#but i’m not and so it does ! and i’ve been connecting so many dots lately which is just not rly all that pleasant i cant lie

[justinefrischmanngf]

people tend to compliment me when they’re apologising to me and like i appreciate their apologies and it’s sweet of them to compliment me, but it’s also just like, i don’t want to be the bigger person here. i don’t want to be like yeah great i have this skill and you don’t and because you don’t you’ve hurt me but awesome! i’ve got it! like idk i’m just feeling very petty and sad and full of Emotion and i’ll get over it but idk. i have this real desire to be so cruel and i won’t act on it but idk it’s this horrible part of me that wants to be like well fuck it EYE want to be the one fucking up and hurting people and making things complicated !!!!!!! and that’s not ok!

[munsonluhvr]

Tattoo artist!Eddie x body piercer! Reader who have a shit ton of sexual tension ✨ I’ve been on a tattoo artist!Eddie pick lately ahah

TATTOOED ON MY HEART

a/n: omg wait is tattoo artist!Eddie actually a thing?? how am I just learning about this???? time to go down a rabbit hole LOL. hope u enjoy; hopefully this isn't *too* much smut then u were expecting...

contents: tattoo artist!eddie munson x body piercer!reader. with the arrival of a new tattoo artist, eddie munson, at your tattoo and piercing studio, it's clear that the two of you have intense chemistry.

If it wasn’t for the new tattoo artist, Eddie Munson, who sits off to your right on one of the tattoo tables, you probably wouldn’t have had to move the piercing dot which shows where you’ll piece the skin so many times. His gaze has a way of making you feel unnerved. 

“What if it hurts?” Robin, your freckled friend who sits underneath your touch on one of the tables, whines. Robin frequently comes in to the studio to get something new pierced, shamelessly taking full advantage of the discount you give to your friend. 

You blow out between your lips, frustration brewing inside you. You never have had to move the piercing location multiple times; you normally get it right on the first try. This isn’t the first time you’ve pierced Robin, let alone pierced anyone, it’s what you do for a career for god’s sake. The only thing that’s changed is Eddie’s presence, showing itself as the cause for your mess ups.  You hold the fine tipped marker in one hand, staring at Robin’s earlobe. “It won’t hurt, Robin, but if you keep wiggling and I end up stabbing your neck with the needle then that will definitely hurt.” 

Off to the side, Eddie laughs while shaking his head. “That’s one way to reassure your client.” 

You roll your eyes, not needing his advice on how to pierce someone, a task he knows nothing about as a tattoo artist - your crafts are completely different with very little overlap. 

“He’s right, that wasn’t very reassuring.” Robin mumbles, looking down at her hands that rest in her lap. With her thumb, she chips away at her already chipping blue nail polish. 

You toss a look at Eddie, a scowl brewing on your face. Though, the harsh look softens when your eyes connect with his, his big, brown eyes looking back at you. He raises his hands in defense, “I’m just saying.” 

 “Don’t you have some scary biker dude to go tattoo or something?” You retort playfully. 

Eddie shrugs, a smirk on his face, making no attempt to leave. “Sure, a whole bunch of ‘em, but it’s awfully entertaining to watch you pierce.” He folds his hands in his lap, leaning back in his seat, his eyes trained on you. 

Your stomach does a flip, your skin becoming flushed. You turn your attention back to Robin’s ear. You take a deep breath, steadying your hand to replace the dot on Robin’s earlobe. At last, you place the tip of the marker in a place that you feel satisfied with. You allow Robin to look at the new location, which she approves with a single nod. Taking the sterilized supplies, you line the piercing needle up with Robin's skin. "Take a deep breath and exhale on the count of 3."

Robin inhales, then exhales and after you count down, you take the opportunity to pierce the her skin with your needle. She tenses, hissing like a cat, then she relaxes. "How does it look?" she asks, glancing up at you.

You smile softly, stepping back to look. "Like I did an amazing job." Robin laughs, and lifts the mirror up to her face to get a look herself. You're too busy watching your friend admire your handy work, and she's too busy looking at herself, to notice that Eddie has approached you from behind, peering over your shoulder to get a look too.

"Amazing job, indeed." Eddie mumbles next to your ear. You jump slightly, an intense wave of heat creeping over your body. You clear your throat, side-stepping away from Eddie. You positively hate the way he makes you feel.

Robin glances up from her reflection, looking between you and Eddie. Her eyes meet yours and she raises her eyebrows, a questionable look on her face. You knew what she was thinking though: who is this guy?

After a minute, Eddie slinks off to another part of the studio, leaving you and Robin alone.

"Okay, are we going to talk about the obvious tension between you and that guy, or are we just going to ignore it?" Robin asks, cocking her head at you.

"His name is Eddie, and I'd rather not."

Robin groans softly, shaking her head. "It's obvious that he finds you attractive, y/n. And you aren't so slick with hiding your feelings either."

You frown. "What are you talking about? I don't like him, I barely know him. He's just the new tattoo artist for the studio."

Robin waves her hand in your direction. "Regardless, he's into you, since you can't tell that on your own." You roll your eyes, beginning to clean up your space. "Sure."

After Robin leaves the studio, quite pleased with her new piercing, you begin to close the shop. Eddie, who is finishing up a tattoo with one of his clients, still accompanies you in the studio. As another 30 minutes passes by, you sit in the back room, a magazine in your hand, as you wait for Eddie to finish. In the distance you hear the cash register beep, and the door bell jingle shortly after, signaling that Eddie's client is gone. Seconds later, Eddie enters through the back room's doorway.

The thing about Eddie is that he's gorgeous; tall, dark and handsome. The second the owner's of the studio introduced you to the new tattoo artist, you were smitten, though you were determined to not let Eddie catch on to that. Eddie, however, was a little more bold, in pretty much everything that he does. He's charismatic with the other piercers and tattoo artists that work alongside you both in the studio, and awfully friendly with his clients. His personality, coupled with his good looks, intimidated you and you find yourself sometimes shutting down in his presence.

"How'd the tattoo come out?" you ask nonchalantly, not looking up from your magazine. Your heart thumps against your chest, and you tell yourself to play it cool.

Eddie opens the fridge that's placed in the far left corner of the backroom, grabbing a glass bottle of coco-cola, and moves to sit across from you at the table. "Pretty good. He seemed happy with it which is all I can ask for as a tattoo artist." You hum, but say nothing else, simply flipping to the next page of your fashion magazine.

Silence takes over the break room and you find your mind wandering to what Robin said earlier: did Eddie really find you attractive? Curiosity takes over you, and you decide to test your friends theory. You bend your upper body forward over the table, leaning on your elbow, your chest on full view.

Eddie swallows, his eyes immediately diverting to your exposed chest. Similarly to you, Eddie found you attractive the second he met you, though when he attempts to flirt with you, he's met with sarcastic, playful banter. Nonetheless, he's committed to get to know you. He even believes you may like him too.

Eddie clears his throat. "Was that your friend you pierced today? You seemed to know each other more than just clients."

You nod. "We are very close friends. She appreciates the discount I give her so she comes to me for all her piercings." You glance up at Eddie through your eyelashes and are met with his gaze.

Eddie only nods, your eye-contact entrancing him. After a second, you look away, closing your magazine. "Well, I suppose we should close the studio. People tend to try and come in for a tattoo or piercing at the last minute if we don't make it look like we're closed."

You stand up, turning towards the sink that's in the break room as well, cleaning up some of the dishes and trash that has accumulated over the day and was left behind by the other employees of the studio.

Eddie, who's eyes are now trained on your backside, has the urge to test if his assumptions about you liking him are true. He's wanted to make a move on you for the longest time, so what's stopping him now?

Eddie stands up, moving around the table to stand beside you at the counter. Without asking, he jumps in to help, drying the dishes that you put on the rack to dry. There wasn't much cleaning to do to begin with, so with Eddie's help, the work is done quickly.

You angle your body towards Eddie. "Thanks for the help."

Eddie nods, a small smile on his face. "No problem." There's only a few inches between you and Eddie, and you can smell his cologne radiating off of him.

Without giving much thought, Eddie reaches out, his fingers working to brush strands of your hair away from the frame of your face, and tucking them behind your ear. "You're really pretty, you know that, right?"

You bite down on your bottom lip, your eyes diverting away from his gaze. In your lower abdomen, lust and attraction fills you fully, your heart beginning to thump against your chest again. "Thank you," you mutter.

Placing his finger up to your chin, he lifts your face and gaze to meet his. Instinctively, he brushes his thumb against your bottom lip. You have no idea why, but as if he asked you to, you open your mouth, letting Eddie's thumb be engulfed by the wetness of your tongue and softness of your lips. His eyes widen, and he steps closer to you, closing the small gap that existed between you.

Time stops, allowing you to live only in Eddie's presence. He places his thumb on the thickness of your tongue, and you move your head back and then forward, letting his finger slide in and out with ease. Eddie's mind is filled with dirty thoughts about you on your knees, or legs spread wide open, your eyes locked on his.

You part your lips, letting Eddie's thumb slip out. He's quick to find another point of contact with you, cupping your face with his large hands, bringing your lips onto his. You sigh softly, the tension beginning to slip away. It's then that you realize how badly you've wanted this, how many times you pictured this very scenario while Eddie tattoos one of his clients in the booth next to yours.

Eddie's lets one of his hands wander down to between your legs and under your skirt, his fingertips grazing your cunt lightly over your panties. He wants so badly to just take you right there, against the backroom's sink or across the tabletop. But he refrains, wanting to take his time with you.

You sigh against his lips, your head leaning back in pleasure and anticipation. Eddie takes the opportunity to kiss the length of your neck, his teeth nipping at your skin lightly. You grasp on to his bicep, steadying yourself; his touch making you feel light-headed. Is this what you've been missing out on the entire time?

With his nimble fingers, Eddie moves your panties to the side revealing your slick pussy. His stomach twists at the feeling, realizing your wet because of him. Without a second thought, Eddie plunges his fingers into you and you part your legs further, letting him gain access easily. You shudder against his touch, the feeling of his fingers exploring you is euphoric.

You become breathless quickly, Eddie's rhythm working against your core making you sweaty and your knees wobble. Your moans become more frequent and louder, and you hope no potential customers enter the shop. "Fuck, that feels so good," is all you're able to say.

Your hips move back and forth against Eddie's touch, begging for more and more. Pleasure courses through your torso, your thighs beginning to tremble around Eddie's hand.

"I always thought that you may like me," Eddie mumbles, his lips dipping down to your collarbone. "I guess I was right." He curls his fingers in just the right way, stroking your most sensitive spot. Your mouth parts, and you reach behind you to grip the edge of the sink to keep your balance.

You screw your eyes shut, your breath becoming more rapid. Without you being aware, Eddie kneels in front of you, replacing his fingers with his mouth. Once you feel his lips and tongue on you, your hand darts down to his hair, your fingers intertwining with his hair.

Eddie's stomach twists; he wishes this this moment could go on forever. Eddie laps against you, each stroke of his tongue bringing you closer to the edge. His tongue swirls, against your clit, a burning intensity growing in your lower abdomen. You whine, gripping the edge of the counter harder.

Eddie's hands travel up, holding your waist. One of your hands creeps down to your waist, your hand placing on top of his. You peer down at the same time that Eddie peers up, bringing your eye-contact together. His brown, puppy like eyes look up at you, sparkling against the dim lighting in the backroom.

Eddie pulls back away from you, his grip tightening around your waist. "Come for me," he says, moving back onto you.

Almost immediately, you finish, shuddering against Eddie's touch. You sigh heavily, the feeling of the pressure escaping your lower abdomen, bringing you relief. Eddie hooks his fingers into the sides of your panties, pulling them up your legs as he stands up. Eddie, who is quite pleased with himself, wonders what his next move should be. He desperately wants to keep going, his cock still wondering what it would feel like to be buried in you, but he wants the tension between you and him to continue to grow. He wants nothing more than to make you wait, to pine for him until you need to crawl towards him, a burning desire to fill yourself with his cock.

You, however, are ready to go, your hands reaching towards the buckle on Eddie's jeans. Just as you begin to fumble with his belt, he grasps your hands in his.

You frown, wondering why he's stopped you. Doesn't he want you to touch him too? "I-I want to do you now," you say, your voice coming out low.

Eddie shakes his head, a daring look on his face. "Not now, not yet." His words leave you bewildered, wanting to ask a hundred questions. What does he mean, 'not yet'?

He steps forward, placing a light kiss on your cheek. You blink, wondering what is happening. "To be continued." He mutters, then slips out of the break room leaving you alone in the studio.

If there wasn't tension before, there's definitely tension now.

[confused-wanderer]

Batman and superman are their opposite personalities in civilian form.

.. so this gives us a perfect opportunity for the most disastrously chaotic dynamic (and love square) EVER.

ESPECIALLY if they don’t know the others true identities, or even they did and are just being lil shits anyways

Give me:

grumpy skeptical Clark to Bruce’s sunshine playboy persona.

Clark *trying to down as many aspirins as he can, half tempted to throw himself into the sun* : Bruce we needed to surround the enemy, not SEDUCE them!

Bruce *currently on his way to a dinner wearing the most seductive outfit known to man* : Well, you know the saying. We can’t gatekeep or manslaughter our way out of it. Girlboss it is.

Clark: Bruce you are going on a date with a STRAIGHT MAN

Bruce: Give me five minutes and then I’ll let you hear him scream my name

*horrified Clark noises*

==================================

Brooding and detective Batman meeting lie-detector and very effective investigator journalist Clark Kent

Batman: Tell me where the bombs are Riddler!

Riddler *currently tied up* : Hehe you’ll never find them~

Clark: Mind if I record this session Mr. Riddler?

Batman:

Riddler:

Clark:

Riddler: Who the hell-

Batman: .. Kent. How’d you even get here?

Clark: Irrelevant questions. *waves recorder* so..?

Riddler: Sure..tell the public I’m going to paint the walls red-

Clark *in investigative journalist mode* : So which devastating rock bottom led you to lose your mind and pursue this as a career?

Riddler:

Riddler: hey wait hang on this is a fulfilling career!

Clark *raising a judgemental eyebrow*: So.. you fighting a man dressed as a bat, with that atrocious outfit you must’ve gotten from hell and riddles that you’ll give him the answer to anyway.. this is fulfilling?

Riddler *voice breaking* : .. yes?

*questioning and judgemental silence*

Few hours later

Red Robin: .. why is Riddler crying and why does he also have a career counselling book in his hand?

Batman *just as surprised and kind of disturbed at how methodical and impressive Clark was in breaking down Riddlers plan based on evidence and connecting the dots* : Honestly I thought he was here for me and he started ignoring me so out of concern for his safety I demanded he paid attention

Red robin: And?

Batman: and he said “oh you don’t want me to pay attention to you” and showed me.. a lot of details and screenshots I don’t know how he got his hands on

Red robin:

Batman: Riddler also then attempted to escape and Clark just.. punched him so hard Riddler still doesn’t know which universe he’s in..

Red robin: well it could’ve been worse.. Clark could’ve pulled out a gun

Batman: .. he has a flamethrower

Red Robin: IM SORRY WHAT

Batman: .. and he told me we should work together sometimes, and I gave him few crime stories and plots to help raise awareness for the public and stop them.

Red robin:

Batman: also he gave me a therapy card.

=========

Give me ray of sunshine and leader Superman with no sense of self preservation Bruce Wayne

Superman: Good evening Mr. Wayne, there’s a credible threat against you so I’ll be on the lookout for today-

Bruce *sidling upto him* : .. damn.. when I said send your hottest stripper you did deliver..

Superman *beet red* : Im not the stripper sir!

Bruce: Really?

Superman *furious nodding*

Bruce: okay then.. hey listen, I’ve been learning about important dates in history lately.. do you wanna be one of them?

Superman. Exe has stopped functioning

Later

Superman: Mr. Wayne there’s a blackout and the building is under attack! Evacuate!

Bruce *running with gunshots behind* : Are you outside? You’re invulnerable right? Nothing can hurt you? Not even gunpowder or explosives?!

Superman *touched and pleasantly surprised* : yes.. so you don’t have to worry about me Mr. Wayn-

*glass breaks and Superman catches the dark mass falling in the air*

Superman: See? You’re safe-

*realises he’s holding a huge bomb about to detonate*

One explosion later

Superman: … you threw a bomb at me

Bruce: What?? You said you were invulnerable! I didn’t know what else to do with it??

