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sondepoch · 3 years

Text

Lighter (3/5)

Breaking the Collar

Nine months in the human trafficking circuit has destroyed every sense of normality you ever knew. For you, it's commonplace to be ordered on your knees for your owner, his clients, anyone else Childe deems necessary—and you've reached a point where you accept it this misery, just going along with the motions of life because there's nothing else to do.

Diluc and Kaeya change that.

They enter your life on a regular workday afternoon, stepping inside Childe's massive office under the pretense of sorting out a business deal, but a single hastily written message makes it clear that they're not here to hurt you: they're here to help you.

The only issue is that you have no idea how to escape Childe.

MASTERLIST

There’s something demeaning about the outfit Childe has picked for you today. It’s nothing unlike what he had you wear when he last took you outside the apartment, when he brought you on a train to Xiangling’s restaurant, but the blouse and skirt he has you in today are looser than before, and skimpier, too.

The thought confuses you until you realize that it’s because where you were previously dressed like a regular girl, in fairly modest clothes that were designed to shy away from attention, you’re now dressed like a slave once more: like a little sex toy that can only wear thin, loose clothes so her owner, alongside all her owner’s friends, can have easy access to the pretty tits and cunt beneath.

It should make you sick.

Yet, as Childe slips his hand underneath your skirt to grip your thigh, the only thing that disgusts you is how easily you find yourself relaxing into his touch.

“Angel,” Childe murmurs into your ear, voice hovering lowly under the quiet buzz of the van you both sit in. “Angel, I have a present for you.”

That catches your attention. You turn your head to your owner, eyebrows lifted in confusion, as Childe pulls a box from his pocket.

Immediately, you know what’s inside.

The first few gifts Childe gave you were all varied: the very first was, of course, the necklace he gave you in place of the ugly, metal collar all the other girls have to wear. The second was his jacket, too tattered for him to use anymore but literal paradise for someone like you, who had already grown used to spending every waking moment naked. Then, his presents began to come in the shape of services rather than material objects—the decision to allow you to sleep on a bed, the decision to let you eat better-quality meals, the decision to spare you from being sent to Scaramouche for a beating as punishment for a stupid blunder you once made—but after a certain period, Childe had granted you all the freedom he could give.

Then, his presents had to change.

He began gifting you jewels, all of them in different colors but always unfairly expensive, to make your collar sparkle.

You make no haste in opening the black, velvet box Childe gives you, eyes bright. You don’t think twice about how embarrassing it is that he’s conditioned you to associate these little gemstones (probably worth mere pennies to a man as wealthy as Childe) with happiness, but even you can’t keep the smile off your face as you snap open the box and see a blue twinkle staring back at you.

“It’s a sapphire,” Childe explains, pulling the gemstone out by the short, silver chain it dangles from. “Since you told me that you like colorful stones.”

You remember saying that. It was true: being Childe’s favored toy meant that you were always by his side; it gave you no room for pastimes, and so you found that the most entertaining thing to do was toy with the shiny stones that dangled off your collar and angle them into the light to trace patterns into the ceiling. It’s an activity that works best with larger, colorful stones: the dainty diamonds Childe always used to gift you didn’t work half as well.

“Do you like it?” the man asks, staring down at you. “I thought you deserved a reward so behaving so well last time we went out. If you’re good this time as well, I’ll give you another one.”

I won’t be here for you to give me another one, you think.

“I like it,” you say, ignoring how your heart instinctively speeds up with—is it fear? concern? hesitation?— when that thought runs through your mind. “Thank you, Sir.”

Childe grimaces.

“I mean, Ajax.”

Calling him by his name is still a hard habit to get into, but you find that the syllables roll off your tongue much smoother now. Alas, you shouldn’t need to worry about it too much longer. Not if today’s meeting with Diluc and Kaeya goes as planned.

“Here, lean forward so I can put it on you.”

The way you arch your neck forward is familiar. You and Childe have been in this position countless times before, him always being the one to fasten his gifts to your collar, and it shows in how quick Childe’s fingers are in attaching the short chain of the sapphire to your necklace. Within seconds, you feel the task’s completion as you lean your head back and smile at your owner, the weight around your neck marginally heavier than when you both stepped inside this van.

“It looks good,” Childe says, squeezing your thigh gently. “You look good.”

“Thank you,” you say like a good little slave. Then, you decide to go the extra mile. “Ajax.”

The man doesn’t respond to that, opting to glance out the window as his driver speeds down the highway that’ll doubtlessly bring you both to the office Diluc and Kaeya share, but you can see the edges of his lips curling upward. It’s rare, after all, for you to address him by name. No matter how much he loves it, your tongue still says “sir” on instinct, a little crack in the homey picture Childe is building with you in his mind.

It’s not like it matters, you think, stopping yourself from thinking too much about your owner before you can begin to feel bad. If all goes well, I won’t ever have to see him again.

The thought instinctively brings a smile to your face, but it falls just as fast.

If.

Looking back, the message Diluc and Kaeya gave you was cryptic. ‘WE CAN HELP YOU’ provides no accurate timeline to place your hopes in. The second message, ‘COME WITH TARTAGLIA NEXT WEEK AND WE CAN FREE YOU’ was of the same nature. Up til now, you’ve been vaguely interpreting their words to mean that they would free you immediately if you managed to go with Childe to this meeting. But the human trafficking world is so complicated, and you can’t help but think that things may be delayed even longer.

All you can do is hope for the best and pray that reality won’t disappoint.

“How much longer?” you ask your owner after the view outside the window has changed from a highway to a cityscape.

“Impatient, aren’t we?” Childe chuckles. “We should be there any time soon. Keep an eye out. Their office is in one of the big buildings.”

That doesn’t tell you much, given that nearly every building this van drives past is over fifteen stories high.

You’re in the middle of scoffing at Childe’s poor description of the office when the car finally stops: and only then do you understand that when he said “one of the big buildings,” he meant the biggest fucking building in the entire city.

You’re gawking like a fool as Childe helps you out of the car, mentally overwhelmed at the sheer size of what has to be the tallest office in Snezhnaya.

“It’s…”

Big doesn’t begin to describe the grandeur of this place. It’s nothing you’d expect from two men who are working undercover to free people from human trafficking: it's got to be the most eye-catching thing you've ever seen, one hundred stories high or taller, with every inch of the exterior covered in wall-to-wall windows. It looks like an upscale version of Childe’s own office, and if you thought his building was lavish, then this is full-on opulent.

Your owner has to forcibly pull you forward to get you to move.

You almost forget to tuck your precious jacket—the one you so foolishly forgot when you last went out in public, the one Childe insisted you bring this time in case you have another episode—underneath your arm because you’re so busy marveling at the exterior of the building, though you thankfully remember to do so right before the van door closes.

“It’s nothing impressive,” Childe grumbles as he pulls you past the professional double doors. “Diluc and Kaeya are only renting the top ten floors here. They’re not even rich enough to purchase them.”

“Ten whole floors?” you ask, eyes round as you stare at the inside of the ground floor. Childe tugs you towards the elevator, and you’re just barely able to slow him down so you can stare at the marble floors, the expensive-looking paintings on the wall, the embodiment of wealth unlike anything you’ve ever seen. “Why do they need ten—”

“They’re sex traffickers, angel,” Childe tells you when the elevator doors shut. (You have to force yourself to refrain from marveling at how even this elevator seems posh and refined.) “They use the top floor for their own operations. The other nine are where they run their prostitution rings.”

Your face darkens at that. It must be the exact same as Childe’s office, where he has you and his other favored prostitutes up at the top with him, and all the girls he doesn’t want to show favoritism to are forced into the life they were meant to follow when they were brought into the human trafficking world: either as unpaid sex workers that are sold by the hour from Childe to other equally-awful clients or as human trafickees to be shipped to someone else if they prove to be too much trouble.

But then, you remember Diluc and Kaeya’s message.

‘WE CAN HELP YOU,’ they said.

There’s no way that they’re running a sex trafficking front up here. Childe must be wrong. It’s probably just a lie they told him to gain his trust so that they could best help you escape this life.

“They’re so arrogant,” Childe grumbles, crossing his arms. “I bet they chose this office just to piss me off. It’s bad business, too. They’re losing out on money by choosing such a fancy place. Not even the Snezhnayan sex work model will boost their profits.”

“What’s the Snezhnayan sex work model?”

“The system we use in the Fatui. It’s supposed to be the best, money-wise. You hand-train the elite girls as prostitutes so that the best ones become magnets for high-caliber clients. You sell off girls who don’t show promise early on. And then there’s a handful of average-quality, compliant girls you keep for the low-caliber clients that want a good fuck but can’t pay as much.” Childe folds his arms as he leans back against the elevator wall. “It's the most profitable method, even if it means that the girls you sell will always be low-quality.”

“Wouldn’t I be an elite girl?” you ask, staring at your owner. “You trained me, but I never had to work as a prostitute. And I only sometimes have to meet your clients, and—”

“You’re different,” Childe says, avoiding your eyes.

Immediately, you want to ask what he means by that. Unfortunately for you, the elevator doors open at that precise moment, and Childe leads you forward by the hand into an office that, now that you think about it, definitely was designed to upstage Childe’s own place of work.

“Come on, you can do it, baby.” A low coo from the left side of the room draws your attention, and your eyes widen in a mix of confusion, concern, and finally, horror.

“Ignore Kaeya. Focus on my fingers. Relax your throat, doll, yes, just like that…”

Even Childe stiffens when he sees the three men splayed out on a couch: Diluc and Kaeya sandwiching a youthful-looking boy between them as Diluc shoves his hand down the boy’s throat and Kaeya strokes the boy’s small cock.

For a moment, you don’t understand why the boy looks so wrecked, his braided hair dampened with sweat and his face covered in tears, but when your eyes watch as a trickle of sweat trails from the boy’s neck to his stomach, joining a copious amount of white fluid you can only imagine to be the result of countless orgasms, it’s clear that Kaeya’s overstimulating him. Add that to the way Diluc’s entire hand is slotted down the poor boy’s throat, and how the redhead is still stubbornly trying to get more inside, and it becomes clear that whatever this boy is feeling is far from pleasant.

The picture makes it irrevocably clear that this boy is to Diluc and Kaeya what you are to Childe.

Instinctively, you imagine how you would feel if you were in such a position. Your worst memory under Childe, after all, is from the time when you were handed over to four men who fucked into your G-spot so vigorously that you cried at any sensation for hours. Your second worst memory is from the time when a client forced a massive dildo so big you couldn’t breathe down your throat and left you like that until Childe intervened.

The idea of those two memories being combined into one makes you want to vomit.

“Fucking hell,” Childe grunts once he’s past processing the image before him. “Get your toy out of here. Do you have to be so disgusting?”

“Oh, please,” Kaeya responds, not an ounce of hesitation in his voice. He doesn’t stop stroking the boy’s cock. “You had your little angel out during our last meeting. Let us have a little fun now, alright?”

“Hell no. Even I don’t dabble in…” Childe sneers when he sees how young the boy seems to be. “Children.”

Diluc laughs, a deep, rich sound that reverberates through the room. “He’s older than he looks. We’re not scummy enough to deal in children, either, Tartaglia.”

“You’re scummy enough to have to share,” Childe says, scoffing. “What, did you guys spend so much money paying for this building’s rent that you couldn’t afford more than one kid to suit both your needs? The two of you look pathetic, you know.”

“I wouldn’t call it pathetic,” Kaeya offers. “It’s more like we know exactly what we want. And if we both want the same thing, we’re not going to waste our time with…” The man’s single eye skirts over your figure with purpose. “Cheap replacements.”

“Really, now?” You can sense Childe getting offended for you. “You think your little toy is better trained than my angel?”

“I don’t think it, Tartaglia. I know it.” Kaeya grins. He gives the boy’s cock another few strokes, going at the same pace, the small, red-flushed thing twitching furiously in response. “Just watch.”

Kaeya abruptly pulls back from the boy, lifting his hand in the air for dramatic effect, and one, two, three seconds pass where nothing happens. The little organ he’d been stroking still quivers, either from overstimulation or from desire, but the boy suppresses his orgasm, and you can see the desperate, shallow breaths he tries to take from around Diluc’s hand.

Then, it happens.

“Cum, Venti.”

On command, the boy keens, eyes rolling to the back of his head as his hips spasm and jerk up into nothing. Venti’s cock looks abused, a thought demonstrated by how little cum actually shoots into the air and onto his stomach, the substance looking more watery than it looks healthy.

You grimace when you understand how far Venti must have been pushed to reach this point.

The boy practically melts into Kaeya’s hold after the orgasm has left his body, boneless after something so intense, and the final shreds of resistance he’d been offering Diluc’s hand disappear as the redhead’s wrist edges deeper into his throat.

“Such a good boy, isn’t he?” Kaeya says, grinning as he strokes Venti’s hair, brushing the sweat-stained bangs from his forehead. “He’s ‘Luc’s favorite. We haven’t had any discipline issues from him in years. Same goes for the rest of our merchandise.”

Kaeya’s words are a shameless flex on Childe: a reminder that your owner’s girls are so often poorly-trained and that even you, the star of his trafficking business, are secretly planning on running away.

You don’t need to look up at your owner’s expression to see the raw annoyance plastered onto his face.

“No discipline issues?” Childe grunts. “So if I bought him from you and ordered him to kill himself right now, he’d do it?”

There’s a beat of silence.

Whatever response Kaeya was expecting, that wasn’t it.

Finally, Diluc speaks up.

“Venti, much like your toy over there, isn’t for sale.” Diluc withdraws most of his hand from the boy’s mouth, leaving only the tips of his fingers in such that Venti cranes his neck forward to suckle at them. “But if you want him gone that much, it’s fine. He has to go to work now, anyway.”

You can feel your eyebrows shoot up at that. Kaeya watches your expression, and he laughs.

“Sorry, girlie. I know your master over there likes to exercise preferential treatment with his pets, but we don’t do that in Mondstadt.” Kaeya gently pushes Venti to his feet, holding his hand until the shake of the boy’s feet subsides. “All our toys have to work. Favoritism should only go so far in a world like this.”

With that, Kaeya pats Venti’s butt and sends the boy off, and you watch in a mix of awe and horror as he stumbles towards the elevator to “work.”

If it were real, you’d be mortified.

Venti was overstimulated to tears, his legs wobbling the whole time as he stumbled past you, the apples of his fair cheeks flushed a feverish red. There was saliva dripping down his chin, cum still smeared on his stomach, and the reek of sweat and sex wafting off the entirety of his stumbling, nude form.

But you comfort yourself with the knowledge that it was all just an act.

You close your eyes and hold your jacket closer to your body as the elevator releases a low ding, forcing yourself to remember the message Diluc and Kaeya left for you that filled your heart with so much hope. What happened with Venti just now looked bad, but you’re certain that it was all part of their master strategy to deceive Childe until you’re free from him.

(If there’s a sudden thump of a body hitting the ground and a low groan from behind the elevator doors as soon as they shut, you force yourself not to pay attention to it.)

“Fucking finally,” Childe mutters as soon as Venti is gone. He shuffles forward and flops down onto a couch, pulling you with him. “Listen, I don’t want to be here any more than you guys want me here. Let’s get this over with quickly, shall we?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kaeya mumbles, using a sanitized cloth to clean his hands before slipping his usual gloves back on. Next to him, Diluc does the same. “All we need to do is fix a transportation route for the merch, right?”

“Yeah,” Childe grunts. “I already have some ideas. I own a parent company that sells furniture. If we can legally frame our transactions under the branch of…”

You zone out as soon as they begin using human trafficking jargon you barely understand.

This meeting is much more civilized than the previous, if the whole incident with Venti can be forgotten. The jabs Diluc and Kaeya make towards Childe are much more subtle, popping up rarer, too, and Childe doesn’t openly taunt them with your body the way he did in the first meeting.

It takes nearly an hour before your owner even remembers you, and even then, his touches remain somewhat innocent. He only ever ghosts his fingers against your thigh, oft going down to drum his fingers against your knee while he continues to work out the logistics of his business deal. The touches honestly end up keeping you on edge with how delicate they are, and it’s right when his fingers have finally flitted up to the innards of your thigh, right when you’re holding your breath, right when Diluc and Kaeya’s eyes are fixated on where his palm has crept beneath your skirt, that his phone rings.

Immediately, Childe’s hands are off you.

“I have to take this,” he says, wrapping a protective arm over your shoulder as he beckons you to stand next to him. “In private.”

“Take the elevator down to the second floor if you want privacy,” Diluc offers. “It’s not being rented out, and there aren’t any cameras there.”

“Thanks,” your owner says, leading you towards the elevator.

“Wait,” Kaeya calls, right as you’re about to step in behind Childe. You glance behind your shoulder to stare at him, and the devious expression on his face concerns you.

Kaeya winks at you a second before Childe, too, turns to face him.

“Leave your girl here with us, will you? Give us a treat to nibble on to kill the time.”

Immediately, you think that Kaeya has said the wrong thing. Childe is a fiercely protective man, over you more than anything else. There’s no way he’d leave you in the hands of two men he barely even likes, and it’ll probably only cast suspicion in his mind to hear Kaeya ask for you so candidly.

You shut your eyes, instinctively preparing to hear Childe’s rejection.

Instead, his tone is light when he speaks, almost amused. “Finally seeing how high-quality she is, eh?” Your owner is smiling at Kaeya, not an ounce of irritation, anger, or protectiveness on his face. “Fine. This call will take a while anyway. Just make sure you don’t wreck her too much.”

With that, the redhead steps into the elevator and leaves you with nothing more than a featherlight kiss to the temple, and you’re standing there, dumbfounded, for a full ten seconds before you process what has happened.

Alone, you realize with a start. I'm finally alone with them.

