#despite the fact that she messaged me on that day
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While we're still wrapping our minds around the election results...
Can I introduce you to the Bkheet family?
Yahya Bkheet (@yahyabkheet-blog and @yahyabkheeblog) is a father of three who used to work in a coffee and spice factory. His wife, Sharbat, was a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) specialist, and recently celebrated her 28th birthday on Oct 31.
[Image source: x]
Their children are:
Mira: an intelligent girl who loves playing, reading, and writing. At night, she cries herself to sleep from hunger pains. Recently, Mira also caught the flu, which her parents couldn't provide her any medicine for.
Dima: equally intelligent and studious, she's also like me, someone who loves to swim!🏊 In other matters of good taste, Dima loves fried potatoes. Everyday, she asks her father to buy some for her, but he is unable, as potatoes cost $23 per kg, and a bottle of frying oil $15.
Anas: is, despite everything, a joyful boy who loves to play and make his family laugh. What he wants more than anything, his father says, is eggs, which cost $2.30 for the price of one! He also suffers from skin disease from drinking polluted water, which is incredibly dangerous for one so young, if left untreated.
Yahya also has an elderly mother he is taking care of, who suffers from heart disease and diabetes, without any means to afford treatment.
Yahya's family is currently living in a damaged tent, and are asking for your help to rent a house for the winter.
What can we do?
Despite the fact that their gofundme page has been up since May 16, they are still sitting at €6,062 / €30,000, and have only raised €6 today! Two days ago, Yahya told me he was unable to feed his children at all that day, and was in despair. When he spoke to me, he sounded defeated:
Do not let Yahya abandon all hope now!
I do not believe that none of you have any money, especially considering the results of that parent income poll @serial-unaliver has done in the past. Even if you're not in touch with those parents, why wouldn't you be willing to lose a little comfort to provide some for others? You could give up take-out. You could walk to work instead of taking the bus/Uber. You could get donation food for the week and give up your grocery money to others in greater need.
Help Yahya buy some groceries today!
Fried potato ingredients + a dozen eggs: $46 + $15 + $27.60 = $88.60
Don't let his children go hungry again today. I have donated €33. Can anyone else contribute something similar?
This fundraiser has been vetted here and here.
(tagging for further reach- pls message me for removal from the taglist):
@neechees @noble-kale @captainsaltymuyfancy @neptunerings @khanger
@postanagramgenerator @maester-cressen @doublycharming-tetraquark @claudia-de-lioncourt @claudiaeparvier
@heritageposts @ot3 @ankle-beez @2spirit-0spoons @dlxxv-vetted-donations
@strangeauthor @socalgal @beserkerjewel @anneemay @feluka
@a-shade-of-blue @determinate-negation @diasdelasombra @cuntylouis @halalchampagnesocialist
@lamngen @rhubarbspring @heydreamchild @lesbianmaxevans @wellwaterhysteria
@prisonhannibal @finalgirlabigailhobbs @hotgirlmeg @rosyish @undecimber-of-joy
@maoistyuri @girlinafairytale @foamingatthemeowth @tortiefrancis @turtletoria
@greed-the-dorkalicious @heliopixels @thatdiabolicalfeminist @terezbian @greetings-fiends
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@sar-soor @mossbawn @murderbot @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @stuckinapril
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Bitten Bullet
Previous Chapter First Chapter Next Chapter
-ˋˏ➛ Chapter 2: Just You
-ˋˏ➛ Call of Duty
-ˋˏ➛ Suggestive
-ˋˏ➛ Simon "Ghost" Riley/Reader
-ˋˏ➛ Strangers to Lovers, Civilian Reader, Slow Build
-ˋˏ➛ 8k Words
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He was a bit of an enigma to you; the fact he saw fit to spend time with you made him even more so in your opinion.
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Read on AO3
You stare blankly at your phone.
You lay flat on your back on the bed, almost completely swallowed up by blankets, your phone screen the brightest light source in your dark room.
It’s the night after Simon gave you his number. It’s the night where you are wracking your head for what to text him for the first time.
In your mind, you have to text him tonight. You didn’t want him to think you didn’t want his company. Yesterday you tried to think of something to say too, but nothing clicked.
You stare at your phones virtual keyboard, your thumb hovering over letters but never pressing them. You’re on the screen to send Simon something.
You wonder if he’s asleep, or if he’s awake like you; if he’s a night owl or has difficulty sleeping.
The thought of him sleeping puts the thought of him without his mask in your head. You wonder what he looks like under there. You wonder if he’s waiting on you to text or call like how you’re waiting for your nerves to settle to do one of those things.
You’ve been laying here for what feels like hours.
Maybe just a simple text telling him it was you—so that he could save your number in return—was enough.
That’s what you end up going with. You make sure to include your name and some mildly identifiable information—‘the one that works at a bookstore, you walked me home again yesterday’—and hit send before you become too embarrassed.
You click the power button on your phone to make the screen go dark and you bury yourself under your blankets, your heart pounding as though you just ran a marathon.
When you wake in the morning you pace your morning routine as not to rush. You were putting off checking your messages due to nerves. It wasn’t as if the slower you went would change anything, but it made you feel better to put it off for now.
You make up your bed. You brush your teeth. You shower. You don’t check your phone.
It isn’t until you’ve dried off and redressed that you finally built up the nerve to see if Simon replied to you. He did. There’s a tornado of butterflies in your stomach.
‘Got it.’ Was all he replied. You felt oddly relieved, you weren’t sure what you were so nervous about—Simon didn’t seem the type to be a texter, anyway. That was fine, you were certain many people weren’t. You were just pleased he responded at all.
Your phone hangs loosely in your palm as you walk to the kitchen to have something for breakfast. Thoughts pass your mind, all about Simon.
Another day passes. You fall back into a mundane routine. You haven’t texted Simon since, you’re not sure how to initiate conversation with him, despite your borderline desperate longing to do so.
Chloe told you earlier today that she would be with her sister for another two weeks, that her sister and the baby are healthy but she just wants to be with them. Chloe sounds happy, you’re happy for her.
It’s yet another late night that you can’t sleep. You’re in a cocoon of blankets trying not to stare at your phone—you remember reading somewhere about ‘blue light’ and sleep disruption. It takes a few minutes of you laying as still as a statue until you drift off.
A booming, revving noise makes you jump awake, gasping for air.
The motorcycle again. Your phone is in your hand before you know it.
‘I heard a motorcycle just now. Was that you by any chance?’
You hit send before your doubts can creep up and paralyze you. You hastily click it off and set it on the nightstand to lay back in the bed.
You’re not sure exactly how much time passes between that text being sent and now, just that it feels like forever. Now that you thought of it, you suppose someone would have to pull over first to do anything on their phone on a motorcycle.
You were expecting the notification ping of a new text message, so you jolt upright when your phone begins to ring.
You stare at the now lit up screen of your phone with wide eyes and lips parted in mild shock. On the third ring you snap yourself out of it and make yourself answer.
“Hello?” Your voice wavers and you clear your throat. You mentally wince.
“Hey,” the low sound of him on the other end gives you excited jitters. “Did I wake you?” He sounds careful, a barely-there softness to his voice that makes your hands get increasingly fidgety.
“No, no. I’m just a light sleeper, is all.” You mutter, huffing out a soft laugh in a nervous reflex.
He hums, and then there’s silence.
Not quite silence but close enough because Simon isn’t saying anything. You think you can hear the soft rumble of an engine in the background on the other end. You wonder if he pulled in a gas station to refuel, or if he returned home for the night but decided to call you before heading in.
You think Simon is alright with it—the lulls in conversation. You could relate to an extent, you were quiet too, but he definitely was more self-assured than you. He never felt the impulse to unnecessarily fill the silence with chatter.
You’re so deep in thought that when he speaks again it almost makes you flinch in surprise.
“Are you free tomorrow?”
Your mouth feels dry, you have to swallow before you can speak. “Uh, no, I have work—“
“Day after?” Flat and to the point, he isn’t deterred one bit.
“Yes. I-I’d be free then.” Your heartbeat feels like a drum.
You hesitate before asking; “Why?”
There’s a pause, you can’t tell what Simon is thinking, only that his reply is spoken bluntly.
“Got a second helmet yesterday.”
The day is bright and beautiful, the sky is blue and the warm sun is a welcome contrast to the chilly autumn breeze. Your eyes are trained on the road and your ears are especially attuned to anything that sounds like a motorcycle.
After the call Simon texted you a time and a place. You spent the entirety of yesterday thinking about today, and now you were fiddling with your hands in an attempt to dissipate the nervous energy in your limbs.
Here you were about to get on the back of a bike owned by a man you had a chance encounter with at a bar—a man you had grown increasingly intrigued by and even tentatively fond of, but that was beside the point. You think you’re being more daring than you ever had in your entire life precisely because you were becoming keenly aware of the fact your comfort zone was suffocating you.
It doesn’t change the mild absurdity of the situation.
‘I don’t even drink.’
You find yourself checking your phone periodically for the time, Simon would be coming in a few minutes.
You couldn’t believe you were doing this. But then again, you couldn’t believe you met Simon at all, let alone kept in touch with him.
He wasn’t a stranger anymore, he was an acquaintance now, surely. You still had so many musings about him, curiosities that had yet to be sated; but you held back. You didn’t want to overstep a potential boundary.
But that didn’t change the fact you curious about him.
You wanted to get a close look at his tattoos. You wanted to know the story behind each one—assuming there was one to be told—and when he got them.
You wanted to know what his laugh sounded like.
You wanted to know what he looked like.
You wanted to know if he wondered about you like you did him.
You wanted to be able to say you knew him, not just an awareness of his existence but a deeper knowledge of him as a person.
You waffle back and forth with your thoughts. ‘He’s the one that offered to take me on his bike,’ you remind yourself in intervals. It works for calming your nerves, but only for a short while.
Your mind combs over things about Simon you do know.
He’s in the military.
He likes motorcycles.
He smokes.
He always wears a mask.
He, for some reason, is keeping in contact with you.
And he is also about to pull up to you.
Your mind belatedly catches up with your senses. You hear the revving first then you see Simon—and the bike—in the distance.
It’s like all of your self-soothing methods were for naught. Your stomach flutters with frenzied nerves and you shift your weight on your feet repeatedly in an effort to shake off some of the jitters.
A part of you wasn’t expecting him to actually show up.
You don’t know much about motorcycles, you couldn’t tell what kind it was by looking at it. It was black and shiny, the metal bits of it reflected the sunlight.
Simon looks in his element on it. More than competent. Your legs feel wobbly.
He rolls up and his boots settle on the ground, then his heel pushes out the kickstand. You can tell it’s a motion he has done many times before, there’s no hesitation or carefulness to it.
Simon flips up his visor. His eyes take you in, lingering for a moment on your fidgeting, gloved hands—the gloves he gave to you—then back up to you.
He dismounts his bike, a lazy cadence to his movements. Your face feels warmer all of the sudden.
His helmet comes off much the same way, he’s wearing a mask like you expected, and denim jeans and a thick hoodie. He rests the helmet on the seat of the bike for now. In the sunlight his cropped blond hair reminds you of straw.
“Nervous, are you?” He nods down towards your hands. You tuck them in your pockets.
“A little, yes.”
He grunts. “Don’t be,” he meanders to the back of the bike and opens up the trunk box attached to it. “I won’t be goin’ above the speed limit. Not while you’re with me.” His tone is almost protective. You’re not familiar with that tone general, it makes your insides feel fuzzy.
He pulls out another helmet. Your heart rate doesn’t go any slower.
Simon comes over to you with the helmet tucked underneath his muscular arm. Your hands are about to extend outwards to take it from him, but he takes another step forward.
He takes the helmet from under his arm holds it out. “Gonna put this on ya now.”
He says it slowly, almost tentative. His eyes are so intensely trained on you that you almost feel self conscious. Your mind swims, a vast sea of uncontrollable thoughts.
Your brain catches up in slow motion. Simon interprets your silence as a green light to continue.
It’s no-nonsense and straight to the point, but for you it feels like an eternity. You are paralyzed in place and looking straight ahead to avoid his gaze—straight ahead just so happens to be his broad chest, which fills up most of your vision.
He’s careful yet swift with placing the helmet on your head, his gloved thumbs brush over your cheek incidentally as he settles it on you. His palms almost encompass your entire face.
‘His hands are big.’ You realize helplessly.