Superman: So you didn’t think to tell me? Not even a warning?

Bruce: Listen that bomb was hot but compared to how smoking hot you were I didn’t think it ever stood a change

Superman: Mr. Wayne, listen. You should’ve atleast yelled or said something so I could’ve gotten it away in time. What if I hadn’t?

Bruce: I did! I yelled GET READY FOR A BLOWJOB

Superman:

Bruce:

Superman:

Bruce: ?? Did I do something wrong?

========

And obviously.. the usual golden retriever Superman x black cat Batman that we all know and love so I’m just going to leave it at:

Batman: Someone is going to die.

Superman: Of fun!

Batman: Sure if you consider burning to death fun

Superman:

Superman: Oh come on be a little optimistic! We must have hope! We will persevere!

Batman: we are literally being held hostages by aliens

Superman: ..listen okay, let me do the talking. We just gotta de-escalate the situation

Alien: You intruders! You will never get our superior defender systems-

Batman *done with this bullshit* : I already hacked into it twenty days ago and found all of your identities, families and now have full control over your systems of defends and weapons. If I wanted to hurt somebody.. I would’ve done so already.

Alien *tries to punch him, gets headbutted instead*

Alien *chuckles* : You have a thick skull Batman..

Batman:

Superman *frantic whispering*: Dontsayitdontsayitdontsayitdontsayit-

Batman: .. atleast mines protecting a brain. Wish I could say the same for yours

Superman *heavy sigh*

[dial-a-dyke]

Do you know about Queering the Map?

Hey y'all! I wanna highlight a queer platform I've been really interested in recently, one that has gained popularity in the last couple months especially. You might recognize this heartbreaking and intimate excerpt from Gaza that's been circulating social media platforms in the last couple months:

I’ve always imagined you and me sitting out in the sun, hand and hand, free at last. We spoke of all the places we would go if we could. Yet you are gone now. If I had known that bombs raining down on us would take you from me, I would have gladly told the world how I adored you more than anything. I’m sorry I was a coward.

The post comes from queeringthemap.com which, according to their Instagram, "is a community-generated counter mapping platform for digitally archiving LGBTQ2IA+ experience in relation to physical space."

Basically, Queering the Map allows you to post your own queer memories from anywhere in the world, completely anonymous. Wanna mark where you and your girlfriend had your first date? Drop a pin. Wanna place yourself in the middle of the ocean as a metaphor for unrequited love? Drop a pin. Wanna reflect on being the only queer person in your town? Drop a pin.

There is no limit to what users can post - or what they can see. Every post that users have ever created is still on the site, serving as make-shift digital archive for queer memories. Posts are public to any user who visits the website, allowing people to browse the digital globe and the queer experiences people have shared.

Founded by Canadian artist Lucas LaRochelle in 2017, Queering the Map has connected countless LGBTQ2IA+ people from around the world. Some like to share their own memories, others find hope in reading others' posts, and some share the posts to other platforms for rhetorical purposes.

Take the excerpt above from Gaza, for example. It first began to circulate the web (to my knowledge) roughly a year ago, and then again in June after it was featured in a NYT article. Then, in October, Instagram, Twitter, Tik Tok, and Tumblr users began sharing the screenshotted post to show solidarity with Palestinians - especially queer Palestinians. The Dyke Project used this excerpt and others from Gaza to display on bus advertising systems. Something about Queering the Map captivated attention in a unique way - something about it made people feel like it was the right place to turn in moments and feelings of tragedy and horror.

Other times, people share posts that simply spoke to them. Illustrator Aude Nasr brought some posts to life, helping us picture the moments people were trying to document. I've posted some of Nasr's art here.

I encourage you all to check out queeringthemap.com at some point, if not to post for yourself but to just see the beautiful, lively, and complicated memories someone, somewhere, wanted you to see. And to my queer siblings everywhere: I am constantly amazed by our desire to connect with each other, to defy borders and time, and to write our stories down.

Quick userguide:

Entering the website, users find themselves in a zoomed in location on the map. The water is blue, but the land is pink with dotted lines indicating borders between states or regions, and straight lines between countries. Using their mouse, one can scroll to zoom in or out. Memories are marked on the pink map by black location tags, which you can click on to view the specific memory a user shared for that location, or simply run your mouse over it for a smaller box to show the text. Zooming out too far, a user might see a black blob, no pink space in sight as so many memories have been posted to a particular region.

Were you familiar with Queering the Map before this post? What about before the last couple of months? What Queering the Map entry speaks to you? What does queer memory making mean to you?

Here's some posts I've been thinking about lately.

It gets better. When I first got here I was so unsure of myself and if I would be accepted. Now, I know I am loved, I am more sure and I have been accepted and embraced unlike ever before. Roll Pride baby!

came out to my daughter here while driving her to school, 6 years later and 6000km away she came out to me .

Came out to my folks. It didn’t go too well.

Was with the cutest guy I’d ever met

I’m from rafah and she’s from deir al balah, she got married later and i left gaza strip, to this day i think of you, to this day i wish to be back to sleep with you in the same bed, i want you to call for my name again, i wish if i can be with you again my heart. بحبك وبالرغم من الي صار دايما في بالي.

Idk how long I will live so I just want this to be my memory here before I die. I am not going to leave my home, come what may. My biggest regret is not kissing this one guy. He died two days back. We had told how much we like each other and I was too shy to kiss last time. He died in the bombing. I think a big part of me died too. And soon I will be dead. To younus, i will kiss you in heaven.

First kiss 16 years ago

One day, this sea will not divide us.

i hope your family knows i will love you until the day i die. i hope we meet in every life, no matter how many times you break my heart. Wo ai ni

故事从这里开始 : ) Un día te olvidaré, no importa que sea tan difícil. Me lo creo.

[odybee]

Alrighty! I’ve got both their profile pictures ready for when Art Fight fixes up whatever issues they’re having with their email provider, so here are the refs of both Piper and Alec. Divide is for Breaking Point spoilers!

Piper Pointe is a mercenary with an extremely small stature, coming in at only 2.5in tall. She has no idea how it happened, only that it is somehow vaguely connected to her previous line of work. At odds with the new world she finds herself in, she often comes off as extremely rude, vulgar, and aggressive to anyone she meets, but she wasn’t always like this. Back when she was part of a team, her leadership skills brought her and her squad through many a battle even as the pressure would have been too much for most to bear. Sometimes this part of Pointe shines through, though very rarely, especially now that everyone is a potential threat. A cornered animal without its pack has nothing to lose, so why not make a joke of it all?

When she isn’t being a little roach of a woman, she’s practical, realistic, and surprisingly understanding. She went into the military because she wanted to protect people, after all. It’s another reason why she feels so betrayed when Kyle and Grey treat her the way they did. Deep down, she wants to believe that Alec is different, but experience has proven time and again that every person she meets always ends up being the same no matter how much they deny it initially. The scars adorning her limbs, body and mind are proof enough that perhaps she was never meant to be part of a team..

! I will add more to this reference later to include her scars. For now, just know that she has two big scars on her right leg, one on her left arm (partially revealed in this ref), a few medium-sized, circular ones dotting her upper arms/shoulders, and a whole bunch of smaller ones on the rest of her body.

Alec Yrmec is an unremarkable 9th-grade chemistry teacher that does his due diligence and doesn’t have much to complain about. He loves his job, has a small but good group of friends, and works to keep as much drama out of his life as possible. His family makes this quite a task, as they somehow manage to make his life a live soap opera at every possible turn. His half-brother Grey is one of the few people from his family that he enjoys living by, even if they don’t talk terribly often.

Alec’s biology teacher friend Sarah discovers Piper on the floor of his study while both are up late grading papers one night. Alec nearly crushes Piper to death on accident during the ensuing struggle to capture her, and he still feels awful about it. He’s scared to admit it, but Alec has an awful lot of unresolved issues that result in a fear of abandonment, and a *lot* of aggression boiling just beneath his calm, introverted self. Without a means to properly vent and unwilling to burden his friends with his issues, they manifest in short bursts of clinginess and/or anger. Especially inconvenient for someone like Piper, who is too small to resist. He just wants to hold her and keep her safe.. can you really blame him?

Sooo yea! These two are currently living together under Alec’s roof. His chapters are still a ways away from being implemented in Breaking Point, but I’m so interested in developing his character and learning more about him as I write that he’s the captor I’ve drawn the most. More to come in the future!

[authorluvgxbby]

The Delinquent Next Door - Part 4: It’s A Date!

Genre: Fluff

Synopsis: With your world turning upside down, you begin to slowly connect the dots of who your neighbor really is. It seems that no matter where you are or what situation you’re in, it all relates back to Hanma Shuji. Things are moving a bit too fast for you...so, how will you manage?

Pairing: Hanma Shuji x Neighbor! Reader

Warnings: Cursing, mentions of violence/violent behavior, slight trauma mentions/suggestions

A/N: *gasp* THANK YOU SO MUCH! 😭  Honestly, I was about to abandon the whole thing, but since I've been getting a lot of questions about it, I'll be posting the rest of it every week or so. This part was kinda short, so I apologize in advance. Enjoy!

Part 1      Part 2      Part 3     Part 4  

Two days have passed since your near death experience with Hanma. 

Guess you could basically check off almost being murdered off your bucket list.

What a wonderful world we live in. 

After the experience of the unsavory adventure, you began to contemplate the events of that night, while trying to piece together the…interesting background of your neighbor. 

His infamous reputation as the most feared gangster in Kabukicho was very odd, seeing as how a normal individual, such as yourself, wouldn’t have a clue about him, yet those small fry gangsters knew him like he was some historical figure out of a history book. 

I mean, since when do gangsters do homework on other gangsters? Maybe there’s some sort of class specifically for delinquents or something?

You shook your head. 

This is crazy.

To be honest, you had to give him some credit.  Despite the ridiculous and underlying comical nickname as a “Grim Reaper,'' you understood why people–delinquents–feared him so much.

That night when witnessing the fight between him and those thugs was something you certainly would never forget. Not because of the shock or the adrenaline pumping through your body due to the obvious danger that was present in the situation but because of the fact that Hanma, at the time, wasn’t the same person you met. Or, in your eyes, wasn’t just the average asshole next door neighbor that you had bumped into. 

That night, you saw a completely different side of him aside from his crude and playfully cocky behavior. 

He wasn’t the idiot you saw trying to bulldoze his door because he was lazy. No, he was a guy who would have beaten the crap out of anyone that looked at him wrong without hesitation and a really, really, really scary delinquent. 

Certainly someone you wouldn’t want to piss off. At least, not too much. 

Just gathering that much pretty much made it clear that Hanma wasn’t exactly normal.

As a matter of fact, it’s almost impossible to consider him ‘normal’ after witnessing how he basically took life as a joke with little to no care for his own safety and well-being. Which makes him ten times as weird as you thought he was.

What kind of neighbor knows how to beat the literal shit out of people? No–what kind of person takes pleasure in violence? 

None of which you or anyone else knew, that’s for sure.

Nonetheless it seems that everywhere you go, trouble follows behind you, and so does Hanma Shuji. 

I should move….and get out of the neighborhood while I’m still in one piece.

“Hey…”

But that wouldn’t really benefit me much. It was hard enough finding somewhere cheap to live.

“y/n!”

You snap out of your thoughts, turning your full attention towards your concerned best friend.

She frowns. “Are you alright? Are you still in shock from what happened?”

You blink owlishly, waiting for her words to process.

Oh right, she still feels guilty.

You glare at her, landing a gentle smack to her shoulder, “How many times do I have to tell you that I’m fine! Quit beating yourself up already”

She frowns,“How can I not blame myself after you almost got hurt? All because of a stupid date!” she pouts, eyes watery as she takes your hand into her own, squeezing gently.

 “You’ve been so distant lately, and you’ve been on edge ever since that night,” she mumbles, once again squeezing your hand apologetically, “how can I not worry about you…” 

Ok, sure, it kinda was her fault. 

No, wait, scratch that–it definitely was her fault. But, hey, it could have been worse. If it weren’t for your crazy neighbor, you would’ve ended up in a body bag, yet here you are now, alive and breathing, and still working minimum wage at a run-down diner for a living.

“You say that as if I’m dead already,” you deadpan, rolling your eyes as you turn back to the register you were posted at, “and besides, as far as I’m concerned I’m still sucking air for the most part, so you shouldn’t be so worried. I’m fine.”

Bzzz!

Great timing universe!

Quickly fishing out your phone from your jeans pocket, you quickly glance at the new notification on your screen.

Jerk-Face Reaper: Meet me on the roof at 11 P.M.

Gee, my day was great, thanks for asking!

You: Why? 

He doesn’t respond, only having read the message as indicated underneath your text.

You huff, slightly gripping your phone as you curse him through the tiny device.

You: I’m not gonna come if you don’t tell me why. I have to study for exams tonight, so I don’t have time for you rn. 

“Who’s that? Is he a friend?” f/n asked, now leaning over your shoulder while scanning over your recent messages.

“I’m still trying to figure that out.” you sigh, placing your phone down on the counter.

She raises a brow. “Hmmm, why is he asking you out?”

Warmth creeps at the back of your neck. “He never said anything about a date!” you blurt out, clearing your throat as you set your phone down as you try to busy yourself at the empty register.

“Besides, we don’t know each other like that.”

She shrugs, “Maybe he wants to get to know you.”

Trust me, it’s the other way around. And not in the romantic perspective either.

“And what’s with the weird contact name? Something face reaper? Sounds like something straight out of a comic book.”

What is this? An interrogation?

Intentional or not, those were some damn good questions, none of which you wanted to answer. 

Bzzz!

You snatch your phone from the countertop, looking over to see your best friend caught up in a conversation with the cook.

Jerk-Face Reaper: Just come. 

You: …

You: You can reach me at my apartment, I’ll be studying. Goodbye :)

Jerk-Face Reaper: …

Jerk-Face Reaper: …Please?

You grinned.

You: Aww, such a sweetheart! I’ll take it. See you at 11!

“Aw, so it is a date!” f/n coos from behind you.

So she’s just spawning out of thin air now?!

“I-its not! I swear!” you groaned, hiding your face in your arms.

I hate it here.

[sugarplanet]

Realizing How Important Storytelling Is To Art

For a lot visual artists, writing fully fleshed out stories doesn’t seem to be as widely an exercised skills. Many have scripts, storyboards, outlines, footnotes, or loose ideas in their reference folders or notes apps but it can be hard to connect the dots all the way. I myself find writing to be pretty taxing (thank you short attention span) while I do love making lots of unsorted detailed lists of traits spread out among characters and little factoid sheets, telling a full cohesive story was a bit harder to get into.

For some of my latest character development project, I’d imagined a world in which religion and culture was heavily developed around astrology and astronomy on a planet where humans and gods were once the same thing, the effects of which can even be seen even in a post modern wire-punk dystopia. I had some ideas I thought were cool and ideas for outfits and quirks but not much to tie it all together. It wasn’t until I found myself no longer satisfied with just doing that alone, looking at what I developed thus far, that I remembered one of the key aspects of growth as an artist; references. If you need pictures of tigers or knees so you draw tigers and knees correctly, it stands to reason you also shouldn’t rely on the confines of your brain to help you write a fleshed out made up universe.

For this character, Jet, I set him up with some cool animal transformation powers.

I also didn’t know where his powers came from. He just needed to have them and be the way he was because it seemed really cool. When I started questioning other aspects of my designs (why is this character some sort of patron saint of moon worship with healing powers and why does she have an annoying talking rabbit god side kick? And what does she want with this dude? Why didn’t I make the rabbit a backstory and also visually cuter?)

A while ago, I had gotten a book on astrology on a bargin-bin surfing whim and lately I’ve been sifting through it in bits and pieces at a time in the mornings. Right now, I’m finishing the long decoding each western zodiac sign. I’m not a strong believer in astrology but I did find it interesting and it lead me to research on non western perceptions of the “zodiac” and where there were differences and similarities. I looked up how they’re used in modern terms and what they meant back when they were first a thing. I even dabbled in chakras and their ties to astronomy in some spiritual practices. Inspired by my research, I started cobbling some things together like wet sand into a sand castle.