Immediately, you sprint forward, grabbing Kaeya’s hand in an attempt to tug him off the couch, not caring about how you dropped your jacket on the floor in your rush.

“Come on,” you say, eyes wide. “If—if you want to set me free, we have to go now while he’s busy!”

But Kaeya doesn’t move an inch off the couch, instead pulling you onto his lap with a strength you didn’t realize he had.

“What are you—”

“Shh, baby. We have to put on a show in case Tartaglia comes back, yeah?” You feel Diluc shuffle behind you, and the redhead is quick to wrap his hands around your hips from behind.

The slowness, the casualness, the feigned normalcy of their actions dumbfounds you.

“Why aren’t we leaving?” you whisper, hands going up to grip at the fabric of Kaeya’s suit. “You said you’d free me if I managed to come to this meeting, so—”

“Relax,” Diluc mumbles into your ear, gloved hands sliding beneath your blouse to grope at your breasts. “Freeing you isn’t something we can do at the drop of a hat. It’s not just about you being here.”

“Right,” Kaeya says, his fingers slowly undoing the zipper on your skirt. “We asked you to come to this meeting to first check if it would even be possible to free you. A test, if you will. We weren’t sure you’d pass it. But if Tartaglia is willing to give you enough freedom to wander around with him, we figure you should also have enough freedom to do what needs to be done for us to free you.”

“What?” you whisper, trying to force back the tears that are pooling in your eyes. This is everything you’d feared: that Diluc and Kaeya’s idea of freeing you would be more complicated than you’d realized and that the whole process would require more time. “What do you need me to do to be free?”

“Aw, don’t cry.” Kaeya tosses your skirt to the floor right before he goes up to wipe away the tears from your face. “It’s not hard. We just need you to get ahold of Tartaglia’s fake documents on you.”

“His...what?”

Confusion is ultimately what brings a halt to your tears, and you cock your head naively at Kaeya right as Diluc speaks up.

“Fake documents,” Diluc explains, beginning to rub the front of his pants against your naked arse. “Every human trafficker has a series of documents for their merchandise that they can use for transportation and claim purposes. We need to get yours from Tartaglia.”

“Why can’t you take me away without them?” you plead, still clinging to the hope that you might be able to go free today. “Why do I have to—”

“Because, depending on how smart Tartaglia is, he can use those documents to rightfully get you back, even if we set you free.”

“What?” you ask. “How?”

“Think. If he has you listed on those documents as a minor, then the State can only do so much to protect you. Especially if he has himself listed down as your guardian. Even if you try to speak out against him, the Snezhnayan police won’t care. They’ll send you straight back to him, and you can bet that whatever freedoms you have now will be forever lost to you the second time around.”

“B-but, if I can prove that I’m not the person in his fake documents—”

“You can’t prove that,” Kaeya interrupts. “If you’re lucky, Tartaglia’s fake documents would be low-quality. But if he was smart, which we both know he is, then his documents will be of a high-enough quality that people will believe them when they see them. And unless you happen to have your official documents on you, there’s nothing you can do to protect yourself except steal the papers from Childe before he can use them.”

The annoyed, almost bored inflection of Kaeya’s voice shakes you to the core. They rattle this information off so quickly, so intuitively, so earnestly that you have no choice but to believe them.

“Okay,” you whisper, voice shaky. “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll get the documents you want.”

“Do you know where he keeps them?” Diluc asks.

“I think so. He has a locked briefcase that he always keeps in his office. I don’t know the combination to open it, but I should be—”

“Good,” Kaeya interrupts. “You seem like a smart girl. I’m sure you can figure it out.”

“Y-yeah,” you say, hesitant. The man’s words seemed like a compliment, but his tone felt much more derisive. “Um, is that all, or is there anything else I—”

“That’s all,” Diluc says. “Two weeks from now is when we’ll be ready to get you out of here. We’ll be staying in the hotel across from Tartaglia’s apartment. The two of us will be in rooms 213 and 214. Come find us at any time, and as long as you have the documents on you, we’ll be able to set you free.”

Your heart beats a little faster at that.

“Really?” you whisper, almost not believing it. The goal you’ve been given is finally real: it’s tangible, so clear that you can already see yourself using something sharp to tear into Childe’s briefcase and retrieve your documents before you’ll finally be able to live a life you can be proud of.

Kaeya smiles when he sees the look on your face.

“Really,” he whispers, reaching a rough, gloved hand up to cup your cheek with infinite care. The kiss he coaxes you into is gentle, soft, and sweet. It’s everything he is, everything Childe isn’t.

“Thank you,” you whisper, leaning forward to wrap the man in a hug. You don’t care about the fact that Diluc has unbuttoned and pulled off your blouse now, leaving you effectively nude as you embrace Kaeya, but he doesn’t seem to mind either. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome,” the man whispers in response, and you can hear the smile in his voice.

The next minutes are marked by more peace than you’ve felt in months. Sandwiched between Diluc and Kaeya, you feel oddly safe. The roughness of their gloves stops bothering you, the silky brushes of their hair stop tickling you, and the closeness of their bodies, the warmth and the heat that radiates off them as naturally as light off the sun, only relaxes you in their arms.

When Kaeya begins playing with the jewels on your necklace, you don’t stop him.

“Tartaglia gave you this?” he asks, tugging gently at a diamond.

“Yeah. They're all presents for being good.”

You can’t help the smile that blooms on your face as you say that: it’s like a reminder that you’re special, that you’re important, that even though you’re down in a world where your life isn’t even your own, you still have worth.

Behind you, Diluc’s fingers reach over your shoulder and begin lifting up individual stones to the light. “These are expensive,” he mutters, twisting a ruby among his leathered fingers. “More expensive than what someone would normally give to a slave.”

“I know,” you say. “It's because this is supposed to incentivize my good behavior, and—”

“No,” Diluc interrupts, voice soft. “It’s supposed to manipulate you.”

Your voice catches at that, and you glance at Kaeya for confirmation because you doubt it can be true. Not when Childe always seems so sweet when he gifts you these presents. Not when you've come to look forward to them as the one light in your life in this dark, dark world. But when the blue-haired man’s face twists into sympathy, your heart falls.

“B-but...I like…”

“You’re supposed to like it,” Diluc’s voice, rich and deep, rumbles out into your ear. ”But you need to understand that it’s not a necklace, doll. It’s a collar.”

“I know that,” you say, now wrapping your fingers around the chain protectively. “But I don’t—I don’t want—”

Kaeya kisses you, bringing two hands to your cheeks to cradle your face in his fingers.

“We’re not going to take it away from you, baby.”

He kisses you again.

“Relax.”

Those words soothe you in a way you can’t quite explain; the idea of losing your necklace, even being told that your necklace was a ploy to manipulate you (though you already knew that, to some extent), was unsettling. You much prefer the notion that it’s an innocuous gift: mainly because you’ve grown far too attached to it for it to represent human trafficking and all the pain you’ve had to endure thus far.

But, right when you’ve calmed yourself and forcibly stopped yourself from panicking, you feel a sharp tug on your neck.

“What did you—”

“Nothing,” Diluc says, holding two gemstones—two diamonds, one blue and one pink—in his palm. They still have their chain attached to them, but that's it: there's nothing connecting the diamonds to your necklace, the chains having been ripped off. You feel your expression change as you see what he's done. “Just—”

“What did you do?!” you blurt, panic beginning to overtake your heart. “Childe—Ajax—he’s going to notice! I—I’ll get in trouble, and—”

“Shh,” Kaeya whispers, trying to calm you down with a kiss, but you pull back before his lips can touch you. “It’s not—”

“Put it back. Put it back!”

You've turned around and are about to hit Diluc when the man grips both your wrists, holding you with such a force that it freezes you. The look in his eyes is fierce, fiery, red eyes shining brighter than the rubies dangling off your neck—and for a single second, you can’t help but think that the man looks furious.

Then, the expression is masked, and you’re both left calmer for it.

“Tartaglia won’t notice. Unless he makes a habit of regularly counting what’s on your neck, only you’ll be able to feel the difference.” Right. That makes sense. Childe likes to look at your necklace, but you doubt that he’ll actually know how many presents he’s gifted you. Not when he barely touches the thing, dexterous fingers always reaching out to feel your body instead.

“And besides,” Diluc says, easing you back into your earlier position with your back resting against his chest. “It’s a promise. The two diamonds.”

“A promise?”

In front of you, Kaeya smiles in understanding.

“Right. It’s a promise, baby. We’ll give you these two diamonds back once we’ve freed you, and until then, they’re our weight to bear so that every time we look at them, we remember that we’re waiting for you so we can set you free.”

“It...is?” you ask, hesitant. You haven’t been in the outside world in a while; is this how people do promises now?

“Yes,” Diluc mumbles, kissing your ear as he strokes your hair. Every brush of his fingers against your head instinctively relaxes you, until you’re almost as calm as you were before he took two stones off your necklace. “Do you trust us to return them to you?”

It’s a disguised question.

What Diluc is really asking is this: Do you trust us?

“Yes,” you breathe. It’s the only right answer.

Then, the two men go silent. They focus on relaxing you once more, running their gloved fingers up and down the sides of your body, almost massaging your skin as you sit between them.

Unfortunately for you, all you can think about is your necklace.

It’s the first time you’ve had it be lighter than before: Childe only ever adds to it; he never takes. Now, right when you’d grown used to the weight of the sapphire he attached this morning, you’ve got the odd situation of it being even lighter than it had been when you woke up.

You know that you should feel freer now: less chained down to Childe and to the Fatui.

But deep down inside, you miss the weight.

Minutes later, when you’re a little less emotionally overwhelmed and a little more relaxed as the two men gently run their arms around your body, another thought surfaces.

“A-also,” you say, hesitant. “Um, everything you said at the beginning of this meeting…”

“All lies,” Diluc says, pulling you closer against his broad chest after you slink too deep into Kaeya’s embrace. “Tartaglia had a negative impression of us coming in, so we had to play to that. Everything we said was just for show.”

Your shoulders sag in relief at that, but another thought continues to poke at your brain.

“And Venti?” you finally manage to ask, remembering how ruined the boy had looked as he stumbled away from the two men holding you.

“He’s a masochist,” Kaeya blurts. “We asked him beforehand if he’d be okay with participating. Not sure he realized how all-out we were going to go, but I’m certain that he enjoyed himself.”

That...makes sense! You’ve heard before about masochists, and looking back, everything Diluc and Kaeya did to the boy really did seem to be for the sake of his pleasure. You’ve heard countless times about overstimulation being something sexy, something desired, something liked by the select few who could bear it. Similarly, the way Diluc had his hand down Venti’s mouth...that’s the equivalent of Childe having you suck on his fingers during sex, right?

You laugh a little when you realize that everything you’d been scared about had an explanation. You should have known better than to doubt Diluc and Kaeya, two people who are saving you from hell itself. If anything, you should be on your knees thanking them instead of raising questions over what they had to say to be able to help you out.

“I’m sorry for all the questions,” you confess, sheepish as Kaeya’s fingers begin toying with your breasts. “I’m just...really nervous. And a little scared.”

“Who wouldn’t be?” Kaeya asks, a tinkling laugh spilling from his lips. “We were the same way when we first came out here to save people from human trafficking.”

“Really?” you ask, eyes round. “Do you guys do this for a living? How many people do you save?”

“Uh...whoever we can, really. We use our covers as human traffickers to identify targets that would be easiest for us to free. You seemed like one. Before you, we helped that boytoy from Zhongli. Before him was some Khaenri'ahi girl, and…”

Zhongli? You ask yourself, trying to figure out where you know that name from. It’s familiar, so familiar, and…

“Wait!” You blurt, sitting up straight and nearly knocking Diluc backward in the process. “You guys were responsible for freeing Xiao? The one who’s always by Zhongli’s side?”

You remember the short little man, beautiful in his own right, from when Childe had a business meeting with Zhongli. That was the first time you learned of Xiao, the last time being just last week when you heard Scaramouche say that the green-haired boy had somehow disappeared.

Hope blooms in your heart as soon as you realize what that disappearance was: the successful removal of one more slave from the human trafficking network, something you're next in line for.

Diluc lets out a light laugh when he sees how your entire face has brightened up now that you have genuine proof that these two men are for real, that they’ve helped people escape in the past and that they’ll help you escape in the near future.

“Wait, if you guys freed Xiao, then were you also the ones responsible for setting, uhm…”

Your brain blanks out as you try to remember the second person Scaramouche mentioned when speaking to Childe. What was her name? Amine? you think, but that sounds off. Umino? Lumina? You continue to guess names in your head, brain fixating on Childe’s interaction with the other Fatui executive until finally, you remember her name.

“Lumine!” you declare with pride. “Were you the ones who set her free, too?”

Kaeya stares at you with a shocked expression. His lips part and his face freezes, eyebrows lifted comically high on his forehead, and you turn around to glance at Diluc, but the redhead is in a similar state.

“You’re telling me,” Kaeya begins, “That Lumine...”

He can’t bring himself to finish, and so Diluc steps in to complete the question: “Lumine belonged to Tartaglia?”

You glance back and forth between the two men, unsure of why they seem to be regarding this news with such shock.

“I think so?” you say, now beginning to doubt yourself. “I’m not sure. But Scaramouche said something like that to him, so I—”

You’re cut off by a sharp cackle of laughter from Kaeya. You stare at him in shock, and then behind you, Diluc has begun chuckling, and then Kaeya’s laughing even louder, and within seconds, both men are laughing their heads off at something you barely understand.

“Oh my gods!” Kaeya blurts between fits of almost-hysterical giggles. “You’re telling me that Tartaglia? Fucking Tartaglia? Was the one to lose Lumine?” He laughs some more, loud and merry and cheerful. "So I was right when I called you a—a—" Kaeya stutters in his laughter. "A cheap replacement?"

You stare at the blue-haired man in confusion, not understanding a word of what he's saying nor why he seems to find it so hilarious that Childe and Lumine are connected. You want to open your mouth to ask why, but you have to stop yourself because it's at this precise moment that your owner returns; and this is the picture that Childe sees when the elevator dings with the announcement of his arrival: you, completely nude and squashed between the two Mondstadt business partners, Kaeya in front of you, laughing his ass off as if you’ve told the joke of the century, and Diluc behind you, the most stoic man in the room losing his composure in an equally graceless manner.

“What the fuck…” your owner mutters at the sight, but seeing Childe only makes the two men around you laugh harder.

It takes a full minute for them to calm down, and in that minute, you rise from their couch and move back towards Childe like an obedient slave, only wearing your clothes when Childe nods at you that it’s okay for you to do so.

“So,” Childe deadpans once Diluc and Kaeya have finally stopped laughing, though Kaeya still releases a giggle every now and then. “Did my girl tell a funny joke or something? You guys sounded like a bunch of dying hyenas.”

“Something like that,” Kaeya says, smiling at Childe, but you sense something deadly in his eyes.

“Alright, well…” Childe awkwardly tries to steer the conversation back to what they’d been discussing before. “I guess the final details will have to be ironed out once I actually use this company as a cover to ship the girls to you, but is there anything else we need to talk about? Transportation-wise, we seem solid.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kaeya drawls, a strange smile on his face. “But, real quick, I want to talk about prices one more time.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Childe grunts, annoyed. “We already agreed on five-hundred thousand mora per shipment. Don’t try to haggle with me again on this.”

“Ordinarily, you’d be right,” Diluc says, crossing his arms. “But we just learned some interesting information.”

Childe’s eye twitches in annoyance. “Right,” he blurts, leaning back. “What is it? Did you find out that I’m giving a better deal to someone else? Because that sucks, but that’s how this business works with new partners. I’m not going to—”

“It’s not that,” Diluc interrupts, lifting a hand. “It’s moreso that before, we thought we were purchasing merchandise from a valued, respected dealer.”

Diluc’s lips quirk into a cruel grin.

“Not from the infamous idiot trafficker who lost Lumine.”

You can hear the ice settle over the room before you feel it, the abrupt, chilling silence suddenly making every second feel like an hour. You’re almost scared to move, scared to pull your eyes to your owner who, for the first time since you met him, looks like the child his codename was assigned for.

Childe doesn’t try to speak, but his every thought is displayed in his eyes alone, the cerulean blues giving insight to a hurricane of emotions wilder than the sea. In his eyes is fear, horror, despair, and pain, so much pain.

Something about the look on his face makes your heart break.

Diluc and Kaeya don’t care.

“I think charging five hundred thousand mora is a tad much for a douche who almost brought the entire industry down. Hell, you should be paying us for even being willing to deal with you, but…” Kaeya glances at Diluc, a single blue eye flitting down to where Diluc extends three fingers against his knee. “We’ll settle for a drop in the price instead. Three-hundred thousand mora per shipment. That good with you, Tartaglia?”

You’re expecting your owner to bargain, to argue, to scoff, to do something other than stare into the distance with those bright blue eyes that now look more blank than anything else.

When you hear Childe mutter a meek “Okay,” you nearly recoil in shock.

Even Kaeya is surprised. “R-really? Damn. Actually, I think we should go even lower, y’know? Every trafficker in the world was scared for their life because of you, so maybe drop the price some more as reparations for that? Whaddya say, two hundred thousand? Per shipment?”

You stare at your owner, silently begging him to do something. Even you can tell that he’s being taken advantage of now, and that awful look in his eyes is something that even you’re unfamiliar with.

“Okay.”

“Fu...okay then? But also, you were kind of a dick to us last time, so how about you make it one hundred thousand? Seems more fair to me.”

“O—”

You grab your owner’s hand before he can agree, and the touch seems to snap Childe out of the awful fog that had been wrapped around his head. The look in his eyes is only less marginally troubled when he abruptly stands up, gripping your hand in a silent plea for you to move with him.

“I’m going,” Childe announces.