It wasn’t like you’ve never seen his hands before, it just was that there was something about having said hands in such close proximity that made you starkly aware of their true scale.
You don’t have to wonder if there’s callouses or nicks on his hands, you’re so confident in your assumption that it would be more of a shock if there wasn’t.
It wouldn’t stretch your imagination too far to twist the brief, unintended contact into the image of him cupping your face instead. Your stomach swoops and you mentally berate yourself, mortified.
He demonstrates how to flip the visor up and down and how to take it off yourself. You find it remarkably difficult to absorb his instructions even despite your apt attention.
Then Simon’s eyes narrow questioningly down at you. Your heart lurches for a moment, he must have said something that should have prompted you to answer, but you were much too preoccupied with dousing the fire growing in your face and breathing slow to steady the rabbit-kicks between your lungs.
“Listen, if you’re not up for this—“
“I-I want to.”
You surprise yourself with your sudden insistence. The words tumble from your mouth inelegantly and rapidly. You truly wanted to crawl under a rock in that moment, you felt as though your desperation for human connection couldn’t have been more obvious. Rationally you knew that your blurted out reply could be understood as mere excitement, but you weren’t being very rational right now.
Fortunately, you don’t spiral further into self-deprecation as you are not given much of a chance to, not when Simon utters a single word that has your mind scrambling for a reason you’re not certain of.
Simon’s head slants ever so slightly, a look in his eye that you’d almost call amused. “Good.”
Something in the timbre of his voice reminds you of the fact that very soon you will be in the closest proximity you’ve ever been with him—or with any man for that matter. Hugging your male family members didn’t count.
He takes one step backwards away from you before turning on his heel and approaching the bike to put his own helmet back on.
“Alright,” he starts with an authoritative edge to his tone that makes you pay attention. “When we go around corners don’t lean. If we get on the road and you’re too nervous just tap me and we’ll pull over, won’t be able to hear you that well unless we’re stopped.”
His speech isn’t harsh but it demands attention. Your eyes are wide, you’re nodding along. You wonder if he’s done this before—give people direction. It sounds like it. You are reminded of his job, military, he told you.
“Understand?” He crosses his arms over his chest, tilts his head at you.
You nod. “I understand.”
He tips his head slightly forward in a single gesture of acknowledgment, seemingly pleased with your answer. He goes towards the bike, one hand on the handlebar and the other near the back.
Then, with an effortless amount of strength, he tugs the bike forward along with the momentum of taking a large step. The kickstand rolls up and away.
Your mouth goes dry when some ancient, primitive part of your brain shudders in delight. You shift your eyes away and downwards at your feet, burning and mortified.
Simon settles himself on the bike, his long leg easily swinging over the side. He then motions you to come over with a single croon of his two fingers. Your heart is a drum.
With every step to him your nerves rise in anticipation, excited and electrified. You’ve never been on the back of a bike before.
When you come around to the side of the bike you pause. You find yourself once again thinking of how his presence will be adjacent to yours once you sit down behind him.
“Just swing your leg over it.” He supplies, acknowledging your hesitancy but being unaware of the deeper source.
You make yourself do it, lest you tick him off to the whirlwind going on inside your head.
You had to throw your leg wider than you were expecting, your shaky legs didn’t help you much. You were fearful that you would lose balance, but somehow scrambled on the back of it in one piece.
Your knee brushes against his hip incidentally, it’s barely a second of contact but you jerk your leg away like you had been burned regardless.
With how hot your face was feeling, you might as well have been.
It was an almost uncomfortable contrast; the heat of your body yet the chill on your skin due to the breeze. Your palms felt clammy in your gloves.
You pressed yourself as far back as you could on the seat, which wasn’t much considering the minuscule amount of space you were working with. The way you were seated was a bit awkward, it would be all too easy to scoot yourself forward to get more comfortable, but then you’d be pressed against his back.
“Settled?” Asks Simon. You nod, but then sputter when you realize he can’t see you.
“Yes.” You clear your throat.
There’s a pause that stretches on long enough that you were worried you said something wrong somehow, you begin to analyze your conversation up until this point to try and figure out what, but before you can begin combing through your memories in earnest Simon speaks up.
“You can hold on if you need to.”
For a moment you don’t know what to say.
“Okay.”
And Simon just waits, almost expectant. He gave you the go ahead to hold onto him,and now he’s seemingly waiting for you to do exactly that. You weren’t even on the road yet.
He said you could. You would be lying if you said you didn’t want to.
You move in increments. Your hands reach out slowly in front of you, slow enough that you don’t think Simon is aware you even are. Then you lurch forward, and there’s no discretion about it.
You move up in the seat, your arms hover over his sides, and—
Two hundred-something pounds of muscle suddenly becomes less abstract.
He’s solid. You can’t even wrap your arms around him entirely. You feel dizzy.
Your hands are laid flat and stiff over his abdomen, you can feel the steady rise and fall of him as he breathes. You imagine his heartbeat, strong and anchored. Not at all like yours, which was pounding with an almost frenzied electricity.
He shifts a little in his seat, he’s only getting comfortable but you are panicked that he’s attempting to nudge you off, so you lift your hands off him.
His hand, which completely wraps around your wrist, comes down to reposition your hands where they were previously.
It’s so fast yet so absentminded that you are convinced it’s more of a reflex than a conscious move.
He says nothing. You say nothing. Your palms rest against him.
The engine roars especially loud suddenly, you jump against him in surprise.
Your stomach swirls with nerves.
“Hold on.” His voice is raised just enough so that he can be heard over the noise. You find your fingers curling to clutch onto him when the bike begins to slowly move forward, turning to pull out into the road.
You cling ever tighter.
Any and all semblance of personal space is disregarded when he begins to ride in earnest.
He doesn’t go over the speed limit just like he promised, but it doesn’t change the fact that you were still trembling behind him. You hug onto him tight when he goes on the highway. If it bothers him he makes no show of it—verbal or otherwise.
You feel even smaller pressed up against him like this, his broad back filling your vision to the point that if you wanted to comfortably see what was in front of you, you’d have to try and sit up and look over his shoulder.
The sound of the wind whipping past you is almost static to your ears. You’re caught between two separate strains of nerves, one from anxiety over being on a bike for the first time, the other from the rapid pace of your heart thanks to the sturdy man you were clinging onto for support.
It makes your hands jittery and your stomach swoop. When you go around a turn for the first time your hands squeeze him like your life depended on it. You doubted it bothered him, considering how he eclipsed you in every way.
He comes to a stop at a red light.
“How are you holdin’ up?” His calls over the hum of the engine, his helmet muffling the sound somewhat.
“Good!” You call back to him, moving one of your hands to give him a small, yet shaky, thumbs up.
His chest rises and falls sharp and quick, a short chuckle. You can’t hear it. It makes your heart feel warm nonetheless.
As the ride goes on your nerves melt away bit by bit. You find comfort in Simon’s solidity.
It was when you relaxed somewhat that it dawns on you that you had no clue as to where he was taking you—if anywhere at all. He didn’t really specify anything other than a time and place to collect you.
Time ticks by, the feeling of Simon’s presence so close to your own becomes increasingly familiar. It still doesn’t rid you of the occasional fluttering of butterflies in your stomach, much to your chagrin. It wasn’t an awful thing to feel small in such a way with Simon—far from it; the issue was how embarrassed it made you.
You went out of your way to ensure your thoughts never crossed that line you drew for yourself, but as you were holding onto his broad midsection it became an increasingly daunting task.
So lost in thought you are that you do not notice that he has turned into somewhere until the bike goes slower than you were expect. You sit up just a little in your seat in an attempt to look over his shoulder the best you could.
It’s a quaint little restaurant. A sign with chalkboard written on it sat out in front of the entrance, informing potential patrons that they were still serving breakfast.
He parks the motorcycle. Then he waits, and waits. It isn’t until he shoots you a glance over his shoulder that you realize he’s waiting for you to get off the bike first.
You dismount as carefully as possible, but you can’t shake the feeling you look awkward regardless, like a newborn filly. Once both of your feet are firmly planted on the ground Simon follows.
You are reminded to take off your helmet when Simon does. Once it’s off your head you hand it to him, wordlessly waiting for him to confirm your assumption that he just took you to breakfast.
He takes your helmet with two of his thick fingers hooked into it, then he’s placing both helmets back in the trunk box. Your eyes dart from him to your feet in random intervals. You were still wrapping your head around the idea of breakfast with Simon.
You’re not certain of what to say, if anything. Thanking him right at this moment felt too presumptuous, so you hold off on that. When he clicks the box shut he regards you for a moment, observant.
When your eyes meet you give him a small smile, it’s more of a reflex if anything. Whatever was there disappears, his posture eases.
“C’mon.” He beckons with a nod of his head towards the building. Looks like you were having breakfast after all.
You are quick to follow. You notice his steps are slower to make up for your shorter strides.
Subconsciously, you are walking closer together than before. You notice it only when the fabric of your jacket brushes against him. You flinch and yank your arm away. You’re about to sputter out an apology.
But Simon remains impassive, almost as if nothing unusual occurred, like you didn’t accidentally cross over into his personal space.
The thought of your hand in his is an unbidden one.
Simon opens the door for you. You tell him ‘thank you’ in a hushed tone as you skitter inside.
The inside is just as quaint as the outside. There aren’t many people within, it’s small but not claustrophobic. The primary decor is wood and earth tones, the scent of coffee drifts across the air invitingly.
“Any preference?” You blink up at him, momentarily at a loss for what he was asking.
‘Seating preferences,’ you realize belatedly. “No.”
You and Simon end up seated at a table in the far back. Simon takes the seat facing the entrance.
He’s leaned back lazily in the chair across from you, It was sturdy enough to hold his weight. His legs are spread in nonchalantly and his arms rests across his thighs. His eyes are half-lidded.
This is the most relaxed you’ve ever seen him.
This is also the first time you are acutely aware of Simon’s legs. They’re thick and long, his denim jeans cling to his limbs as his legs stretch the material out. The jeans weren’t tight or form fitting, just that he was so well-muscled he ended up filling most of the space in them out.
His voice startles you out of your observations. “Get whatever you want.”
You feel embarrassed, even though Simon can’t read your mind it doesn’t stop the heat crawling up your neck. You sheepishly lean forward in your seat to skim over the menu, your hands still neatly folded in your lap. Then you glance up at Simon.
“Thank you.”
He simply nods.
“I like this place.” You suddenly say.
Simon cocks his head. “Do you, now?” You ignore how the rough timbre in his voice gives you pleasant butterflies.
“I do. It’s very…” Your brows knit together as you search for the word. “…Rustic. I like it.”
“Had a feeling you would.”
You force yourself to read the menu to help you get your mind off of your increasing body temperature.
“What will you be getting?” You ask after a minute or so of comfortable silence.
Simon doesn’t bristle, but you can’t ignore the almost exasperated tone in his voice, like he’s had this conversation before and is already bracing himself to have it again.
“Nothing.”
You peek up at him. He holds your stare. He eases a little when you don’t push the subject any further.
His following words are more neutral in tone, a clear change of subject. “Get what you want.” Simon points to the menu with his eyes.
You do exactly that.
Eggs, potatoes and bacon sounded delightful, so that was what you ended up getting.
You just ordered, so there still would be some time until your food came.
This was uncharted territory for you. You’ve never been on a bike or had a man take you somewhere to eat, two new things in a single day; that was a very welcome rarity for you.
“Do you come here a lot?” Now that you were in such a setting with Simon you found yourself more conversational than usual. There was a desire to know more about him, no matter how mundane. He was a bit of an enigma to you; the fact he saw fit to spend time with you made him even more so in your opinion.
Simon lightly shrugs his shoulder. “Not that much.” He answers. “Just enough to know the food’s decent.”
“Well, thank you for taking me.” You mumble sheepishly, not quite certain on how to word it.
“Should be thanking you for coming with me.”
There isn’t trepidation in his tone but there is a sort of carefulness there that you can’t place. You’re not expecting it, so you can’t help the way your eyes widen. You nod quickly, not wanting your surprise to be mistaken for something negative.
“I got to try two new things today thanks to you.” It slips out easily, without much thought.
His eyes crinkle somewhat. “Liked the bike, then?” There’s the faintest twinge of pride in his tone.
You like it, you like the thought that he takes some measure of satisfaction in it; it humanizes him and gives more clarity to the jagged edges of his exterior—it doesn’t sand them away, just makes them more legible.