If your zodiac sign and its traits could have some sort of iconic embodiment, it could be cool animal powers. Perhaps since gods separated themselves from humans and fled to the stars, the moon, the sun, to other planets, then their relation to your zodiac sign could be significant. Jet is a Leo born in the year of the monkey and born during a pretty improbable alignment of planets closest to the earth during a solar eclipse and is therefore a special case special boy. (The only challenge is making that interesting while not letting it overshadow his actual character) Building a magic system with a more clear idea of what my world looks like and having intention behind what I’m pulling from and where to use it was a lot easier as well.

I even managed to change the look of my costar to suit the color coding theme and to look less like a weird monk of vague lineage and denomination and more like a kid who only really has a magical bunny as a parent, teacher, and friend for the longest before clinging to Jet. (Not to mention change her rabbit pal drastically to a more cohesive design...)

Not only was I feeling more confident in my design work, but I was having fun working on this project again. I’d encourage everyone to do a little homework if they’re feeling stuck as well but please keep in mind that you’ll want to do so mindfully. You have to first have any idea at all of what you’d like, an overall theme, and a place and time where your story happens. Consider what you’re basing the world you’re building on. You can look up significant historical events or scientific breakthroughs as a basis for the world building. I’d also recommend keeping notes next your concepts as you’re working them over lest you design something really cool that you fall in love but that is totally ill fitting to what you’re making that look FOR.

[artistfingers]

There’s one ~silver lining~ of my iPad being broken: I’ve had loads of time to think about my many half-formed undercover phantom au ideas! Since I have no idea when or what will make it to comic form, here’s the lowdown…. AKA, everything that’s been rattling around my brain recently :P

For context: Danny, Sam and Tucker have never met, and nobody knows Danny is Phantom. When Vlad’s newest bit of tech gets Danny stuck in ghost mode (with the rest of his powers on the fritz to boot), he meets Tucker and Sam—who instantly see through his disguise and lend a helping hand. (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4!!)

So. After that, Danny—no, Phantom—becomes friends with them. It’s exciting! He was invisible at school even before the ghost powers; he was pretty isolated and lonely and being Phantom for the last year hasn’t exactly been a social boon. Kid’s lonely, ok?

But now… two human friends? Who’re his age & share his interests? It’s like a dream come true! If only they weren’t exclusively friends with his ghost self… and if only they didn’t wanna be so involved in his dangerous ghost hunting things…Uhhh. Hm. Could be a problem.

Danny angsts about the danger he’s putting his new friends in, and about not being able to befriend them as a human. He plays with the idea of telling them Everything but that’s… risky to say the least. He’s only known them a few weeks! ugh….!! it’s too much. maybe he should just throw the towel in.

Buuut Sam & Tucker don’t take no for an answer. Especially after they rescue him a third time.

Thus… Phantom friendship shenanigans!!

Sam filched some parts from the Fentonworks Lab when Phantom took them there, and later convinced Tucker to help her build a custom mini ectogun in case of emergency. They didn’t tell Phantom.

Danny is really sentimental about that DP hat he wore when he first met Sam & Tucker. He wore it as Phantom for a while but it got singed in a fight. He still wears it when he hangs out with Tucker & Sam but otherwise keeps it squirreled away for Sentimental Reasons.

“So Phantom, how old are you?” “I’m 15.” “15 now? Or 15 when you died?” “Yes.”

Tucker has a bunch of awful 90s button up shirts, and gives one to Phantom

They aren’t able to convince Sam to wear one too, but they sure do try.

Phantom won’t tell them when he died, so once he starts wearing 90s shirts they start using terrible 90s slang with him

“I am NOT from the 90s!!! They didn’t even SAY that then!!!” “methinks the lady doth protest too much…..home slice” “NOOO!!!”

“Phantom I have an extremely important question. Like, life or death. SHIT is on the LINE here. Are you listening?? I really need to know…. Do ghosts play video games”

The answer may surprise you (no it won’t)

Sam is completely convinced they can ACTUALLY get a good working guess of when Phantom lived and died based on the fact he liked Nasty Burger when he was alive, since NB’s a regional chain with a not-so-distant past. Tucker meanwhile thinks Phantom probably has a good reason for keeping them at arm’s length—but regardless of method, they can agree: they want to break down Phantom’s walls.

The next arc is less “Undercover Phantom” and more “Undercover Fenton” because the juxtaposition of him having to do hidden identities squared (squared again) is too good for me to pass up. It boils down to this: during a ghost attack at school, Danny finds himself stuck being “protected” by Sam and Tucker.

Sam and Tucker take their new jobs as Phantom’s ghost hunting companions too seriously to let this skinny stranger they just met run TOWARDS the danger. WHY does he keep trying to run TOWARDS the danger

NO YOU CANNOT GO TO THE BATHROOM THE SCHOOL IS ON G H O S T L O C K D O W N

Sam pulls out her ectogun.

Danny: WHERE DID YOU GET THAT?!

Sam does not tell him.

“Wait, your last name’s Fenton? Like Fentonworks Fenton?” “No, the other Fenton.” “Oh… well, that’s too bad…” “YES LIKE FENTONWORKS FENTON”

Sam is initially wary of Danny because of his parents’ super strong anti-ecto views. Danny is clueless as to why she isn’t very friendly to him-as-a-human when she’s great with him-as-a-ghost. but she warms up after he helps resolve the ghost issue in a way that shows he doesn’t subscribe to his parents’ views.

afterwards you get this excellent situation where Danny is now friends with Sam and Tucker as Phantom and as Fenton, and they’re not connecting the dots as quickly as they did when it was just “that’s Phantom wearing a hoodie and a cap with his own logo on it”.

the potential here? *chefs kiss* here’s a few things but honestly? the possibilities are limitless

Danny pretending to not have a cell phone because he already gave them his number as Phantom

Tucker: *dials Phantom*

Danny, standing directly next to him: *frantically attempting to silence his phone*

Sam & Tucker try to introduce Danny and Phantom. Danny has to make excuses to avoid this happening in both forms.

Danny takes Sam & Tucker down to the Fentonworks Lab to get them some real equipment. Sam & Tucker pretend (very badly) that they’ve never been there before

Rooftop chill sessions as Phantom, late night teenage hijinks as Fenton, plus school AND fighting ghosts does not do any favors for Danny’s sleep deprivation. Tucker introduces him to caffeine pills with… mixed results.

Tucker and Sam teach Phantom some sign language. Later Danny slips up and uses it casually with them as Fenton

…. And many other silly mixups that I’ve yet to think of because I live for that shit

Sam & Tucker have theories about the Fenton-Phantom connection and they’re all wrong but somehow also plausible and that freaks Danny out just a little bit if he ever overhears them

Ultimately, I see this AU having a final arc where a New Situation occurs in which Danny-as-Phantom has to—once again—pretend to be human. This time, he’s with Sam & Tucker as Phantom from the get go, and can’t disappear or transform, even if being Phantom is extremely dangerous at that moment. Somehow this scenario would lead to the Fenton-is-Phantom (or, in this case, Phantom-is-Fenton) reveal…. But the details still escape me :P

so in short………… I really like hidden identities

[dellaspinstales]

Loving Cup, Chapter One

Riff x Reader (West Side Story)

Notes: Just a beginner writing this for fun! A story inspired by the new West Side Story film. Y/N, sister of the Sharks’ gang leader, Bernardo, falls dangerously in love with Riff, the leader of the rival Jets. Maria does not exist in this universe :-) Please note I take creative liberties in my story in regards to timeline and characterisation in comparison to the film!

---------------------------------------------------------------------

“Please Y/N, it will only take 10 minutes to pick up. Solo diez minutos, just 10 minutes.”

Anita’s sparkling eyes are contorted in desperation as I gaze up at her, my head lolling lazily upside down as it hangs over the edge of her bed.

“It’s not possible. You know work starts at 8, and it would take me too long to get there beforehand…Unless you want me to go when my shift is done?” I try my best to raise one questioning eyebrow, but I’m certain it's ineffective. Despite however much I’ve practiced in our bathroom mirror, even holding down my right eyebrow with my index and middle finger, I’ve found it impossible to this without inevitably raising both.

Anita makes a big show of inhaling deeply and exhaling with a shudder through her nose as she folds a sky-blue bedsheet on an ironing board. She’s always been a little dramatic since we were children, playing in the stone-paved streets of Puerta de Tierra. I was quite a few years younger than her, five to be exact, but I worshipped each brick that I watched her step on with a ferocious and unapologetic sense of self, even as a preteen.

As neighbours, we often found ourselves reluctantly stuck together in my home as our mothers hashed out the details of whatever new gossip was drifting its away around the town over a cup of café. I was a kid who preferred to gaze out of my bedroom window at whoever was passing by and concoct little tales about what they were carrying in their bolsas rather than make conversation. But Anita never made me feel shy, and we spent many nights giggling on the floor of my bedroom about silly schoolmates and ridiculous jokes we’d heard.

I still remember when I first caught Anita’s eyes lingering on my brother. Bernardo couldn’t have cared less about girls at the time, or so I thought. It was a late weekday, and he had just returned home from boxing practice with his friends. Anita and I were sprawled in the living room, rolling coral-coloured sea-glass marbles between us when he stormed in, with an ink-blue mottled bruise seeping through his left knuckles. He ripped a strip of grey fabric from the shirt he was wearing and wrapped it around his hand with a mindless coarseness, his furrowed brows connecting with intensity, rather than concentration. Anita was watching him with a cautious wide-eyed gaze, like he was secret she was debating whether or not to keep.

I never felt left out when they struck up a romance; Bernardo and Anita just made sense. For so long I was totally blind to the connection between them, but it could not be unseen once I finally identified it. They were so deeply comfortable in each other’s presence that their romance appeared to be a naturally unfurling consequence of an innate connection. When my mother passed away, Bernardo and I just had ourselves and Anita. There was nothing left for us in Puerto Rico, so we all packed up each other and what little belongings we had to America, the land of opportunity and “prosperity,” where Nardo could turn his boxing talent into a career.

Our New York apartment is undoubtedly cramped, but we’ve done our best to turn it into a home over the past two years. My main method is plants; I’ve dotted our entire home with potted greenery. The kitchen windowsill is lined with basil, rosemary, and thyme plants, whilst the bathroom is home to a grand fiddle-leaf fig. My bedroom is filled with greenery that extends to the fire escape outside my window.

Anita, on the other hand, adores lace; lace curtains, lace bed-sheets, lace dresses. The worst are the lace pillowcases; I can’t stand the way they get caught in my hair, forcing me to detangle my curls first thing every morning. I squirm a little and look down at my right forearm, where there is a raised red imprint of delicately patterned semi-circle, almost like an embossed wedding invitation. I push myself off the bed, raise my eyes to our ceiling and let out a long, dramatically pained groan. A smile lifts Anita’s cheeks as she whisks towards me, her layered mint skirt flapping with her speed as she envelopes me in a hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you”; her words are muffled as she buries her head in my shoulder, pushing us back down onto the itchy lace sheets. She knows I can never say no to her.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I lean against the cashier counter of Café Rosa, propping my face up with one hand as I gaze out onto the street. Glass panels compose the entire storefront, a feature I’ve come to adore over the past year I’ve worked here. We sit on Chambers Street, a border of stores between Jet and Shark territory – “neutral ground.” Outside the café past the sidewalk is a wide grey road, often filled with shoppers or wannabe troublemakers milling about.

I can see the world from the comfort of my counter. My typical sight are scrawny underfed white boys wearing ragged denim jeans, sauntering around as if they own the place: the Jets. Nardo was so wary of this job and tried his best to convince me to work with Anita at the bridal shop. Thankfully I convinced him otherwise. This is no man’s land after all, I said again and again until Anita felt badly enough for me to chime in in agreement. Baking is the one thing that brings me the most pleasure in this world, and I would never have let this opportunity slip from my hands.

Nardo was eventually pacified after speaking to Señor Garcia, the mustachioed, broad-shouldered, pleasantly Puerto Rican owner of Café Rosa. Garcia is deeply kind and fiercely protective. Our café is largely supported by soft Puerto Rican women wearing soft Puerto Rican skirts who miss eating Puerto Rican food – it’s not exactly a hotspot for spiky white men to congregate. But Garcia possesses some kind of sixth sense that on the very rare occasion that the door swings open and in walks a troublemaking white boy, he appears by my side instantly – even though he spends most of his time baking in the windowless kitchen behind the counter. We have a practiced choreography in such situations; Garcia mans the cash register with a gruff hostility, while I slink off to the side and busy myself adjusting the baked goods in the long glass counter to his left. No eye-contact and no words are exchanged; I only fill in the paper bags with whatever the white boy wants and slide them across the glass surface towards Garcia’s waiting hands.

Nowadays, Garcia is a little more lenient with me. It’s not usual for me to be alone in the store for a few hours each day for the past month, as he tends to another smaller bakery that he opened that’s far deeper into our neighbourhood. I’m grateful for the freedom and I’d do nothing to jeopardize it, but I can’t deny that I’ve been feeling increasingly uneasy for the past couple weeks. However much I’d like to believe I’m working in no man’s land, the increasing Jet presence is obvious, even just from my cashier counter view. Three days ago, a couple of them bashed in the windows of a Dominican-owned grocery store, just a street over from the café. There’s little I can do or say without losing my position – if Nardo were to find out, he would definitely send over a group of his men (and himself) to stand outside the café and teach any Jet boys on the street a lesson. That’s the last thing I want; all I care about is having the time to practice my baking with Garcia. I don’t have time to indulge boys who look for an excuse to pretend to be fighting men, even if they are my brother.

Today is one of those Monday afternoons where I feel every minute stretching before me as if it were an hour. I pull out the white paper bag I’ve stuffed in a cubby on my side of the counter. Inside is roll of soft woven fabric, pale yellow with the hint of a golden shimmer, like sunrays glinting against dewdrops on the petals of a sunflower. The material is captivating, and I can’t resist running my fingertips across it. Of course, the favour Anita requested would be for my benefit; I’m certain she will turn this material into a dress for me to wear at the high school Summer Social. The event is still a few weeks away, but Anita needs her time of course. It’s just one of the ways she tries to make my life the life she dreamed of when coming to this country, even if it means hours of toiling away in her room after long shifts at the bridal store.

I’m about to run my hands over the material again when I hear a loud yelp. My head whips up to see that what had been a reassuringly empty view mere seconds ago has now been shattered by a squad of Jets, at least six of them, laughing and clambering over each other. No doubt they’ve just broken through another storefront, or maybe just somebody’s skull. I’m not taking my chances today. I throw the fabric spool onto the glass counter and move towards the windows. It takes three sets of shutters to cover all the entire storefront. I start at the left, yanking the beaded cord, and the shutters clatter down with a reassuring thud.

The boys are too close to the café, congregated on the side of the road, overlapping the curb in the front of me. They’re close enough that I can see flecks of black, green, and purple along the arms, on their shirts, and their tattered jeans. I move to the middle window panel and tug down the cord. Their noises aren’t getting quieter, and their proximity is causing a sick feeling in my stomach.

I walk past the front door towards the last window panel. I take a moment to peer out of the glass. One of the boys catches my attention; he looks no more than 15, definitely the baby of the group, but is equally splashed with paint. I suppose defacing with paint is not as bad a truancy as I was expecting. Another boy runs up from behind him and clamps his hands down on his shoulders, giving the baby a little shake. This new Jet is a little taller than the rest of the crew but he’s just as skinny. His face is gaunt with sharp cheekbones that protrude enough to make it clear that it is a combination of genetics and situational weight. A breeze ripples open his raggedy t-shirt, revealing a white undershirt that is stained with a giant paint splotch. I squint a little. Is he wearing a glove? Its 95 degrees out. Must be some kind of gang fashion statement. What an idiot.

I stand on my tiptoes and crane my neck a little to scope out the setting beyond my immediate field of view, but no other Jets are on the fringes. That’s some relief, at least. My fingers are closing around the final cord when my eyes drift back to the gloved hand. It hits me that it’s not a glove after all; it’s just grey paint. The realization makes me smile in spite of myself. I glance up to see that the grey-handed boy is looking right at me. He’s standing in profile, with his hands still on the kid’s shoulders but his head is entirely turned to face the little remaining corner of exposed window, a corner that I fill almost entirely. Unmistakably blue eyes peer out at me. It’s a glowing, piercing blue, the kind of colour that warms up his entire skin tone.