He begins walking away so fast that you just barely have time to grab your jacket before you’re at his heels.

The man completely ignores Diluc and Kaeya as he waits for the elevator to open with a rigid posture, seeming to feel uncomfortable or fearful or panicked or a mix of all three. Kaeya begins laughing behind you both, and you almost want to tell him to stop: tell him that yes, Childe is an awful human trafficker and yes, you hate him as well—but the poor man looks like he’s on the verge of having a panic attack, and you know first-hand how awful a feeling that is.

You’re grateful when the elevator finally opens, more grateful when the doors close and you and Childe are finally in isolation together.

Only then, in the silence of the box as it moves you both down to the ground floor, do you hear Childe’s shaky breathing. It’s jagged, uneven. Then, you take note of the way his hands are clenched into fists, palms enclosed so tight that his arms are shaking—and despite everything he’s done to you, you feel some semblance of pity for him.

“Ajax,” you mumble, hoping that the name will calm him. “Relax.”

A moment of silence.

“I am relaxed,” he responds, and when you glance over at him, he’s completely back to normal: breathing even and palms loose.

His eyes, though, are just as pained as when the two of you were sitting upstairs on that couch.

“I’m sorry,” you say. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that you’re the one who let it slip that Lumine and Childe were connected. Even if you don’t understand the scope of what you said, it's clear that it had an impact. “I didn’t—”

“It’s not your fault,” Childe says, not looking at you. “Don’t apologize.”

More silence. It feels heavy, unlike the usual, comfortable stretches of quiet that you and Childe like to bask in.

“What...were they talking about?” you ask quietly, still staring at your owner. “Diluc and Kaeya said that—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

A moment of silence.

It feels so heavy that it seems to crush you under its weight.

“Who is she? Lumine?”

More silence.

This time, Childe is the one to break it.

“The only girl I ever loved before you.”

That’s a lie, and you know it. If Childe loved you, he wouldn’t be bringing you around to meetings, dressing you like a cheap slave, and handing you off to other men to flex how ‘high-quality’ you are. If Childe loved you, you would be long gone from the human trafficking circuit because he would have set you free. If Childe loved you, he wouldn’t force you to stay by his side because he’s your abuser, your trafficker, the monster that haunts your life.

Most importantly, if Childe loved you, he would have given you a proper answer to your question. Not some flimsy skirt-around that only furthers his attempts to manipulate you into loving him back.

Your eyebrows furrow the slightest as you feel the elevator hit the ground floor, brain still focused on everything Diluc and Kaeya said. Everything Childe didn’t want to talk about. Lumine.

Curiosity begs you to stick around and learn the truth.

Logic, reasoning, and the desire to lead a life of your own tell you that you’ll be long gone from Snezhnaya before that’ll ever happen.

MASTERLIST

Word count: 7.9k

Notes: eyyyy i'm alive! i promise i never forgot about this fic, it's just that after i missed the original due date, my mind was just like 'eh, it's already late, what's a few more days?' and that's the story of how this is two months late. thank you to all the kind commenters from the last chapter - to the people who checked in on me, ily; to the people who sent me those wholesome asks on tumblr, ily ily; and to the people who made guesses on what would happen in future chapters - guess what :D you acc helped me shape this :3 i originally meant for lumine to be a passing thing mentioned once and never again, but she'll end up being important for chapter 4 ^^ so thank you to everyone who'll still be here after i disappeared for so long. hope you liked this chapter (lmk your thoughts!) and i can't wait to see you all in the finale <3

Comment & Like

Next Update: 6/11

I do not own the rights to Genshin Impact or any of the characters within it.

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sweetestlamb · 3 years

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Addicted To You

Author’s Note: if anyone is still waiting for BMTL I have started writing and a new chapter should be here next weekend fingers crossed. Until then please enjoy this Sikhye fic, because I can’t seem to stop writing this post episode drabbles. I don’t have time to do anything with a true linear storyline so these are just really fun.

Summary: It’s his first time.

She teases him incessantly.

About marking their first day as a couple on his calendar, and then for blushing and smiling so hard that his dimples sink like craters in his face when she introduces him as her boyfriend for the first time. She finds it all adorable and squeals so loudly that anyone in a 100 foot radius knows about it.

He’s embarrassed and tries to suppress his glee about finally having her to himself, but it’s hard because this is his first time.

She is his first everything.

His life was always grief and loss and picking up the pieces when someone else faded and he was left standing alone, footprints washed away by the waves on the sand. After losing his grandfather a piece of him also died, the little boy who yearned for love and family. The villagers had stepped up and slowly became his makeshift family but he kept a safe distance between them, they all had real families to go back to and he was alone in that big house. Even Gam-ri she had grandchildren and a son that he could never take the place of, he was just a substitute for the moment.

So he’s unprepared for how loved he feels with Hye-jin, how open she is with her affection; a hand never too far from his body. A coy hand swirling on his chest as she proclaims how badly she missed him in a cute high pitched voice, the very same voice he teased her about before but he’s defenseless against it when directed at him. He feels like a school boy discovering love for the first time. Then it dawns on him that that is a fairly accurate description of what he is, he has never dated anyone. There have been women interested in him before but he would use the word ‘friend” like a shield and ward them off, one by one until there were no more suitors. He tried the same with her but she was a formidable opponent.

“What are you smiling about? Are you thinking about me?” She interrupts his musing, shuffling over to him in a too big shirt and seemingly nothing else. He stares at her legs with owlish eyes, glancing between her face and her bare skin. She reads him easily, grabbing the bottom hem of his borrowed shirt and slowly dragging it up, instinctively he covers his eyes but temptation makes him peek through his fingers and her gorgeous dimples greet him cheekily, “I borrowed your boxers too, they’re so comfortable.”

He almost collapses from her teasing, she’s been like this for a few days now; poking and prodding at his restraint. Even tonight, she had come over for dinner unannounced and then declared it was too late for her to go back home so she was staying over. Even though she lived right around the corner and he had even offered to walk her home.

The plum wine and soju they drank earlier is still running through her bloodstream based on the lovely red flush on the apples of her cheeks and her neck. He yearns to feel their heat under his tongue.

Shaking his head firmly, he coughs once clearing his throat and his head; the latter is barely effective.

“Hye-jin ah?”

She perks up at her first name on his tongue, moving closer until their bodies are melted into one. He pulls back leaving some much needed space between them.

But he doesn’t get far with her tight grip on his thin cotton shirt.

“Yeah, Du-sik......oppa?” There is a long pause before she utters the killing blow and he can’t control the arousal that swipes through his body like a typhoon, it makes his body feel tight as a bow on a quiver.

She gazes up at him with hot glossy eyes and he wants everything so ardently.

With a loud groan he folds his body, his head dropping onto her shoulders the thin curve bending with his added weight.

“Why are you doing this to me?” He whimpers, stuffing his hands in his pockets so they won’t wander to any of the places they so desperately yearn touch.

“Sleep with me.” Her tone is even and calm and instantly all he can hear is white noise and his brain screeching. Thoughtlessly he grabs her hips, needing to hold onto something to keep him afloat. Her curvy hips seem like the perfect floatation device.

“What? When did you become this....bold?” He chokes out wondering where his cold, standoffish even cold dentist has gone and who is this devilish temptress in her place is?

She giggles at his shocked gaping face, bopping him lightly on the nose.

“I just want to snuggle, you always sleep on the floor. Don’t you want to sleep next to me and wake up to my face in the morning?”

As if he could not want that. But he is terrified of her noticing what else is up in the morning. He’s just a man, he would have to be dead or comatose not to be affected by his beautiful girlfriend sleeping next to him in his clothes.

So he knows that he should decline and take his place on the floor but he’s an idiot in love so instead he nods and lets her drag him off to his own bedroom, walking freely as if she belongs there and nowhere else. He tattoos the image in his mind, along with all the other things she has unknowingly done to captivate him.

His bed as never looked smaller. Or more dangerous.

He doubts they will both fit comfortably, and he swallows at the thought of them tangled up together.

“Come here.” She pats the empty space next to her, beckoning him closer with the curl of a finger. He goes as if on a string, the puppet to her puppeteer.

“I don’t think we’ll fit. I should just sleep on the floor.” He argues immediately but she ignores his complaints, dragging him closer and shoving him against the wall before curling into him and using his arm as her pillow. They are pressed so tightly he can count her lashes and see the faint sun kissed freckles on her nose. Fuck, she’s so damn pretty.

“Why are you staring at me?”

It’s moments like this that most confuse him, she plays with him like a cat with its prey taunting and pressuring him until he feels like he will pop but then as soon as he reacts, looks at her too hard she buckles and trembles in his arms.

“Hye- jin ah?” He inhales deeply, her soft breasts pressed tightly against him their warmth and shape making him dizzy and hot.

“Yes?” She whispers back, licking her lips before closing her eyes.

“Tell me to stop.” He begs and he watches her emotive eyes jolt open and search his face before a illuminating smile washes across her face.

“Never.”

That’s the last of his control, grunting he wraps his arms around the small of her back dragging her closer almost sighing in relief when she’s already meeting him halfway, leaping at him and smashing their lips together.

This is nothing like their kisses thus far, those have been sweet and tentative; both scared too push to hard.

That is not the case tonight, immediately she’s pressing her tongue into his mouth and the faint taste of sweet plums overwhelm his senses making him feel drunk. She runs her hands through his hair, tugging at the root and he answers by freeing her from her ponytail, eager to see her hair spread out across his pillows. Agilely, he rolls them over until she’s flat on her back and panting underneath him. He takes a precious minute to drink her in, her lips red and swollen and her hair spilled across bed like ink from a bottle. She looks disheveled and wrecked already and it does scary things to his body.

She watches him back for a moment before dragging him down to pick up where they left off, lips smacking and tongues battling until he has no idea where she ends and he begins, all he knows is dusikhyejin and he doesn’t want to know anything else. He jumps a little when he feels a small hand creeping up his back pushing his shirt up as it goes. He can barely focus with her devious tongue sucking at him and making him see lights and colors he’s never known before. Absently he wonders who else she has devastated like this before and he feels jealousy and the urge to fight everyone who came before him.

“Focus on me.” She chides, lightly biting at his tongue and the pain swirls deliciously shocking him to his core. That’s new.

She tugs his shirt over his head and he can barely react before she’s surging up, latching onto his neck with a particularly hard suck, the suction pop of her lips releasing the thin skin loud in his ear.

“Ughh fuck, Hye-jin” He cries out at the rough treatment, absently wondering if she’s left a bruise? he doesn’t......hate the the idea. She’s turned out to be quite possessive of him. He wants to belong to her.

Unconsciously he begins to rock into her, his hard length pressing through the soft cotton of his sleep pants there is no possible way to hide his condition. When she wraps a leg around his waist and rocks back, stars explode behind his eyelids and he almost loses consciousness.

“Is that for me?” She whispers sounding too seductive for his sanity and he pulls away sharply, recoiling to the side of the bed with his back turned to her. Shame bursts in his chest and he’s unable to look at her, what the hell was he doing? He must have lost his mind temporarily. Realization washes over him like ice cold water.

“Du-sik? What’s wrong?” She places a hand on his shoulder and gently turns him back to face her, it’s clear that he is not the only one turned on right now. Her nipples are tight and hard through his shirt, he gulps looking away. Praying to every deity he can think of.

“I didn’t mean for things to go this far. I meant to control myself.” He is terrified of scaring her away, making the wrong move that will put a quick end to their relationship. He feels like a bumbling child, he has a license for just about everything there is but not this, he has no experience in this field and he’s horrified that he will be bad, so bad that she will leave him laughing at his incompetence.

But how can he say that to her? What woman would want to hear that from her boyfriend? He was a thirty-four year old virgin. It was laughable and pathethic.

“Do you not want to do this?” Her voice is small, she too now unable to meet his eyes. It’s the same face she made when he berated her without knowing anything about her like a fool, she looks embarrassed and nervous. He can take the out and protect his unmanly secret for another day, but watching her shrink smaller and smaller before him makes him feel nauseous and her asking him not to lie to her replays in his mind.

Taking a deep stabilizing breath he answers, “I’m not experienced.”

His heart races wildly in his chest as he waits for her to process the information, and then he closes his eyes as she looks up at him in surprise. He wants for the onslaught of questions, Really? Why not? Are you virgin? Why did it take so long? All valid questions but they will stab him like well sharpened daggers nonetheless. So he braces himself for the blows, clutching his fists.

But as always she surprises him instead.

“Can I be your first?”

A question he never expected and those five words knock all the air out of his chest.

“What?” He replies, dumbly unclenching his fists.

“I want to be your first. Let me please?” She’s pleading now, looking like he has given her the best gift as if his chasity is the best news she’s ever heard. He is unable to answer, too flabbergasted by her ridiculous reaction.

Her fingers trail up his pant leg, slowly until they reach the point where his length creates a tent in his pants and he feels like he can’t get enough oxygen to his lungs, maybe this is his end; sexual tension his demise.

“Answer me. Du-sik.” She demands, stroking up and down but never touching where he needs her to and losing all inhibitions he pants out, “Yes, take me. I’m all yours.” And it’s the right answer because she smiles so brightly he’ll never be able to look at the sun the way ever again. Then she obliterates his thoughts and takes a hold of his heavy weight through his pants, fondling him firmly swiping a thumb across the tip. He blushes brightly when the move makes a wet mark decorate the front of his pants but she looks so proud of the reaction, his bashfulness fades away.

“I’m taking them off,” she announces and all he can do is nod, all cognizant thoughts leaving the room.

He tenses up as she pulls his pants and underwear down in one swift move, the first time that anyone else has ever seen him in this state of undress. His member jumps at the new face, throbbing for attention from another hand. Her hand.

“It’s perfect.” He chokes at the unusual compliment, what a shameless woman.

“Hello my new friend.” She speaks to his cock and he would laugh like a maniac if she didn’t stroke him tightly from root the tip twisting firmly at the head and smearing his wetness down the full length, it’s embarrassing how wet he is already for her. Or it would be if it didn’t feel so good that he couldn’t stop himself from thrusting into her hand with a punched out moan.

“Do what feels good. There’s no license for this.” She sees right through him, observant as ever and he groans unable to disobey her command his hips moving on their own as they rock back and forth into the tight circle of her soft hand. He watches mesmerized as she releases him only to bring her hand to her mouth and slowly lick her palm, maintaining eye contact the entire time and he can’t stop the image of her licking him down there in that same lascivious fashion. That is almost enough to undo him.

“You are evil.” He grumbles, throat closing as she wraps that now moist hand around his member and starts to rub faster setting a speed that makes his toes curl and his breath hitch, he throws his head back letting himself just feel, his bangs sticky with perspiration as his moans bounce off his walls. He is thankful to have no close neighbors to hear his wanton cries.

“Say my name,” she whispers darkly, her face smothered in his neck again as she licks and sucks at the skin wildly, unreserved and he knows that is definitely going to leave some marks. He feels as weak as a lamb as he grinds against her, shaking when she focuses on the tip rubbing and stroking at his most sensitive place, wet sounds fill the air as she works him faster and faster until he feels all the blood surge down his body and mindless and lost in pleasure his mouth falls open, “Hye jin ah! Auhhgghh.”

Those are his last words before his little death.

Colors erupt behind his eyes as white gushes from him, flooding her hand so much that it drips onto his hip and then the bed. She continues stroking until it’s too much and he squirms away, winded and overstimulated.

He feels so good. Too good. Weightless and brand new.

This is why people have sex.

Damn.

“You’re rambling.”

Oh. He had been speaking out loud. Oops.

“It’s cute. All I needed to do to break the great Du-sik was give him a handjob?” He blinks his eyes open at her bold statement, and is surprised to see a bright blush on her face despite her bravado. She is quite the enigma.

“I was broken before that. That just took me to the afterlife.” He compliments, and she blushes prettily at his praise, staring down and he looks down too seeing his spend on her hands and immediately he twists to get his shirt to clean her hand.

So he’s wholly unprepared to turn and see her bringing the soiled hand to her mouth.

“Wait- no. What are you doing?” He reaches out to stop her but she moves out of his reach.

“I’ve never done this for anyone else, I also want you to be my first.”

With those words she extends her tongue and licks at his essence on her hand, thick white on her tongue before she swallows and her throat bobs taking him in.

Without a doubt, he belongs to her every inch and part of him.

#hometown cha cha cha #hong du shik #yoon hye jin #Mature #reader discretion advised #it was supposed to be fluff #but someone recently asked me so eloquently to let them fuck #it made me LOL #and then this popped in my head #I really want them to let Hye jin take the lead #she has that energy

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catgirlxox · 3 years

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A Deconstruction of The Flame Keeper’s Circle & The Audience’s Common Complaints | Catgirl

As the title states, I’ve been reminded of a couple complaints made about this episode that stem from a large portion of the audience’s general disliking of the way both Ben and Julie were handled during the run of Ultimate Alien. In fact, I recently read a "review" of “The Flame Keeper's Circle,” or, more of a parody, actually, since a review would actually have some kind of substance to it and not just...a slew of insults thrown at a show you claim to like. It's almost like you're looking for something to be mad at, but anyway.

One of those was the OP actually asking someone to (probably joking, but anyway) explain "how Ben's mind works" to them.

And I was like, gladly!

According to the comments under the review, it seems like the general audience didn't really like this episode all that much when it first aired. Which, I bring up because, I on the other hand, actually did. And for a reason: because it proves my previous defence points right.

There's a lot of talk about Ben coming off as a “jerk” or a “douchebag”...but, in a situation such as the one presented within “The Flame Keeper’s Circle,” I would argue he did exactly what he should have done. So that's where I beg to differ.