Your lips twitch in a brief smile. “I was scared at first, but yes, I did.”
“You’ll get used to it.” You don’t have the time to register the potential implication there before he speaks again.
“What’s the other one?” Your confusion must show in your face, he elaborates. “You said there were two new things.”
‘Oh.’
The soft clatter of a plate being set down before you makes you jump. You are quick to hastily apologize and stammer out a thank you to the waitress, she only smiles at you and gives an apology of her own for startling you before leaving.
You didn’t even realize you slipped and admitted that, now your mind was working overdrive to figure out how best to word it. There’s an awkward beat of silence until you pick up your fork. You take a bite of potatoes first. It’s more than just decent, it’s delicious.
“What’s the verdict?” Simon asks wryly.
You chew and swallow before speaking. “Very good.” You reply cheerfully. Simon seems pleased.
He then looks at you expectantly.
There wasn’t really much point in dancing around it, you already brought it up by accident, the issue was how to say it without earning potential judgement.
“The other new thing was this.”
There’s a pause before he speaks again. “Never been taken to dinner, either?”
You shake your head. You poke at the food on your plate, growing increasingly self-conscious. Simon catches it.
“Not your fault some bastards don’t know how to act.” Despite his flat delivery it’s reassuring. You find yourself feeling less insecure. You don’t get the impression that Simon is a man to sugarcoat or utter empty platitudes, so you are appreciative.
“Maybe. I wouldn’t know, though.”
Simon cocks his head at you, intrigued. “Wouldn’t know?” He asks, parroting it back at you.
“Wouldn’t know.” You confirm, taking another bite of your eggs. You don’t realize that you just implicitly admitted you’ve never had a boyfriend until you’re taking a sip of your water.
For an imperceptible second you freeze before forcing yourself back into motion. In this situation it would be better to just move on and ignore it, but that still didn’t stop your face from feeling like a bonfire.
You think Simon recognizes the implication immediately, but he doesn’t look surprised at all. You’re not certain of how you feel about that.
What you are certain of is the relief you feel when he doesn’t press on about it, but you still feel a tad mortified. If he’s put off by your lack of romantic experience he doesn’t show it.
Maybe it’s the desperation to change the subject that makes you ask Simon;
“So, what do you usually get when you come here?”
That simple question kicked off a sort of back-and-forth conversation between the two of you, which the questions becoming increasingly mundane as it went on.
The questions are asked by you, and Simon answers, then waits for you to give him an answer in return before you toss another question at him.
What kind of music do you listen to?
Favorite color?
What about your favorite season?
Cats or dogs?
Things of that nature are thrown back and forth between you two. You’re pleasantly surprised that Simon is entertaining you.
You decide to push your luck and dip your toes into more slightly personal questions—nothing inappropriate, of course. Simon doesn’t hesitate.
Early bird or night owl?
When’s your birthday?
Have you ever rode with any of your friends?
Simon sits up a little. “What, on the back of it?” His tone is so incredulous that you fail to suppress a giggle.
“No, no, just in general.” You amend. Simon leans back in his seat once more.
“No. Just you.” Just you. No one else. You wonder if he was simply solitary or if there was something else—maybe both. You brush off the warmth blooming in your chest.
You think about what kind of friends Simon would have.
“Doubt they’d be interested.” He continues. “Don’t think any of ‘em even ride.”
“Ah. I’m assuming you don’t have breakfasts with them either?” It’s more of a joke than a question.
Simon answers regardless. “Sometimes I do,” you can’t discern the look that’s in his eye. “But nothin’ like this.”
You cock your head at him, curious. “Never took them here?”
“No.” He confirms bluntly.
“Just me?” You ask. His dark eyes stare at you intently. Your heart pulses.
The entrance to the restaurant opens and Simon’s eyes dart to the door, severing the intense connection briefly. Then his sights shift back.
“Just you.” He replies without skipping a beat.
You look down at your plate just to give yourself a reprieve from the lingering intensity of his stare. You’re almost done with your food by now.
His voice dips a bit lower in a light tease. “I was going to ask you if you ever had any other men walk you home, but I already know the answer to that one.”
Your face awash with warmth. “What’s the answer?” You manage to speak.
You notice the corners of Simon’s eyes wrinkling, the pitch black in his eyes almost look warm for a flicker. Your heart aches with every pulse. He says it in the same tone he had when asking you if you liked his bike.
“Just me.”
Simon ends up paying for your breakfast. You insist he doesn’t have to, but he insists that it’s not a problem. You acquiesce.
He opens the door for you as you’re exiting just like he did when you were entering.
“I’ve got a place in mind to take you to, if you’re up for it.” He has already retrieved the helmets from the back of the bike.
You nod immediately.
Simon was right, you were getting more accustomed to being on a bike already. You still clung onto him for support, however. You were able to appreciate things that you couldn’t before due to your fear; the cool wind blowing past, the auburn trees lining the road.
You cherish what little time you have left being so close to him.
Time that slips by too fast even when you’re holding it tight, because before you know it he’s pulling in somewhere and slowing to a complete stop.
You glance around. It’s a park, if not secluded. You don’t see any other vehicles parked. The trees in the vicinity are so red they might as well be torches.
“It’s beautiful out here.” You say aloud, dismounting the bike.
Simon takes your helmet and puts it along with his in the trunk. “Thought you’d like it.” Unless your ears were deceiving you, you detect a hint of cheekiness there. You’re not used to it coming from Simon, he sounds as dry and flat as usual, but it’s there’s an element that’s foreign to your ears. You cherish it.
You smile sheepishly and turn around to get a better view of the trees in the vicinity. “Do you like coming here a lot?” You ask over your shoulder.
“Sometimes.” He sounds indifferent.
“Oh, hopefully I’m not being invasive or something—“ You begin to stammer, the words tumbling out almost reflexively.
Something in his expression softens. “You’re fine.” Simon replies. You relax a little, but not by much due to how you’re chastising yourself.
You force yourself to brush off the negative self-talk when Simon comes over to stand next to you. Once he’s there he’s grabbing something out of his pocket. A box of cigarettes, you realize.
You’re busying yourself with admiring the trees, you hear the sound of fabric shifting. A comfortable silence envelopes you both. It isn’t until you notice Simon’s hand moving up to his face that your eyes shoot over to him.
He hooks his thumb up and under his mask, underneath his chin. You blink and suddenly you’re staring at pale skin where midnight fabric used to be.
There’s light-colored stubble on his jaw, you catch a scar running there and up, it disrupts the natural growth pattern of his facial hair.
There’s a scar on one side of his upper lip—the same side the other scar on his jaw is—it is vertical and goes from the seam of his lips to seemingly all the way up, maybe even to his nostril. You can’t tell, his mask is still dipped low enough to obscure his cupids bow and the rest of his face. It intrigues you because you’ve never seen a scar like that before.
His lips themselves look like how you expect, slightly chapped and maybe a bit redder than usual from the cold.
You make yourself dart your eyes away. It would be rude to stare.
But then holds the cigarette between his lips, and you find yourself paying as much attention as possible through your peripheral. He feels in his pockets for a lighter for a fraction of a second before he’s bringing it up and setting the cigarette alight.
It isn’t long before the scent of nicotine follows.
And the two of you simply exist in one another’s presence like that for a little while. Nothing is said because nothing needs to be at the moment. You think about how nice it is to have someone be effortlessly content with you. There wasn’t any song or dance you had to do while tone deaf and out of rhythm just to keep away the dreaded labels of ‘odd’ and ‘strange.’
It was just you and Simon.
He says your name. You turn to look up at him.
“Yes?” There’s a pause there, you watch his lips thin out into a line, the motion is almost imperceptible. It’s a welcome strangeness to see a portion of his face now. A small part of you that you bury deep hopes that the sight won’t be unfamiliar one day.
He brings the cigarette back to his lips, his eyes are far away.
“In a month or two I’m gonna be gone for a while.” Smoke pours out his mouth in wispy coils. You turn your head to look at him. He’s still looking at the autumn trees.
“Oh.” You try to hide the disappointment in your voice.
“How come?” You ask, then realization dawns. “For work?” The question is asked carefully.
“Yeah.” He confirms after a stilted pause. He takes another drag.
“I’ll be back.” He says after a beat of silence. You can’t tell what he’s feeling at the moment.
You don’t want him to leave, but that was just the reality of things. Sensibly, you knew that a month or two was still a lot of time, but just like the time you clutched as tight as you did Simon on the bike, it would slip away before you knew it.
“Okay. I’ll be waiting for you.” The words sort of pour out, like water from a stream. There’s no question about it, you’ll wait for him; there’s no harm in it. It wasn’t like you’d be putting anything or anyone on hold.
Simon finally looks down at you. His eyes are cavernous, searching.
You don’t know if he finds what he’s looking for or not, only that he looks away from you and back to the trees. He doesn’t say anything else.
The subject leaves a lingering melancholy in the air that leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. You make an attempt at further conversation to shift the tone.
“You’ll be here for Halloween.” You state, not quite sure where you’re going with it.
Simon only grunts in reply.
“Do you think you’ll be here for Christmas?”
Simon stills for a moment. “Not sure.”
“I’ll get you something.”
“Like what?” He sounds mildly amused.
You think.
“Something with a skull or skeleton on it.” You eventually decide.
“Have jokes, do you?” He says dryly, though not offended.
“Not a joke. But I have an actual joke to tell.”
“Go on.”
“What do you call a pile of kittens?”
“You tell me.”
“A meow-tain.”
He actually snorts through his nose, you even see the scarred corner of his mouth quirk up in a ghost of a smirk, he’s more endeared by you than the joke itself. “Not the worst I’ve heard.”
You beam up at him, and the silence is comfortable yet again.
It’s a minute until next he speaks. “I know what I’ll get you.”
“And what would that be?”
“You’ll see at Christmas.”
Something about the rustling of trees and the soil being stamped underfoot is soothing.
After Simon put out his cigarette and lowered his mask back over his mouth he asked you if you wanted to walk around the park for a bit, which was how you and him ended up walking on one of the short trails.
Simon walks closer to you than usual. You don’t think you’re imagining it, not when you incidentally brush against one another at sporadic intervals.
Neither of you make a move to put some distance between one another.
It’s the distance—or lack thereof—that makes your mind wander.
You think about that day at the convenience store, the night at the bar, and the othernight at the bar when he walked you home for the first time.
You think of Simon, the scar on his jaw and the muteness in his obsidian eyes. The oddly stable monotony of his voice. Big hands that put your helmet on for you for the first time.
You didn’t expect him to show up.
Not when he standing on the other side of the street, not when he came into the bookstore to give your freezing hands gloves, not when he pulled up on his bike.
When does it stop being chivalry?
It was a dangerous thing for someone as sentimental as you to ask.
You didn’t want to smother. To desperately clutch so tight that it suffocated. Having false hopes flood your heart almost always ended with you drowning, so as always, you just took what you were given.
You’d mentally reprimand yourself for every skipped heartbeat and flutter in your stomach, and you would convince yourself that it would be fine if Simon suddenly stopped talking to you one day. Drifted away, further and further until he was a stranger once more.
Your heart was soft and bleeding, too easily bruised for your own good, that’s why you always got so hurt. It was why in spite of having a lovely day you now found yourself hurting.
So you bury down your desires of companionship and the word-you-refuse-to-say with a shovel that’s so well-used it might as well be another limb—
A single, thick arm shoots out and grabs you by the middle.
You are caught before you fall forward on the cold earth. So lost in thought you were, that you tripped over a pebble.
“Watch yourself, sweetheart.” Sweetheart. Your mind is in utter disarray.
‘It was just an off-handed term of endearment, let it go.’
It slipped out from his lips without thought, it didn’t have to mean anything, you’ve heard people use that word before, it didn’t have to mean anything.
It’s difficult to let it go when his strong limb remains wrapped around your waist. He waits until you steady yourself before slipping his arm away.
It’s just as difficult to forget about the effortless strength he exerted to pull you upright before you fell over, especially when that ancient sense hums in delight at such a display.
Your heart pounds hysterically despite your best efforts.
“Thank you.” You mutter quickly. He gives a single, curt nod.
You wait until your pace returns to a normal rhythm before speaking again, you want to put as many syllables between you and that term of endearment as possible.
“Did you ever read that book?” You can imagine the green cover and gold lettering clear as day.
“Yeah, I did.”
“What was it about?” Try as you might, you could remember the letters but not the specific ones which formed the title on the book.