He slides his hands off the kid’s shoulders and turns his body to face me entirely, hands hanging by his side and breathing heavily. I can’t read the details of his gaze – it’s not a menacing expression, it just seems like he’s reading my face, but it turns my blood cold either way. I can feel his eyes shifting to look at all the corners of my face and the feeling freezes me in place. It’s not until that he takes a tentative step forward towards the café that I snap back into my body. I yank the cord, the shutters fall, and the boy is gone.

[qingxin-dream]

Composer of Nebulae:

Chapter I

a/n | I’ve been dying to write for Genshin Impact for forever. I finally did it!😭 I’m making my own Inazuma plotline now lmao with my favorite villain so expect a part 2 for sure~

warnings | profanity, Inazuma Archon Quest spoilers

genre | attempted enemies to lovers

word count | 1.4k

pairing | Scaramouche x F! Reader

⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩

Dots connect in your mind much like how the twinkling stars of the night sky form entire constellations. You vividly remember the day you challenged a god—the Raiden Shogun of Inazuma—her long braided, violet hair whipping in the wind and the tumultuous storm brewing within her eyes.

Now the demanding presence of Number Six of the Eleven Fatui Harbingers looms before you, and the resemblance is unmistakable.

Scaramouche is of the royal Inazuman bloodline.

His hair is nearly the same deep color as hers, attitude just as cold and commanding. Although, what catches your attention is what you witness in the window of his eyes. It is not the intimidating flash of lightning and thunder swirling in a lilac tempest found within the Raiden Shogun.

Instead, Scaramouche glares at you with the eerie calmness of the sea settled in his irises. He’s piercing right through you like a blade to the heart and you feel uneasy about facing the harbinger for a second time in many months.

“Ah,” the man sighs with a wicked grin, carefully taking note of your reaction from a distance. “Being back home is quite bittersweet.”

The churning of your stomach is screaming at you that this is not going to end well. He has you cornered on the beaches of Narukami Island, alone, out of sight, and far from the city. The last time Scaramouche came this close was back in Mondstadt with the intent to end you right then and there.

There is not much room for escape as you examine your surroundings. It’s you, him, the immense cliffs, and never ending expanse of ocean. You would have to fight if it came to it, and it dawns on you that you know nothing about the capabilities of the wandering harbinger.

“What? Cat got your tongue? Didn’t think you’d ever see me again, huh?” he coyly snickers, unfolding his arms as he begins to close in on you.

Before you could even think to respond, the rigid palm of his hand is crushing your throat as he slams you into the rugged cliff face. “Or are you just incapable of abstract thought and speaking when spoken to!”

Dirt and debris swirls around your form, reflecting in the salty ocean air amid the setting sun. Coughing does little to clear your lungs as you struggle underneath his tightening grip. You desperately tug at his hand to peel his fingers away one by one, but that only serves to further evoke Scaramouche’s acrimony.

“I’ll snap your neck if you keep that up, (Y/N),” he seethes, peering down at you with such palpable intensity.

His embellished headdress is large enough to shade you both, except for a particularly blinding beam from the glowing sun eclipsing the brim, as he practically drinks in the look of your cowering face mere inches from his own.

Your spine aches in a constant rush of excruciating pain and the uncomfortable warmth of blood leaks ever so slightly in your messy hair. Perhaps you could have avoided this entire situation had you decided to immediately seek refuge with the resistance on Yashinori Island. It’s far too late now, and Scaramouche seems intent on having your full, undivided attention no matter the cost.

Finally, you muster up a weak reply. “W-what do you want?”

He lets go of your throat, noting the way it flushes a faint, bruised indigo color as his fingers leave your skin, and watches you pitifully fall to the ground gasping for air. Esophagus begging for the passage of oxygen, you cough and sputter again in agony.

“Well, you may have noticed my lowly subordinates are not here with me. I couldn’t have trusted them with a task such as this.”

Rubbing your sore throat and swallowing loudly, your raspy voice cracks through the sloshing of ocean waves against the shore. “O-oh yeah? A-and what might that be? Think you can kill me?”

The Balladeer chuckles venomously, grabbing you by the hair to lift your eyes to meet his again. His smile falls into an unrecognizable expression for a moment, sending creeping shivers in an abrupt flourish all over your body. “Without question.”

Walking away and clapping the filth from his hands, Scaramouche pays no mind to you rising to your feet in an offensive stance. After how he threw you around and talked to you like scum, revenge boiled in your veins. You were going to knock his head off—or worse.

“But I’m not here to kill you today,” he quietly admits to the empty sea waves in a dizzying change of tone.

“Are you serious?” you retort angrily, feeling your strength and vigor return despite your injury. “After what happened in Mondstadt? After you just choked me out? Plus, you’re a Harbinger. I’ll kick your ass.”

Suddenly his domineering aura considerably darkens, challenging you to say one more word out of line with a deathly scowl from over his shoulder. “I suggest you shut the fuck up before I change my mind about killing you.”

For a second, you debate what real supernatural power Scaramouche possesses when there was not a single Vision clasped to his garments. Perhaps he has a Delusion like Childe or some secret royal Inazuman abilities. “Alright, then tell me what you want from me.”

Holding his chin with two fingers and eyebrows furrowing together, he inhales a perplexed breath before hesitantly releasing it again. “You… are the last person I wanted to ask this of, but it appears there’s no other choice…. We both know the reason you’re here in Inazuma. You need an audience with the Almighty Shogun about your lost sibling.”

Your hands ball into fists and teeth clench against each other at the mention of them. “Yeah, well she tried to exact divine punishment on me the other day so I’m not exactly on speaking terms with her. What does it have to do with you?”

He clears his throat and eyes you cautiously. “To be frank, we are also having difficulties getting close to her as the Fatui, especially in the midst of this war with the Sangonomiya Resistance. But, I am expected to secure the Raiden Shogun’s gnosis because I am actually her… brother.”

“Why are you telling me all of this? You think I will help you steal gnoses? You must really be desp—“

A sharp and calculated swing of the back of his hand stopped dangerously close to your cheek. “I’m telling you I can get answers for you from the Shogun in exchange for your assistance in… convincing her that I am formally returning home to fulfill my duties.”

“I already told you she hates me. I’m an ‘exception’ that is the enemy of her grand vision of eternity. She’ll probably kill me on the spot like you tried to.”

“Well, there’s a reason I’m a ‘vagrant’ from this land. I left because she wanted to impose absolute authority over me and my affairs like I’m some idiot peasant. In fact, I could have—and should have—dethroned her.”

For a moment, you take a deep breath, attempting to process the fact that one of the most dangerous harbingers is here arguing with you to strike a deal. Suddenly you think back to the last time you saw your sibling, recalling them viewing the Seven much differently after traveling through Teyvat. While it pains you to admit it, maybe cautiously entertaining Scaramouche’s plan could help you understand your sibling’s perspective more. At least you hoped that would be the case.

“So, where do I come into this equation?”

Scaramouche grimaces in annoyance. “Before I left, one of our last disagreements was over arranged marriage. She wanted me to marry the daughter of the clan leading the Kanjou Commission, so I could take over managing border customs. There’s no way in Hell I’m marrying anybody.”

“But,” he grins mischievously, pulling his hat down over his forehead as if to hide the apparent devious look spreading across his face. “If I show up in good faith with a well-mannered, Vision-less daughter of an obscure Inazuman noble by my side perhaps she’ll reconsider her feelings.”

You nearly fell over at his proposition. “I’m sorry, what? You want me to be your girlfriend? I’m not sure I have the right skills—or patience of a saint—for that job.”

“Don’t be so naïve,” he replies with an eye roll, and you couldn’t tell whether he chose to ignore the insult you whispered or is keeping tabs on you for vengeance later. “You’d be more like my bride-to-be, until we both get what we want from her. So, what do you think?”

Scaramouche extends a hand out to you. You blankly stare at it, utterly speechless, as if he had the universe in the palm of his hand.

“Next time we meet you may not be so lucky to escape from me a third time.”

check out my masterlist y’all please & thank you 😌✨

[thatshithurted8]

Could’ve Been

Summary: In which Jeff deals with the repercussions of not acting on his feelings towards reader. 

Word Count: 3.7k

Warnings: angst, drinking and swear words.

You couldn’t help yourself, but to giggle while you made dinner for Jeff, Jonah and yourself. The sound of your laugh causes Jeff to look up from his barbers station and over to you, a smile appearing on his face at the sound of it. 

“What’s so funny?” 

“Just thinking about yours and Jonah’s bits.” You state. Jeff just finished filming a barbershop episode with Bryce Hall, but by now the crew and Bryce were long gone. 

Jeff smiles to himself as he puts his multiple hair clippers away. Even though you told Jeff and Jonah from the beginning you didn’t want to be in any of the episodes you always found yourself being in them anyway. Whether that be you doing the boys hair for an episode to having your witty remarks and contagious laugh be heard in every video. 

Little did you know though, there was a reason why you were such a consistent guest on the show. This reason being the developing feelings both Jeff and Jonah harbored for you. Despite both boys openly flirting with you in seemingly every episode you were in you still remained oblivious to their feelings. However, as time went on unbeknownst to either Jeff or Jonah you started to reciprocate feelings for Jeff. You loved Jonah, but he was more like a brother to you than anything. 

 As more episodes of you appearing in were published to YouTube it was clear to not only the fans, but to Jeff as well what was happening. Fans constantly pointed out that it was obvious there was a love triangle going on whether it be a bit or not. They concluded this from all of the clips of both boys openly flirting with you along with all of the longing stares they gave you. It made Jeff giddy to know you most likely felt the same way about him the way he felt about you, but he never acted on it. He couldn’t do that to Jonah especially with how obvious it was the boy was in love with you. 

“What’re ya making?” Jeff asks walking into the kitchen and peering over your shoulder after finally cleaning up his station. Jonah looks up from his phone from his spot at the kitchen’s island and he can feel his stomach drop at the proximity of you two. He watches as you pick up the spoon you were using to stir and allowed Jeff to taste the homemade tomato sauce for the spaghetti you were making. 

“Tastes like what my ma makes, maybe even better, but don’t let her know I said that.” Jeff compliments causing heat to rush to your face and ears as he smiles at your reaction. This seemingly wholesome interaction between you two gets cut short by Jonah coughing and standing up. 

“I’m not feeling spaghetti tonight I’m gonna eat out instead.” He says pushing his chair in underneath the island before walking out of his apartment without saying another word. 

You look over at Jeff confused, but he just looks down at the ground not knowing what to say while slowly moving away from you. Jeff knew why Jonah was upset. After all Jonah has told him many times he likes you and Jeff did go a little over board with the flirting with you in today’s episode. 

“That was weird. What was that about?” You ask Jeff as he sits down at the island and pulls his phone out to text Jonah. Jonah loved your cooking and never missed an opportunity to have some. 

Jeff shrugs his shoulders and puts his phone away. “He’s been stressed lately, I don’t know why.” He lies. “We should move up to my apartment he’s gonna probably want to be alone when he gets back.” 

“Poor Jonah, I hope he can relax.” You pout while you turn off the stove to bring the food you were cooking up to Jeff’s. The brunette helps you, but can’t help but to feel guilty at your obliviousness. Jeff loved flirting with you after all his feelings for you were strong, but he felt bad for his best friend. It was obvious you didn’t reciprocate Jonah’s feelings let alone were you aware of them. 

The two of you carefully maneuver up to Jeff’s apartment with kitchen towels underneath the hot pots so neither of you would burn yourselves. As you get back into the groove of cooking again Jeff turns his stereo on, the Beatles echoing throughout the apartment. 

Ever since Jonah seemingly stormed off earlier Jeff has been acting kind of stand offish which you couldn’t help but to notice. However, as each Beatles track played he started to return back to his playful self and your laughs of encouragement egged him on to continue singing along horribly to the music. 

After an intense performance of Jeff playing the air guitar and singing to Helter Skelter Come Together came on, making you squeal. That was your go to song for karaoke night. Jeff smiles at you as you grab a ladle and start to sing into it as if it was a microphone. 

“He got hair down to his knees. He got to be a joker, he just do what he please.” You horribly sing out while slowly moving your hips back and forth while slowly making your way down to your knees in front of Jeff. 

You continue your performance while Jeff tries his hardest to not let his mind wander due to the position you were in. 

“One thing I can tell you, you just got to be free.” You sing getting up fast while shaking your head back and forth to the beat of the song. As you fully immerse yourself into your performance Jeff laughs at you with loving eyes, but he is interrupted from watching when his phone buzzes in his pocket. 

It was a text from Jonah. “You know my feelings towards Y/N the least you can do is not flirt with her around me.” 

Suddenly a wave of guilt washes over Jeff. The moment Jeff met you he could feel the spark between you two and just as he was about to tell Jonah how he was feeling about you he beat Jeff to it and started gushing about you the next time Jonah saw Jeff. This resulted in Jeff never opening up to his best friend to let him know he had feelings for you as well. 

“What’s wrong?” You furrow your eyebrows while watching Jeff sit down at his dinning table with an upset facial expression. 

Jeff quickly sends out an “I’m sorry” text to Jonah before putting his phone away and nervously running his fingers through his hair. “Nothin.” 

Furrowing your eyebrows even more you put down the ladle and make your way over to Jeff, wrapping your arms around his broad shoulders from behind. “Seriously what’s up?” 

“Nothin Y/N.” Jeff says standing up abruptly and gently pushing you off of him, causing your heart to drop. 

“Yea okay.” You sassily say back while returning to the stove to cook, the playful mood ruined. There was now an unwanted awkward tension in the air that both you and Jeff felt, but neither of you knew what to say. 

Finally Jeff speaks up, not really wanting to say what he was about to, but he felt like he owed it to Jonah to. “Y/N I think you should give Jonah a shot.” 

You slowly turn around from the stove to look at Jeff with a confused expression etched onto your face. “What?”

“You guys have so much in common and click well. You guys could be a solid couple.” 

Your heart sank initially thinking Jeff didn’t reciprocate your feelings, but the way he was looking everywhere, but you while saying this had you thinking otherwise. “Where is this coming from?” You ask starting to connect the dots and stepping closer to Jeff who doesn’t move away this time. 

He remains silent. 

“Jeff? Does Jonah have feelings for me?” 

Jeff simply nods his head yes as if it was hurting him to say that. He didn’t want you to find out this way. After all, it should be up to Jonah to tell you when he’s ready, but from what Jeff just said he had no choice to tell you.

You let out a sigh. This was not how things were supposed to happen. “I feel bad, but I don’t feel the same for him.” You say inching closer to Jeff. His heartbreaks for Jonah, but he can’t help but selfishly feel hopeful that he may get a chance with you. 

“Do you know who I do have feelings for?” You ask placing your hand on Jeff’s chest while a spike of confidence flows through you. Jeff’s breath catches in his throat when you get closer to him, but he instinctively melts into your touch. 

“Who Y/N?” He stutters out, nervous that you were going to say Todd or some shit. Jeff wasn’t typically a nervous person, but when it came to you and his strong feelings for you he was. 

You roll your eyes at his obliviousness. “You for fuck’s sake. I thought it was obvious.” 

A blush and smile washes over Jeff’s face as he looks down at you, but his smile quickly disappears when he remembers Jonah. Seeing his reaction makes you release an annoyed sigh. Although you were oblivious to Jonah’s feelings and sometimes got in your head about Jeff there was no denying he felt the same for you. You just knew he did. 

“We can’t do this to Jonah.” 

Rolling your eyes you move away from Jeff. The confidence that you had was now annoyance. From the moment you became friends with the two boys you learned that Jonah had a track record of seemingly liking every girl Jeff liked as well. Ultimately causing Jeff to step back so Jonah could have a shot. Yes, Jeff’s being a good friend, but you were sick and tired seeing Jeff’s happiness be put on the line for a guy who wouldn’t do the same for him. 

“I know you feel what I feel. I’ve felt it the moment we met two years ago. For the love of everything good stop denying your feelings and finally own up to them for once! You have let Jonah stop you from being happy for so long now. Advocate for yourself Jeff, be selfish for once in your life cause I know you want this as much as I do!” 

Jeff looks at you with wide eyes. He was happy that you finally confessed your feelings for him, but he didn’t see this outburst coming even though he knows every word you said was true. 

“I can’t Jonah’s my best friend.”

You internally groan, getting even more agitated that Jeff wasn’t seeing what you were seeing. “I understand that, he’s my friend too, but given the opportunity he would push you to the side if that meant he had a shot. I’m not asking you to drop him. I’m asking you to allow yourself to be happy for once.” You say rolling your eyes before turning back to the food cooking on the stove that you seemingly abandoned. 