This episode puts Ben in a position where he, once again, needs to deal with the overlap of a romantic relationship and his priorities as a superhero. The only reason there is conflict here is because they are both important to him.

A bad boyfriend would only care about himself, but Ben clearly cares about not only the safety of his (clearly, quite naive) girlfriend, but also the safety of the rest of the earth. Which, as I’m going to be stating several times, should be something expected of him considering everything else within the series that establishes who he is as a character.

So, on the topic of things that are important, ask yourselves, why would Ben prioritize going along with Julie's idea of joining a cult more than keeping her, and the rest of the world, safe when he realizes the trouble she could potentially be getting herself into?

Throughout the episode, and the fandom’s discussions from what I’ve seen, there is so much focus on "oh, he laughed at her idea so he's a douchebag and therefore a bad boyfriend" and not enough focus on the fact that he's not blindly following an alleged “good cause” because he isn't naive and that's in character based on everything we know about him as a character.

Context matters. And this kind of thing only further makes me question the people who want to cry "inconsistent" writing or characterization because he's acting the way he's been conditioned to.

Arguably from the age of ten, Ben's been dealing with situations where he needed to fight to survive and decide who to trust. Sometimes he trusted the wrong person, which wasn't done out of any other reason besides wanting to help and do the "right thing."

For example, Michael Morningstar in the episode “All That Glitters,” who fooled Ben and his team into thinking he was innocent all while abusing school girls for their life energy and almost killing Ben's cousin.

Or, Simian in “Birds of a Feather," who fooled Ben into thinking he was royalty and into helping him steal something that would aid the Highbreed in their mass murder plot.

In that way, Ben and Julie could have related in this situation because they were both trusting people in the interest of doing something “good.” Both Michael and Simian made Ben believe that they had something in common, or a common goal they could work together to reach. But, he trusted them blinded by his ambition and drive to save the world. Much like Julie is blinded by the promise of being a part of a group trying to make the world a better place.

As such, Ben has made the mistake before, so he's extra weary of how things could go very wrong. He's not against his girlfriend just to be a “jerk” - he's been through things like this before, and we’ve seen him go through those things.

Furthermore, the situation in which Julie is trusting The Flame Keeper’s Circle involves her indirectly agreeing to work with Vilgax. Who, as anyone familiar with Ben should know, is one of if not Ben’s biggest, and more importantly, most dangerous enemy.

Again, she, at the beginning didn’t know that he was involved, or what Ben had gone through already to make him act the way he does in this situation, but she does know what his job entails at this point in the series. She should probably infer that he’s suspicious for a good reason, as should the audience.

Not trusting people blindly is something he learned from being the leader of his team, while trying to protect the earth, namely from the Highbreed invasion back in Alien Force when he was putting together a stronger team. It would only make sense for him to then apply that to a situation in which his significant other gets roped into that which he fights against.

Speaking of fighting against, that brings me to another odd criticism of the writing of this episode. It’s no surprise that the flawed belief of Ben coming off as an alleged “sociopath” is brought up again, considering this episode takes place after The Ultimate Kevin arc. And yes, I realize the problematic connotations of using that term as a borderline insult as part of the issue here. But that aside, in this episode, the fact that he begins to fight Vilgax in his apparent “weakened” state is what is being attributed to that description.

Besides the fact that defending Vilgax is questionable in itself, he’s never needed water to survive for the many times he actually tried to kill Ben. I can’t find a solid answer from a writer that knows for certain if his need for water is genuine except for one who is only assuming that is the case when he’s in this state.

But regardless, (since he clearly survived long enough to morph with Dagon and become a bigger threat to the earth later on) we are still defending Vilgax the LITERAL INTERGALACTIC WARLORD.

Y’know, the guy who’s only in this position because of his own immoral actions? Who absolutely would not hesitate to take advantage of his opponent's weakened state in order to further get away with his immoral actions? Such as he is in this very episode, taking advantage of the people wrongfully worshiping him?

If we are trying to imply that Ben is “just as bad as Vilgax,” then I would assume you’d easily find the flaw in that being Ben’s motivation for incapacitating a dangerous offender who is, at the moment, manipulating naive humans to work for him and help him continue get away with his immoral actions. Which is, needless to say, not the same as Vilgax, at all.

Again, you’d think that’d be obvious.

The Flame Keeper’s Circle’s mission is to end human suffering and find a solution to certain issues happening across the globe with the help of alien technology that is much more advanced than what everyday people are used to. And, while the end goal seems like a good cause, even something Ben as a superhero would be all for, the means through which they attempt to get there aren’t a good idea, at all.

A lot of people find it hard to navigate the use of technology considered advanced by human standards in the real world, so you can only imagine the various things that could go wrong if those kinds of people were suddenly exposed to something much more powerful. In short, a lot could go wrong.

Again, Ben has been in that exact position as soon as he was armed with the Omnitrix. Which is exactly why he’d see the flaw in what these people are trying to do, and therefore not be convinced that it’s such a good idea to allow them to continue, much less endorse it.

This is why I love when the writers actually allow Ben to speak for himself instead of cutting him off for drama or plot. Once he actually gets a word in, or more accurately, has his moment of heroic monologue, he makes himself very clear and, I think, only further proves what I’m trying to say about him.

Here he is, explaining exactly what I’ve been trying to highlight throughout this body of work:

Ben: “Even if Dagon was real, using alien technology to accelerate a planet’s natural development won’t bring utopia, it’ll bring disaster. It’s happened before. Why do you think the Plumbers have those laws? But even that’s not the point, because that isn’t Dagon! His name is Vilgax. He’s not a hero, he’s a selfish, evil warlord who’s using you. And if you let him get in his ship, he’s going to fly off and start an interstellar civil war.”

It’s not that only he can use alien technology to save the world, it’s that his status as a hero proves that he knows what he’s doing, unlike these businessmen in fancy robes leading a cult for profit.

That is not what I would have assumed reasonable people would consider “douchebag behaviour.” That’s actually smart, and going back to my first point, exactly what he should be doing in a situation like this.

The actual episode does end off on a positive note for both Ben and Julie, which is omitted from the review and most of the comments I have read from others on the topic. And, I bring it up because it’s actually vital to wrap up everything brought up within this episode that I have just expanded on. Not only because they make up and seem to understand each other’s perspective after all is said and done, but because they both agree to be open to further discussion on the topic, as Ben offers to go out for dinner.

Which, needless to point out I hope, but once again, is not “douchebag behaviour.”

#new essay to make up for all the drama lately #enjoy ben 10 protection squad <3 #ben 10 #ben tennyson #ben 10 ultimate alien #the flame keeper's circle #benlie #julie yamamoto #ben 10 uaf #essay files #and yes new essay title format cuz reasons :P

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my-terrible-life · 4 years

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I wanted to say some things about the Arabic used in Community.

I'm not sure what the point the point of this post is but I just wanted to get the thoughts out of my head because they've been there ever since I first watched Community like a million years ago and found out one of the main characters is half Arab.

Long post I'm sorry!!

So in Community Abed is Polish Palestinian. My very first thoughts on this, so long ago, was huh what an unusual name! Because it is. Abed is not a common Arab name at all, it's pretty weird actually. The name itself means "Worshipper" which I guess should fit in with the ~theme~ of Arab Muslim names but it doesn't because in Arabic it sounds incomplete.

Boys names that follow the "theme" of Worship tend to be 2-parters, the Worship part and then the What part. What is he worshipping? God obviously, but God in Islam has many names and many descriptions, so the trend is 'pick one of the names/descriptors and put it right after the word that means worship' so we end up with names like Abdullah (for example). Abdullah in Arabic is a 2 word name, it is Abd then Allah, combined it means worshipper of Allah. We can have a name like Abdulrahman, which is a 2 word name that is Abd then Al Rahman, which combined means worshipper of the most merciful. The list can go on and on and they all mostly follow that pattern: Abd + God's name. That's the convention and that's what male Arabic Muslim names have followed for hundreds of years. So Abed alone is pretty odd, but not impossible I guess.

Now the writers could have consulted with an Arab at any point, there's Arabs literally everywhere in America, but okay it was during the time when casual racism was still something the audience didn't know we could be very vocal about, or that's how I think about it anyway.

Danny Pudi himself is not Arab so I don't think he could have accurately weighed in on this but again I don't know what it was like working as a brown actor on US television at the time. (We'll get back to Danny Pudi later)

Nevertheless, the initial oddness of Abed's name aside, I grew used to it and grew to really like the character. He's one of my 3 favorites ❤ and I don't have to repeat why he's awesome and how his stories are not stereotypes etc etc.

But the eps were his Arabic heritage and language come up were beefed. Hard.

You can split Arabic up into 2 umbrellas I guess: Standard Arabic called Fus'ha, and the common tongue or dialect of the specific Arab country you're in/writing about.

Most of us know and understand Standard Arabic because it's taught in schools and it is the language of the Qur'an so we learn it. It's also the language used for subtitles in film and TV, as well as any formal/official document, and when presidents give speeches in foreign countries so the instant translators can do their jobs without having to learn more than 1 Arabic dialect.

But here's a very big point guys... no one Speaks in Standard Arabic. As beautiful and flowery and vast as it can be we just don't use it like That.

Think of it like your everyday English you speak vs. Shakespearian English. No one talks like that unless they're on stage or they're trying to be funny.

So, it was very obvious when Abed and his Dad were talking that they put the script into Google translate and just went with that. They could have asked an Arab 🤦‍♀️ any Arab! There's so many of us everywhere just grab one off the street like a madman and ask 'em, they'll tell you. We Love correcting wrong Arabic 😂

Anyway, they had Abed speak in Standard Arabic.... cringe kingdom thanks... but Abed is Palestinian, which means his dialog should have been in Palestinian Arabic and that's hella different. (Now I'm personally Egyptian and while I would be able to understand Palestinian very well I would not be able to re-write his lines to reflect the dialect accurately, so I won't)

Of course their pronunciation was incredibly off as neither actor who play Abed or Gubi (weird name) are Arabs or speak Arabic. It just made me cringe so hard.

Now let's briefly talk about those yellow subtitles Community used for Abed and his Dad in that episode where they're fighting about Abed taking film classes... 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ yeah, not pretty, not only did just use Google translate, it was also unedited. I remember back then Google translate was still being filled up with vocabulary and different possible translations so for Arabic sometimes we'd get a very literal translation that made a whole sentence wrong. And boy did they mess that up!

The line was "The wrong person just left" and the translation was "الشخص الخطأ يسار" which is literally "the wrong person left", well what's wrong with that? Oh just that they used Left as in the direction.... the wrong person LEFT (direcrion) as in ur left hand as in let's go left instead of right 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ never mind that the entire phrase would not be translated that way to begin with but that they couldn't even bother to just double check their translation

Oh you guys know who sounded like they actually knew Arabic??? Abra! Her pronunciation was correct. Even if her lines were still in Standard Arabic her pronunciation and delivery showed she knew Arabic. (Another note on the name... I don't know what the hell Abra is, that's not an Arabic name I'm sorry) (neither is Gubi)

The last thing I wanna mention is from the Christmas ep, where Jeff gets in a fight, and Abed comes to their gathering with a dish from his culture, and he says "It's a traditional Muslim dish".....okay, Danny Pudi is not Arabic okay but he is Muslim and he should know there is no such thing as a Muslim dish, but fine okay maybe he couldn't say anything whatever who cares...

There is no such thing as a Muslim dish, or Muslim food. Or even Arab food, that doesn't exist... it should have been "it's a traditional Palestinian dish".

The Arab World is 22 countries, each very different from each other in culture, customs, food, language, whatever you can think of. We have similarities, we understand each other, we have a shitton of shared history but we are not a monolith.

Back to the Language aspect

Arabic is hard, Standard or otherwise, but especially Standard. The sounds you'd need to be able to make Arabic happen have to be trained into your mouth and throat, and it takes a long time. (I was lucky to grow up with it, not knowing the struggle, and major respect to those who want and try to learn it, whatever variation of it)

I was just spewing my frustrations here about a couple scenes and I'm glad there weren't any more tbh.

but I do hope this helps anyone who was curious about Abed's language.

Anyone writing about Abed or characters like Abed, I hope this can give a hint into what to research.

Also it's not pronounced Nadeer (with the emphasis on the second part) it's Naader (with emphasis on the first part)

Thanks for reading through this!

#abed nadir #community #trobed #arabic language in american media

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specialagentsergio · 4 years

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all we can do is keep breathing || chapter one

summary: He’s out of prison now, but your boyfriend is very much not okay. When he isn’t reinstated, he spirals down quickly, and you don’t know how to help him out of it. (or, spencer relapses post-prison and goes to rehab)

pairing: spencer reid x gn!reader

category: angst (eventual happy ending)

content warnings: swearing, drug abuse & addiction, an overdose, substance use disorder, ptsd, mentions of suicide, mentions of/implied sex, references to sexual assault, description of a panic attack/ptsd episode. please read with caution; this content can be triggering.

a/n: honestly, i just wrote this for myself. but it was partially inspired by @zhuzhubii ‘s brilliant and heart wrenching fic i know what’s best for me (but i want you instead). mine takes a different turn, but theirs is amazing as well.

a/n 2: disclaimer that while i have both been a patient at a residential treatment center and currently work at one, i don’t have substance use disorder and we don’t treat it specifically at my current workplace. my experience is also all in adolescent centers rather than adult ones, so this won’t be entirely accurate.

word count: 8k

song: paralyzed by nf

fic masterlist || masterlist

Nothing’s been the same since Mexico.

You weren’t naïve. You hadn’t been expecting things to go right back to normal when he got home from prison. You were prepared for Spencer to struggle. And you were ready to do whatever it took to help him recover from this trauma.

But you had never expected that that dedication would lead you to here—sitting on the couch at 11 o’clock at night, tired but wide awake, waiting for him to return from god knows where. A few cardboard boxes filed with the last of his things are stacked neatly beside you.

Spencer’s six-year sobriety coin sits in your hand. You’d found it in the trash a few days after he got home. You had tried to talk him into keeping it—"you were drugged; it’s not your fault”—but he had refused, leading you to believe there was something he wasn’t telling you. But you hadn’t pushed him on it, as that would just be a surefire way to make him double down on keeping it to himself.

He didn’t want the coin, but you kept it, hidden from his sight, hoping he’d want it back someday.

Now, three months later, you weren’t sure that day was going to come.

He had managed to get by for six weeks. He’d been plagued by nightmares and suffered multiple panic attacks, but he’d pushed through the cravings, gone to all his mandated therapy appointments, and attended refresher courses on procedures and firearms. He did everything the bureau required to consider reinstating him.

The day of the meeting, Spencer had seemed a little nervous, but stable. He’d gotten a good night’s sleep, free of bad dreams, and he had given you a kiss goodbye that felt just like the ones he’d always given you before. Then he walked out the door, and you didn’t hear from him for the rest of the day.

You got the news from Emily. The bureau had decided not to reinstate him “at this time”. They recommended that he reapply in six months, but for now, he wouldn’t be getting his badge and gun back.

Your initial reaction had been relief. Although you had shown Spencer nothing but encouragement, you weren’t sure he would ever be ready to go back, let alone so soon. You didn’t even know why he was reapplying. He’d worked for them for over a decade and become a well-respected agent, but when he needed help, the bureau had abandoned him and refused to help him prove his innocence. You had been so furious you could barely speak when JJ told you their decision.

Spencer didn’t share your sentiment—or if he did, he didn’t want to face it. On some level, you understood. The BAU was his home before you were, and you could imagine that after the chaos of the last three months, he desperately wanted his life to just go back to normal. So even though you weren’t sure that this was the best decision for him to make—especially since he seemed to have barely thought about it at all—you’d supported him. Whatever he needed, right?

You tried calling him after talking to Emily, but he didn’t answer. It didn’t worry you too much at first—Spencer often needed space to process things on his own before talking about it. You wouldn’t be able to have a proper conversation until you were off work anyways.

It was around six when the anxiety kicked in. You’d tried calling him a few more times throughout the day to no avail. You hadn’t even gotten a text back. Then you started getting messages from his team, asking how he was doing and if he was okay. They hadn’t heard from him either.

When you’d gotten home, you had immediately looked to the chair Spencer always left his bag on. It was empty. You’d looked through all the rooms anyways, trying to ignore what your gut was telling you he was off doing.

It was a few more hours before he stumbled through the front door, his eyes glassy and footing unstable. You stood in front of him, putting your hands on his upper arms to keep him steady. When he had caught your eyes, he had started to cry.

He’d been more or less inconsolable for the rest of the night, blubbering out apologies as you guided him through the motions of getting into bed. He’d clung to you and you’d murmured reassurances against his skin and into his hair that you still loved him, that you didn’t think any less of him, that he would be okay. You had truly thought he would be at the time.

But he wasn’t okay, not at all. He quickly became stuck in a cycle of using, promising it was the last time, staying clean for a little while, then relapsing. You had pleaded with him to get help, but he’d become... aggressive when you suggested inpatient treatment.

“Don’t ever say that,” he’d snarled. “I’m not my mother.”

Then later that same night, he had crawled into bed next to you at 2 AM, curled up against your side, and begged in a trembling voice, “please don’t send me away.”

You haven’t had the courage to bring it up again until now.

Four days ago, you hit your breaking point. You’d come home from work and found him limp on the couch, barely breathing, a syringe and little glass vial next to him. You’d dialed 911 as you ran into the bedroom, yanked open your bedside table, and pulled out the auto injectable dose of Narcan you’d acquired a few weeks ago just in case. Thanks to that, Spencer was conscious again by the time the EMTs arrived. He resisted being taken to the ER, alternating between scowling at them and looking at you with pleading eyes.

But you didn’t give in. When he had checked himself out of the hospital an hour later (you had refused to do it for him), you had driven him home, but the entire time you were formulating a plan. You’d realized that you were padding his rock bottom, and you couldn’t do it anymore.