“Mythology.” You blink up at him in mild surprise.
You didn’t take Simon as one who would be interested in that subject. “Oh! Do you usually read those?”
“No.” He answers flatly, “Wasn’t my first choice. Just wanted somethin’ different.”
“I understand.” You do, you truly do.
A beat of empathetic silence washes over the two of you.
“Do you read a lot?” You carefully store the bits of information about him in your mind, in hopes that one day you’ll be able to paint a fuller picture.
“Not often.”
You shoot a curious glance at him. “Oh, so what do you do in your spare time?”
Simon says nothing for a moment. He’s searching for an answer, you realize.
Eventually he responds. “Wait.”
You blink at him, momentarily puzzled by his response. ‘Wait for what?’ Your gaze says. He doesn’t elaborate and you don’t pry.
You see two birds foraging. Further down the trail is a little babbling brook. You exclaim your enthusiasm for both, and for every other thing which grabs your attention on the path. Simon only gives you an endeared scoff in reply.
You can’t help but feel dispirited when the trail eventually loops back around and you see the parking lot in the distance. You can’t help but feel a bit childish; not wanting the day to end just yet.
When you reach the bike you stand awkwardly next to it for a moment, waiting for Simon to retrieve the helmets for the final time today.
Simon comes over, the length of his shadow swallowing yours. While looking down at you his brows crease briefly. You are frozen in place when his free hand comes up to your head, slowly and gingerly, giving you time to flinch away. You don’t.
It’s too easy to imagine him cupping your face. That’s twice now that you’ve imagined that. The lump that forms in your throat following that thought is nigh impossible to swallow.
He pulls his hand back and he flicks his fingers so fast that it barely registers that he plucked an autumn leaf from your hair. You’re too caught up with what just happened to feel even remotely embarrassed over that.
An unknowable feeling dawdles around between you. You’re staring forward, avoiding looking up to meet Simon’s eyes, directionless.
You manage to choke something out to break the silence. “Thanks—“
“Don’t mention it,” Simon’s reply is swift, yet no less understanding for it. “Let’s get you home, yeah?”
You decide to just give Simon the directions to your home to drop you off. You trusted him at this point.
The ride there felt too short despite being a good distance away.
Simon only speaks to confirm he was at the right house, and then he’s pulling over to let you off.
You linger on the bike a second longer than needed. Simon doesn’t say anything or look over his shoulder to wordlessly tell you to get off. He sits there with you.
Your arms are still wrapped around him.
You shake off the urge to give him a final squeeze goodbye. Eventually you do get off the bike, and you take off your helmet. You’re about to give it back to him until he stops you.
“Keep it.” You blink at him, and tuck it under your arm instead.
You stand there aimlessly while you try to think of what to say.
“Thank you. For all of this.” There’s a quiet that settles between the two of you. It isn’t an unwelcome one.
Simon hums in reply after a time.
“I…” Your words slip past your lips and out of your head. Simon stares at you intently, waiting on every syllable.
“I appreciate it.” The words fall flat on your tongue, they barely scratch the surface of how you feel, but you hope he understands how much this day spent meant to you.
“I really enjoyed today.” You mumble, staring down at your shoes.
“Likewise.” He replies. Your lips twitch in a smile that never fully forms.
“Text me when you get home.” You blurt out. Simon simply nods.
And just like how you lingered for a second too long with him on the bike, Simon lingers a second too long with you.
“Talk to you soon.” He says after a moment. You wonder if he was going to say something else. You make yourself nod in agreement.
“Bye, Simon.”
You watch him leave, your eyes stay on him until he’s out of view.
You’re already laying in bed about to drift off to sleep for the night when you hear a high-pitched sound from your phone on the nightstand.
You swipe at the screen, your half-asleep eyes burning uncomfortably with the light that floods your vision when you open your phone. When you read Simon’s name you’re rubbing your eyes to help them focus on what he texted you.
‘Sleep well.’
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Looks like this will be more than 2 chapters after all!
I also wanted to thank everyone who liked and reblogged the first chapter, the positive response really motivated me to finish this. It really means a lot!! 🫶💘
I actually read an article and watched a video on how to use kickstands on bikes, there’s always a possibility I described something wrong, but I hope that can be overlooked!
The plan is to ramp up the romantic intensity a lot in the next chapter. (This story will still shift to an explicit rating once we get there.)
Thank you so much for any and all likes and reblogs! Please feel free to tell me what you thought! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed!
#simon riley x reader#simon ghost x reader#simon ghost riley x reader#ghost cod x reader#ghost x reader#x reader#reader insert#⤜stories#⤜suggestive#⤜Call of Duty#⤜Simon Ghost Riley/Reader
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So your take is insane! Before anything else your arguments are terrible you are not referencing any official media you are just referencing your own biased work and one out of context photo from the game.
I have to say that I appreciate your choice to open your response with a slew of insults. Really sets the stage for a productive conversation.
Exactly what kind of official media am I supposed to be referencing in this case, if you don't mind me asking? Omocat's left toe?
"biased work" Classy. Is it biased because you don't agree with it? XD
The both of them are grabbing each other in this photo as you can see.
I can't see shit, actually. The photo is too blurry to see anything. What other sources for your claim do you have aside from a blurry photo? :)
The datamined captions for the Truth photos would've noted that she grabbed him if that actually was the intent. All she is said and seen to have done in the caption for Photo of a Fight and in the photo itself is blocking his path to the staircase's narrow passageway with her body and yelling at him.
Funny how quick Sunny is to interpret her scolding as a "fight", eh?
like when you’re restrained, you will fight back.
As I have explained above, it's not indicated that he was restrained.
I've explained that in the first post I linked ro in my response. Perhaps you would've kept that in mind had you bothered to read it.
he did not know what would happen if she fell,
Are you seriously insinuating Sunny's so stupid that he wouldn't know falling from a big height would be bad for the person who fell? lmao
He nearly died when he fell from a big height into the lake. That's why he has his fear of heights in the first place.
Because he is 12 and that is his sister and he loved her more than anything.
And yet he felt at peace when he saw her desecrated corpse.
That, interestingly enough, is a point of mine you didn't address.
Is this consistent pattern of assholery your referencing able to be explained by him being shy,
1) There's a difference between having trouble finding the right words and walking out on people while they're having a breakdown.
2) "Able to be excused" is a better way to phrase it. That's what you're doing, anyway.
him trying to repress his trauma,
Trauma is not an excuse for assholery either. That's pretty much what the game tries to say via Aubrey - her big rant near the stump on One Day Left has her admit the trauma of Mari's death was the reason she was an asshole to her friends and resolve to be better.
Judging by the fact you (and most of the fans) still readily use trauma as a defense, however, I think it's reasonable to assume the game has failed to communicate the message.
or a reaction to the immense pressure his sister put him under,
"Mari was mean!" is not a valid argument because the game only tells you she was without showing it throughout its runtime.
Quick development fact! Up until you’re about 25 you do not make decisions with the logical part of your brain basically at all!
The "fact" you're using as an argument is pop-culture psychology and has been disproven by clinical professionals. Despite that, it has been also used as an argument to prevent trans teens from transitioning.
This is not the defense you think it is.
(really weird of you to persecute this 12 year old like that but I digress)
1) You're talking about Sunny as if you're defending a real child. He's a fictional character. That means I'll talk about him however l please.
2) Sunny's age ceased to be a mitigating circumstance the instant he - and I have to emphasize that - felt at peace upon seeing his sister's desecrated corpse.
[it's] something he clearly regrets, that regret fuels the whole game.
He never does anything with it, though. It doesn't compel him to be a better friend to the group now that he has a chance to reconnect with them.
As for Jimmy, it seems that you've missed my point and took it as me arguing that he wasn't thinking clearly when he did what he did. What I was saying is that Jimmy's mindset is "irrational" in the sense he still believes he's always in the right and can fix everything even when it is clear the only thing he's doing is making shit worse. Thus, most of the decisions he makes are also influenced by his "irrational" mindset he's the "hero" of the story. At least, that's how I saw it.
lied to everyone about who had done it and what had happened because curly couldn’t defend his case,
Like Sunny lied about the cause of Mari's death to his friends to cover his own ass? :)
actively mocks and hedumanizes everyone on the ship due to his egoist and selfish nature
Because making your friends' pain - the pain you were responsible for - all about yourself is not selfish at all!
I do not see how you view this prepubescent child, and a monster with a horrific record of this behaviour who does nothing but continue it on the same regard
1) The logic I used to make my argument was yours.
2) Sunny's got a record too. I linked to it.
The only difference between those two is that you're willing to excuse Sunny's behavior.
Sunny is forgivable because he was a child who was not in a good rational mindset and made an impulsive decision with much more dire consequences than anticipated
Jimmy is not forgivable because he was an adult who had to make several conscious decisions to do what he did and does nothing but repeat his horrible behaviour
Both games are about forgiveness but two completely different ends of that spectrum. Omori is about how forgiveness can be healing and help those recover, and mouthwashing is about how sometimes forgiveness does nothing but enable horrible people to continue their abusive behaviour
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"Do you have a crush on me?" No. How about i crush you with this rock instead
#my anger towards this one girl who was suppossed to be my friend#bitch thought i liked her just cause i wanted to her closer as a friend#straight gurl was so worried about that that she didnt even wish me happy birthday#despite the fact that she messaged me on that day#she also knew i was aroace#ace#aroace#aromantic#acespec#aroace pride#arospec#asexual#bi aroace#this one is for all the queers out there#bi#enby#sapphic
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siiiiiiigh
#i am in fact a grown adult who is still incapable of talking about their feelings and thoughts to people so I'll just rant here#my relationship with my mother is. so weird. it's not always bad but it always ends up bad for one reason or another#she can be perfectly civil and i'll still be irritated. other times i do try to tolerate it and engage and she ends up saying something#upsetting to me either way.#i don't want to keep being rude to her i don't want to get mad and annoyed all the time but i just can't stop. it's always like this#and i hate myself for it and i hate her and i hate everything about it#today i was leaving for work and she was like. i'll take the trash out of your room and i told her not to do it. she kept insisting and i#had to raise my voice at her to maybe get the point across to get her not to touch anything#and yes my room is a fucking mess and it is something to be embarrassed of. i just feel so fucking tired all time time and i keep tellin#myself that i will clean it this time for sure and then i don't. most of the time it's my mother taking care of it without my permission#and i am grateful for it bc nobody likes living in a mess... but i also fucking hate it because it makes me feel even more worthless#i just can't get rid of the feeling of shame. no matter what i do.#and back to the mother thing. i told her that if she touches anything i will go to her room and throw out anything that isn't nailed down#even though objectively i have no reason to oppose her helping me#but i also fucking hate it#maybe being rude is the only way to get it across. but also i get irritated about anything so easily#i feel shittier and shittier every day. had there been an easy and painless way of killing myself i would have done it already#and despite how much i want to blame this on a disorder or lack of access to medication. there is no magic pill that would fix me is there#i'm just a shitty person who cannot get it together despite everything being handed to me#i'm literally bad at anything and everything. i'm not even a good blogger lmao#people have it much worse in life and still do better. me? i'm useless. there's no helping it. i should have died from covid or something#nobody will save me. nobody cares enough. besides one person whom i push away because i can't stand her and i don't even know why 👍#if i stop messaging people first most of them would forget about me#i am alone. a lonely person in a messy room desperately trying to be entertaining so someone will pay a little bit of attention to me.#not to mention the geopolitics#i won't even go there. i hate the possibility that people might see it mentioned and give me shit for it#one more thing that is apparently my fault. directly or indirectly#all i want is to leave this country. spend the day with someone who cares for me like an actual friend. and then shoot myself so i don't#have to go back#sealene.txt
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really would love if both my parents could respond to my achievements with more than a "cool" and actually respond when i ask if they'd like to go to the opening reception of my art being on display lmfao
#like i get it when my mom does it bc she's never been like. attentive#but my dad just replied 'cool' and then immediately messaged me about a snake he foune in his yard....like ok.#and despite the fact he has responded fast to my messages all day all of a sudden he doesn't when i ask if he wants to come#like#whatever. lmao
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mess with the autism and the autism will mess with you
#this is a message to my friend who has planned me a surprise birthday thing and when i asked her how many people it would be she said it#would just be us two. spoiler it isn’t going to be just us two! thankfully i know this beforehand cause there’s nothing fun#about a birthday meltdown because there’s people and different plans and food all at once#idk i’m just a little irritated abt this but i’m not even supposed to know so i can’t tell her cause i don’t wanna ruin it#but since i know it’ll be fun still :) i can just pretend or be super sarcastic depending on the mood#(ok like a serious note though i explicitly asked her how many people were going cause i needed fo socially prepare myself.#and like idk the fact she basically lied abt it despite knowing i need to know things like that feels kinda shitty?#i get the point of the surprise but like yknow#anyway ramble over have a lovely day folks)
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Hello! Can I plz request Alastor x Doe! Reader where he meets Charlie's best friend who's the reader and becomes possessive over her, maybe his instincts tell him to mark the reader as his mate. The reader is a white doe. :)
Yessss i love this idea teehee i maybe got carried away and also i unintentionally made this sort gender neutral and a teeny tiny speck of smut, i hope that’s okay if not it’s at the very end so it’s skipable, hopefully i did your idea justice and hope you enjoy!! thank you so much for this xx
At first sight
PART TWO PART THREE
Word count: 3.5K
Warnings: SMUT 18+, doe reader only describes white ears tail and pink nose rest is ambiguous, possibly corny ahh dialogue, love at first sight kinda trope, angel/hellborn reader, slightly OOC Al y’know smut love, reader cooks, biting & briefly blood, penetrative sex, reader makes deal with al to give themselves to him, swearing, NOT PROOFREAD I think that’s it lmk if i missed anything!!