The tension in the air was now thicker than before and Jeff felt awkward in his own apartment. A few minutes go by and he finally speaks up. “Y/N look at me.” 

You look over at him with an unimpressed expression, but you notice how close he’s gotten to you. Jeff grabs your hand and starts to gently rub his thumb across the back of it. “You’re right. I do have feelings for you.” He says inching closer to you, causing your heart rate to speed up. 

“Then act like it.” You say looking up into his beautiful brown eyes. 

Without hesitating Jeff pulls you to his chest by your hand before smashing his lips against yours and caressing your cheek with his free hand. Automatically you kiss back, placing your hand on the nape of his neck while deepening the kiss. 

You were the first to pull away, but you rest your forehead against his. “Wow.” That was probably the best kiss you’ve ever had. 

Jeff’s cheeks were flushed red and you knew he felt the butterflies from the kiss as well. You two stare into each others eyes seemingly relishing in the moment before guilt begins to wash over Jeff’s face as he realizes what he just did. 

“What?” You ask backing away concerned.

He sighs and scratches at his beard. “I want this as much as you do, but I can’t for Jonah’s sake.” 

You close your eyes and let out a deep breathe at his words, trying your best to control your emotions. He just said the last thing you wanted to hear. Without saying another word you walk by the brunette and to the front door where you put on your shoes and grab your purse. 

“Where are you goin?” 

“I’m sorry Jeff, but I can’t be friends with you especially after that kiss. My feelings are just going to keep growing and there’s no point in torturing myself by being around you when I can’t be yours.” You simply state, hurt evident in your voice before opening the door and leaving Jeff’s apartment without another word. 

As the door shuts the smoke alarm goes off signaling the food you were cooking was burning, which only made Jeff’s heartbroken mood worse.  

- 

“Oh my god Y/N is here! I haven’t seen her in so long!” Zane yells to Jeff over the music before rushing over to you who just arrived to Todd’s birthday party. Ever since that night 8 months ago in Jeff’s apartment you started to distance yourself from Jeff and Jonah along with the Vlog Squad since they were always with either boy. However, you weren’t going to miss Todd’s birthday for the world. After all he was one of your closest friends. 

The moment Jeff’s eyes fall onto your frame while you greet the first few people you know his heart rate began to increase. You looked good. Hell even better than you did 8 months ago if that was possible. 

You made your rounds through the party, saying hi and having conversations with your friends that you haven’t seen in almost a year while the music filled the large house. Although, it was Todd’s birthday you were hesitant to come. After all you knew Jonah was going to be there and more importantly Jeff as well. But today wasn’t about you it was about Todd. With that being said you decided to swallow your pride and show up for one of your best friends. 

However, you tried your best to avoid Jonah and Jeff for the night. Which was working out fine until you ran into Jonah. You guys hugged and caught up and to your surprise Jonah introduces his girlfriend, Francesca to you. Of course you were happy for him, he deserved to be happy, but the two started dating two months after that night at Jeff’s. That meant if you stayed around you and Jeff could’ve been a couple. Yet, you couldn’t help, but to feel hurt. Surely Jeff would’ve jumped on the opportunity to make you his now that Jonah was off the market, but you haven’t heard from the Staten Island stud since a week after what happened. Clearly Jeff’s feelings towards you weren’t as strong as you thought.

As the night continues Jeff builds up enough confidence to approach you. So that’s what he did. Feeling a tap on your shoulder you turn around from your conversation with Todd and are shocked to see Jeff standing in front of you. 

“Oh my gosh Jeff! It’s been so long!” You exclaim before pulling the brunette in for a hug, fighting off the awkward tension. This was seemingly a friendly hug, but as you were in his embrace all of the feelings you thought you didn’t feel anymore came rushing back. Jeff felt the same from the moment he saw you walk in. And the familiar but nostalgic smell of your perfume only amplified it.

“How’ve you been?” He asks pulling away, but laughing at your reaction. You didn’t realize how much you missed his laugh until now.

“I’ve been pretty busy with school, but still good. What about you?” Jeff was happy to hear that you were still in school. After months of Jeff convincing you to chase your dreams you finally applied to a university to become a physiotherapist and got in, putting your influencer career on the back burner. He was proud of you for not giving into your fears of having a late start in your degree and quitting.

“I’ve been good as well. The guys and I have been pumping out barbershop episodes basically every week now.” By now Todd was now gone, talking to his other guests.

Although, both of you were telling the truth of what has been up lately neither of you delved into the fact your minds would always wander back to each other. Especially late at night when neither of you could fall asleep.

“How are ya liking school?” Jeff asks stepping a bit closer for you to hear him due to the loud music.Just as you were about to answer his question you feel arms wrap around your waist and a kiss being placed on your cheek. 

Justin. Not your boyfriend, but not your friend either.

“Hey baby sorry that I’m late.”

As Jeff watched the guy that looks a bit like him display affection to you a pang of jealously and hurt hits him. Clearly your feelings for him weren’t as strong as Jeff thought they were.

You mumble a “hi” back to Justin and discreetly push him off of you. Suddenly you were all too aware of who you were standing in front of with your rebound by your side.

“Who’s this?” Justin asks pointing at Jeff then looking at you.

“Justin this is Jeff, a friend I haven’t seen in a while.” Another pang of hurt hits Jeff at being friendzoned. “And Jeff this is Justin.”

Jeff swallows the lump in his throat and cuts directly to the chase. “So are you guys a couple?”

You almost choke on your drink at Jeff’s boldness, but Justin answers his question before you could cough out a reply. “Nah, not yet man. Y/N wants to take things slow. Something about not wanting to get her hopes up if things turn sour.” Justin laughs. 

Jeff looks at you knowing exactly why you want to take things slow with this guy. You didn’t want to be let down the way you did with Jeff. It was obvious you were still hurt and Jeff’s suspicions of that were proven by your avoidance from his analytical gaze. 

An awkward silence falls upon you guys, but Justin doesn’t seem to acknowledge it as he was vibing out to the music. You and Jeff exchange awkward looks while you anxiously bite on the rim of your solo cup. 

Just as you were to speak up to bid goodbye to Jeff and get away from the tension Erin comes running up to you. “Y/N it’s our song!” She yells, clearly intoxicated. Before you could protest what was about to happen she drags you over to an open spot in the crowded house to dance to Britney Spears, Toxic. Ultimately leaving Justin and Jeff alone. 

As you danced to one of your favourite songs you were grateful that Erin pulled you away because your mind was starting to drift away from Jeff and the way his presence made you feel. The next thing you know the song was over, but you continued to dance with Erin to five other songs while Zane supplied shots for you two. 

While each song passed you were oblivious to Jeff’s eyes on you. Justin was talking his ear off about the mixtape he was working on and quite frankly Jeff couldn’t give less of a shit. Every time Justin asked him a question Jeff would simply respond with vague answers, trying his best to suppress his emotions. 

Seeing you after all of these months apart it made Jeff realize just how much he missed you. There was no denying he missed you from the moment you walked out of his apartment, but ever since then he tried his best to distract himself with creating. And it was working, but that was until now. 

You continued to let loose occasionally glancing over to Jeff’s direction without realizing what you were doing. It wasn’t until you felt arms wrap around your waist that your dance moves come to a stop. You quickly turn around and smile while stumbling into Justin’s arms. 

“Hey baby.” You say while wrapping your arms around Justin’s neck while continuing to sway to the music, the alcohol you drank flooding throughout your blood.

“I’m going to get a drink do you want anything?” 

You simply nod your head as Mariah walks over to catch up with you and Justin walks away to find the kitchen. Your conversation with Mariah was going great until you felt someone place their hands on the small of your back. 

“Excuse me.” 

You turn to look and see the person was Jeff walking past you. He makes eye contact with you and you could’ve sworn time stopped in that moment, making you automatically sober up. His eyes were full of longing as well as hurt. Jeff doesn’t stop to talk to you. Instead he keeps on moving through the crowd of people to leave, your eyes yearning after him.

Your focus on the brunette is ultimately broken when Justin hands you a beer. You shake your head and turn back to your conversation with Mariah and introduce Justin to her. As you do this you miss Jeff turning to look back at you one last time, his heart breaking even more as he watches you grasp onto Justin’s arm while laughing loudly. 

As he walks out of the party Jeff’s mind wanders to what you two could’ve been ultimately hurting himself more at the thought. 

tags: @jeffywittek2020

[nightingaelic]

Not a good idea, maybe, but still... NV Followers' reaction to how the Courier tells the follower that sometimes all their adventures seem like a kind of deathbed dream to them (a bullet in the head after all...)

Just know, anon, that I am strongly resisting the urge to go full Shane Madej and Ryan Bergara with every single one of these reactions.

"Maybe this is all just... me." The courier waved their hand through the scorching air, tracing the shimmering line of the horizon that sang false promises of water. "A mirage. An oasis in the desert that I can't quite reach, but my eyes keep telling me is there if I just walk far enough."

Their hand went to the scar on their forehead. "I don't know. The things I've seen, since Goodsprings... if I told them to half the people in the Mojave, they'd toss me in the same shack as No-bark. HELIOS One? The Burned Man, in the crispy flesh? Jason Bright and his followers? Hell, the Sierra Madre? How do I know I didn't actually bite the dust in that graveyard, and all of this is the work of the bullet Benny put in my noggin?"

Arcade Gannon: "I guess there isn't a very convincing way I can answer that question," Arcade admitted. "But the fact that I know exactly how close you came to dying could be some evidence to the contrary. I doubt you were walking around with much medical knowledge about cranial vulnus sclopetarium prior to encountering it firsthand."

The courier looked somewhat interested, so the researcher continued hesitantly. "Did that doctor who checked you out not explain what happened to your brain? It's honestly a miracle that you're still walking around."

"I might've been a little preoccupied with the shock of being awake," the courier admitted. "Here, show me."

They guided Arcade's hand to the wound site, which he felt gingerly, trying not to awaken any pain. "Okay, close, very close range, left side... trajectory was too high, so it missed the speech center... probably sustained the most damage in the frontal and parietal lobes... well that tracks, that would affect problem-solving skills and spatial relationships..."

"Arcade?"

"Mm-hm?"

The courier grinned. "Just keep talking to me in Latin and I'll stop caring whether I'm dead or not. It sounds nice."

Arcade blushed.

Craig Boone: "Mmm." Boone pondered the thought, but immediately felt the shadow of guilt fall over his shoulders. Had any of his targets felt that way as they lay dying? Had Carla? He tried to shake the feeling off before it reached his face.

The courier, for their part, didn't notice, or at least knew enough to pretend not to notice. "That snake Benny was using a handgun, too, and who knows what caliber," they said, looking off into the distance.

"Low," Boone offered.

"Come again?"

"The bullet," Boone clarified. "It's still in your head. Slow and small caliber, if you're not already dead from it."

"But I could already be dead from it."

"Nah."

The courier looked as though they wanted to probe further, but Boone straightened his sunglasses and walked past them, signaling that the conversation was over. Headshot wounds, hypotheticals, they weren't his strong suit, but he did know one thing: The orders he had followed and the lives he had ended were far too real to be the figment of some Mojave wastelander's imagination.

Lily Bowen: "Come now, dearie, you're giving your imagination too much credit." Lily patted the courier lightly on the shoulder. Well, as lightly as a nightkin could. "Grandma's seen many strange things too, ever since she left the vault behind."

The courier smiled. "Stranger than the ones I've seen? Like what?"

Lily made an ugly face. "I saw many things when working for the Master. Golden geckos in Klamath. Ghosts in Baja. The Master himself, with his brain in the computers and the computers in his brain."

"Eugh." The courier mimicked the face Lily was making. "One of those, huh? Always seemed unsanitary to me."

"Good things too," Lily went on wistfully. "I saw Marcus' first city, when it was big and full of people. Humans, but also super mutants, ghouls. How I would have liked to take Becky and Jimmy there."

Her voice faltered a little, remembering the grandchildren that had been lost, left behind long ago. The courier reached out and took her hand. "I'm here, Lily."

After the memory passed, Lily returned to her smiling self. "You are, pumpkin. We're here together."

Raul Alfonso Tejada: "I know how you feel, boss." Raul sighed. "There are plenty of things in my past that I can't help but question the authenticity of. All I can say is that after a while, you stop asking and just go along for the ride."

"Right." The courier crossed their arms. "I suppose it's not that different a mindset from becoming a ghoul. Time stretching on in front of you, no clear end in sight, no expectation there will ever be one."

"Eh." Raul shrugged. "That might just be a mindset of mine. I stopped worrying about dying a long time ago. Or maybe I was looking for it, but never managed to find it. Either way, time doesn't bother me the way it used to."

"But it still does?"

"Sí. Now I worry more that I'll forget the crazy things I've seen altogether, or that they don't mean anything."

The young courier looked like they weren't quite ready to ponder that possibility. They stood together in silence for a while, watching the horizon's haze.

"Should we keep going?" the courier finally asked, shouldering their pack.

"Desde luego."

Rose of Sharon Cassidy: "Sometimes I wonder the same thing," Cass replied with a nod. "Well, not the exact same thing, but somethin' similar. Plenty of times in my life, I've woken up in someone else's bed or on the floor of a bar and wondered if I actually survived the fight I was in the night before, or if I finally drank enough to make my heart stop. It's a strange feeling, but then someone douses me in water or slaps me too hard on the ass and the pain of the wakin' world creeps back in, little by little."

"Do you slap them back?" the courier joked, chuckling.

"Them and the world," Cass confirmed. "I always figured if I'd actually died in my sleep, why bother makin' up some desert full of sadness and sunburns to fill my time? Had enough of that in life, so I can't see my mind keepin' it around. Much rather conjure up a house by the beach somewhere, with a basement full of caps and enough booze to last me 'til the bombs fall again."

The courier eyed her mischievously. "Maybe you're in hell."

Cass held her canteen up. "Well then. To bein' stuck in hell with a true friend."

She drank, long and deep, and the courier retrieved their canteen to do the same.

Veronica Santangelo: "Oh, Six." Veronica's face filled with sympathy. "Is that really what you think about, when you're trying to sleep at night in the casino and Cass is snoring in the bed next to you?"

The courier blinked. "Cass snores?"

"How have you not noticed?" Veronica pulled her power fist off and flexed her fingers, re-stimulating her circulation as best she could. "Arcade said he wanted to trade with me, after Boone had his second night terror incident, but he changed his mind again after one night of her racket. At this point, I'm used to it. When she's not around, I have trouble sleeping, can you believe that? Brotherhood bunks really prepared me for the Lucky 38."

"No, I hadn't noticed." The courier sat down on a nearby rock and stretched their legs out. "I guess I haven't been there much, lately."

Veronica sat down next to them. "You know, the more often you're gone having adventures around the desert, the more crazy things you're going to see. People who rest on their laurels and stick to the Strip don't lie awake wondering if they actually died back when they choked on those buffalo gourd seeds at The Gourmand."

"Touché."

ED-E: The eyebot let out a few beeps of disagreement and rolled from side to side in mid-air, indicating as best it could that in its experience, being shot in the dome was a good method for scrambling circuitry but was actually terrible for fusing new connections. The courier laughed and reached out to rub the robot's side. "Thanks, buddy. Maybe I'm right, or maybe reality is just a weird place."

ED-E beeped its satisfaction and bounced forward as if chasing the mirage. The courier trailed after the eyebot, their giggles blowing out with the wind into the desert for all to hear.

Rex: The old cyberdog whined and licked its companion's hand, uncertain what they were asking. Any dreams the canine had were good ones, long runs over grassy plains and prey that was always a hair too slow. Life with the courier was good too, but full of many more dangers than a savannah dotted with rabbits and deer. The courier scratched the dog on his ruff affectionately, before continuing over the hot sand toward their destination. Rex followed behind, happy and panting.

[thefanficmonster]

You Call It A Mess, We Call It Baking

Corpse Husband x Reader (Female)

Warnings: Swearing

Genre: Tons of fluff

Summary: A friendly argument via Discord leads to a baking session. Said baking session leads to a kitchen looking like it was the victim of a tornado. The lesson here is: don’t leave Corpse and Y/N in the kitchen together.

Requested by Anon, thank you so much for your request, hope I captured what you wanted well and I hope you enjoy reading it.