So now here you are, waiting on the couch. You hope it will work this time. About a month ago you had tried staging an intervention with his team, but as soon as he saw them, he’d walked right back out of the room and you hadn’t seen him again for nearly two days.

It’s another hour before he arrives home, and it takes his drug-fogged mind a full minute to process what he’s seeing. His voice is hoarse when he asks, “You’re leaving?”

“No,” you reply. “You are.”

Spencer sways slightly on his feet as he thinks. “You’re kicking me out,” he realizes.

You try to ignore the prick of tears in your eyes and focus on keeping your voice steady. “Yes. I am.”

His bottom lip starts to tremble. “You... you can’t do this,” he whispers.

“No, I can,” you say. You take a deep breath before you continue. “But more than that, I have to.”

For the first time in months, Spencer doesn’t try and hide his tears from you. He cries openly. His back hits the wall and he slides down it, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. It’s unbelievably hard to watch.

You stand and approach him cautiously, almost as if he’s an animal that you don’t want to spook, reaching into your back pocket and holding out a keycard. “I booked you a room for the night at that motel a few streets over, so you can... sleep it off. But after that, you’re on your own.”

He looks up at you with those big brown eyes that you love so much, but they don’t look like they used to. Now they’re bloodshot and his pupils are pinpricks. “(Y/N), please, please don’t do this,” he whimpers. “Please, this is the last time. I won’t do it again, I promise.”

You just shake your head. His words are nothing new. “Your car is already in the parking lot there with the rest of your things.”

It’s like a switch flips, his broken expression contorting into a glare. “Fine,” he practically growls. He pushes your hand away and staggers to his feet. “I don’t want that shitty motel room. I’ll just go stay with JJ. She actually cares about me.”

You expected him to lash out like this, but the words still sting. “You really think JJ’s going to let you be around her boys like this?” you ask quietly.

The anger on his face is offset some by the tears and snot still running down it.. And you know he knows that you’re right. “So this is it, huh?” he says coldly, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. “Six years together, all we’ve been through. It’s just over now.”

You retreat back to the couch, placing the keycard on top of the boxes. “That’s actually up to you.”

His laugh is derisive. “You could have fooled me!”

You swallow around the lump in your throat. “I don’t want this to be permanent. You can stay now, or come back, on one condition.”

Spencer folds his arms over his chest defensively. “Which is?”

“You have to agree to check into a treatment center.”

The look of betrayal on his face breaks your heart. Tears spill out of your eyes before you can stop them; you swipe them away and take a deep breath to try and hold the rest of them off.

It’s a while before he speaks again, and his voice is quiet when he does. “How can you say that.” It’s not a question.

“It’s what you need, Spencer,” you answer. “You’re not coping with what happened to you. Not just prison, everything that’s happening to your mom, too—”

“Don’t talk about my mother!”

You flinch. He’s never raised his voice at you before. It’s the drugs, you try to remind yourself. It’s just the drugs, he doesn’t really mean it.

He storms forward and you scurry out of the way on instinct. He scoffs. “What, you think I’m going to hurt you?”

“You’re scaring me right now,” you admit quietly.

Spencer tries to cover up the hurt with a scowl, but you can still see it in his eyes. “You really think that little of me?”

You open your mouth to speak, then close it again. You don’t know what to say. Spencer would never hurt you, you know that without a doubt. But the Spencer you know, the man you fell in love with... he’s not the same person when he’s using. And with how high and emotional he is right now, you don’t know what to expect. “I... I don’t know anymore, Spencer,” you answer honestly.

He shrugs. “Maybe you’re right to think that. I did some awful things in there, you know.” He says it matter-of-factly, but you recognize it as a glimpse of one of the things he’s using the drugs to escape from, one of the things he won’t talk about.

He gathers up the boxes in his arms; you pretend not to notice him pocketing the keycard. You’re worried about him carrying them safely in his current state and almost reach out to steady him before recognizing from the tension in his shoulders that touching him right now will only make things worse.

He stops at the door and you hurry to open it for him. “I really believed you loved me, you know,” he whispers, the anger falling off of his face.

The words are like a blow to the stomach; it knocks the breath out of your lungs. “I do,” you choke out. “I do love you.”

Spencer doesn’t answer. He just shakes his head and walks out the door.

He doesn’t look back.

---

It’s been the longest two weeks of your life.

You haven’t heard from Spencer since the night he left. You weren’t expecting him to come around to the idea of rehab quickly, but you thought he might try and call you within a few days and try to talk his way out of the hole he’d found himself in.

He didn’t.

All you could do was wait, and hope that that night wasn’t going to end up being the last time you saw him alive. In a way, it was worse than it had been when he was in prison, because this time, you were the reason he was gone.

His team has mixed feelings on what you’ve done.

JJ is mad. She asks, “how could you?”, and, “you really think this will work?” You try to be patient with her—you know she’s so upset because she loves him. She already lost her older sister and now she’s scared of losing the man who’s practically her brother. But when she (perhaps unintentionally) insinuates that you did this because you’d just had enough of him, you snap, telling her she has no right to say that when you know she wouldn’t let him stay at her house while he’s using. She keeps her thoughts to herself after that.

Emily is sympathetic. She was there the first time he started using and had subsequently gotten her head bitten off when she tried to reach out and help him. “I know how hard it is to get through to him when he’s... like this. You just let me know if I can help at all.”

Luke is much the same. He’s had his own struggles with PTSD and understands the toll it takes on everyone, not just the one with it. He’s always happy to offer you some time with Roxy, because he’s right—things really do feel better when you’re petting her.

Rossi isn’t... indifferent, exactly. He just doesn’t seem to have much of an opinion one way or the other. You think it’s because he doesn’t know what an alternative would be. For all his experience in psychology, he’s unsure of how to help Spencer.

You don’t know Matt very well yet, but he’s kind to you, even going so far as to bring you a dish of his wife’s lasagna.

Penelope is an absolute angel with her warm hugs and baked goods. She keeps an eye on Spencer’s cell phone location for you, in the event that he ends up at a police precinct or hospital.

Out of everyone, you like talking to Tara the most. She’s so supportive and understanding. You feel like she’s the only one who truly knows what the past few months have been like for you. She just gets it, having lived with a partner with substance use disorder before. “You’re doing the best you can and that’s all that matters,” she tells you. She even goes to a Narcotics Anonymous family meeting with you.

It’s day fourteen without Spencer, and it doesn’t feel much different. It feels bleak. You go to work and run errands, but you only manage it because it’s habit.

You’re rinsing off your plate from dinner when there’s a knock on the door. Your heart leaps into your throat. You aren’t expecting anyone. You try—in vain—not to hope too hard as you go to answer it. It could just be someone dropping by on a whim, or, god forbid, a police officer with bad news.

Please, Spencer. Please let it be you.

When you look through the peephole, you’re unable to hold back a sob of relief. His eyes are fixed on the doormat so you can’t quite see his face, but you’d recognize that head of hair anywhere, even in its current unwashed and disheveled state. You take a few deep breaths before opening the door, for his sake. You crying all over him is likely the last thing he wants or needs.

He doesn’t look up when you open the door, and you realize he’s waiting for you to make the first move.

“Spencer,” you say softly.

It’s a few more moments before he responds. “I’ll do it,” he finally mutters; you can just barely hear him.

Your breath catches in your chest. “You’ll do what?” you ask.

He glances up then, a look of annoyance flashing across his face.

“I’m not trying to be difficult,” you say, voice shaky from the effort of holding back tears. “I just... I need to hear you say it.”

He sighs and looks back down, tugging on the ends of his sleeves. “I’ll... I’ll go to... to re—rehab.”

Tension you didn’t even know you were holding in your body melts away. You step to the side. “Come in,” you whisper.

He shuffles inside. When you turn back from closing the door, he’s just standing still in the middle of the room. You get a better look at him now. His clothes are rumpled and his hair is an absolute mess, tangled and dirty. It doesn’t look like he’s had a shower or shave for at least a week—you figure he’s probably been sleeping in his car. His face is pale and his hands are trembling; as you move closer, you can see a light sheen of sweat on his face, leading you to believe that he’s currently sober and starting to experience withdrawal symptoms.

You touch his arm gently and he makes a distressed whining sound. You guide him to sit on the couch. When you sit next to him, he looks at you with teary eyes. You open your arms in an invitation and he collapses into you, bursting into tears. “’m sorry,” he stutters out between sobs. “I—I didn’ mean it. I... ‘m so s—sorry, (Y/N).”

You cry too, holding him tight against you. “I know, baby,” you whisper, voice breaking. “I know.”

---

Spencer’s mostly nonverbal for his intake process. Whether it’s by choice or not is something you’re unsure of. In a private room a few hallways away from the main ward, you’re introduced to the admissions supervisor, Susan, whose voice you recognize from the phone calls you’d made to get him into one of the beds here. You also meet Spencer’s new therapist, Lara. She has a kind face and seems to have a good sense of humor. You just hope Spencer will like her.

You’re both given paperwork to read through and sign, as he’s on your health insurance now. Naturally, he’s done with them before you’ve finished the first page. Susan is taken aback. “Oh. Um, sir, we do need you to actually read this paperwork,” she says.

Spencer folds his arms and stares down at the carpet. “I did.”

“He, uh, he can speed read,” you explain. She still looks skeptical, so you add, “I’m serious. He reread War and Peace on the drive here.”

He doesn’t talk again until everything’s in order and you’re given five minutes alone to say goodbye. “I don’t want to do this,” he whispers.

“Is it okay if I touch you?” you ask. When he nods, you pull at his arms gently until they relax and fall open, then take one of his hands and squeeze it. “I don’t want to, either. I’m so tired of being away from you. But...” You take a deep breath. “But I also don’t want to bury you. You know this is what you need, right?”

He shrugs, refusing to meet your eyes. You can’t quite tell what that means—whether he agrees but wishes that wasn’t the case, or if he’s only doing this to appease you. You hope it’s the former. While it’s a possibility that this might not work either way, you feel like that’s more likely to happen if he isn’t doing this for himself as well, if he doesn’t want to get better.

But it’s out of your hands now. All you can do is trust in the people here to take care of him and that they want what’s best for him.

You put your hand on his cheek and turn his head towards you, trying to get him to look at you. His words from that night run through your head—I really believed you loved me. When he glances up, you seize the moment.

“I love you, Spencer. So much. If there’s just one thing you can trust in right now, please let it be that,” you plead.

He sniffles and you think you see a nod from him, but you can’t be sure. And it hurts a bit—you’re not used to him not saying “I love you” back. You can’t dwell on that now, though. You’ve only got a few minutes left before you have to leave him.

You stand, pulling him up with you. “Can I hu—” you start, but you’re cut off by him lunging forward and clinging to you. You comfort him as best as you can, running one hand up and down his back and using the other to cradle the back of his head as he cries into your neck, muttering incomprehensible words against your skin.

When the door opens, his entire body tenses against you. “Spencer,” you say gently, trying to stop your voice from wavering too much. “You have to let go now.”

He doesn’t budge. If anything, he holds onto you tighter. “Baby—“ you start.

“No,” he says suddenly, his voice louder than you’ve heard it in days. “No, I can’t—I won’t—”

Before you know it, he’s twisted around to stand behind you. You open and close your mouth a few times, startled and unsure what to say. “Spencer, what—what’s wrong?”

“No,” he repeats, shaking his head. “I can’t do it again. I—I won’t.” Then he starts to rub at one of his eyes in the way you’ve seen so many times since he came home from prison and it hits you—he feels like he’s getting locked up again.

A glance at the door shows expressions of sympathy on Susan and Lara’s faces. What with the “war on drugs” sending addicts to prison, this probably isn’t the first time they’ve seen a reaction like this.

You doubt any of their previous patients were framed for murder and had their mother kidnapped by a vengeful psychopath, though.

Spencer’s entire body is trembling when you look back at him, and it’s not from the lingering withdrawal symptoms. It’s heartbreaking, but it only affirms your belief that he needs to be here. It’s clear that he can’t tolerate what he feels and what he knows without turning to self-destructive coping mechanisms.

“Take me home,” he whimpers. “Take me home, please. I want to go home.”

You swallow hard. “I can’t.”

“But they’re gonna hurt me,” he cries. “They’re gonna hurt me because I hurt them; don’t you care if I get hurt?”

You think you know what he’s talking about. You don’t know the details—Spencer wouldn’t let Emily or JJ tell you—but you do know he was hurt in prison by the other inmates. You had seen the bruises yourself. And then you’d heard that some of the inmates were poisoned. He’s a graduate chemist—you’d put it together. You don’t know why he did it, but you assume that he hadn’t had much of a choice.

“They’re not here, Spencer.” You try to stop him from scratching so hard at his eyes, but he flinches at your touch. “They’re not here; they can’t hurt you anymore,” you repeat instead.

Lara comes up to your side. “Let us take care of him, okay?”

Oh, but you don’t want to. Spencer’s so upset and you can’t bear the thought of leaving him like this, not when all you want to do is hold him and never let go. It’s what you’ve wanted since the moment he stepped out of Millburn. But isn’t this the whole point of bringing him here? You can’t help him on your own. You have to let him go.

When Lara coaxes you to take a step back, Spencer makes the most awful, wounded noise. “Don’t leave me, please,” he begs. “Don’t leave me again.”

You press the back of your hand to your mouth to hold back a sob. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” you manage to say. “And I’ll visit you as soon as I can.”

“No, it’s not o—okay,” he protests, his voice breaking. “It’s not—I—” He presses his hands into his eyes and backs up until he’s in the corner. He drops to the floor and curls up, hugging his knees to his chest and burying his face in them.

Susan is able to get you to take a few more steps back; Lara takes a step forward, in Spencer’s direction.

“Um, don’t—don’t touch him,” you stutter out, desperate to help somehow. “It’ll—it’ll just make it worse.”

“I won’t,” she assures you. And she doesn’t—instead she sits on the floor several feet away from him; not close enough to be threatening but not far enough that he’d be completely unaware of her presence. It makes you feel a little better, because that’s what you do for him at home.

You let Susan guide you out of the room and to the entrance. “He’ll be okay,” she tells you as you walk. “This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, and Lara’s fantastic. It’s actually a good opportunity to start building therapeutic rapport.”

You just nod as she talks, not quite listening to what she’s saying. You just keep thinking of his face when you took a step away from him, and how small his voice sounded. It’s a storm of emotions inside of you, but among them is... relief. You don’t have to worry about keeping him safe anymore.

Leaving him in that room, terrified, surrounded by people he doesn’t know, is one of the hardest things you’ve ever done. You just hope it will be worth it.

---

It’s Spencer’s thirty-sixth birthday. You have the day off, but the alarm still sounds early in the morning. You rub your eyes and stretch, trying to shake off the sleepiness. You were up late last night, looking through the entire apartment just one more time for anything you could have missed.

It’s something you’ve done half a dozen times since he was admitted. You haven’t found any needles or Dilaudid since the first time, but you keep doing it anyways. For some reason, when you were feeling anxious about... well, everything, it would calm you down.

You can’t stop yourself from checking once more before you leave to pick him up—though not as thoroughly since you don’t have the time. You just check his hiding places—the desk drawer with the false bottom, the pair of socks he hates that stay in the back of his sock drawer, the gun safe (he’d told you the code years ago just in case and hasn’t changed it since, more worried about you being in danger and needing it than you finding things he doesn’t want you to), and the two hollowed out books at the back of two different bookshelves.

You want to believe that even if there were anything there, he wouldn’t go looking for it anymore, but you aren’t there yet. He’s been in treatment just shy of six weeks, and it’s been up and down. Two steps forward has always seemed to be accompanied by one step back.

While he usually thrived on routine, the enforced structure of the treatment facility would remind him of Millburn multiple times a day. It took the better part of two weeks for him to adjust to it. The first time you visited him, he had curled up in your arms and cried about it, saying that he was barely sleeping because he didn’t feel safe and that he just wanted to go home.

It didn’t help that he didn’t get along with his roommate. Spencer found him to be too loud, complaining to you multiple times that he always wanted to talk during quiet time. Apparently he was also working on his GED, and would constantly ask him for answers to his homework. “I wouldn’t mind helping him, but he just wants me to give him the answers instead,” he’d told you. So Spencer had just tried to ignore him.

But his patience had finally snapped a few weeks ago when his roommate drank both his own and Spencer’s shampoo in a suicide attempt, because he’d “read somewhere that shampoo was toxic.” Spencer had yelled at him, calling him a “fucking idiot”, among other things (they were promptly separated). His roommate was fine in the end—he just threw up a lot. But he was permanently moved to a different room, to both you and Spencer’s relief.

Spencer had a meltdown the next night, though, when it was time to shower. He had been given replacement shampoo from the treatment center’s supplies, but he didn’t like the smell and couldn’t stand the texture, so he’d refused to take a shower. That then resulted in him losing points for not following the structure. (Points were given for good behavior and meeting goals, and were mainly how privileges were earned.)

Naturally, Spencer had protested that this wasn’t fair, that it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t have shampoo that he could use. He’d been told that these were the rules, and he wouldn’t be given an exception. In response, Spencer had thrown the shampoo across the room, thrown himself onto his bed, buried his head under his pillow, and refused to talk to anyone.

But that night ended up marking a turn for the better in his treatment. He hadn’t responded when shift change happened and one of the night staff, Matt, checked in on him—in fact, he hadn’t moved at all. When he’d said, “tell me if there’s anything I can do to help you feel better”, Spencer had had no intention of taking him up on it.

A couple of hours later, though, when everything was quiet and he couldn’t sleep because he felt sticky and dirty from not showering, he wandered out into the commons area, holding his favorite blanket from home around himself. When asked what he needed, he’d shrugged, because he didn’t know what he needed, besides his old shampoo, and there wasn’t much to be done about that at midnight.