Charlie ran manically around the hotel, fixing various things and studying the entire building under a microscope to ensure it looked its best. Zipping her way to the lobby, she caught the gaze of Angel Dust, who was in the middle of sucking down a frozen popsicle.
“Be nice today! Look your best, oh oh! No porn on the TV!” Charlie shouted rushed and frazzled as she came up beside Angel to fluff out the couch cushions. Husk watched silently ears zeroed in on the conversation unwillingly, focusing mainly on Angel. “Geez toots, what’s got your feathers in a bunch?”
Angel smiled amused by Charlies odd demeanour. “My best friend since, like, forever is coming here today! To see the hotel!” Charlie exclaimed lurching forward to grip Angels shoulders. Smirking at her Angel continued to suck on the popsicle. “So what, is this broad special or something?”
Charlie leaned back pulling her hands down her face, an exasperated groan crawling out from her throat. “Yes! Her mother was friends with my mom when they first came to hell, her mom ended up falling for a hell spawn and we born around the same time,” Charlie explained ringing her hands while pacing.
“She’s my best friend we grew up together, i’m worried she won’t like what i’m doing here.” Charlie finally confessed with a sigh, her body deflating as she herself came to terms with the fact she was afraid. Vaggie lingering in the background finally approached Charlie sticking her hand out to message her arm comfortingly. “I’m sure it’ll be fine toots! Plus she’s a born sinner! Ain’t no way anything here’s gonna be shocking her.”
Despite her worry she could admit Angel Dust was right, AND you’re her best friend there’s no way you’d be unnecessarily cruel to her dreams, you were always supportive and imaginative along with her. Smiling down at Angel, Charlie then plopped down beside him, resting her hooves after hours of hecticily running around. “You’re right Angel, thank you.” Angel hummed out an arrogant ‘you’re welcome’ while Vaggie circled the couch leaning over the back of it.
“So how long has it been since you’ve seen them?” Vaggie asked poking Charlie’s cheek. Looking away she counted on her fingers before turning to look at Vaggie. “Four years, they stayed with me while I tried getting over the absence of my mom; they live in wrath though and eventually went back.” Clapping her hands Charlie stood from the couch her brief moment of hoof rest over, the three sinners watching as she muttered to herself about everyone being on their best behaviour while walking off, clearly the talk only did a little to hush her nerves.
~
Standing outside the hotel doors your ears twitched at the sounds coming from beyond it, it’s clear as day that Charlie was instructing people to behave, be nice, and- not show you porn? Suddenly the door opened startling you slightly but that quickly wore off when you were greeted by the joyous face of your best friend Charlie. Tugging you into a bear hug, Charlie squealed about how excited she was, you naturally fell into her giving her a warm tight hug right back.
“I am so glad you’re here! I’m so happy to see you!” Charlie exclaimed pulling back and examining you. You hadnt seemed to change much to Charlie, the white tail you had wagged behind you happily, your equally platinum ears relaxed occasionally twitching at the sounds around you, your pink deer like nose that was perfectly contrasted with your skin colour.
It was clear you were half an angel, and Charlie lemented, when you two were younger, that she was jealous you had a more animalisitc appearance in comparison to her, but you reminded her that it didn’t matter because she was still as gorgeous as ever. “I’m so glad to be here! I was starting to think you’d never end up inviting me.” You laugh warmly.
Charlie beckoned you inside linking your arms together, the two of you walked inside. Vaggie was punctuated and ready to great you as you came further into the room. “Hi, I’m Vaggie-“ Vaggie was cut off promptly by Charlie who excitedly pulled her into a bear hug, cheek to cheek. “My girlfriend!” Charlie finished with a shout.
Your ivory tail flicked behind you happily as you grinned. “Holy shit! You’ve got a girlfriend? Damn we really need to catch up! Its so nice to meet you Vaggie.” You smile shaking her hand as she stuck it out, Vaggie only nodded smiling seemingly quite reserved.
After some rushed introduction of those around the room including Husk, Angel, Nifty, and Sir Pentious, Charlie took you to your room to settle in. Closing the door behind the two of you Charlie watched as you laid your suit cases down by the bed, unzipping them and pulling out your clothing. “Sooo,” Charlie trailed hands tucked behind her back as she wandered around the vacant room.
“You remember Alastor right? The radio demon?” Charlie questioned, sounding suspicious. Looking up from your folded laundry you quirked a brow fearing where this might be heading. “Yes… i do.” You say slowly, fixing your posture waiting for her to turn to you, but she seemed rather interested in the wallpaper. “Well… y’know… this hotel takes a lot…. and when i first started…” Charlie trailed off gazing out the open window, stepping towards her you carefully placed a hand on her shoulder.
Looking at you she knew there was no sense in keeping such a prominent part of the reason this hotel was possible secret. “Alastors here, he helped since the start. He hasn’t asked for anything in return and he’s already fought for us!” Charlie spat the words out so fast you barely had time to comprehend. You and her were raised around each other meaning you had the same interactions with many of the princes’, sins, and hellborn, but human overlords were always were more…. well they weren’t used to power and immortality so they often over did it, Alastor was no different from what you were aware of.
“Are you sure having him is a good idea? Does your dad know?” Charlie nodded confirming her dad did know. “Yeah he doesn’t know who Al is, and to be fair none of us did! I promise he’s not that bad. Give him a chance?” You hummed looking away as she looked to you, you didn’t want to upset her by the discomfort that would be evident in your eyes. You didn’t enjoy brawls and fights, and you fear the demon would initiate that.
“Well i suppose i could trust him if you do, but i am skeptical; you’re always seeing the light in demons, even when it’s not there.” You laughed out recalling some things of the past that ended poorly because of a Charlie’s trust in certain sinners. And though at times foolish it was still an admirable trait and you aspired to be as kind hearted as she could be. “Where’s the guy anyways?” You asked after a short moment of pondering.
Charlie shrugged looking as if she was trying to recount the day. “Well he did say he had a meeting with Rosie,” She muttered quietly, although you didn’t know who Rosie was, you didn’t bother questioning it instead you pat Charlie on the shoulder, telling her that you’d like to get some rest, and you’d worry about Alastor later.
And so you spent a bit of time unpacking your things and settling down, you always preferred to be more in touch with the animalistic parts of yourself so your belongings held a lot of earthy aesthetics to them. Sitting on your bed, stripped of the hotels sheets and remade with your own, you opened your laptop and began typing.
You had forgotten about Alastor for the most part but you remember Charlie brining it up as he began his tyranny after his death. Charlie had always been pretty involved with her people, mainly focusing her energy on human sinner so you weren’t surprised that she knew of him, you were however surprised she was so willing to let him in when he massacred her people.
After a few minutes of light research about the demon, you established with how long he was gone perhaps he would be willing to change however you’d keep up your guards just to be sure.
~
Humming to himself Alastor got ready for the day, though he rarely slept he did occasionally get into evening outfits if he was staying in. He fixed his hair, ensuring not a hair was out of place and with a finally dust of his sleeves, he materialized his microphone and trotted his way out of his room.
A new scent hit him the minute he got to the staircase, the reaction was instantaneous, his ears perked, his tail stiffened thank the hellions no one was around to witness his discomfort, because it was evident. Fixing his posture, and his smile, he pretended nothing was up and continued his way downstairs. He greeted Husk as usual, and like usual Husk only grunted at the demon.
Making his way into the kitchen Alastor was stunted in place by the sight in front of him. There you stood deer tail wagging, singing along to music as you mixed a bowl of who knows what together. Alastor observed you quietly as ever, and definitely not checking you out because that would be rude- however your tail was very much distracting.
Clearing his throat the static spitting out behind his voice, you jumped slightly at the sound of him, looking over your shoulder to where he stood at the kitchen entry. The two of you simply stared at each other for a moment, the song in the background seemingly quieter than before, as if the two of you were in your own little zone.
Alastor couldn’t describe the gravitational pull he had toward you, he would’ve been a fool to deny your beauty, but he’d never had issue admitting when a demon or person was beautiful, it didn’t matter to him, so he couldn’t grasp why you seemed to have an immediate effect on him.
You too felt similarly gawking at the sight of him, i mean you’d never seen pictures of him, only art or depictions, which really didn’t do him any good. You were honestly a little embarrassed, you thought he was incredibly handsome, contrary to your beliefs prior to this moment, and you felt a little silly to suddenly feel like going back on your apprehension about him simply because of how attractive he was.
Deciding to finally break the intense yearning gaze the two of you held, Alastor perked up stepping close to you swinging his hand out to shake. “Alastor darling, pleasure to meet you, quite the pleasure.” Going unnoticed by you, Alastor’s voice involuntarily dropped lower, making it come out more sultry than he’d ever done during an introduction. Of course Alastor was aware it wasn’t his normal voice and wondered why the hell he decided to modify his tone to come out as seductive as it did; was it just by nature?
“I’m YN, Charlie’s best friend. I don’t know if you knew i was staying but i am, surprise! Heh,” You say a little nervously sticking out your hand but quickly retracting it, as it was covered in dough. “I’m making bread and breakfast, do you like french toast?” You finish finally gaining the courage to meet his gaze properly.
His eyes were lidded, and he looked down at you only with his eyes keeping his head forward, which made you feel some type of way. He had such a big presence, height aside, that would make anybody on the receiving end of his heated gaze, shrink. “I suppose i wouldn’t mind a little bite to eat, tell me little doe, how do you make such a meal?”
Of course Alastor knew what french toast was, but he’d much prefer to play stupid so he could listen to you speak, and have you look up at him so deliciously. “Well, i’m making some homemade no yeast bread, and then i’m gonna do the egg and frying, normally i mix some cinnamon and honey in, but i might not since i don’t know what you guys like. A lot of people put syrup, but i can’t stand it; too sticky.” You explained mixing all of your ingredients, turning to him you smiled.
“Would you mind greasing the pan for me, please?” Alastor nearly purred at you with how you requested his help he would’ve bent himself backwards if it meant you’d ask him like that again. The way these emotions hit him in the gut; the undeniable feeling of desire he was trying to fight against was incredibly intense and oddly, he liked it. “Of course my dear, whatever you wish, i shall see to.” With the snap of his fingers his hair had been pulled back, suit jacket gone, leaving him in only his white button up, and a pink apron.
Shamessly your eyes roamed his figure watching as he began to grease the pan with his hand. His eyes still lidded and smile relaxed. You enjoyed how he stood tall and relaxed, and it was only now when you caught a peek of his red tail that you realized; “You’re a deer?”
Alastor paused momentarily, eyes lazily difting toward you. He didn’t mind that you saw his tail, and he was a little surprised you lacked to notice he was a deer. “What did you think i was sweetheart?” Alastor exclaimed his entertainment persona peeking through as he did. You peeled your eyes away feeling a little bad for staring at him, instead you focused on placing the bread into the bow greased pan before responding. “Maybe a fox, but to be honest i didn’t think too much about it.”
Alastor hummed in agreement, watching as you placed the bread in to the oven. There weren’t many does Alastor has seen, many bucks but does were more of a rarity. The two of you made breakfast, bantering about things here and there and getting to know one another.
