and this is almost the winning situation." 

"Sorry, Buckley, I swear I'd laugh…"  

"But everything sucks."

"Yeah." 

You have one hand full of Robin's cold fingers and another woven between Steve's warm ones. You have two whole blankets, you're mostly fed, and there's a lady guarding you with a gun bigger than your head. You can rest easy, if only for an hour. 

Robin falls asleep gradually, quiet snores growing louder by the by. 

You try to sleep, but every time you close your eyes you can see shapes like bodies standing over you, or hear a disembodied groan as it echoes in the shower room. You regretfully remove your hand from Robin's and turn back to Steve. There's a twinge in your thigh as you that reminds you about Joyce's stitches. You wonder how many there were. It feels like a lot when it pulls. 

You put you hand on Steve's cheek. Thinking you might cry and actually crying are surprisingly far apart. He deserves to have some tears shed for him, your poor boy, defending his friends, hurting himself, almost losing you, losing his home, and watching the community he loves die all in one night. He deserves so much more than he gets. 

"I love you," you say under your breath. 

The mantra. Please, please, please, let him be waiting for me. 

— 

Your hand is like a hummingbird in Steve's, twitching twitching twitching. He rubs the back of your hand and tries not to wake you. The pain you're in now while sleeping will feel a thousand times worse when you wake, and he has nothing to give you for it. 

He woke up to your fingers twined in his. You must've done it in the night. 

Robin's sleeping curled up next to you, his two favourite people in the whole world getting a well-needed break from the horror of it. Horror doesn't even feel like the right word, it doesn't encapsulate the grimness of your situation. There's no potable water, barely any food, and a lot of months to feed. Steve knows they need as many people out looking for resources as they can get so they can move on, and they need to do it fast, before someone comes looking to pick off the rest of them, but he just can't do it. He can't leave your side. 

He tries to think about how he got separated from you and every time it's like a kick to the chest. He looked to his left in the bloodshed and you just weren't there anymore. 

Things got messy in between. 

When he finally had the choice he tried to backtrack, and Chris and Robin had to forcibly drag him to shelter. 

He told you and Robin the same thing, meet me at the store, though thankfully Robin hadn't been out of sight for longer than a minute, and he'd been able to protect her. He wasn't the only one to pick a familiar place. A small crowd of people had been waiting inside the convenience store, a gun aimed at the door.

He'd wanted to go back for you. He would've if he could stand, his knee a twisting hot pain, an agony —he tried anyway. 

They stayed like that, kids hiding behind the shelves, the adults at the door like a barricade, waiting for a sign as to what to do. Waiting to be put down like animals by the monsters who invaded the community, geek and human alike. 

There was a thump by the door. Steve realises now that it must've been you, but they'd been convinced it was a geek, and so nobody stood. It had his nerves aflame, because what if you were huddled somewhere unable to move? What kind of boyfriend, what kind of partner, would leave you vulnerable? He'd rather put himself in moral peril trying to save you than leave you to that fate. So he stood on his fucked leg and he eased open the door, Christopher beside him because he's a good man, and together they stepped into the dusk. 

Steve did not have to look very far for you. You'd been laid out against the wall like you'd been thrown there. 

He collapsed to his knees as soon as he realised it was you, scared to touch you, your clothes more blood than fabric and your eyes scrunched closed in pain. 

"Holy shit," Christopher said.

Astute. Steve felt for your pulse, found it fast despite your state of unconsciousness. A wound on your leg was weeping furiously, and Steve ripped off the bottom of his shirt bare-handed to wrap it up. 

He hugged you even though it would do nothing. It was selfishly all for him. 

Steve had thought for a moment, Fuck, I cannot keep doing this. The level of adrenaline, the sharp spike of fear thinking he might have lost you. I can't keep doing this. 

But he can, and he will. 

They carried what food they could with them to the block of apartments they're currently taking shelter in, but Steve had carried you with help, and so he hadn't managed to grab anything at all. He relies solely on the charity of the community to feed you today, and he promises he'll make it up. 

"Y/N," Steve says, a can of soup in hand, not knowing if waking you is the right thing to do, but his hand on your shoulder anyways, "wake up, I have something for you." 

You mumble into the floor. 

He hums. He could heat the soup up. He'd need to go outside, which would be exhausting, and he'd have to start a fire, but they'll be starting one soon enough to boil water while the sky is still dark enough to hide the smoke. Maybe he can call in a favour. 

He limps over to Joyce. She's been great since the attack, considering what happened to Hopper. 

"Hey, honey," she says. "What are you upto?" 

"Can I be a total dunce and ask you for a favour?" 

Joyce takes his can of soup. He limps back to your side and looks you over for a while, peeling back your blanket to check that the big cut on your thigh and the tens on your knees aren't visibly infected. He's been given a tube of antiseptic and applied it to you generously, but he worries it won't be enough. Your legs are fucked, really fucked, cuts and bruises on every inch of skin. He has no idea how it happened and you haven't been lucid enough to ask.