“I heard you had a rough time this evening,” Matt had said.

Spencer nodded absently, looking at everything but the two of them sitting on the couches.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He shook his head.

“Okay,” Matt had replied. “Well, you can sit out here with us for a little while if you want. How’s ten minutes sound?”

Spencer had shrugged again, but sat down on the corner of the couch, pulling his legs up against his chest. He pressed his nose into the fabric of the blanket and breathed in deeply. He’d held off on washing it since got here because it smelled like you. It was comforting, and he felt himself relax some. Then, without thinking about it consciously, he opened his mouth... and talked.

He started with the shampoo incident. His voice had raised an octave and hot tears stung his eyes as he talked about how much he hated the replacement shampoo and how he felt that he was being treated unfairly by people who didn’t understand why it bothered him so much. And then he had just... kept going. He didn’t talk about specifics—he said he was framed and wrongly incarcerated, then went straight to everything that had happened since he got home. He talked about losing his job and his first relapse because of that. He talked about how he couldn’t seem to stop going back. He talked about your ultimatum and his two weeks living out of his car.

When he finally stopped, he was breathing heavily and exhausted, but he felt... lighter. It was like the dam burst. The next morning, he started talking, really talking, to his therapist. When you came by that evening to bring him new shampoo, he’d told you all about what had happened, sparing no detail. To say it shocked you was an understatement—he hadn’t been so open with you since Mexico.

The two weeks since had gone well. There were a few bumps, but otherwise he was improving, and he’d been able to earn a day visit for his birthday.

Spencer looks... good when you see him. He’s fully dressed, wearing the cardigan he knows you like the best, and it no longer looks baggy on him. He’d come back from prison a little underweight, and it had only gotten worse since. But he’s been steadily gaining it back here thanks to sobriety and regular meals. He’s got his satchel across his shoulder but he isn’t clinging to it protectively and the way he rocks up on the balls of his feet appears to be excited rather than nervous. It looks like he may have even run a brush through his hair for once.

Then he sees you, and the smile that spreads across his face... he looks like himself again. Your smile back is so big that it probably looks goofy, but you don’t care.

He hugs you as soon as you’re close enough. It’s tight, but he’s not clinging to you like you’ve grown accustomed to over the past six weeks, which you think can only be a good thing—he’s not feeling insecure or unsafe anymore.

“Happy birthday,” you say. “You look really nice.”

“Really?” he asks. “Because I got up a little early to get ready, but I didn’t shave since I’d have to check out my razor and that’s a hassle, and if you don’t like it, that’s fine. I’m not really sure myself—”

“Spencer, I don’t mind the facial hair at all,” you interrupt. “You look great. I mean it.”

He glances away shyly, his cheeks turning a little pink. “Thanks,” he murmurs.

You both sign the checkout paperwork and head out. Spencer insists on holding your hand the entire time. When you get to the car and start to let go, he tightens his grip instead and pulls you closer to him. “(Y/N).”

“Yes?”

He hesitates just slightly before placing his other hand on your cheek. “Can I kiss you?” he asks softly.

You blink, realizing that it’s been a long while since you’ve kissed. And just like that, you’re aching for his lips on yours. “Please do.”

Spencer lets your hand go then. Cradling your head in both of his hands now, he leans in and kisses you so gently. You soak it in, feeling warm inside as something you didn’t realize you were missing returns to you. When he pulls back, he looks more at peace than you’ve seen him in months.

You just look at each other for a bit. Eventually, you place a kiss on his cheek and say, “We should go before we get in trouble for loitering.”

He wants to hold your hand whenever he can on the drive home, and you let him. He tells you how his week has been going—someone in his group therapy is graduating the program in a few days, and they’ve started a new project in art therapy. You knew about the art project already, since he’d spent half of his phone time on Monday telling you how much he didn’t want to make a pottery project because he can’t stand how the clay feels on his hands when it dries. But you’ve always loved to listen to him talk, so you don’t remind him of this.

As you’re getting off the freeway fifteen minutes later, you tap the back of his hand twice to signal that you have something to say. He pauses in his infodump about the history of pottery so you can speak. “I’ve got a few presents for you at home, but I was thinking we could go to the bookstore and you can pick out some more things?”

He makes a happy humming noise. “That sounds great! There’s something I want to read up on.”

He veers off to the nonfiction section when you enter his favorite bookstore; you idly browse your favorite section as you wait. When he returns to your side, he’s holding a stack of five books, all on the same subject.

“Horses,” you say.

He nods enthusiastically, his hair bouncing. “I’m starting an equine therapy program next week.”

“Oh, that’s cool. I hope it goes well.” You don’t know much about horse therapy—seems like that’s going to be what you read about on your phone in bed tonight while you wait for sleep to come.

Spencer’s quiet on the car ride home, content to flip through his new books. He doesn’t notice when you park the car; you have to touch his arm to get his attention.

“What?” he asks without taking his eyes off of the full color spread of a mustang in his lap.

“We’re home,” you point out. With how many times he’s told you he wants to go home in the past weeks, you expect him to be excited, but he’s not. He tenses when he looks up and sees the building in front of you. “What’s wrong, Spencer?”

“Um...” He fiddles with the book’s dust jacket. “There’s... there’s not a surprise party waiting for me inside, is there?”

“Oh. No, there’s not. Just a few balloons and little banner. You, uh...” you wince a little as something occurs to you. “You weren’t wanting one, were you?”

“Absolutely not,” he immediately replies.

You chuckle a little at his certainty. “Well, good. Because I had a hell of a time convincing Penelope not to throw you a birthday party, and I don’t know if she’d ever forgive me if it turned out I was wrong and you did, in fact, want a party.”

That gets a small laugh out of him; your heart leaps at the sound. It’s been far too long since you’ve heard that.

He seems a little apprehensive as you unlock the front door, and when he walks in, he stays standing on the living room rug for a while, his eyes traveling from one side of the room to another, looking over everything. “It looks the same,” he says eventually.

“Were you expecting it not to be?” you ask.

“I don’t know,” he answers, running his fingers across one of the seams of his satchel. “It’s not that I thought you would change anything, it’s more like... I feel so much different than I did the last time I was here that it’s kind of strange to see that everything’s just like I remember it.”

You’re reminded of the last time he was standing still in the living room like this, stick-thin, dirty, and trembling from withdrawals. “Different in a good way, I hope,” you say, nervously fussing with the pile of presents on the coffee table.

He gives you a small smile. “Yes, in a good way,” he affirms softly. He notices the presents and scrunches his eyebrows. “I thought you said you only had a few presents here.”

“Most of these are from the team,” you explain. “Emily brought them by last night. They had to fly out this morning, but she wanted you to have them on your birthday.”

“Oh.” He raises his hand and it looks like he might rub at his eye but he presses his knuckles to his mouth instead. You can’t really tell what’s going on in his mind. You figure his feelings towards his team are complicated. On the one hand, they got him out of the prison, and he’s known some of them for over a decade. On the other, he wasn’t allowed to rejoin the BAU and the whole experience had made him feel humiliated. You think he wants to see them, but he also doesn’t; he’s stuck in the middle and can’t decide.

Either way, it doesn’t matter today. It’s his birthday and you want him to have a good one, so you redirect his attention. You sit on the couch and pat the spot next to you. “Will you show me your new books?”

The corners of his mouth turn up and he pads across the floor towards you. “Yeah. So, here’s what I’ve learned so far....”

The day continues in much the same fashion—quiet and laidback as you simply enjoy each other’s company. Once he shows you all of the books, you move on to the TV, catching up on the episodes of Doctor Who you’ve both missed (you didn’t want to watch it without him). You order his favorite takeout for dinner, after which you bring out his dessert—half a dozen chocolate frosting and sprinkles donuts arranged in a circle around two candles displaying 36.

“You know, it’s not really sanitary to blow all over food before sharing it,” he says.

You roll your eyes fondly. “We go over this every year. We kiss; I’m not worried about your mouth germs.”

“But it’s not just my “mouth germs”,” he corrects, making air quotes with his fingers. “It involves the entire respiratory track, so—”

“Spencer, as always, it’s a risk I’m willing to take,” you interrupt. You’ve heard this explanation before. “Now make a wish.”

He takes a moment to ponder it, then blows the candles out. You put the plate down and hand him a napkin. “We’re not going to be able to eat all of these before I have to go back,” he says, but the way he bites eagerly into the first one nearly makes you question that.

He gets through two; you only eat one, mostly full from dinner. He wants to go lay down on the bed after, “so we have more room to cuddle”. And cuddle he does, pressing as much of his body to yours as he can. One of your hands settles in his hair automatically. “Did you have a good day?” you ask, running your fingers through it.

“Mm-hmm.”

“Obviously this situation is not ideal,” you start carefully. “But I’m just so happy that you’re still... well, around for your birthday.”

Spencer turns his head into the fabric of your shirt and breathes in deeply. “Me, too,” he says quietly on the exhale.

You lay together in silence for a while, and you savor the feeling of having him in bed next to you again. Sleeping alone wasn’t anything new in your relationship, as his job took him around the country. You’d gotten used to it for the most part, but every night he wasn’t with you because he was in prison was just plain awful. After, you had him back for six weeks, then it became sporadic again as he started using. It’s been so much easier to sleep since he went into treatment, but you still miss sharing the bed with him terribly.

You look at your phone briefly to check the time. “We’ve got about three hours until we have to start heading back. I’m happy to stay like this, but we still have time to do something else if you want to.”

All he says verbally is, “okay”, but the way he squirms against you tells you that he does have something on his mind.

“Just let me know if you do,” you say gently; you don’t want him to feel pressured into speaking. Plus you’re content to lay here playing with his hair and listening to his breathing.

“Well, there is something,” he admits after a few minutes.

He doesn’t continue, so you say, “Okay. What is it?”

He sighs and sits up. “It’s... it’s nothing bad, or—or even that big of a deal, really. At least, it shouldn’t be.”

You push yourself up into a sitting position next to him. “Well, why don’t you tell me so I can help?” you ask. “I can tell that it’s bothering you.”

“That’s exactly the point. It shouldn’t be bothering me,” Spencer complains. “Because I really want to do it. It’s just...”

You put your hand on his back and run it up and down to try and comfort him. You don’t say anything; you just give him time to get the words out.

He takes a deep breath. “I want to have sex,” he says. “I really do, I’m just... not entirely sure I’m... ready yet.”

“Oh.”

It’s not where you expected the conversation to go, because it’s something that hasn’t really been in your life at all since Mexico. He’d... taken care of you a few times during those first six weeks, but hadn’t let you return the favor. Each time he had scurried off to the bathroom and run a cold shower before you could even touch the waistband of his pants. Then on the night he came back to you, you had been helping him undress since his hands were trembling so much. When you unbuttoned his pants, he had breathed in sharply and frantically pushed your hands away.

Clearly something had happened to him, but he’d never even alluded to anything of the sort. And that was okay—you didn’t need to know. You just wished you knew how to help.

“I’m sorry, I know it’s stupid,” he says, running his hands down his face.

“Oh, baby, no,” you soothe. “It’s not stupid at all.”

He just shakes his head. “You deserve more than this.”

“I don’t know about that. But,” you continue, pushing his hair back so you can see his face better, “I do know what I want, and what I want is you.”

Spencer chews on his bottom lip, doubt clouding his eyes. “Look at me,” you implore. He meets your gaze hesitantly and you take his face in your hands.

“I love you, Spencer Reid. And nothing is going to change that.”

His eyes grow wet. He sniffles once, then lunges forward, capturing your lips with his own. You kiss him back just as passionately, holding onto him as tight as he is to you. It may have been a long time since you kissed at all until this morning, but it’s been even longer since he’s kissed you like this.

“Love you, too, (Y/N),” he mumbles against your lips when he pulls back to take a breath.

You press your forehead to his with a happy sigh. But he’s only content to stay like that for a few moments. He bumps your nose with his and tugs slightly on your shirt, requesting permission to kiss you again. You’d love to do that, and you’d love to do more than that, too, but you don’t want him to rush into something he’s not truly ready for.

“You know what we could do?” you ask, running your hand through the curls on the back of his neck.

Spencer’s eyes keep flicking between yours and your lips. “What?”

“A good old-fashioned high school make out,” you say, smiling at him softly. “And I’ll keep my hands above your waist.”

When he visibly relaxes, you know it’s the right decision. “I’d like that,” he says quietly. “I mean, I never kissed anyone when I was in high school, but I get the idea.”

The shy look he gives you before climbing onto your lap reminds you so much of how he was when you first started dating. He’s still there, your Spencer, the Spencer you fell in love with. You never truly thought he was gone, but there were plenty of moments of doubt, moments when you wondered if he’d ever be able to pull himself out of the wreckage, out of the grip of trauma. As much as you wanted to, you couldn’t do it for him.

As it turns out, he could. He can.

It’s far from over. He still has a long way to go. You both do. But for the first time since the day he came home from prison, a return to normal seems possible.

It won’t be the same as it was before. He’s always going to be a little different. But... that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing.

He kisses you, and it feels like it used to, full of respect, adoration, trust, and love. It feels like Spencer.

Despite everything, it’s still him.

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

tell me what you thought here!

if you made it this far, thank you so much for reading. this was very much a personal work but i decided to share it anyways because why the hell not, i'm proud of it. the next chapter will explore horse therapy, a treatment i did and loved, among other things.

i'd like to encourage you please seek this kind of help if you think need it. i see how it changes lives every day at work and it changed my own as well. there's no shame in getting the treatment you need, whatever that may be. recovery is worth it.

if you’re interested in learning more about trauma and the treatment of it, i cannot recommend the book The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., enough. it was my favorite book i read last year and i referred back to it several times while writing this.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid fanfic #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds self insert #spencer reid #angst #my fic #the shampoo incident is something that actually happened on one of my shifts last august #and yet that's not the craziest thing that's happened while i've been at work lol #don't drink shampoo kids #tw substances #tw suicide

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organic-guacamole · 3 years

Text

episode 210 here we go

awww seb doing the intro

congratulations to milky white and her baby chocolate milk😌

seb is so funny

but seriously, clean up that milk fast or else it will smell so bad in there....

was that Lauryn just randomly doing cartwheels? idk any theatre kids irl but that seems like it's a common thing...

is it just me or has ms Jenn been getting more harsh to Ricky and Seb mainly-

like what did they do to her

no because I actually snorted with laughter at the "you came back" WHAT IS THAT VOICE-

AND THE MASK OMG

yeah so my throat hurts now

I'm dying over here

KOURTNEY'S FACE

SAME GIRL SAME

Ricky's fake death got the whole place in tears /s

he looks like an asthmatic walrus

Seb's on piano, I love

we all know if he was the beast we'd all actually be crying✋

ok but I listen to Julia's version of home on Spotify when I want to cry-

right so gimme a second

is Ricky scratching his face.....while he's dying?

"belle i-" *flop*

round of applause to Ashlyn for trying to make Ricky's earthworm seizure look less.... yknow

Kourtney's just dying there

WAIT IS THAT NATALIE

did she really just disappear for 9 episodes just to come back and stare dramatically into the camera

WAIT SCRATCH THAT SHES HERE TO MURDER ASHLYN AND RICKY

oh so Ricky's wearing a gay shirt now too

so that's the real reason why Rini broke up, see y'all next season when Gini and caswen become canon /j

wait that was a long intro scene-

what was that look Carlos-

TALK TO MY BOY OR ELSE

carlos' run is so funny to me

therapist Ashlyn to the rescue

"that is...super" son you good?

ms Jenn call Benjamin, he would willingly put his loved ones on a rocket and blast them into Venus for you....

maybe

"I don't want you kids to be disappointed" girl you do realise you're the one that's most invested in this?

"a smooth opening night" wasn't there just 1 show though-

like their opening night was closing night too

"I think I was Troy at one point" PLEASE THATS THE MOST ACCURATE DESCRIPTION OF THE SEASON 1 FINALE

me Jenn looks like a serial killer during that clap and I'm lowkey scared for zacky

"I have notes"

oo if you're taking suggestions, lemme get my list

"mother is freaking out" uhhhhhh

right....'mother"

"is everyone sitting down?"

*looks around awkwardly*

*big red slowly sits*

"no..."

please seb was the only one sitting-

does that mean Carlos looked at Seb as soon as he walked in and assumed that everyone else was sitting too or am I a seblos clown🤡

"is this about the transformation"

WOW MAYBE OT IS RICKY

WOW HES A DETECTIVE FOR FIGURING THAT OUT SO QUICK🤩

YO WHY IS NATALIE HERE-

she just shows up when it's convenient? is she gonna be at the sleepover too?

Seb's heavy swallow after Carlos shouts at him makes me so sad

"I never learned how to lie but I figure if I keep my mouth closed, I can't tell the truth" *nods and smiles at Nini when she asks*

why are they casually standing up all over the pizza shop, just sit at a big table and talk instead of blocking passageways and blocking off at least 6 tables-

"how about I invite myself" WHY DO PEOPLE ALWAYS FEEL THE NEED TO INVITE THEMSELVES TO ASHLYN'S HOUSE-

YOU CAN ASK BUT JUST FORCE YOUR WAY IN?

so Cash Caswell has a bigger house than... Dennis Caswell.... who would've thought

ah yes there's the good old EJ 1.0

Nini: "boys vs girls"

Gina: *looks devastated and glances longingly at EJ*

way to be inconspicuous

"but north high should be" *cracks her knuckles in the most uncomfortable way*

good for Ashlyn for getting more confident though

oo bossy big red

"i get bossy around the power tools"

is that why Ashlyn was holding up the drill in episode 8 orrrr 🤠

Lily, leave him alone please

she's literally not blinking, is that what makes her creepy?

the diss at big red and his face afterwards is priceless

isn't that similar to what Gina's mom said to her in season 1? hmmmm

but seriously please don't try to redeem lily, let us have a character to hate, or to love because they're evil.

not everyone's a good guy.