“What’s earth like?” You asked watching him prepare dough for beignets which he insisted you tried as it was a lousiana breakfast staple- but also because he wanted to have you to himself just a bit longer, and show off his cooking skills. “What do you mean dear?” Alastor questioned brows furrowed slightly, but his inquiry came soft with no judgement. “I’m not human, moms an angel, dad was one of the few hell borns that kinda just popped up, we don’t know where he went to though, anyways i’ve never seen the earth.”
Now that, was news to him. He suspected you were something special based off the tugging feeling he had toward you, but being a literal angel wasn’t something he would’ve bet on, but should’ve guessed on. Without a worry in his mind, Alastor happily told you about his home in new orleans, what it was like being a radio host, how in got into voodoo, how he new some cajun french, as well as his mother.
Leaning on the counter head rested on his hand, looking at you dreamily while the beignets fried. “My mother was an angel, she was my biggest supporter at the time, the reason i kept pushing. I have the upmost respect for mothers like mine.” You, as equally lost in the dream like bliss Alastors presence brought you, smiled at his story’s ogling at the man who spoke so highly of his mom. “That’s the sweetest Alastor, I wish i could’ve met the woman who made you into such a gentlemen.” You flirt subtly gently patting his arm.
Alastor hummed a lovesick smile on his face his tail wagging happily behind him as the two of you continued to yap. Tails syncing with the way they swayed unnoticed by you two as you lost yourselves in eachother, also going unnoticed was Charlie giddy as could be, in the background jumping up and down. Slipping away to Vaggie, Charlie gripped her like she was her life line. “YN and Alastor are totally going to get together! Ahh!” Charlie squealed shaking a limp Vaggie back and forth.
~
“Mhm Alastor please please please,” You chant wrapped tightly around the demons waist, as he pressed you up against your dresser. After a full day of being alongside Alastor the tension snapped between you two, although it took a few things to get there. First Angel hitting on you right after breakfast, it made Alastor seethe the symbols and static materializing as he watched Angel hit on you. It made Alastor realize such a sweet doe like you must be marked, can’t have other buck or demon filth thinking they can just put there hands on you.
The second thing that egged him on was when the two of you went for a stroll together, and while in a store witnessed a demon repeatedly harass you while you simply tried to pick out a dress! Alastor apologized for the blood shed, but he professed he needed to obliterate that demon to protect you and that would be the only time he would ever put you in a position to see such things. Which made your heart flutter, you felt the desire to have him protect you, it’s not like you couldn’t do it yourself but it made you weak in the knees to have a demon like Alastor jumped to protect you.
Thrusting into you needily, Alastor growled like a mad man his hand climbing up your body to grab your cheeks gently fixing your gaze up to him. “You’re mine,” Static laced his tone as he hissed out at you, pushing his body flush to yours. Moaning like a whiny porn star, you nodded in your head in a daze. “My mate,” He muttered again breathing deeply as he clenched his teeth.
Reaching your hands up to grab his antlers that sprout, you couldn’t help the way your body shook and the way you lewdly moaned. You felt so electrified and couldn’t contain the pleasure Alastor was making you feel. “Please Al, I love it so good,” You whined against his lips, his smile closed and strained as his lips brushed against yours, your breath tickling him as you whined.
Smashing your lips together Alastor picked up the pace feeling like a wild animal. He wanted you, forever, he wanted you to be his one and only, his only doe. Making himself hornier with the thought of having you all to himself his static crackled loudly as he thought up something mischievous. Pulling back from your heated kiss, you whined begging him to kiss you, touch you and fuck you, smiling at you in your disheveled state, a green huge suddenly engulfed the room.
The two of you lit up like neon as symbolize shined in the background. “Give yourself to me little doe, be my mate for entirety and the world is yours, anything you or your friends want i will give you. I can’t let such a thing like you go, i need you.” Alastor statically said, it sounded quite ominous but you were too horny to pick up on that, you could only pay attention to the need you had between your legs and in your heart. Alastor wanted you to be his forever, linked to you for eternity. Perhaps it was the fact that you were both deer that you two had this simultaneous connection, but regardless you couldn’t care you just wanted him back as much as he wanted you.
Thrusting yourself upward into him, you gripped his hand, while clenching down on him at the same time. “Yes, always i’m yours only; it’s a deal.” You moaned. Growling demonically Alastors green disputes like electricity, escaping this room and flowing through the hotel like wave. Feeling his heart bloom Alastors ears clipped back as he jackhammered into you, the dresser slamming against the wall while you squealed a little giggle bubbling out from how needy he became. That giddiness left as a violent hot mass washed over you, screaming out a moan you clutched Alastor, singing out his name through moans of appreciation as he coaxed you with praises through your orgasm.
It shook your body, and soon after Alastor came to a halt inside you, biting down hard on your neck. You moaned his name, not even feeling pain as he sunk his teeth into you down to the gum. After a few moments of licking up your blood he pulled away gazing into your fucked out eyes. As you were about to tell Alastor that you needed to figure out why you were both so suddenly connected, Charlie bolted in.
“YOU MADE A DEA- FUCK IM SORRY!” Within the span of two seconds Charlie had two separate panic attacks, one because she saw the green deal making light shoot through the hotel while you were alone with Al, and the second right after she closed to door from seeing the two of you intertwined at the hips.
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TROUBLE ALMOST ALL MY LIFE | Spencer Reid x Prentiss!Reader
Description: The ONE time the BAU needs you + the FOUR times you need them.
word count: 24k (what on earth was I thinking)
trigger warnings: mentions of spencers addictions + use + side affects. MOMMY ISSUES thankyou ambassador Prentiss. hostage scene + injuries. mentions of forced/pressured marriage. fem!reader. reader and Emily struggle to bond.
authors note: We never meet Emily's dad nor do we see a picture so while reader is given a nickname of Bugsy, she still keeps her real name (no use of y/n) and is given ZERO physical descriptors. ALL of my fem!readers should feel included here, let me know if this is not the case! also I don't speak any language besides English however she does speak many because of her mom, so I really tried to get it right, message me if I'm being stupid!!
series masterlist | next chapter
[this] means its spoken in another language.
—
‘trouble on my left, trouble on my right,
I’ve been facing trouble almost all my life’
1. the one where you become a translator.
“I’ll make some calls, I may still have some friends in the Eastern countries,” Ambassador Prentiss announced to the room, standing from her place on the plush sofa.
A case had landed quite literally in Emily’s lap when her mother had come by that morning asking for Hotch, a Russian migrant looking for her father with a ransom note and a sliced off finger shoved through her mailbox, wedding ring still attached.
It wasn’t every day Emily wished she’d brushed up on her Russian, but today of all days she was struggling to keep up.
“We don’t have much time, we need a division of labour,” Hotch’s serious face settled, the time constraints making him just that bit more dictatorial, “Morgan, someone needs to go to the Chernus’s house in Baltimore in case they are contacted again,”
“What about the language barrier?” Derek raised, smoothing a hand over the short scruff of his beard, “We can’t have the unsub speaking with the family directly. He could say anything to them without us knowing,”
Bugsy would hate to admit she fit the criteria for youngest daughter of a workaholic mother and distant father to a tea, but Emily would say different.
Elizabeth Prentiss had never been a warm woman; Emily used to tell her the scowl was a side effect of the overplucking of her eyebrows, not the serious nature of her job. Her youngest girl once said her mother’s lips looked like she’d sucked a lemon. Of course they admired her work, but world peace meant jack shit to a little girl wanting nothing more than a mother’s hug.
Despite the fact she’d pushed away her husband and both her daughters in favour of her career, the one useful thing about being the Ambassador’s daughter wasn’t just the money, but the widespread culture the girls had been crammed full of since they could so much as beg for a sippy cup.
“Baltimore, you say?” Emily asked Hotch with a somewhat doubtful wince, “I mean you could always-”
“Absolutely not,” Her mother cut her off, rubbing the stress lines already creasing her forehead at the very notion of her other daughter, despite the fact Emily hadn’t even finished her thought.
Emily’s sigh was a reflex, the years of her mother cutting her off sparking the frustration on instinct.
“She lives right in the city, Mother, it can’t hurt to have her just talk for them-” Emily tried to bargain, only for the sharp mouthed Ambassador shoot her a frown.
“End of discussion, Emily,” Elizabeth snipped, her manicured fingernails twitching with annoyance, “Your sister is much too young for an assignment so serious,”
Emily rolled her eyes with a scoff, as if the two had slipped back into the role of rebellious teenager and scathing mother without much thought.
“She's twenty-two, mom. She’s getting her masters degree for Christ sakes, she’s not ‘too young’,” The dark headed woman fought back, clicking her pen a few times as if the spring loaded ink would take away some of the temper Elizabeth seemed to flare up.
Her mother’s lips pursed, in the way Bugsy hated, in the way that meant she was going to be mean.
“Immature may have been a better word, then,” She replied, and Emily seemed to pause. She couldn’t argue with that. “Or perhaps lazy, or puerile; callow, wild, irresponsible. Would you like me to name more?”
“Asinine would be a good term; deriving from the Latin asinus it not only means foolish, but to be stubborn and lazy like an ass,” Spencer input helpfully to the Ambassador, only for his bright smile to fade when he saw the daggers Emily stared at him with, “Sorry, I love word games,” He muttered into his lap.
“Asinine. Perfect, Dr Reid,” Elizabeth said, and Emily could only roll her eyes harder.
Hotch huffed, the victim’s daughter watching between the two women’s quarrel with wet eyes, the ice box with her father’s finger clenched tightly in her lap, the cold of the limb bleeding into his own gaze.
“Unfortunately, Ambassador Prentiss, despite just how asinine your daughter might be, Morgan is right. Having the Unsub possibly speaking with the family without us understanding what he’s saying could prove fatal,” He explained, ignoring the way the older woman’s mouth scrunched in bitterness. They didn’t need to be profilers to see that despite how tempered the relationship between Emily and her mother was, a tension seemed to fall between the women the moment the younger Prentiss was mentioned.
Spencer was sure he was the only person who even knew Emily had a little sister.
“Very well, but don’t be surprised when you find your hands full of the girl,” Elizabeth said with a shake of her head as she led the victims, a mother and daughter that seemed to cling to one another for comfort as if to rub salt in her matriarchal wound, into the break room to get away from the frosty atmosphere that now lingered around the table.
Emily sighed, picking around her fingernails the way she did when she was bothered.
“I’m going to hate these next words that are gonna come out of my mouth,” She started with a long exhale, “But my mother’s right. Bugsy is a handful. Just try not to get her wound up, that girl smells fear,” She looked to Reid who seemed none the wiser, “I’m talking to you, wonder boy. She’ll eat you up and spit you right back out,”
Spencer gulped quietly.
Derek only chuckled, slapping a hand down onto Emily’s shoulder, “Relax, Prentiss. Your mom’s just got you all worried. Need I remind you I grew up with two sisters? This will be a piece of cake,”
–
Those were the famous last words of Derek Morgan.
Loud, heavy metal music jumped through the wooden door, so loud Morgan worried his three polite knocks would go unheard as the two of them waited outside her dorm for her to answer. Morgan was about to knock again, figuring the music had drowned out the first lot, when the door swung open and a frown the spitting image of Emily’s stressed expression met their gaze.
She looked so different to their Prentiss, but the way she seemed already scorned by the two of them told them they had the right woman.
“Miss Prentiss?” Morgan asked formally, though he felt the warmth grow when he caught sight of a beat up friendship bracelet around her wrist amongst newer gold chains, five white blocks spelling out her sister’s name pulling tight on her skin, as if she’d quickly outgrown the thing but hadn’t the heart to remove it.
It was then that he and Reid seemed to both reel back slightly at the fact she was standing in a large shirt, ratty around the edges, and what seemed to be a pair of men's boxers covering her bottom half, clearly not suspecting particularly important visitors.
She looked him head to toe with a frown, a dozen piercings in her ears, her hair highlighted with streaks of cardinal red, as if he was the one confronting her in his underwear, before she moved onto Spencer, who’s face seemed to be getting hotter by the second as he forced his eyes away from her bare legs.
“Are you guys strippers? Did someone send strippers to my door?” She asked, strawberry gum smacking between her lips as her gaze seemed to finish mulling over Spencer’s tall form and returned to Morgan.