Corpse’s POV

I’ve been sitting in a Discord call with Y/N for about three years now, keeping her company as she’s editing some footage Sean sent her earlier. In the meantime, I’m reviewing the recently submitted stories by my viewers, reading some lines I find funny or downright terrifying to her.

“When I went in the kitchen to check on the cake, it was already out of the oven, a sticky note next to it on the counter that read: ‘smells nice’. My blood ran cold.“ I read the eerie sentence that is suggesting one of my most frightening scenarios - a stalker getting inside your house. I get chills just imagining what was probably going on in the sender’s head when they saw that.

“Jeez, it’s been so long since I’ve cooked something other than omelet.“ I hear Y/N reply absentmindedly, completely neglecting the fear factor of what’s going on in the story.

“Good job missing the point.” I chuckle, my eyes continuing to scan the email until my brain actually comprehends what she said, “Wait, you mean to tell me you have baked anything ever?! No offense, Y/N, but I was honestly doubting your ability to make an omelet as well. In all the years we’ve been friends I can’t remember you ever not saying ‘I hade takeout’ when I asked you what you had for dinner.” 

The scoff that comes through my headphones is the most adorable thing ever. She’s one to easily take a joke and never get offended by anything, but I know how heated she can get with her sarcasm. If I’m being honest, I’m always here for it. 

“There are many things you don’t know about me, Corpsy. A girl’s gotta have some aces up her sleeve.“ I can just imagine the narrowing of here eyes and the tilting of her head as she says that. She has a very specific way of expressing her thoughts. When we first met I accidentally made the comparison to one of those children’s books that have pictures, stories and small buttons for audio. That comparison has stuck with me and I look back at it very often. To fully catch her point, you don’t just listen to her. No, no, no. You focus on every change in her face and body. The way she looks away during certain parts of her speech, the way her voice plays with several different tones at once. Her posture while speaking. Just like those books - you don’t just listen to the audio, you look at the pictures and read the text.

“Well you know how much I like playing poker, why don’t you come over and throw those aces down.“ The last thing you should ever give Y/N is a challenge. She won’t only homerun it, but will never let you forget it either. When we met she was a girl with self esteem in the negatives, so seeing her brag about her achievements to me always brings me joy.

The details I’ve listed are pretty in-depth, aren’t they? That’s because I don’t want to let anything slip when it comes to her. This realization hit me early in our friendship and it was only like two years in that I finally connected the dots - this investment in her of mine was not simple nor platonic. Come to think of it, I reckon it never was.

“No way, I’m not changing out of my pajamas just to come to your house.” She laughs, once again making me picture her full body reaction to her statement.

I smirk, knowing I’m about to bring out my main weapon, “Oh come on, I’ve seen you in pajamas countless times. You can just admit you don’t wanna embarrass yourself. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

I can sense her fuming even though she’s like two miles away. “I’ll be there in 15.”

She hangs up before getting the chance to hear me lose control of the laughter I’ve been suppressing. 

Man, I love this girl.

Y/N’s POV 

“It’s on.“ I say as soon as the door in front of me swings open to reveal the smug smirking face of my bestfriend. The foundation of my tough, unbothered act is shaken up by the outburst of butterflies in my stomach which occurs every time I see him. I can never look at this man and not turn at least a little red in the cheeks. 

It’s been long since I self-diagnosed with the malicious ‘falling for someone who would never reciprocate my feelings’ illness. I’ve been living with it for a while. What medication do I take? Dating other guys. One bad relationship after another, scolding myself that every one of them has been a desperate attempt to get him to change his gaze on me from ‘best friend’ to something more. Hell, I don’t even know how to define that ‘something more’. I once even tried to admit my feelings, but I was so vague and so incoherent that I didn’t understand myself, so how was he supposed to grasp my downright sad excuse of a confession. 

“No ‘hello’, no nothing?“ He moves aside to let me in. I walk right past him with a sassy flip of my hair to mask the nervousness of being aware that his eyes were on me, “Rude.“ He murmured with an obvious smile in his tone.

He looks as cute as ever, black sweatpants and a black tee, hair messy as though he has just rolled out of bed. I can say with the upmost certainty that he’s the only one who can pull of that hairstyle.

I hide mine as I throw on the apron that’s hanging by his fridge, ready to take over his kitchen and put those aces of mine to use. I can’t help but furrow my brows when I see him enter the kitchen behind me and lean against the counter. That’s when I notice the counter is lined with all the ingredients I’ll need for the cake I had in mind. 

“OK, what do we do first?“ he claps his hands together, straightening his posture as he gives me a expectant look.

It takes all my brain cells to prevent me from freezing up completely. I’m not usually like this, mind you, I’m a lot better at keeping what’s going on inside my head camouflaged. I don’t know what’s happening to me, but I don’t have much time to dwell on that. If I do, he’ll pick up on it right away.

“Um, we are not gonna do anything. I will be here baking, and you will remain outside the kitchen until I’m done. If you need something, ask and I’ll bring it to you. I can’t have you sabotaging my project, impostor.” I narrow my eyes at him like he’s the most dangerous of threats. And he is, for my mental sanity.

He fakes a hurt expression, clearly fighting to the best of his ability to hide how much he’s enjoying messing with me. “We’ve known each other for five years, Y/N. Don’t you trust me?”

I lean over the counter to where we’re about two feet apart and whisper, “Not. Even. A. Little. Bit.”

He smiles, “You’re just trying to get away with making this cake by watching a YouTube tutorial. Admit it, you can’t even crack an egg properly.” His eyes are now as narrowed as mine as we stare each other down at a proximity that’s rapidly raising my body temperature and heartbeat. It’s not fair. I’m a mess around him so he automatically has the upper hand.

As expected, I give in, “You better not mess around though.”

After I force him to give me several different oaths, we start. I’m working on the batter, he’s working on the frosting. We decided to decorate it with crimson and dark purple frosting. We’re both really pick about the color shades so he’s currently struggling to get the crimson perfect. 

“Let’s make it a layer cake.“ He suggests out of the blue, “Two layers, nothing crazy.“

I think it over for a moment or two before shrugging, “OK, but then you better grab a bowl and help me with the second layer. You know how to make the batter, right?”

He confirms that he does and walks out of my line of sight. I hear him open the fridge as I whisk the eggs I have cracked with the sugar. 

“You want something to drink?“ He asks while rummaging through the fridge.

I decline, try to focus on the recipe that I have somehow memorized to the smallest of details. As I’m reciting the it silently to make sure I didn’t skip any steps with the batter, I feel something cold run down my back causing me to scream.

“What the fuck was that?!“ I turn around and glare at him just as the ice cube slips out from under my hoodie and falls to the floor. The fucker’s laughing whole heartedly, not giving a damn that he just gave me a mini heart attack. Mainly cause I thought it was a roach or something, and he know I hate bugs.

“You do realize how boiling red you are, right? You look like a lobster. I thought you needed something to cool you down.“

Instead of being annoyed, I do a full 180 and decide to play his game, “Yeah, I know...” I trail off, reaching my hand back towards the bowl of flour. Grabbing a a handful of the white powder I throw it at him before he can even catch on. Needless, to say, his outfit and hair aren’t so black anymore. “Ah, I knew your hair would look good with snowflakes in it, but you can never be too sure.”

“This means war, Y/N.” His smile is borderline malicious, getting me excited for what’s to come. 

Him and I have always had these so called wars, but never like you’d imagine. We are silent, strategic, subtle. Neither of us knows when the other will attack until it’s too late. That’s why instead of going for a counter-attack right away, he heads to complete his mission of making the batter for the second layer.

All is quiet except the noises of the utensils clinking together every now and then. I keep a close watch on him out of the corner of my eye and I notice no sus behavior. That is until I see him take a spoonful of his batter and eat it. I whirl around at the speed of a gust of wind, eyes wide, “Do you want to fuck up your guts.” He ignores me as he takes another spoonful, bringing it close to his mouth. This time, I grab onto his arm causing the contents of the spoon to spill on my hoodie.

I roll my eyes, unbothered by the brown stain that by some miracle missed the apron and fell on my grey hoodie, “Don’t. Eat. The. Batter. Copy?“

“Paste.“ He nods, smirking with pride as he puts the spoon aside.

I sigh and return to my side of the kitchen, focusing on the next task: poring the batter into the circular baking tray which he, for some reason, has two of. He repeats the task soon after me and we put the two trays in the oven. I help him with the frosting, getting the shades close enough to what we had in mind. 

After about five minutes of the crusts baking, a wonderful smell spreads throughout the kitchen. At this point, all we have to do is wait for the oven to signal that our cinnamon crust is ready to be taken out, wait for it to cool down and then frost the cake.

“It smells really good.“ He comments, turning his head to look at me.

I’m sitting atop the kitchen counter and Corpse is standing next to me. This is the only time him and I are at approximately the same height. The realization brings a thought to my mind, one that makes me feel like an evil mastermind.

“Hey, remember earlier when you said I couldn’t crack an egg properly?“ He hums affirmatively, “Well...“

The carton of eggs is within arm’s reach. I grab an egg, chip it off the side of the counter and crack it apart above his head, its contents coating his hair. “How’s that for a proper egg crack?” I ask victoriously.

He lets out a surprised sound, something between a gasp and a laugh. Shaking his head to get the yoke to fall down, he says amusedly: “I don’t know...you tell me.”

Too late for me to do anything. There’s milk all over me.

The malicious smile on his face is replicated on mine and now it’s really on. However, as we reach for the items meant to be out weapons, the oven dings.

Frosting the cake goes about as well as you expect: there’s more frosting on us than the cake itself.

“Let’s make amends, please. I’m so not looking forward to taking three showers tonight.“ I say, raising a white napkin and waving it around.

“Fair enough.“ He shrugs and we shake hands.

As I’m about to pull my hand back, he holds onto it, making me look up at him. Our eyes lock and I suddenly regain that same shakiness and vulnerability I always have around him. It never leaves me, I just manage to ignore it. The sound of my panic is muffled by the sound of my heart thumping the loudest it has ever. 

Expectedly, he is the bold one who makes the first and final move. The move to end one era of us and start another. His lips touch mine and all fades. It’s just him and I. The friends who were never just friends. The cowards who suck at dealing with emotions. The fearful little kids that are afraid of rejection because we both mean so much to each other, to the point of suffering to prevent the possibility of losing one another.

We embrace who we are, finally admitting that friends is not what we are meant to remain forever.

The kiss might’ve been brief, but the meaning it carries makes it the most valuable moment of my life. One I’ll cherish forever. Something in his eyes tells me he will too. That’s all I need. That’s all we need. No words are necessary.

Suddenly, our bubble bursts as a result of his ringing phone. He lets go of one of my hands and takes his phone from the counter.

“It’s Dave”, he smiles, picking up the call and turning to get me in the camera frame. “Hey Dave, look who’s here with me.“

I wave at the camera and at the baffled face of Dave. “Hi!”

“What, in the name of God, is that mess?“ He raises both his eyebrows as his eyes scan us and the kitchen behind us.

“You call it a mess, we call it baking.“ Corpse and I look at each other and smile, blushing as red as the streak in Dave’s hair.

“Am I missing something here? Did I call at a bad time?“ He asks, still struggling to rationalize what he is seeing.

“Yeah, you actually did. I’ll call you back.“ Corpse dead-ass hangs up on him, putting his phone away before turning to me, “We have more important matters at the moment.“

He kisses me again, this time more confidently. His arms wrap around me and prep me up on the counter, insinuating that this kiss won’t be as short as the last.

[honeypiehotchner]

illicit affairs (Spencer Reid one-shot)

This is wayyy overdue! It’s just been sitting in my drafts, waiting for me to edit her, but she’s finally here. This is very loosely based on Taylor Swift’s song of the same title. And it’s 100% me writing out some feelings through fanfiction, so it’s also loosely based on true events. Enjoy!

Summary: You and Spencer have been “dating” without a label for a few months now, until you witness something that has you wondering if it was too good to be true (as always).

Warnings: it’s so dramatic. Angst with a happy ending!

Spencer has no fucking clue what he did.

Well, to be more accurate, Spencer has no idea if he even did anything at all.

One second the two of you were acting as normal as ever, attached at the hip and nothing less, and the next you’re barely able to look at him. You won’t speak to him, you insist you’re fine, and you ask him to leave you alone -- please.

A new case comes and he thinks things will fall back into their rightful place. He expects you to sit with him on the plane, but you choose the farthest seat away from him. He expects you’ll be paired with him when he says he’ll go to the local station to work on victimology, but instead you agree to Morgan’s offer to look at the crime scene.

He’s desperate. He’s a so-called genius, and he’s losing his mind.

“Morgan, help me out here, man,” Spencer pleads, cornering Morgan when he’s getting a coffee. He’s just returned from the crime scene with you, but of course, you’ve ducked away from Spencer.

Derek’s eyebrows raise. Slowly, he turns around, eyeing the desperate genius. “You’re asking for my advice?”

“She won’t talk to me,” Spencer whispers, eyes cutting to you, but only for a second. He doesn’t want you to think he’s creepily staring at you all the time. So far, you haven’t caught him (that he knows of).

“Well, what did you do?” Morgan asks like the answer should be blatantly obvious.

“I don’t know!”

“Alright, let me rephrase that for you,” Morgan’s tone is bordering on teasing, but he can’t help it. The resident genius of the BAU is having trouble talking to a woman. Who knew? “Have you done anything that would lead her to believe you’re not interested in her anymore?”

“What? No!”

“Think, Reid,” Morgan replies, tipping his cup of coffee in the air. “And when you figure it out, apologize.”

He leaves without another word. Morgan joins you and Emily back in the room where the team has set up base. You share a particularly heated look with Morgan, but he shakes his head, letting you know he didn’t betray your confidence. You relax.

Spencer doesn’t know this, but earlier when you were riding with Morgan to the crime scene, you confided in him.

It had been completely accidental. Something about car rides brings out the need to ask for advice. Maybe it’s the fact that there’s the road to focus on, or the case to segway into, you don’t know. But what you do know, is that when you confided in Morgan, he shook his head, and called Spencer a dumbass.

“Hypothetically,” you had begun, and Morgan remembers wondering if you were going to talk about the case, but you didn’t. “If you’ve been talking-- flirting with a guy and going on a few dates over the past few months -- but there’s no label -- but so if you’ve been doing all this and then you suddenly see him outside his apartment hugging another woman -- like arms around her waist kind of deal, face in her neck...what does that mean?”

Morgan had nearly slammed on the brakes. Reid? A two-timer? He never would’ve guessed. The kid could barely get his words out when he first met you, and now he’s playing you?

“Well, hypothetically,” Morgan played into your game. “I’d be suspicious. Personally, I don’t just hug any woman like that if I don’t have other intentions,” he shook his head. What you’re describing is intimate, especially for Reid. “You’re right to think something else is going on.”

“Who said it was about me?”

Morgan looked at you with his usual knowing stare. Sometimes you forget you’re all profilers. You’ve made deals not to profile one another, but you’re sure it still happens. You all have another silence agreement to never voice it aloud, unless needed.

“Fine,” you caved, crossing your arms over your chest. “I don’t know, I just-- I was going to drop off his stupid jacket that he left in my car the night before, and I saw him hugging her right on his doorstep and she kissed his cheek and I just-- I bolted. I don’t know.” You had let out a frustrated sigh. “I thought he was different.”

“If it helps,” Morgan shrugged, “I’ll kick his ass.” He might protect Reid like a mother hen, but he’s not afraid to give him a hard time, either.

“No, no, don’t,” you groaned. “I’m just gonna keep my distance. No sense in putting effort into something that clearly is never going to happen.”

“Oh, come on, don’t talk like that,” Morgan said. You used to talk that way all the time when you first started at the BAU, but it slowly died out the more you hung out with Spencer. Morgan connected the dots, but never told you.

“You know I’ve never been in a relationship?”

This time, Morgan did slam on the brakes.

“What?”

“Never,” you shook your head, motioning for him to keep driving. “Not one. They all fall through. I started thinking something was wrong with me, you know?” Morgan gave you another look, his sad, big brother one this time. “But then Spencer and I started getting closer, he took me on what I thought, I guess, were a couple of dates. I mean, he paid and drove and walked me to my door and all that cute shit. That’s a date, right? I mean, he never kissed me on the lips, but it’s Spencer.” You didn’t even look to see Morgan’s reaction, but he was nodding. “I started to think maybe it was never me, maybe it was the guys--”

“It was the guys,” Morgan argued. “Alright? You’re amazing. Anyone would be lucky to have you. It would be a damn honor. Don’t let that head of yours convince you otherwise.”