"im not liked here and I don't know what to do"

let antoine finish his salad and it'll fix everything

"hug emoji" *gags*

y'all realize Lily's literally 14?

why is she calling a 16/17 year old from another school for personal advice-

"he gets weird around tools"

I shouldn't be laughing so hard

"deja vu maybe?" awkward silence

I'm dying here I love EJ so so so so much

"where's seb"

*cuts to seb being held hostage hoping that they'd notice he's missing and go look for him*

"don't ask"

"oh ok"

"100% real faux fur" as you should queen

sponsored by target

Kourtney is singlehandedly saving the entire show.

Seb making finger guns make me happier than it should

why is this kinda making me want to have a co-ed sleepover with my non-existent theatre friends

YES YOU DO NEED TO TALK/SING TO SEB CARLOS THANK YOU FOR KNOWING THAT

wait what-

you haven't talked to him all WEEK-

Carlos are you stupid /hj

Benjamin is so adorable I can't

he turned around to come back for her instead of going home. you're "what do you want Jenn🙄X act isn't fooling anyone Benjamin 🙃

10101

1+4+16= 21st?

they placed 21st?

or do I just not remember how to convert to base ten

GIRL DON'T BE RUDE TO HIM, HE'S GONNA SAVE YALL

no ms Jenn, the kids are not eccentric 35 year olds.

aww sebby

is he thinking that Carlos is only with him cuz he's the only other openly gay guy at school-

son you are a perfect little bean don't put yourself down

yes they all ship portwell as they should.

they'll be throwing risotto at the wedding.

not the chocolates. stop there are no chocolates. please stop I'm dying.

Gina you don't have to explain yourself to her

it was a misunderstanding and it's in the past

why is Ashlyn still laughing-

exactly it wasn't a big deal please just move on Nini

Kourtney really be out here saving everything

WHY IS ASHLYN STILL LAUGHING

why do I feel like when Gina finally told Ash about it, she didn't think it was that funny but wanted to feel included in the inside joke so now she brings it up randomly to show that she's in on it....I totally don't do that...

"idk, the farmer type" oh son...

Ashlyn and big red are just spilling the secrets back and forth huh?

OOO EJ AND GINA SITTING IN A TREE K-I-S-S-I-

cmon guys don't look at me like that-

"she is the best" and "we're buddies" don't sound right together

"pretty boy" "sweet boy" best ways to describe EJ

I love him.

and aw he's scared of rejection so he'll hold back just to keep her happy and not awkward how sweet

is Ricky wondering if letting her go(literally his song from last episode) was the best thing he did for Nini because he doesn't feel like it now? hmmm this is getting good

why is everyone so invested in Kourtney and Howie's relationship

PACK UP THE LAZY RICKY THING

oh yes Benji, that's exactly what she's doing

she couldn't follow her dream or whatever so now she's using the kids to gain some of the success she craves. why else would she have that massive hsm poster with her name on it in huge letters in her office.

just casually grab his hand with both your hands and stare at him creepily 🥰

ship jennzzara y'all

the first bump was a missed opportunity to do the baymax "falalala" as a reference to the fact that they watched big hero six while committing arson✋

wait so big red and EJ just left Ricky in the basement and now Ricky invited Carlos when they're supposed to be at the stage?

help no Ricky looks like he's about to tell Carlos he likes him (I know it's about writing the song for seb but still, look at his body language and tell me it doesn't look like that)

Ricky is so mature about this, he really just wants Nini to be happy even though he's hurting-

baby you deserve love, maybe Nini isn't the one for you but don't say you don't deserve it

why does he keep adding bro to the end like he doesn't know how to address Carlos

PLEASE CARLOS HAVING TO ADDRESS THE BRO THING

"let's write a song when we have like 45 minutes to get to the place and help our friends possibly win $50000 at the show in 2 weeks"

"can you hit a high C?"

"that's like the bottom of my range"

why am I laughing

this is so cool to see friendship interactions that we don't normally get to see

Nini why are you being like this-

Gina did nothing wrong??

I saw that, EJ and Gina being the only ones going in the same direction👀

right so obviously Kourtney's waiting until after the menkies to get back with Howie just in case he really is just using her as a way in to east high... obviously... right?

CARLOS

OK ITS COMING GET READY YALL

Why is portwell so awkward all of a sudden

OMG EJ

OMG GINA SAY YES or not, do what you want.

the way she doubts that EJ would genuinely ask so she has to make sure it's not Ashlyn behind it

THE "NOT THAT I KNOW OF"

LIKE WHAT GINA SAID TO JACK ABOUT EJ BEING HER BOYFRIEND

GUYS THEY'RE SOULMATES

I want risotto now please

THEY'RE SO SWEET AND ADORABLY AWKWARD ITS LIKEEK LITTLE KIDS

OOOOOOO what is this place that seblos is in, looks fancy....and secluded

oh wait no Ricky's just standing there

wait is it the bomb shelter

it looks so good what

HSKAGSJAGAJAGWISGSKAUASBWKSVAIWBAISBQKSHIQBWOABWOABDOQBZIQBAIAQBSIWBQISVQKSIANSGOQBSAISBKASBKWBAIABQOSBBSJAHAJAVAJSBAJHSKAHSJAHAJAJAAJAHHHHHHHH

@youranxiousnerd ARE YOU OK?

CUZ IM NOT OK

LOOK AT SEBBY'S FACE

LOOK AT HOW ADORABLE IT IS

THE LYRICS ARE KILLING ME

SEBLOS IS KILLING ME

I AM DEAD

PLEASE SEND HELP

I like to imagine that Frankie and Joe practiced this in their apartment and just had a blast with it.

or maybe that Frankie practiced in secret like what Joe did for the climb

OH THE SUITS

THATS WHERE THAT CLIP IN THE PROMO WAS FROM

AWWW SEBBY'S SO CUTE

HE'S A LITTLE MARSHMALLOW

they're still so awkward with the dance I cant

let's appreciate Frankie's voice though

this episode really was made just for the seblos and portwell stans and you gotta love it

BIG RED GET OUT

WHY DOES HE ALWAYS DO THIS

Seb's little "yeah" IS ADORABLE

you can't tell me that wouldn't have been the best time for them to say I love you....IF FREAKIN BIG RED WASN'T THERE

ok but wait Ricky needs more hugs like that, look at his face

the boy needs love

"bro" please don't let Ricky and Carlos go back to not talking because their friendship is amazing

EJ laughing at Ricky sounding like a cat coughing up a furball is so funny to me

RICKY'S FLOP GETS ME EVERYTIME

I knew it was too good to be true

ok so Ricky's dead, next in line please

this episode was so short but I love it so much. this is what I signed up for for season 2✋

#hsmtmts #hsmtmts s2 #hsmtmts season 2 #ej caswell #ricky bowen #gina porter #hsmtmts spoilers #seblos #seb mathew smith #carlos rodriguez #big red #ashlyn caswell #kourtney greene #lily hsmtmts #ms jenn #mr mazzara #natalie bagley #guac's episode text blocks :)

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macaronnya · 2 years

Text

Fresh(?) Impressions (13)

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

Hello Enstarries~☆ Finally, the last part is here! Since Alkaloid is special in the sense that it's the main focus for the first 3 chapters in this game, I decided to also read the first chapter in addition to their Episode 1. And god did it take a long time to finish it. It makes sense for the main story to have each episode last long but the pacing is also quite slow. At least, to what I'm used to.

DISCLAIMER!: Everything said here is for entertainment purposes only and not meant to attack anyone. This is not an accurate description of any characters but my subjective rambling for fun, so please don't take it too seriously. (Just to be safe, I'm kinda scared of elite idol fans) Also, you will hear me mention other games a bunch of times bc I'm that bad and uncreative at explaining and I'm still grieving A3!EN's shutdown. Eng is my 2nd (or 3rd?) language so there might be some weird grammar or spelling mistakes. And I write at 3 am usually.

Without further ado....Let's Ensemble!☆

Hmmmmmm Alkaloid.....a unit compromised of "underachievers". Forced to comply to the higher ups like how card soldiers have to obey the Queen of Hearts. Well, I still don't know what exactly the theme is but the aesthetic is kinda cool Ig. I like their outfits. The colors go well together and the little differentiations aka the pips (and shoes too, but those are not that important) are a smart detail here, since there are 4 members for 4 symbols! And it's nice you can see them on their gloves & jacket as buttons and medals. Although the silhouette is pretty simple, it doesn't look boring at all through such details and and other things. I like the hats very much! Now, their songs are not really my thing, at first. They don't sound boring but I needed a bit of time to warm up to them. I'm not sure if it's just my lack of cultureness but it gives me strong Vocaloid vibes. And yes, I know Vocaloid is just j-pop and alt but that's just what came first to me. That goes especially for Distorted Heart and Believe 4 leaves, though I admit I haven't listened to them as much as others (similiar situation as 2wink). I kinda thought they were rivals or smth like that to Trickstar at first when I went through the whole enstars playlist and also saw comments saying they prefer Alkaloid as protags in contrast to Trickstar. All in all, I don't have a strong opinion on them yet but they get a pass 👍

6/10 - pretty alright I suppose

Hiiro Amagi

Man Idek what to say. He really just went "I'm gonna destroy a whole part of the entertainment industry bc my bro won't come home." And to think I thought he was just a normal guy.... I'm having a bit of a hard time describing him tbh. He's friendly, eager to learn new things, very optimistic, vvveeeerrrryyyy keen on getting along with everyone but switches tunes immediately the moment he disapproves of them, is pretty perceptive of potential danger or in serious situations and stubborn. His lack of common sense and him just thinking every new thing is a city thing & his bluntness is a funny running gag. Dude has no idea what a smartphone is, how did he even get recruited as an idol and make a resumé??? Spade fits him, since one popular speculation is that it represents knights and he's good at fighting and athletic stuff I'd say. That and he is the leader of the card soldiers (if that really is the theme). Smth about the clash of clear blue eyes and strong red hair and his hairstyle makes him pretty dashing.

6/10 - a pinch of psycho but he'd make a great neighbour

Aira Shiratori

His I love~ is kinda annoying, though it's kinda neat as a catchphrase bc it sounds like his name Aira. I wonder whether he cane up with that before or after starting his idol career 🤔 His obsession with idols is also slightly worrisome but at least he's relatively respectful (to the idols). He's average in the sense, that nothing stands out to me except those things. I got used to his voice eventually but it did remind me of a squeaking duck toy at first, in a bad way. I guess he's the heart bc I love~ and how he's just the most expressive emotionally? At least, you can read him the most easily out of the four. Although, clover would fit him more bc that's supposed to represent the commoners.

5/10 - he'd spam fancams on twitter

Mayoi Ayase

Mans was on the ceiling for the whole meeting and nobody blinked twice. If that doesn't tell you what you need to know about the cast already.... Anyways, I love his hair color so much! A strong purple for a strong personality! Everything about him leaves a strong impression but ironically, he's very shy. Or rather incredibly self-depricating for some reason. He's like Muku (A3!) but cranked up. Breath in the same room as him and he'll apologize. His sprite (the right one there) first made me think he's some unhinged crazy dude and, I mean, he's not but his Ep.1 did feel like a thriller. He's pure-hearted but he sure makes it hard to believe. Surprisingly, he has a powerful singing voice and I'd say the best in Alkaloid. He REALLY went off in Believe 4 leaves, which is such a banger btw. I heard he chomps people and all I can say is ouch with those teeth.....He's clover, which....I guess is OK. He seems more like a deadly shy spy or introverted eccentric alchemist than a normal commoner but I mean nothing speaks against it.

7/10 - he needs to work on his choice of words but I guess he's a cinnamon roll?????

Tatsumi Kazehaya

Who thought of adding a christian into the idol rooster??? So now we have son of a family tending to a temple and one tending to a church. Well, he's a chill and responsible guy. Kinda curious whether he's catholic or a protestant. My limited knowledge of taking (protestant) christian studies instead of ethics in school is finally coming to use!/jk (not a christian here but in school in Germany, you usually have to choose between christian or ethic studies and protestant christian studies usually had the more chill teachers so yeah). I'm slightly surprised by how often he mentions things of the bible in the correct context (I think). Makes me think the authors properly researched their stuff but who knows, not me that's for sure. Anyways, the way he speaks and sounds reminds me of lying on fresh soft green grass swaying in gentle wind. Actually, he reminds me awfully a lot of Libra (FE: Awakening) with how he's not to be taken easy just bc he has a gentle personality. Kinda sudden but I wanna kiss his beauty marks. I predict he's gonna consider stopping his idol activites due to his worsening injuries but the power of friendship somehow heals him. Diamond doesn't fit him much since that represents nobles and merchants. Hearts actually represent clergy, which is a missed opportunity but oh well.

7/10 - I'm gonna stick my hand in the fire and say he's the sort of christian who doesn't use religion as an excuse to oppress 80% of the human population but to make the world a better place

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

Conclusion

So uhm. Cool group I suppose. I'll get to know them better after reading the main story but for now I don't have a strong opinion on them. I'm surprised to like the the christian guy and the ceiling guy so much. Especially Mayoi with his screen time of not even a 4th of the chapter lol.

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

Afterwords!

After more than a month, I finally managed to read all unit stories and can at last begin reading the "!" and after that the "!!" main story. Only took me until the 4th event in the EN server.......

I have to say, there's solid worldbuilding and it's not all just happy idol stuff, which is pretty neat. That is more or less the norm for most idol games these days and I'm not saying that we need to have brutally serious real life stories but what stands out is that the characters feel.....more 3 dimensional Ig? Like, there are stereotypes of the cute baby one or the outgoing flirt but they're not just that. They have realistic worries that come from working in the idol industry, have other characteristics not exactly befitting that archetype or difficult relationship dynamics bc they're people. They can have real problematic flaws that aren't just "Oh I'm soooo clumsy ><" or "I'm such a glutton hehe" but that's just what I've heard so far, meaning that's not really a complete plus point yet. The mix of this and the wackiness of everything else makes it very interesting so far. (Just like A3! 🥲) Or maybe I just haven't played enough games and am just overrestimating an older franchise.

The music is really good as well. I feel like in idol franchises, the intrumental is often only there to support the singing but here it's actually doing more!!! Like, the instruments compliment the singing and have many layers on their own. I like following different instruments each time I listen to a song for the nth time and see in what way it enriches the song. I guess the fever time or whatever it's called highlights it. The wide range of genres and styles is also a big bonus. And just to say it here bc I can't do it anywhere else: the shuffle unit songs are godly. Not a single miss yet. Noir Neige and Moonlight Disco are the best! For the unit collabs, pretty much half of them are really hitting the spot. The rest is meh. The cover series is H I L A R I O U S and cool if nothing else.

Maybe I'll do a comparison in the future with how I'm feeling about everyone then and my past impressions. But for now, this is the end! If you have anything you wanna share or say, just keep in mind all is for fun and we're here for a good time ^^. Until we meet again~☆

#ensemble stars #enstars #Alkaloid #macaron rambles #it's past 12 am here but maybe somewhere in the world the week hasn't passed yet...#at least it's not at 3am yet #editing took so long...

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echo-bleu · 4 years

Note

hello! I saw one of your previous asks and I was wondering if I could ask you for some writing help too! I have an autistic character that i love, but I'm not sure how to convey that this character is autistic in a way that feel aunthentic and organic instead of stereotyped, specially since she's a girl and I haven't seen many (accurate) representations of autistic girls in the media. I've seen videos about autistic people and they've been very helpful on what not to do, but + I would still love

to get some of the 'do's' what i have so far is that she has a Fixation on the sea, she has a hard time reading sarcasm and/or emotions in others, and she has an overall seemingly 'detached' personality (even if I wouldn't call her that, since she cares about the people she loves, she's just bad at putting it into words). I jsut want to make sure i'm on the right path! thank you so much for listening and I hope this is not a bother!

Hi Anon! I’m not bothered at all and I’m happy to answer this kind of ask. As always, I can only speak for myself, but I’ll try to give you a few pointers. (The previous ask mentioned is this one.)

First, it’s lovely to hear about an autistic girl! I’m not sure if you’re speaking about an adult or a child/teenager, but either way, it can be interesting to read about how autism can look a bit different in women. The gender distinction that has often been made is something I don’t agree with because I feel that it’s an unnecessary shortcut, but a number of autistic people, in majority women and people socially perceived as female, learn to “adapt” more to neurotypical standards by masking their autistic traits a lot, and might not be detected as autistic until adulthood. Masking takes a lot of energy, which can translate as feeling “socially exhausted” all the time and lead to burnout. This article list traits that can be found that are less common and obvious. It is far from perfect imo, but it can give you new ideas!

You didn’t really say if your character is a main or a side character (which changes the amount of detail you’ll want to go into) but so far to me you seem to be on the right track! Having a hard time reading people is something a lot of us struggle with. It might not just be sarcasm, btw, understanding metaphors and jokes can also be hard. That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have a sense of humor: it’s entirely possible to be able to use sarcasm and struggle with noticing it when it comes from other people, and a lot of autistic people have a very developed and specific sense of humor that can be seen as odd.

The “detached” personality is something you may have to handle with care because lack of empathy is a harmful stereotype. Maybe look up the difference between cognitive and affective empathy. Some of us do struggle with empathy, many of us struggle with expressing it in a way that’s comprehensible to neurotypicals, but it doesn’t mean that we lack it. It’s fine for your character to struggle with it, but be careful that she doesn’t end up seeming cold/robotic if she’s not the POV character.