“Emily sent us.” Reid said shortly, the music blaring in his ears making it difficult to focus on what it was she was saying, “As co-workers, no-not strippers. We’re with the FBI,”
He hated loud noises anyway, cringed at the sound of particularly cutting rock songs, but since he’d developed his … problem, the dilaudid had him feeling like someone was clawing at his skull, tugging his brain through his ears.
“Emily sent you here?” She asked with a scoff, looking the two up and down again. They both easily caught the way her face hardened, “Are pigs flying today or something?”
“We’re here to ask for your help on a case,” Spencer rushed through a sweaty brow, “Emily said you’d be able to act as a translator for us and some Russian citizens who are being targeted,”
She sighed sceptically, crossing her arms and leaning against the door frame, “Any strippers or non-strippers can fraud an ID. Emily’s name was in the paper just the other week. I’m gonna need a little more than that,”
She keeps track of her sister despite the supposed distance between them. Spencer was quick to profile, his mind whirring at all the ways she reminded him of her sister down to the way she raised her eyebrows expectantly at them.
“Emily was born October twelfth, 1970 at 7:12am, graduated from Garfield High School in 1989,” Spencer said as if reporting the weather, her eyes narrowing in on him all the more coldly, “She attended Chesapeake Bay University and speaks six languages, as I expect you do from moving so often with your mother. She coined your nickname Bugsy from your childhood love of ladybugs, which she said you grew out of by the time you turned eleven yet the name stuck, though you still like counting the spots to identify their species. Your parents split when you were five and your father moved in with his now wife, born September ninth-”
“Alright- alright. What are you, living in her walls?” She interrupted incredulously, before turning her attention to Derek who seemed to hide a chuckle with a cough. “Either you really are a stripper or you’re a terrible friend,”
“She loves Kurt Vonnegut,” Derek held his finger as if to prove her entirely wrong, although not much else came to him. Maybe he was a bad friend, he thought guiltily, or maybe he simply lacked an eidetic memory like the wonder boy next to him, who had been about to tell her how old she was when Emily’s pet betta fish died, “Slaughterhouse 5?”
Rolling her eyes, she grunted at them, kicking her door open for them to enter.
“Everyone loves Vonnegut; only losers under a rock dislike Vonnegut,” She drawled, edging back into her room, the heavy bass rock growing in volume as they followed her in, “I’ll be ready in a second- Emily’s always bugging me about wearing pants,” She said vaguely, scanning around the dirty dorm, until she found one particular pair of jeans laying half under her bed, quickly yanking them up her legs. “Come in, come in.”
She flicked the speakers way down to which Spencer took a breath of relief. His eyes fell to the laptop that had been set up on her desk, the five different textbooks littered around the spare space, energy drinks and empty mugs filling the cracks where he could barely see the generic white of the table top, his nose crinkling. About as gross as he’d expect from a college student.
“Emily said your Russian was pretty good,” Derek made conversation, his eyes wandering over the various posters plastered over her walls, some fraying round the edges from where she had likely been moved from bedroom to bedroom when the Prentiss’s inevitably had to move country again.
“Yeah,” She snarked, pulling a nicer top over her head, “Kinda tends to happen when you live in Russia,”
Morgan raised his eyebrows to Spencer who seemed to give him the same look back, though the latter was biting back a snicker at her words.
How in the hell was she the Ambassador’s daughter?
–
“This all involves Russian Mafia, it’s really beefed up here the last ten years or so,” Agent Cramer, a tall, slim man who looked entirely overwhelmed by the workload on his shoulders reported, as she listened intently.
She had been somewhat de-briefed in the car, Emily messaging her for the first time since Christmas, the message a simple: “Have you met with Morgan and Reid yet? Make sure to put on pants,” to which she sent her a thumbs up emoji. She didn’t have much to say to her at the moment, barely even knew her sister anymore.
“It started off mainly in New York and LA but they send lieutenants from the old country,” Cramer went on, and she caught Reid scratching his arm beneath his shirt. She knew it was mozzy weather, and he was already under the blaring sun in a little sweater, it wouldn’t surprise her if he felt a bit prickly.
“Pahkans,” She interrupted, the man named Gideon shooting her a glance as she dug through her purse.
“Your Mom do much work about the Mafia?” He asked, as she produced a clear nail varnish.
“Here and there, I had to sit with her in her office for a whole Summer once when I got caught sneaking out. Picked up a few things, though,” She said, holding the polish out to Spencer, nodding to his arm, “Here. Supposed to help bug bites,”
He looked at her as if he wanted to say something, perhaps question her sources for such an old wives tale, but he stopped himself quickly, taking the varnish out of her hand with a dejected nod.
“Thankyou,” He muttered, shoving it in his pocket.
Three months he’d been in this rabbit hole. She had noticed it in a matter of hours.
“They open up branch offices in other cities. Baltimore, Saint Louis, Chicago, Dallas, the list goes on,” Cramer added, nodding at her words, “They’re mainly offshoots of the Odessa Mafia and they’re especially tough to crack from a law enforcement standpoint. I mean beside being well organised with sophisticated technical equipment, there’s Vory v Zakone to contend with,”
“The thieves code, eighteen principles they live by,” Reid jumped in before she could, to which she nodded as Gideon looked to her for more.
“It means ‘thief in law’, or ‘thief with code’. It's a system of repeatedly jailed convicts that have been crowned or ‘made’ with a strict list of ideals, breaking them usually means death,” She explained, kicking a stone between her feet.
“It’s like bible to these guys. We’re not gonna be turning any of them informer anytime soon,” Cramer said. Gideon seemed to tune the three of them out however, his gaze locking on the house across the street, where a curtain twitched, and a man’s face appeared in the window, watching the crime scene with guilt.
“Then we’ll need a witness who will talk,” Gideon replied, heading straight towards the neighbour who seemed just a little too invested in what was happening, much more than a concerned third party should be. Though, she had barely noticed, digging through her purse once more for chapstick.
“So, you study Russian or something?” Cramer asked as she applied it gently, Spencer swore he could smell the cherry flavour from where he stood beside her.
“I lived in Moscow until I was six, moved back to France, then back to Italy, then Algeria for a bit. Bounced around Europe for a bit longer, but I still speak better Russian than anything else,” She clarified, and she saw Cramer’s eyebrows shoot up, “Military brat except I don’t get the cool discount at the store,”
“You must have had a lot of friends though, going to so many schools,” Spencer added, and though there was nothing teasing about his tone, she laughed sharply anyway.
“You’re funny,” She snarked, but smiled at him anyway.
Spencer had never been called funny in his life. ‘Funny looking’, ‘funny sounding’ maybe, but never funny.
In fact he was so confused by what she had meant, whether it had been a taunt or genuine that he almost missed the sound of the whole street locking their front doors, dead bolting their lives away when a black prius, an expensive one at that, pulled through the street and swerved into park next to them.
“Guess who,” Cramer bit, her eyes ripping away from where Gideon had the door slammed in his face.
Detective Cramer aged by about five years when two tall men got out of the luxury car, opening the door for a shorter man in the back seat, their faces thunder.
“You familiar with them?” She asked, shoulder brushing against Spencer as she turned to watch the men approach, entirely aware of the .9mm on each of their hips.
“Arseny Lysowsky,” The detective identified, his voice cold, eyeing the two men who flanked the leader, towering over them.
“Agent Cramer, how are you?” Lysowsky smiled at him, which oddly enough seemed somewhat real, as he also took stock of the three other people around him. His eyes lingered on her for a moment, noting her lack of gun and badge, trying to decipher if she was local or just a very unprepared fed.
“Lysowsky, what brings you out?” Cramer asked, a tightness to his tone, his hand all too eager to grab his own pistol.
“I heard Chernuses had problems,” He kept it vague, didn’t reveal too much, and looked back at the victim’s house with a scorned frown.
“How did you hear that?” Gideon challenged, stance unwavering as the mob leader turned to meet his cold gaze.
“And you are?” He asked, a sinister smile on his face that flipped her stomach. She didn’t like the tension that had overcome the little patch of sidewalk they took up, and she was quick to notice how Spencer moved towards her.
He, by far, wasn’t the best shot on the team, but he was sure Hotch and Prentiss would have his and Morgan’s heads if any harm came to her.
“Churneses said they hadn’t told anyone,” Agent Gideon ignored his question, hands firmly planted on his hips. If he was unnerved by the criminal in front of him, he never showed it, not even when Lysowsky’s grin widened horribly.
“It is a small community. Word gets out,” He said simply, looking past him to the neighbours house that had kicked Gideon to the curb, “Are you a friend of Gorban’s?”
A second of silence passed between them, neither of them backing down from the moral standoff they’d engaged in.
“Mr Gorban wouldn’t talk to me,” Gideon admitted, and Arseny only smiled again, flicking a look at the house behind him, as if hearing his dog had obeyed without command.
“Would you like me to talk to him for you?” The threat was there clear as day, clear enough to have Gideon’s eyes narrow, “I can’t promise something will come of it,”
“You!” In a second, Natalya, the victim she’d briefly met when Morgan had pulled up around an hour before, had stormed out of her house, her black kitten heels clicking against the concrete, “Where’s my father? He has my father!”
“Wait a minute,” Derek called, restraining her where she stood, trying to pull his muscled arm from her shoulder, “Do you know he has your father?”
“He’s responsible for all of this,” She spat, her eyes cold as she glared at the three men with vitriol hate, “Why everyone’s afraid, him and his animals,” She threw a hand up to his bodyguards that seemed barely contained by Cramer’s silencing hand.
“I am only here to help,” Lysowsky replied, confident and calm in his words, though not as taunting as the agents would have thought, as if he truly cared for her.
A vast difference to the sadistic mob boss Cramer’s team had painted him to be.
“Help?” She laughed woefully, tears in her eyes, “You’re a dog,”
“Natalya,” Arseny said in a warning, the way a teacher would to a student, as her breath rattled in her chest through a weep.
“How exactly can you help them?” Bugsy braved to speak, Gideon and Reid both flashing her a look. She’d always had trouble holding her tongue.
Lysowsky turned his attention to her then, his eyes running down her figure, still deciphering whether she was armed; she looked much too young to be an agent.
“In any way that they’d like me to, darling,” He replied, the disdain in her frown clearly not deterring him in the slightest, though again the act of concern held up in his own grimace, “As I said this is a small community. If one is in pain, we’re all in pain.”
Natalya weeped behind Morgan, sniffling as the boss made his way over to her, “Natalya, [you didn’t have to bring in outsiders],”
The younger woman’s ears pricked up as he spoke in his native language, Spencer’s eyes flicking to her from behind his sunglasses.
“[Let me help you],” He continued, taking a step towards Natalya, unthreatening yet she saw Morgan tense, his fingers twitching towards his gun.
“[My family will never come to you for help],” Natalya hissed back, also in Russian, her face contorted in disgust, “[Get away from my house],”
“[You are not right, Natalya],” He replied, yet again the concern in his eyes was either genuine or very well faked, “[You have made the wrong decision],”
Taking a step away from the victim that wept with a scorned sneer, he looked back to the agents, noting the way the youngest of them glared at him hotly, before retreating to his car.
“What did he say? Did he threaten you, Natalya?” Morgan asked, the woman watching the group of men drive away, as if Mr Chernus wasn’t still missing and they hadn’t just bumped themselves up to number one of the suspects list. “Talk to us and we can do something about it,”
“He said I made the wrong decision,” She said wetly, frustration turning on Derek as he pushed her for an answer, “I hope I didn’t,”
With that she stormed off back into her house, the same stomping of her kitten heels in her wake, leaving the agents to all look between one another before they simultaneously turned to look at Bugsy, questions hovering on all of their lips.
“What did he say exactly?” Gideon asked without frills, a hand rubbing his brow. Relaying the information, the men’s faces all drew into frowns as they heard Lysowsky’s parting statement. Gideon huffed, turning to Morgan and gesturing for him to follow Natalya inside.
“Morgan, keep an eye on her, Reid and I are going to Cramer’s office to look over the files,” He looked at her then, worry lines littering his otherwise friendly face, damn near scowling as she looked over at him, “You are here to interpret, you understand? You do not speak to the suspects, that’s our job.” He growled, watching her with disappointment, the same tone a father used when scolding a petulant child, “Do you have any idea how much danger you could put yourself in? These guys won’t hesitate to take you out the second we’re not around, kid,”
“But-” She started with a bite, though her whole fight left her when he silenced her with a raised hand.