You shook your head, the crime scene rapidly approaching. “I’m not so sure anymore.”

You were out of the car and introducing yourself to the police on the scene before Morgan could even blink.

Morgan can only hope Reid had a good reason for having a woman at his door and hugging her, and letting her kiss his cheek. Reid doesn’t give hugs to just anyone, let alone accept a kiss, so whoever it was, obviously she was more than a friend.

The thought of Reid being a player makes Morgan smile. On the one hand, he’s a little bit proud. On the other, he’s pissed. It’s one thing to have one night stands with women who are into that sort of thing, but it’s another to drag someone along -- someone like you, someone who is too good, who deserves better than that.

Morgan had thought about telling you to just talk to Spencer, in hopes that there was a good reason for what you saw, but you’ve made it painfully clear over the past two weeks that you’d rather keep your distance instead.

So, he lets you. He can’t say that he blames you, really. Not after what you told him. He can only hope Spencer will figure this one out before it’s too late.

+++

After the case is closed and you’re back home, you immediately head for the shower. Cases are exhausting enough, but avoiding Spencer made it worse. Going from being attached at the hip to trying to be anywhere except in the same room as him took a toll on you. Not to mention, dodging everyone else’s worried looks. Morgan is the only one you’ve confided in, but that hasn’t stopped Hotch, Emily, JJ, and even Garcia from constantly asking if you’re alright.

Once you’re finished showering and in your pajamas, you head back to the living area. Spencer’s forgotten cardigan lays on the arm of your couch, lonely.

You know you shouldn’t, but you shrug it on anyway. No harm in wearing it. Not like he misses it. He probably has a hundred others.

You head to the kitchen to make yourself some tea, hoping it’ll soothe your nerves and help you drift off to sleep before your mind has the time to make you think of Spencer.

Too late.

Sighing heavily, you place the kettle on the stove. You hum a song while you’re at it, knowing that you’re being endlessly dramatic.

It’s not like you had sex with Spencer. Hell, the most the two of you did was hold hands and you kissed his cheek. He kissed your head once, though you think it was an accident.

Still, there was never a label. Why are you so upset?

Don’t call me kid, don’t call me baby/Look at this idiotic fool that you made me

It’s stupid, really, how hung up you are over this. A few dates don’t exactly mean anything at all. Flirting nowadays can mean nothing, too. You don’t understand any of it.

You cup your cheek gently, foolishly wondering what it would feel like if Spencer’s hand was there instead -- maybe even as he kissed you, but you don’t want to get too carried away. It’s not like anything will ever happen now.

And you know damn well/for you I would ruin myself/a million little times

Maybe you just need more time. This was the first time in a long time that you had let your guard down, let yourself go on dates. So many times it had all gone wrong, so you closed yourself off and focused on your career. You thought since you were stable at the BAU that now it was okay.

You thought Spencer -- Spencer Reid, of all people, you really thought he would’ve been different.

Maybe it’s just your type. Maybe that’s who you attract. The men who don’t want anything serious and never will. They’re stuck in Peter Pan mode. You must be Wendy. It must be a curse.

The kettle boils and you cut the burner off, fixing your tea.

You’re just walking back to the living room when there’s a knock on your door. You freeze, your panicked mind expecting the absolute worst, until you hear Spencer’s voice.

“Y/N?” He calls out. “It’s Spencer-- You probably knew that already.”

You smile into your tea, but you make no move for the door. You want-- no, you ache to let him inside, but you know it’s a bad idea. He’s probably here to ask if you’re alright, and you don’t have the energy to answer him. He’s probably going to go back to his girlfriend after this. You really don’t know that you can handle a face-to-face rejection.

“Y/N, please,” Spencer says again, pleading. He knocks once more, quietly. “I see lights are on, so I’m just going to...assume you can hear me.”

You walk a step closer. You don’t want to let him inside, but maybe you can listen. That won’t be too bad, right?

“Y/N, I’m...I’m sorry.”

Oh, tears. Stupid, stupid tears. You wipe them on the sleeve of his cardigan, glad that they’re at least falling quietly right now.

“I don’t know what I did, but I’m...I’m just sorry and I miss you and it’s killing me that you won’t even look at me. I…” Spencer pauses, and you walk closer, biting on the sleeve to keep from letting out a sob. “I’m sorry, I don’t… Please, just tell me what I did.”

You press your back to the door, sliding down until you hit the floor. You keep your knees against your chest and set the mug of tea down next to you. The noise causes Spencer’s ears to perk up.

“Y/N? Is that you?”

“Yeah, Spencer,” you barely speak loud enough for him to hear. “It’s me.”

“Please, tell me what I did,” he pleads, voice breaking. Is he crying, too? “I don’t know what it was, but I’ll fix it. Or I’ll try-- Please, let me try.”

“Spencer…” You sigh, tears falling down your cheeks with no restraint. “Be honest with me, are you seeing someone else?” You pause, choking on a sob. So many times you’ve had this conversation, the rejection, finding out you weren’t the one they wanted. Too many times. But none of them ever hurt this bad. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

“What?” Spencer nearly falls over. Why on earth would you think that? “What are you talking about? Of course not.”

“Don’t lie to me, please,” you groan, pressing your hand to your forehead. This is pathetic. You shouldn’t be showing him how upset you are. And through a door, no less. Can you get any more dramatic?

“What are you talking about?”

“I was at your apartment, Spencer,” you mutter, wiping angrily at your cheeks. “I went to drop off this stupid cardigan of yours and you-- You were hugging a woman outside your door and I saw it and I saw her kiss you--”

You cut yourself off, choking on another sob, and Spencer sighs. He understands now.

“Open the door. Please,” he says.

“Why?” You reply quietly. “If you’re just going to reject me, please, just do it through the door.” The last thing you want is for him to see you like this when he tells you he’s seeing someone else, that he didn’t even know you liked him, and so on.

“I’m not rejecting you,” he says softly. “Please.”

You know it’s a bad idea, but how much worse can things get?

You stand to your feet and open the door, careful of the mug of tea on the floor. Spencer’s heart drops at the sight of you. Tear stains on your cheeks, red eyes, your quivering lip as you try to hold things together, and...his cardigan hanging off your shoulders. Somehow the last tops it all off, sends a strike of pain right to his heart.

You wipe some more tears away with the sleeve, motioning for him to start talking. “Go on.”

“She’s an old friend. We did kiss before, once. But she’s not my girlfriend. She was in town and wanted to stop by to tell me she’s getting married...to her girlfriend of three years.”

You nod slowly. For some reason, that doesn’t even make you feel better. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Spencer asks, hopeful tone and all. “Are we okay?”

“What are we, Spencer?” You ask, eyes still watering. “I can’t keep going on the way we were going, you know? It’s agonizing, I just want to know what’s going on in your head.”

Spencer smiles softly. “I want you to...to be my girlfriend.”

Your ears are deceiving you. They must be. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. I thought it was obvious,” he chuckles. “That’s one of the things I talked to her about -- her name’s Jess. She invited me-- us to the wedding. I was gonna ask you to be my girlfriend-- I still want to, I mean, if you’ll have me.”

More tears spring to your eyes and Spencer’s heart jumps, thinking he did something completely wrong.

“What happened? Did I say something?”

“No,” you shake your head. “God.” You wipe at your cheeks before turning and retreating back into your apartment. Spencer has no choice but to follow you.

He spots your mug of tea and places it on the coffee table as he shuts your front door gently with his foot.

“I’m so...stupid,” you mutter, jumping when you see he’s followed you inside. He’s not unwelcome here by any means, you’re just an idiot. A huge idiot.

“You’re not stupid,” he argues. “I wish you would’ve talked to me.”

“Would you believe me if I told you this has happened to me before?” You murmur pathetically, propping your body against the arm of your couch.

Spencer’s heart breaks more. You won’t look at him again.

“I’m sorry,” you sigh, clasping your hands together, fighting the shakes. “I should’ve talked to you, I just-- This has happened before and those times it was… Well, you know.” You finally look up at him, tears falling. “The first time the guy didn’t even try hiding it. The second one did, but not very well because I still found out. The third wasn’t even aware that he was flirting with me, I guess. I don’t know how you can take someone on dates for months and not be aware, but he said he wasn’t.” You pause, looking away again. “I just saw a pattern and I freaked out and I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Spencer whispers, even though you still feel like it’s not.

You shake your head.

“Y/N, it is,” he presses on. “I should’ve...talked to you about how I’m feeling, but I was scared. You’re the first girl that’s-- I don’t know, liked me for me, I guess. Dorkiness and all.”

You chuckle, and Spencer nearly grins. He got a laugh. That’s something.

“How about we both make a deal to communicate better?” He offers. You nod, so he keeps going. “I’ll go first. I really want you to be my girlfriend.”

You can’t help but smile now, all dumb and trying to hide it in the sleeve of his cardigan. “I’d really love to be your girlfriend.”

“Yeah?” He asks, almost like he wasn’t even expecting you to agree, but you nod, confirming it for his genius brain.

The kiss the two of you share is a long time coming. It’s gentle and warm, relaxing your muscles and easing the tension you’ve held in them for the past two weeks. Spencer gathers you in his arms, keeping you close, with zero intent of ever letting you go.

+++

When you walk into the BAU the next morning, you are painfully reminded that you are surrounded by the best profilers in the country.

It’s no secret that you and Spencer have been “dating” for a while, but you never showed PDA -- partly because the two of you were fumbling around your true feelings, and partly because you’re not too sure how relationships stand with protocol here.

Apparently, despite coming in fifteen minutes apart from one another, everyone can see right through you both.

Morgan is the first to say something. He catches you when the elevator doors open and you have Spencer’s cardigan hanging over your shoulders. In your defense, Spencer forgot to grab it when he left your house sometime this morning, so you were just trying to return it -- again.

“Late night?” Morgan raised his eyebrows.

Realizing your mistake, your eyes widen. “Shut up.” You step off the elevator and point a threatening finger in his face. “Not a word.”

Morgan’s hands raise in surrender, but he still has that goddamn smile on his face. “Might wanna take off that cardigan, sweetheart. You’re too obvious.”

Angrily, you shrug it off and walk into the bullpen.

Spencer is at his desk, so you shove his cardigan into his chest. “You forgot this.”

Upon seeing that it’s you, Spencer’s lips stretch into a grin. “Thanks.” He pauses, folding the cardigan over his arm. “I was kind of hoping you’d keep it,” he whispers, eyes darting around to be sure no one is listening. “It looks better on you, anyway.”

You bite down hard on the inside of your cheek. “Give it to me tonight, then,” you wink, earning a light blush on Spencer’s cheeks.

Hotch watches this encounter from the railing and smiles. He’s sure neither of you will do anything to warrant him giving you a stern talk about relationships and work, so he won’t mention anything for now.

Instead, he retreats back into his office, glad you’ve finally gotten over yourselves.

Garcia catches on when you come to visit her in her office only to find Spencer already standing there. He’s animatedly talking about Doctor Who, but stops abruptly when he sees you. It doesn’t take a profiler to understand the glances, the smiles, and awkward goodbyes that were shared so you could ask Garcia a question.

Prentiss is just glad the two of you will look at one another again, but the way you keep glancing over her shoulder to see Spencer is more than obvious. It’s so obvious that Prentiss and JJ share a knowing look, but say nothing. They should’ve placed bets.

You and Spencer catch each other’s eyes more than a dozen times every hour, and he follows you to the break room to conveniently get a coffee at the same time as you.

Yeah, you’re not being obvious at all.

Neither of you notice that the team has caught on, so you take your chances when you find yourselves alone in the break room. You can practically hear the conversations the rest of the team is having out in the bullpen, so you let Spencer pull you into his arms, his chin resting on top of your head.

This is a lot for Spencer, and you too, if you’re honest. Hugs are something you never found yourself enjoying, but when you’re tucked into Spencer’s chest, you never want to leave.

You’re both too busy holding one another to hear Hotch’s footsteps as he enters the room. The clearing of his throat is what finally breaks the two of you apart.

“Agent Hotchner,” you blurt, straightening yourself and taking one too many steps away from Reid.

Hotch smirks. You haven’t called him that since your first day. “New case. Looks like a short one. Conference room in five minutes.”

And he leaves as quick as he came, chuckling under his breath.

You and Spencer share a look before dissolving into laughter and fixing your coffee. You don’t try to walk out of the break room separately, knowing that there’s no use.

Especially not when you get cold on your way to the conference room, and Spencer promptly wraps you in his cardigan.

[nickjunesource]

Full article below.

Max Minghella is sitting in his backyard in the LA sunshine, his t-shirt an homage to the French filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve, his adopted shepherd mix, Rhye, excited by the approach of a package courier.

“You okay, sweetheart?” he asks — the dog, not me — tenderly.

Minghella, who at 35 has dozens of screen credits to his name, is best known as The Handmaid’s Tale’s cunning chauffeur Nick Blaine, a character who it’s difficult to imagine saying sweetheart. In airless Gilead, of course, a cautious hand graze with Elisabeth Moss’ June can pass for a big romantic gesture. In a Season 1 episode featuring child separation and hospital infant abduction, Nick’s major contribution is to trade stolen glances with a sex slave while “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” pumps discordantly along. I ask Minghella about playing the series’ closest approximation to a dreamy male lead against the show’s dark narrative of female subjugation.

“I know this is not the answer you want to hear,” Minghella says with none of Nick’s hesitation. “But I like that stuff, right? In the pilot, I think Nick only had a handful of lines. It wasn't clear that this is what the character would turn into. And it's quite fortunate for me personally, because I'm not a massively sort of intellectual person in my real life. I love Fifty Shades of Grey. That's like my Star Wars. It suits me to play a character like him.”

Minghella surmises that this enduring romanticism is an outcome of nurture. His father, the late British director Anthony Minghella, made grand romantic dramas like Cold Mountain and The English Patient. And there was the young, cinema-mad Max sitting on the living room sofa, absorbing everything. “It’s taken me a long time to understand this,” he says of his prolonged childhood exposure to love stories. “My dad made The English Patient when I was 10. So it was two years of watching the dailies to that movie and then watching 50 cuts of it. And then [The Talented Mr.] Ripley he made when I was 13, and it was the same thing.” These were an adolescent Max Minghella’s alternative to reruns. “I think they did shape my perspective on the world in a lot of ways, specifically The English Patient. That was a complicated love story, and I wonder sometimes how much it's affected my psychology.”

Some sons rebel; others resemble. Minghella’s co-star O-T Fagbenle, who plays June’s other lover from before the time of Gilead, got his first job acting in Anthony Minghella’s romantic crime film Breaking and Entering. “Anthony is one the kindest, most beautiful men that I've ever had the privilege of working with before,” Fagbenle says. “And Max has his gorgeous, sensitive, open-minded soul.”

Though Minghella spent his childhood on the set of The Talented Mr. Ripley, playing an uncredited Confederate soldier role in Cold Mountain, and tooling around with a Super-8 camera Matt Damon gave him, he insists his upbringing was normal. He grew up in South Hill Park overlooking Hampstead Heath in London with his father and mother, the choreographer Carolyn Choa. (Minghella also has a half-sister, Hannah Minghella, who is now a film executive.) Yes, technically, it was London, but that’s not how it seemed. “I feel like I grew up in a very small town. Every school I went to was in Hampstead. I was born in Hampstead,” Minghella says of the small map dot of his life before university. “When I went to New York, I felt I was going to the big city.”

Despite his illustrious surname, movie-watching was far from restricted to the classics. “Beverly Hills Cop is definitely the movie I remember having an unhealthy obsession with. I think I saw it when I was 5 for the first time, and I'd watch it just two or three times a day for years. I'm just obsessed with it.”

Plenty of actors can trace their love of movies back to a love of stories, but for Minghella the relationship seems to flow in reverse. When he left for Columbia University, Minghella opted to study history for its connection, through storytelling, to film. It was during the summers between his years of college that he started taking acting more seriously. Before his graduation, he’d already appeared in Syriana, starring Damon and George Clooney. Soon, he’d make a splash as Divya Narendra in The Social Network in 2010 and be cast in Clooney’s Ides of March. As all young actors eventually must, Minghella moved to Los Angeles.