He tucks the blanket back around your legs to ensure some privacy and moves onto your arms. He thinks you must've fallen onto debris, if the scratches near the base of your forearms are any indication. 

He puts your arm down gently and his eyes flick to your face. You're looking at him. 

"Oh, hi," he says, breathless with relief. 

"Hi Stevie." 

"Hi." He covers his eyes with his hands. 

"Steve…" You murmur, your fingers ghosting his elbow, stretched as far as you can reach from your position. "Baby, please."

He scrubs his eyes until they burn but successfully pushes away any waterworks. 

"You have to stop doing this to me," he says, practically begs, nodding with each word like it might drive the sentiment home. 

"I'm sorry." You sit up, clasping his elbow. "Really sorry." 

Steve exhales until he's completely empty of breath. "God, I know. It's not your fault." 

"Hey, Steve, stop using my mom like a catering service," Jonathan says suddenly, interrupting your moody conversation.

He's holding a camping bowl with a rag underneath it, pretending to be more pissed than he is. He smiles down at you. "Hey, how are you?" 

"I'm fine." 

"Well, eat up. Get better. I need friends that aren't fourteen years old or Steve," he jokes, lowering the soup into your lap. "I'm glad you're okay." 

"Thanks, Jonathan." 

He smiles and leaves, accosted by little kids as he goes.

Steve puts his hand under the soup despite the rag, worried you'll burn yourself. You protest, and Steve's actually happy to hear it. It means you're feeling more like yourself. 

"Are you sharing with me?" you ask. 

"If that's what you want." 

"Yes, that's what I want."

Steve lets you have the soup dumplings, hot and sweet, the best part. He doesn't bother eating even one. You take turns drinking from the corner of the camping tin, thigh to thigh, Steve guiding it to your lips whenever you look ready for another sip. 

It's actually him that cries, to his surprise. He thought for sure he'd hold it together, but he's just so grateful that you're here and in one admittedly battered piece, eating soup and warm against him, they start of their own accord. You rest your head wonkily on his shoulder, seemingly unaware. He tries not to sniffle.

"I love you," you whisper, dropping your hand on his thigh. 

He puts his cheek on your head. His tears seep into your hair. "I love you too." 

"Are you crying?" you ask, sounding heartbroken as you turn to him. Your eyes widen in shock. "What's wrong? Is it your knee?" 

It's not his knee. It couldn't be further from it. 

"We lost everything," he says, everything coming out in a rushing whisper, "I don't know what to do. I don't know how to take care of you anymore. You almost died, again."

"I didn't almost die, I was tired," you say gently. "I wouldn't have died." 

"That doesn't mean I can still do this." 

"Steve, I'm not asking you to do anything. I know I was hard work–" 

"No–" 

"But this time it's different. I'm not saying you don't look after me, I'm not even saying you won't have to again, but I don't need a bodyguard this time around. And we aren't alone. You're not alone. I need you to be my– to be mine. That's it." You put your hand on his cheek. It's heavy, rough, but you try to be kind and he knows it. You're uncoordinated, stroking under his eye. "I'm sorry, Steve, I am, I'm so sorry, please don't–" 

His turn to interrupt a ridiculous notion. "Please don't what?" he asks, not unkindly. You take your hand back. Your face crumples, your head dipped toward your shoulder. "Don't what? You think I'm going somewhere, really?" 

"Please don't blame yourself for everything," you say. 

It's not even that. He isn't blaming himself. He isn't blaming you. He's just mind-numbingly terrified to be back on the road.

"We're together," you say, nearly shy. "Isn't that okay for now?" 

"...That's the only thing that's okay," he says. 

He scrubs his face with his hand, scratching through his limp hair. He rolls his shoulders, and, after a deep breath, he takes your hand and pulls himself together. 

Steve doesn't know what to say, and he suspects you're facing a similar dilemma. 

"Don't get it twisted," he says eventually, his voice rough with earnestness, "you're the only thing that matters to me. But…" What do you say? After all those people have died? When your sweetheart can't stand, she's so cut up? All to get back to you and nothing good promised? "I wanted more than this for us." 

We had more than this.  

"This is the world now," you say, tired. 

"Remember that phrase? 'I'll give you the world'? I'd say that to you, but I don't think you want it," he says, trying to lighten the impossibly heavy mood. 

You laugh under your breath. "I do, though. I want it with you, handsome, so just… don't give up yet. Okay?" 

"I'm not giving up." 

"Thank you." 

Steve wraps an arm around your shoulders. "Don't say thanks, you don't even have to ask me for that." 

He rests his face against yours, mouth to your temple, his eyes slipping closed. He doesn't have it in him to unpack everything that's happened. Maybe he never will. 

But he has his girl. 

—-

ty for reading! requests for this au are open so let me know what you wanna see if you’d like to<3

[gemstarstarlight]

BEHOLD THE ANNOUNCEMENT

I HAVE ACQUIRED A SON

Looking forward to sharing a personal announcement soon