Now for some “do’s”: I’m only going to talk about autistic traits here and assume that you’ve fleshed her out with an actual personality outside of her autism, just like you would any other character.

- I agree that it has to come up organically, but it would be a lot better in terms of representation to make her explicitly autistic, ie use the word autistic. It doesn’t have to be at the beginning of the story. If you’re in a fantasy setting or for some other reason you can’t use the actual word, then describing something like neurodiversity would be a good way to make it explicit. In fanfic, I personally think that tagging “autistic [character]” is enough if the fic is short(ish) and the word isn’t used in the story but the character’s autism is fairly clear, but in an original story, you don’t really have that possibility.

- Something I like to do when coming up with original autistic characters is to choose a few specific stims from them, that regularly come back in my descriptions. It falls under the same umbrella as choosing mannerisms, it gives characters their own specific flavor. You can choose a happy stim, a nervous stim and a bored stim, for example. Autistics stim a lot and in a lot of ways, but I think most of us have a few stims that come back often. It can be things like chewing on a toy/finger, flapping in a specific way, rocking on their heels, twirling hair, fidgeting with a toy or jewelry.

- Sensory differences. It’s also something that you can choose for your character: maybe she likes to listen to music very loudly, and often speak a little too loudly, or on the contrary she’s hyperacusic. She might wear sunglasses outside, or need lights on all the time. She might need subtitles to understand a movie, or be super distracted by sparkly things. She might not make eye contact, or make it too much, or seem to make it by looking somewhere close to the person’s eyes. She might find touch painful or difficult, or seek it constantly, or both (can depend on the moment, how tired she is, or if she trusts the person).

- Like I’ve said before, meltdowns/shutdowns are a delicate thing to portray if you’re not autistic yourself, but overloading can and does happen without going all the way to either of them. It’s actually fairly frequent, and happens when there is too much sensory (or emotional) stimuli at the same time or a too long day or something. From the inside, it can look like struggling to think, feeling like your skin is crawling, feeling like everything is too much, and struggling to initiate actions/figure out the steps to do something. From the outside, it can look like the person is rejecting touch, needs to isolate themself, is irritated, might struggle to speak/be very quiet. As long as the character isn’t mocked for their behavior, I think it’s something you can portray without too much risk.

- A specific interest about the sea is a nice idea! The sea is a very large subject, though, so she’ll probably have a predilection for some things. Is it water currents? Fish species? Underwater plants? Beaches? There’s a lot of options to choose from here.

- Maybe think about co-occuring conditions, because most of us have at least one. Some are very hard to distinguish from autism itself, like dyspraxia or ADHD, because they’re linked or similar to autistic traits. A lot of us are also disabled in some other way: for example there’s a clear (though unexplained) link between autism and hyperflexibility, which can lead to joint pain, gut issues and chronic illnesses like EDS. Many of us have mental illnesses, growing up autistic in this world is honestly traumatizing and it’s hard to find autistics without some kind of C-PTSD or anxiety (on that subject, this post points out that the current diagnostic criteria can probably only diagnose traumatized autistic people anyway).

- A pretty good portrayal of an autistic girl (and to my knowledge the only one where the actor is also autistic) is Matilda in Everything’s Gonna be Okay. I didn’t actually watch until the end and I’ve been told the last episode isn’t great, but the start was pretty good. She’s a teenager, and at one point gets a girlfriend who is also autistic and has a service dog. In Elementary, while Sherlock is only autistic-coded, there is at one point (season 4 I believe) a recurring character named Fiona who I thought was a pretty good portrayal as well. She’s an adult, and she’s stereotypical in some ways but it’s better than most portrayals I’ve seen or read.

I would advise you to have a look through the blog @cripplecharacters. They answer asks about disabled characters, and I know they have answered a number of questions about autism and have at least one autistic mod. Their answers are usually very interesting!

#Anonymous #asks #autism #actually autistic #autistic characters #writing resources #disabled characters

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simpsiren · 4 years

Text

about the roommate

park seonghwa x reader

main masterlist

description. you talk about your weird relationship with the roommate you’ve been with for so long yet still dont know much about

genre. roommates au, fluff, seonghwa hinting at reader that they like them

warnings. nonee

a/n. hihii so i wanted to try writing for ateez since ive been doing a lot of nct ff already. its my first time so i doubt that it’ll be accurate but i got the idea from this post by @darling-akaashi so i hope it will be decent. i never thought that it would be this long but oh well HAHA enjoyy :D

how did you even become roommates with someone like him? you dont even know. all you knew was that you were finding someone to share the apartment rent with and it just so happens that your friend at college, wooyoung, has a friend who was looking for an apartment.

and now here you are. a year and a half of sharing an apartment with seonghwa yet the two of you are in your separate rooms. the only interaction you ever made today was at breakfast where seonghwa cooked for you scrambled eggs and toasted bread.

there’s wasn’t much you knew about him at first. but as you slowly but surely try to accomplish your mission of getting to know seonghwa (since you didn’t like being awkward with people all the time), you start to learn a thing or two about him.

you were glad that after a year and a half of staying with him, you got to know more about him, despite the fact that the interaction between the two of you still needed some work.

[ONE] : he’s a clean freak.

you were feeling tired from a long day of school and all you thought of doing while walking home was to sit on the couch and resume your anime marathon.

you unlock your door to find seonghwa mopping the floor. you nod your head slowly as you close the door and take off your shoes before taking any step further.

“didnt you mop the floor yesterday?” you ask, placing your keys on the kitchen counter along with your bag on the chair of the dining table.

“yeah.” was all you heard from seonghwa as you pour yourself a glass of grape juice. “you dont have to mop again-“

“its a habit.” seonghwa replies simply. with your cup in hand, you make your way to the living room, where seonghwa is currently mopping. you take a seat on the couch and grab the controller to turn on the tv. “hey wanna watch attack on titans with me?” seonghwa was mopping the floor in between the couch you’re sitting on and the coffee table and stops in front of you, raising an eyebrow.

“i dont watch anime?” you furrow your eyebrows and frown. “come on its fun! stop your cleaning and at least watch one episode.” you grab seonghwa’s arm and pull him down to sit next to you, making him flinch a little and quickly placing the mop beside the couch.

“how am i suppose to watch when i dont know what happened before?” you roll your eyes.

“if you find this episode good then you can watch it from the start in your free time.”

seonghwa sighs and and stands up, walking away to keep the mop before taking a seat beside you again and getting comfortable. “this better be worth it. im suppose to clean the toilet right now.”

“that can wait.” you nudge your arm into his chest, making him let out another long sigh before watching the show silently.

[ONE.2]

it was a saturday morning as you went to sleep at 4am. hence, making you wake up at 11am in the morning. however, you have always been laying around in your bed for about an hour or so before getting out of your room. when the clock striked 12, you thought that it would be a good idea to get out of your room and have lunch. gathering up all your energy, you brought yourself out of bed and lazily walk out of your room.

as you walked down the hallway, the first thing you saw was seonghwa cleaning the counter top of the kitchen. you clicked your tongue and walked over to where seonghwa was.

“did you make lunch yet?”

seonghwa looks up at you and shakes his head. “its a saturday so im spring cleaning the house.” you rolled your eyes and shake your head.

“you do that every single day!” you whine. seonghwa raises his eyebrow. “i like to keep the house neat unlike you.” you let out a soft ‘tsk’.

you have to admit, you were not a clean person at all. the only reason why the apartment is clean is because of seonghwa’s habit of being well organised and meticulous. basically everything in the apartment but your room is squeaky clean. although you see seonghwa staring at your room and looked like he’s holding back the strong urge to clean it for you, he doesn’t really do anything about the fact that you are the complete opposite of him. you dont know why but you only shrug it off.

“ill help you today, alright? then you can quickly cook something up for us. im hella hungry right now.”

seonghwa lifts his head up from the table and scoffs with a slight smile. you furrow your eyebrows and frown. “what’s that face for, huh?”

“this is the first time you offered to help. id say thank you but i know you’re only doing it because we both know im the only one that can cook.” seonghwa says confidently. you purse your lips and nodded your head.

“you’re right. but i’ll still help. so, what should i do?” seonghwa tosses the cloth that he was using to clean the kitchen counter. you took a step back as you quickly got a hold of it.

“wash it and wipe the bookshelf.” you let out a long sigh before flashing him a bright smile and headed over to the bookshelf. while you were wiping the sides of the bookshelf, you could have sworn that you saw seonghwa looking at you with a smile and a light blush of pink on his cheeks. you pretended not to notice though, and shrug it off.

[TWO] : he’s a great cook.

you still remember the first day you came to the apartment. the first thing you see your new roommate doing was cleaning. like intense cleaning. it was late at night and you didn’t bother to even greet the stranger since you felt awkward and wanted to rest for the night.

however, at about two in the morning, you were laying down in your room when you felt the need to have a night snack. you stepped out of your room and went to the kitchen. the whole apartment was dark except for the dimly lit lamp at the kitchen. you jumped a little when you hear seonghwa’s voice coming from the living room.

“y/n?” you turn around to see seonghwa chilling on the couch with his phone. the living room was completely dark and you could only see his face from the light illuminating from his phone.

“i was just getting a snack to eat.” you said as you opened the fridge to look for something to eat. unfortunately, there wasnt anything that looked like it would fill your midnight appetite. you hear seonghwa standing up from the couch at the back and walking towards you. you tilted your head to the back and see seonghwa standing behinf you. you tale a step back.

“i can cook something if you want.”

“no no its fine i just need a simple snack.” seonghwa kept quiet for a moment as you went back to the fridge to look for food again, as if something might magically pop up. but of course nothing did.

“well i didnt think of getting any snacks when i moved in. ill make something.” seonghwa walks over to the fridge and nudges your arm, making you move to the kitcen counter and leaning your hip against it as you watch seonghwa get to work.

you were looking through your phone, distracted when you heard the noise of two bowls being olaced on the table. you lift your head up and noticed that seonghwa made yoghurt with cherries and raspberries. it wasnt your idea of a midnight snack but at this point, anything could go in your stomach.

“thanks.” you whisper softly as you drag the bowl near to you. seonghwa only hums in response as the two of you take a bite at the same time. your mouth gapes open as your head slowly tilts up from your bowl to look at seonghwa. he was casually eating when his raises an eyebrow at your weird expression.

“how.. how does this taste so good? what did you do it? did you poison it?!” seonghwa blinks at you a few times and shakes his head slowly. your forehead creases as you look at him suspiciously. “i never really liked yoghurt but holy shit.” you quickly take another bite.

“i think you’re just hungry. it tastes fine to me.” seonghwa says in a monotoned lazy manner and grabs the bowl and taking a seat at the dining table. you purse your lips into a straight line and grab your bowl as well and walking down the hallway to your room. before you open your door to go in, you quickly turn your head to the dining table.

“thanks for the yoghurt! ill wash the bowl later.” seonghwa doesnt react, keeping his eyes on his phone. you gave a weird look before heading inside. you sigh.

he’s going to be hard to talk to.

[TWO.2]

“its your birthday, right?” your jumped in your seat when seonghwa suddenly appeared beside you on the couch. “uhuh.. how’d you know?” you say softly, nodding your head.

“wooyoung told me. lll make you a cake or something. anything you want to eat?” you blink at him a few times, your mouth still gaping open as you were shocked about a few things. 1. he talking to you in a more open matter and 2. he actually want to make you something for your birthday.

“make me mac and cheese, please! i love the way you cook it!” you smiled brightly. seonghwa smiled back and coughed, only to return to his monotoned face. you laugh softly. you found it cute somehow.

“i wouldn’t have allowed it since its unhealthy but since its your birthday-”

“thank you!” you leaned in to hug seonghwa. the didnt hug you back, so you quickly pulled away. you noticed him blushing again, this time it was more obvious. you shook it off, despite knowing you felt butterflies in your stomach. “ill go out to get groceries then.” seonghwa stands up from the couch and heads inside his room to get ready.

you smiled to yourself constantly as you waited for seonghwa to finish making the mac and cheese. you sigh in satisfaction as the smell of the delicious food fills the air in the apartment. you tapped your feet excitedly as you had your eyes glued onto seonghwa with the pan in his hands. your face lit up the moment the starts walking towards you. you clap your hands as he places it down on the dining table.

“fuck it smells and looks to good.” you moan out. seonghwa lets out a soft laugh, making you blush just from hearing him do that. “if i made this any other day, i would’ve asked you to pay for the groceries.” you roll your eyes.

“come on dont be rude to me.” you grab a fork and spoon, bringing your plate near the pan and cutting out a slice for yourself. “thanks for the mac and cheese.” seonghwa only nods his head and took a slice for himself before the two of you ate together slowly, indulging the savoury and amazing taste of one of seonghwa’s best dishes he has ever made dor you.

you appreciated times like thae with seonghwa. alrhough not much interaction was made during meal times, you really felt that he cared for you. making meals you like on special occasions, and he’s always asking you what you want to eat, despite the fact that he might not be comfortable with the idea, he doesn’t fail to whip up a great meal. you liked that about seonghwa.

[THREE] : he’s a great listener.

you basically the worse day that day. for some reason, everything just had to go wrong. the only thing you felt the whole day were anger and sadness, more so towards anger. it was late at night yet you were still fuming in anger, only wanting to let it all out the moment you stepped into the apartment.

you unlocked the door and dropped your bag beside you and slammed the door shut. of course the piercing sound of the door made seonghwa lift his head up in an instant. you notice him laying down on the couch with his phone and usual.

stomping over to the kitchen, you pour yourself a glass of cold water. you chugged the whole cup of water fast and forcefully place the cup on the counter. you clearly felt seonghwa’s eyes on you. you look up from your cup and notice him looking shocked, his mouth gaping open slightly.

“what?” you said, running your hand through your hair in frustration.

“you okay...?” you hear seonghwa ask. “does it look like im okay? today felt as if i entered a shit hole.” you huff. you made your way over to the couch, leaving your empty cup on the counter.

“move your ass.” you hiss at seonghwa. he raises an eyebrow and gets up from his laying position, proceeding to sit up and let you take a seat beside him.

you sit down and let your body sink into the couch, laying your head back as you sigh to calm yourself down. “what happened?” seonghwa whispers, putting away his phone and turning his attention to you.

you purse your lips into a thin line and slowly looked up at him. his eyes were filled with concern and his voice was gentle too. he hasn’t been this concerned about you before.

“apparently i got my best friend to dress up all cute and fancy so that she can have a date with my boyfriend behind my back.” you scoff in disbelief, shaking your head. you see seonghwa licking his lips nervously as he nodded his head.

“a shit show if you ask me. i saw him waiting for her in front of the shop i was working at.” you grab the pillow behind you and hug it close to your chest with you digging your face into it. “just how cruel can people get?” your voice was muffled but you knew seonghwa heard you loud and clear. you felt his hand resting on your back, patting it gently.

“its fine. rant all you want.” you took a deep breath and slammed the pillow onto your lap. you felt that it made seonghwa jump a little but he never fails to keep his composure in check. you could never be like him.

the night, all you did was talk, cried and screamed your heart out. and seonghwa was there to just listen to you. he didn’t react much, but he did nod a few times hear and there to let you know that he understood what you were saying. he wasnt so affectionate that he would hug you when you cried, but it felt good to just have him sit there with you while you let out all your anger and frustration. you figured that having him as your listener was his way of showing comfort for you.

[THREE.2]

it was 4am. you and seonghwa have been drinking since 2am. why? you had a bad day and you felt rhe need to destress with some alcohol. seonghwa wouldn’t have allowed you to get drunk but he was apparently having a bad day too and felt like he wanted to get a little drunk to forget everything that day.

“dont you know how fucking stupid that is? it only happens to me. why?!” you groan as you take down another shot. seonghwa fills up your cup again.

“just forget them. they’re being idiots.” seonghwa whispers. you gap your mouth open and roll your eyes. “how can i forgot something like that?!” you shout angrily, slamming your hand on the table. seonghwa laughs in a lazy manner.

“you’re cute when you’re mad.”

“excuse me?” you tilt your head to the side, wondering if you heard seonghwa’s words clearly.

“nothing.” you shrug it off and shake your head.

“by the way..” you started off. seonghwa lifts his head up from the table and lets out a ‘hm?’

“why arent you telling me why you’re drinking? you don’t normally do this. you dont even let me drink unless its a special occasion. i rarely see you drunk.”

seonghwa raises both his eyebrows and sigh. “i had a bad day. but yours sounds worse so ill let you do all the ranting.” seonghwa starts playing with his shot glass, circling his index finger around its rim.

you clicked your tongue. “but its always been about me. you cook me my favourite meals, you do all the cleaning and you’re always here for me when im pissed. i feel bad about it..” you quickly glance at seonghwa. its the blushing again. you started to accept the fact that you had an effect on him, instead of avoiding the fact that he might have feelings for you.

“i guess im always doing those things because...” he leans forward over the table, getting close to your face. you start to grow nervous and your heart started beating quickly. you held a fist to your chest, breathing slowly to calm you down, but it failed. its the first time you’ve seem seonghwa like this. he looked... hot?

“do you know the answer?” seonghwa asks, tilting his head to the side as you watch his eyes glaze over you whole face as if he’s admiring every inch of it.

“no?” your breathing stopped for a moment when seonghwa gets even closer. this time, your noses were touching. seonghwa chuckles lowly. why did that sound so good all of a sudden?

“i know that you know. i wonder why you’re shying away.” seonghwa’s lips immediately connected with yours. you blinked your eyes rapidly as you tried to process the situation. you couldn’t hold back. his lips felt great against yours. its like all the worries that have been piling up in you have been washed away from a simple kiss.

who knew you’d get this close to your mysterious roommate? its a drastic start to a good relationship nonetheless.

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