It’s been over a decade since he last lived on the Heath, but, perhaps unusually for a person who’s chosen his profession, Minghella is adamantly not a “shapeshifter,” in his words. Home for Christmas this year, he started sifting through old journals stored at his mother’s house, “just like scraps of writing from when I was extremely young up through my teenage years,” before coming to America. “It was hilarious to me,” Minghella says of staring at his childhood reflection. “My review of a movie at 7 years old is pretty much what my review of a movie at 35 will be. My taste hasn't changed much. And when I sort of love something, I do tend to continue to love it.”

Which brings us back to his enduring love of romance, born of his bloodline, which is all over Minghella’s own 2018 directorial debut. Teen Spirit is a hazily lit film about a teenage girl from the Isle of Wight — the remote British island where Max’s father Anthony was born — who enters a local X-Factor-style singing competition. (It stars Minghella’s rumored girlfriend of several years, Elle Fanning.) The story is small, but its crescendos are epic.

Minghella calls the movie — an ode to the power of the pop anthem — “embarrassingly Max.” Max loves a good music-driven movie trailer — he’s watched the one for Top Gun: Maverick “many” times. And Max loves the rhythmic beats of sports movies like Friday Night Lights. Max loves movies with excesses of female energy, like Spring Breakers. He likens Teen Spirit to an experiment, his answer to the question, “Can I take all these things that I love and find a structure that can hold them?” The result is a touching “hodgepodge” of Minghella’s fascinations, inspired by the songs from another thing he loves: Robyn’s 2010 album Body Talk (itself a dance-pop meditation on love).

Minghella hasn’t directed any films since, but he sees now how making movies fits his personality — organized, impatient — more organically than starring in them does. Directing also helped him to appreciate that acting is “much harder than I was giving it credit for,” which, in turn, has made him like it more. Besides The Handmaid’s Tale currently airing on Hulu, Minghella appears in Spiral, the ninth installment in the Saw horror franchise and, from where I’m sitting, at least, a departure.

“I do like horror movies, but the thing that was really kind of magical is that I was feeling so nostalgic, right? We talked about Beverly Hills Cop earlier. I was just missing a certain kind of movie,” Minghella explains of his new role as Chris Rock’s detective partner. He was yearning for simple story-telling, like in the buddy cop movies of his youth, especially 48 Hours. It almost goes without saying that a buddy cop movie is another kind of love story. “And then I read the script and it was very much in that vein.” He clarifies: “I mean, it's also extremely Saw. It's very much a horror movie.”

His renewed excitement for acting translated onto The Handmaid’s Tale set, too. Veteran Hollywood producer Warren Littlefield describes casting Minghella in the role of Nick as an effortless choice: “Sometimes you agonize over things. [Casting Minghella] was instantly clear to me, and everyone agreed.” Now in its fourth season, the tone of the Hulu hit is graver than ever. Gilead is more desperate to maintain its rule, and so more audacious in its violence. Perhaps it’s fitting that the show’s romantic gestures finally match that scale.

In one particularly soaring moment, Elisabeth Moss’ June and Minghella’s Nick meet at the center of a bridge and crush into a long kiss. It’s been two seasons since they held their newborn daughter together, and it’s hard to see how this isn’t their last goodbye. Littlefield, like Minghella, is here for the romance among the rubble. “It's spectacular when they come together. In the middle of all of the trauma is this epic love story,” he says. “Max is just magnificent in the role.”

For Minghella, the satisfaction is more personal. He works with good people, he likes his scenes, and he thinks Nick is a complex character. Minghella read The Handmaid’s Tale for the first time in college in 2005. Like all the things Minghella has ever liked, he still likes it. He’s as proud of this most recent season as he is the show’s first. And he watched Nick and June race recklessly back to each other across the expanse of the screen exactly how you might expect. “I watched it like a fan girl.”

[ssajj]

Experience

Basically, a collection of moments from dating Spencer. Features Spencer learning how to knit, his little tummy, a few mishaps, and how much he loves you. 

gn! reader, 2.7k

“Did you know that it’s believed knitting originated in the Middle East around the fifth century?” Spencer asks you, wrapping his arms around you and resting his chin on your shoulder. 

You feel a small smile growing on your face. “I didn’t know that, actually.”

“Since knitting is largely defined by the yarn used, it’s also interesting to note that early Egyptians used cotton fibers instead of wool. However, by the time the practice made it to Europe, wool was the primary material used.”

“What’s got you looking into knitting?” You turn around in his arms, pressing a kiss to his nose. 

He blushes, which is exactly what you wanted. Since the beginning of your relationship, you always try to foster an environment where Spencer feels comfortable talking about his interests. You hate the way his face falls when he gets cut off or when he realizes that the person he’s talking to clearly isn’t interested. The team loves him, you know this, and you also understand that the middle of a case isn’t the best time for him to ramble about something random, but you do wish they’d be better about it when they weren’t on a case. So far, little acts of love are the most effective way to let Spencer know that you care. 

“I wanted to try it.”

“Yeah?”

His blush gets deeper. “According to a few studies I’ve seen, knitting can be considered a psychosocial activity that encourages stress relief. It can also improve fine motor skills, cognitive anchoring, and reduce awareness of pain. Some therapists are even using it as a technique with their patients.”

You hum. “Sounds cool. Do you have all the stuff you need? What do you even need, just needles and yarn?”

“No, not yet,” he says, pausing. You wait for him to continue. “Can you come with me?”

“Duh.”

An hour later, the two of you are at Michael’s. It’s the first time either of you has ever been in, and frankly, the store is huge. You look around with wide eyes. “Good thing the aisles are marked, huh?”

You take Spencer’s hand, letting him trail behind you as you find the aisle with all the yarn. There are so many colors to the point where it seems overwhelming. “Any clue what colors you want to start with?”

To your surprise, Spencer seems to know exactly what he wants. Without saying anything to you, he heads toward the yellow section, pondering for only a few seconds before grabbing a few and heading back to you. 

“Yellow?” You question, holding out the basket you’d grabbed. “I figured you’d go for like...neutrals or something.”

Spencer places his pick in the basket. “Greys, blacks, beiges, browns, and whites are generally considered neutral colors.”

“And you got yellow.”

He nods.

“Do I get to know why you picked yellow?”

He shakes his head, some of his hair falling in front of his face from the action. “Eventually.”

You roll your eyes. “Alright, Mr. Secretive. Let’s go get the other things you need.”

…

Spencer continues to be oddly secretive about the entire knitting thing. He tells you about it, sure, but he tends to work on his projects when he’s off on cases and won’t let you see them after. 

“Eventually,” he keeps repeating, even after you try to bribe him with cupcakes. 

Because you’re a weak human being, you give him the cupcakes anyway. You’ve never been able to resist his puppy eyes. 

After he grabs a cupcake, he joins you on the couch, pulling you against him with his hand on your waist. “These are really good, bub,” he tells you. “I’ve missed your baking.” You adjust so that you’re laying down, head resting in his lap. You kiss his stomach, smiling when he lets out a little giggle. God, you’re so in love with him. You’ve loved watching him become more confident, you’ve loved watching him become comfortable in his body, and you’ve loved watching his smile come out more and more. When you first started dating, you never thought he’d be the giggling type. 

“I’ve missed baking,” you admit. “Work’s just been crazy.”

"I know," he says, tangling his hand in your hair. "You've been more stressed."

Sighing, you shift again so your face is practically buried against his stomach. "I know. And it's stupid. It isn't like my job is even that hard. Nothing like hunting down a billion serial killers."

He doesn't say anything for a moment, just long enough for shame to start burning through you. Before you can start backtracking, apologizing for being stressed over nothing, he pulls you up, settling you so you're seated in his lap. "Y/N," he says, shaking his head. "Your job is important. And you're allowed to be stressed over it. You help people in a different way than I do, but that doesn't make it inherently lesser."

You hum. 

"I'm serious!"

"Be a weird thing to joke about," you mutter. "Look, it's fine. Seriously. You don't need to try to make me feel better."

He kisses your forehead. "I love you. I'm always going to try and make you feel better."

…

Spencer has a bad case. You can tell the second you see him, the brief moment the two of you lock eyes before he slams into you, rocking you back on your heels as his arms wrap around you. 

"Hey, hey," you soothe, rubbing circles along his back. "C'mon, Spence. Breathe with me."

He sucks in a few panicked breaths, his grip on you tightening. You make sure to keep your breathing even, coaxing your boyfriend to follow the rhythm. Eventually, he settles down enough that you feel okay pulling away a little. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" You ask. 

He shakes his head. "Can we just go to bed?"

You've never been one to say no to him, so you don't. Instead, you let him lean on you as you make your way to bed, helping him strip off his clothes and get into something more comfortable before sliding under the sheets. 

"I don't know what I'd do without you," he whispers, voice sounding raw. 

"You'll never have to find out."

…

Significant others are always allowed at team hangouts, so you, Beth, and Will are all gathered at a table with the BAU at their favorite bar. Morgan and Penelope are off dancing, Rossi’s chatting up a confused looking bartender, Hotch is glued to Beth's side, JJ and Emily are playing darts, and Spencer's standing behind you, letting you rest against him. 

"I love you," you blurt out randomly, twisting in his arms. You think you can hear Beth's "awww" from where she's seated. "Like, a ton."

Instead of answering, he kisses you. It sends an electric current through you, just like it always does. His hands come up to cup your face, tilting your chin to allow you better access. Your arms go around his hips. Every time he touches you, it always feels like you're on fire but in the best possible way. You'd let yourself burn like this for an eternity, you'd let yourself stay in his arms and melt away. 

"Whoa, there!" Morgan shouts, making you smile into the kiss and ruin it. Spencer's smiling too though, so it's okay. "Keep it PG, you two! Mom and dad are here!"

"Mom and dad?" Will questions. 

You don't let go of Spencer, but you do turn your head to look at Will. Spencer's hands drop down to your shoulders, like he can't stand not touching you either. "Hotch and Rossi," you explain. 

He nods, even though he still looks pretty confused. 

After an hour, Spencer wanders off with Morgan, asking the older agent something about Star Trek that you don't quite catch. You trust him well enough with your boyfriend, so you make your way over to JJ and Emily. "I have an important question."

They both turn to look at you, eyebrows raised. For people who were so drastically different, they have a lot of the same mannerisms. You wonder if they got them from each other. 

“Do you know what Spencer’s been knitting?”

JJ gives you a small smile as Emily starts giggling. 

“That’s your very important question?” Emily asks. 

You nod. “Sure is.”

“He said we aren’t allowed to tell you,” JJ shrugs. “I’m sure you can figure out why.”

Frankly, it takes you an embarrassingly long time to allow the dots to connect in your brain. When it does, you can feel your entire body soften. “Oh. He’s making me something.”

Emily rolls her eyes. “Did it take you this long to realize that? I thought Spencer liked smart people.”

“Em!” JJ chides gently before refocusing her attention back on you. “She’s kidding. Spencer will give you what he’s been working on once he’s happy with the final product.”

As you walk back to your table, you ignoring the warring feelings in your gut.

…

“Why do you always ask me “did you know” before you start rambling about something?”

It’s late, and your question catches Spencer off guard. He rolls over in bed so that you’re facing each other. “What do you mean, love?”

You bite your lip, chewing at it as you think. Before you can even answer him, he reaches out and pulls it free. 

“You’re going to make yourself bleed if you do that.”

He’s right. He’s always right. “I was just wondering if, well. If you’re going to get bored of me, since I’m not nearly as smart as you.”

Spencer sucks in a breath. “Y/N, where is this coming from?”

You shrug one shoulder. “Dunno. Look, why don’t we just forget-”

“I’m not going to forget about it,” he interrupts, voice surprisingly stern. “Even if my mind allowed me to forget about things, I wouldn’t want to forget about this. Because honestly, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life.”

When you go to speak again, he takes one of your hands and brings it up to his face, kissing it gently, effectively shocking you back into silence. 

“I love you,” he says like it’s the simplest thing in the world. He’s still holding your hand. “You make me happier than I thought I could be, happier than I thought I deserved to be. And I know I’m not always great with words or emotions, but you need to understand how important you are to me. You’re the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing I think about before I fall asleep. When I’m feeling down, I know that I can turn to you and you’ll help soothe me and I hope you know you can always come to me, too. When I talk, you listen. And you aren’t even listening just to placate me, or out of pity. You’re really, truly listening. You engage with the conversation, and you do your best to remember the things we converse about. When I learn something new, I’m excited to talk about it with you. When we’re together, I count how many times you’ve smiled. One, because it’s gorgeous. Two, because I need to make sure you’re happy, and if you’re not, I need to help as much as I can, becuase you always deserve to be smiling and happy. I just- I trust you in a way I’ve never trusted anyone else, Y/N. With my mind, my body, with everything. I don’t need someone with the same IQ as me. I don’t want someone with the same IQ as me. I just want you.”

“Spencer,” you breathe, your eyes stinging with unshed tears. 

“I know it can be hard not to doubt yourself. It’s a natural human emotion. But I just need to make sure that you’re aware that I’ve never doubted you, okay? And if you need a reminder, just let me know.” He wipes at the corners of your eyes, catching the tears. 

“I love you.” He smiles. “I know.”

…

Spencer laughs when you jump on his lap, a soft exhale of breath escaping. “Yes, dear?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. 

“Guess what I did this morning?”

“What?” “Made you cookies.”

His eyes light up. “Chocolate chip?” You give him a quick kiss. “Of course. Let me go grab them.”

In one quick movement, Spencer stands, sweeping you into his arms. You shriek, lacing your fingers together behind his neck for extra security. 

“What’s happening?”

“We’re going to get the cookies you made,” he tells you, starting to walk toward the kitchen. 

You laugh. “I guess working out with Morgan has been going well, huh? As long as you don’t lose your tummy.”

He blushes. He knows how much you love his entire body, but he also knows how much you love that one area in particular. 

Once you’re in the kitchen, he puts you back on your feet, but still wrapping his arms around your midsection. By now, you’re used to his tactile nature, but it had come as a shock to you back at the beginning of your relationship. Spencer had told you a million times that he wasn’t particularly touchy, and that had been fine. You’ve seen him dodge other people’s handshakes and hugs. After a few months, though, you figured out that he loved affection from the people that he cared about. It’d been obvious in the way he always stood a little too close to Morgan and JJ, in the way he let them ruffle his hair with a smile on his face, and the way he hugged them like the thought of germs or cross-contamination never even entered that big brain of his. When he started getting like that with you, it had made you want to weep. 

The cookies are in a tin on the counter, so you don’t have to separate from Spencer to grab them. “Here,” you say, opening it up. “Here’s the result of my day off.”

…

“Okay!” You announce loudly, covering Spencer’s paperwork with your hands. “I was under the impression that a certain someone isn’t allowed to work from home when he’s injured?”

Spencer glares at you, not that there’s any real heat behind it. “I’m bored.”

“You’re injured, honey.”

Last week, you’d gotten the most terrifying phone call from JJ, who told you in a shaky breath that Spencer had been shot. She assured you that he’d be okay, but you didn’t breathe again until you were in his arms, his voice filling all your senses. 

Despite him continuing to protest, he doesn’t stop you as you pack up everything on the table, placing it on the counter. “I know you don’t like to let your mind wander,” you acknowledge “But you need to let yourself rest a little bit. C’mon. Come sit with me in the living room, I’ll get us takeout.”

Five hours later, the two of you have binged the worst reality show you’ve ever seen. Spencer had watched most of it with his mouth slightly open, like he couldn’t even believe what he was watching. “Hey,” he whispers. “Thank you for taking care of me.” “Always.”

…

On your birthday, you get to find out what he’s been knitting. 

It’s painfully early in the morning, but you and Spencer had agreed to celebrate early, since you were both nervous about him getting called away on a case during the day. He hands it to you with a blush coloring his nose and you unwrap it gently. 

It’s a winter set. A hat, a pair of gloves, and the softest looking scarf. They’re all the same shade of yellow he picked out when you went with him to Michael’s. 

“I know it’s kind of stupid-” he starts. 

You interrupt him with a kiss, pulling him against you and letting him deepen it. He smiles against your lips. “Does that mean you like it?” “I love it, Spence.”

He’s standing above you, so you put the gifts on the table to give him room to sit on your lap. He does almost instantly, pressing his forehead against yours. “The color reminds me of you. Sunshine.” You don’t think you can ever be any happier than you are at this moment. You bask in it, in him. “You’re perfect.”