“Buts are for cigarettes, kiddo,” He interrupted, and Spencer winced slightly, knowing he’d heard that one a few hundred times when he’d first started under Gideon and had yet to mature entirely. Reid watched something rebellious flare in her eyes, and he worried for a moment she might just slap his boss for the patronising tone he took, “Just keep your mouth shut, you’re doing great so far,”
She opened her mouth to protest, only to then register his words entirely and stay silent once more, appreciating his praise with a guilty smile. For once, she listened.
–
The grandfather clock chimed to tell them it was merely 11am; two hours until the unsub would start cutting more if they didn’t get the ransom fee, two hours to figure out who wanted Natalya’s family to suffer.
Said woman paced her living room at the sound of the hour, as Bugsy picked over the knick knacks on her fireplace, a small smile teasing her lips when she saw a picture of three small children grinning toothily at the camera.
She had never gotten any photo’s similar, Emily being fourteen years older. The majority of their childhood photos consisted of a very grumpy teenager holding her baby sister that seemed to squirm in the tight, formal dresses Elizabeth Prentiss had forced them into, identical scowls on their faces as they were made to sit for the picture.
There were some good memories, ones where Emily let herself be a sister and not a mom, where she would put makeup on her for fun and do her hair, let her have all the clothes out her wardrobe she thought looked nice, reading to her before bed, even letting her sister keep her pet corn snake when she left home for good.
But now, it seemed like she was too caught up in her super serious grown up job to give a shit that her sister lived just an hour away. Still messaged each other for holidays, but the last few times she’d braved a call to the eldest Prentiss, it had gone unanswered. They argued the majority of the time they spoke, or there was an awkward long silence in between words, whichever was worse, but they each knew the other would come running if they were to ever need them so desperately.
“Are you hungry? I could make something?” Natalya offered kindly, Derek having a poke through her collection of books that sat on the end table, though he’d have a tough job reading them as she’d already caught most of them were in her home language.
“Oh, no thanks. I’m fine,” He replied with a small smile, putting down the books to calm the clearly on edge woman that looked to the twenty-something year old hopefully.
She shook her head, “I’m good, thanks,” which seemed to deflate her entirely as she sat next to Derek with a sigh.
“I guess I’m like my mother. When she’s upset, she cooks,” Natalya said with a sad huff of a laugh, running a hand through her short, dark hair.
“Yeah, mine does too. I think that’s just a mom thing,” He replied, and Bugsy felt the two of them look at her as her finger traced the old brass ornaments gently, “How about you, baby Prentiss?”
She snorted, “You’re kidding, right?” smiling bitterly, “My mom never cooked for us, she said we needed to figure it out for ourselves rather than relying on the staff. Didn’t stop her from trying to end world hunger though,”
It wasn’t lost to Morgan the way her eyes trained on the picture of Natalya and her mother, cuddled together with genuine love in their embrace, the snarky humour as she spoke, the same longing Emily seemed almost too good at hiding from them.
“Your mother is a great woman,” Natalya complimented, though she missed the way the girl’s face steeled over, chewing her bottom lip as if to stop herself from snapping at the woman who meant well. She said nothing. “Where is your mother?” She turned her attention back to Derek who seemed the more talkative of the two of them.
“Chicago. That’s where I’m from,” He replied, watching Bugsy turn away from the two of them to inspect more of the Chernus’s trinkets on their walls.
“I’m from Dolgoprudny. Just North of Moscow.” Natalya replied. Opening her mouth to add something else, she was cut off by a knock at the door and the three of them froze in their place.
“Are you expecting someone?” Morgan asked Natalya in a hushed tone, reaching for his gun and heading for the door.
She shook her head, “No,” She whispered back. Morgan pulled the curtain back the smallest inch to see a small blonde boy staring back, a box in his hands and a bored look on his face.
It all happened too fast from there, Natalya opening the door for the neighbourhood kid, opening the box to see a decapitated ear, the blood fresh and pooling in the bottom of the box. It couldn’t have been taken longer than an hour or so ago, unless they were keeping the parts on ice.
Bugsy’s hand slapped over her mouth, Natalya’s scream piercing through her as she shoved the box into Derek’s hands, fleeing to the toilet, and she heard the woman retching. Part of her felt the same nausea settle in her stomach, looking away from the body part with a wince as Derek got straight on the phone to Gideon.
“They didn’t wait, man. They sent a box with-” He swallowed thickly, “With Mr Chernus’s ear inside.”
Gideon replied, and whatever it was, it had Derek looking back to her. He agreed, hanging up the phone and rooting through his pockets, producing a set of rattling keys, holding them out for you between the tips of his fingers.
“Gideon wants you, kid. He said they’re at the Little Kiev restaurant, they’re going to talk to Lysowsky,” Morgan said, grimacing as he held the ear away from her, “You sure you’ll be okay to drive?”
“I’d rather be on the road than look at what’s in that box,” She said in disgust, taking the keys and heading out to the car.
She thought it best for everyone she didn’t tell him she hadn’t yet got her licence as she made her way over to the restaurant.
-
“Reid and I will do the talking, just see if anything he’s saying connects with Vory v zakone, think you got that?” Gideon instructed her the second she got out of the car, taking the keys and handing them back to Reid who gave her a small nod.
“We think the reason it was Mr Chernus who was targeted has something to do with the code,” Reid explained, his hands in his pockets as the three of them approached the restaurant, “You said earlier you understood the tenants,”
“Why me, though? I thought I was just translating?” She repeated Gideon’s earlier words, almost cocky that they needed her.
“Lysowsky would feel the need to show face in front of men like Morgan and Cramer, even in front of Natalya since she lives locally. Between the three of us, he had less reputation to uphold, less so with a young woman like yourself,” Reid added, holding the door open for her to go in front.
And so there she was, trailing behind Gideon and Reid over to where Lysowsky sipped a spoonful of borscht, as she tried not to marvel at the grandeur of the establishment inside. Clearly, Arsney had money to build a place like this, and wasn’t afraid to be flashy about it either, that much was apparent from the other clientele that tended to their beers around their own tables, Rolex watches and designer shoes adorning nearly every one of them. She hated to think of how many ears or fingers those suits had cost.
“Would you like something to eat?” He asked, a chunk of bread in his hand dipping into the thick sauce, seemingly unbothered that they were there, “This borscht is exquisite, it’s my mother’s old country recipe,”
“Didn’t you forsake all your relatives when you swore the thieves code?” Reid asked, which she guessed was hit foot in to get Lysowsky to talk.
“I didn’t forsake her recipes,” Lysowsky replied with a shrug, looking to her where she seemed to be staring at his plate, “Borscht?”
She shook her head, her nose wrinkling, “Much preferred stroganoff, mom used to force me to have borscht to make sure I ate my veggies,”
His eyebrows raised, surprise written over his face, before he gave a short laugh.
“[Where are you from]?” He asked in his mother tongue, gesturing for the three of them to sit down, though his eyes lit up as he watched her carefully.
“[I was born in DC, but my mother worked in Moscow for a few years],” She answered shortly, and he seemed to find it even funnier that the near child they’d brought along on their case spoke as fluently as he did.
Laughing with a heavy hand smacking on the table, he gestured to a nearby waiting staff to come over.
“What are you having then, borscht for the gentle man?” He looked at Reid and Gideon, the former shaking his head while Gideon nodded with an awkward smile.
“I’d love a taste,” He said, though any enthusiasm seemed to have drained out of his voice.
“And what is the little lady having?” Lysowsky asked, his eyes falling back to her, as she straightened in her seat.
She chanced a quick glance to Gideon, who nodded at her to play his game. She had not expected to be so deep in criminal territory when they’d said they needed a translator, and truly they hadn’t planned on getting her in the field until they realised she would know much more about this than they would.
“Do you have sharlotka?” She asked, returning his smile wearily as he clicked at the waiter who all but bolted to the kitchen.
“A sweet tooth. I like it,” Arseny replied, shovelling a heap of beets into his mouth, “Our favourite was always Leningradsky,”
“Ours?” She prompted, giving a polite thanks to the waiter who returned too quickly with a slice of cake. She caught Spencer glancing at the bowl with intrigue, the hunger clear on the quiet man’s face. Gently pushing the bowl and clean spoon towards him, he flicked a look up at her, “Apple cake,” She whispered, sending him a small smile, “Really yummy with the sugar on top,”
“Mine and my mother’s,” Arseny replied, though Gideon and Reid both caught how he paused before he replied, as if he had to think about the answer he was giving; the oldest tell that it wasn’t entirely true, “We didn’t have much when I was a boy, but that was always our dessert of choice,”
She stopped for a mere second, missing the moment when Spencer spooned the tiniest bite of the cake into his mouth, trying to ignore the way his tongue exploded in the sweet, fruit taste. He hadn’t eaten anything properly in days, and maybe that was why it tasted so good, but more likely it was just the fact that everything sweet tasted even better when he was on his come downs.
“We need to talk, Arseny,” Gideon interrupted, ignoring the way Spencer pined to go back in for a second mouthful, but chose to hand the bowl back to her with a small smile.
“We are on first name basis?” Lysowsky asked, shaking his head, and she took a small bite of the sweet cake for herself, “I still don’t even know who you are,”
“I think I understand something about this,” Gideon replied, his thumbs tapping together, the waiter returning with his borscht, “You have a problem,”
“I do?” The pahkan titled his head at the agent, the annoyance clear on his face.
“That’s why you came to the Chernus’ house this morning,” Gideon answered, unbothered as he began to scoop the borscht onto the spoon, the apple cake in her own mouth going down a treat.
She kept her head down, took tiny bites of the dessert that certainly tasted like a fresh baked sharlotka. But her thoughts lingered on what Lysowsky had said, about his own favourite pudding.
It made no sense that he would have ever tasted Leningradsky shortbread, not for the time that he was born, nor with the amount of money he claimed his family lacked. Infact, the way he fully pronounced his vowels, the akanye, the stress he put on certain parts of his words, all pointed to the same dialect you’d heard back in Moscow, more central than anything else.
So how on earth would he have eaten the so-called ‘Royal Cake’ that had only been made eight hours from there, in the town it grew its name from.
There was something glaringly obvious about his story missing.
“A man like me?” She tuned back into the conversation, swallowing another mouthful down as Gideon took another bite himself, though it seemed the topic had turned sour as Arseny wiped his mouth with the corner of his napkin.
“Four watchtowers and a convict signifies a stay in prison,” Spencer cut in, nodding towards the tattoos branded across his knuckles, “Each one of those crosses symbolises an individual sentence,”
“Twenty three years in prison in the Ural mountains,”
But she was still stuck on what it was she was missing. It had been such an odd thing to lie about, particularly when he’d even admitted himself that they hadn’t had much money, so he clearly hadn’t been lying to fake a reputation.
So why lie?
She was ripped out of her stumped silence when Natalya entered the restaurant, her voice grabbing the men’s attention immediately.
“Mr Lysowsky. You said you could help me,” She said, her purse over her shoulder and her own car keys gripped tightly in her hand as if she’d all but thrown herself out the vehicle to get there faster.
“Don’t you already have help,” Lysowsky snapped, clearly Gideon had dug under his skin enough to garner a reaction.
“I made a mistake,” Natalya replied, barely meeting Bugsy’s gaze as she stared at her from her seat at the table. “I talked to my father on the phone,”
The girl frowned at her, “That’s a lie,” It came out before she could hold herself, brows furrowed at whatever it was she was trying to pull. Gideon said her name in a reprimand, though he too was looking at the woman as if she’d grown a second head.
“Thankyou for coming, but I don’t need your help,” The woman met her confused look with a saddened expression, nodding to her solemnly.
Leave it alone, she seemed to be saying, there’s nothing more I want you to do.
And with that, the two of them left the restaurant, Natalya walking by his side obediently, her purse tucked in close under her arm, as Morgan and Cramer filed in from the parking lot, watching their only leads drive away without a fight.
–
The team were quick to head back to Natalya’s home, only to find the ear missing and the finger gone too, the only evidence left of any crime being committed leaving with the victim’s daughter herself.
“She’s not here, and the garbage was never taken out,” Morgan said with a grimace as he walked down the front steps to meet the four of them on the sidewalk.
“Her dad just went missing, surely we can cut the girl some slack-” Bugsy words were hidden in a huff, rolling your eyes at the man who cut a glance to her.
“No, no. When Hotch first talked to us, he said she noticed her father’s car in the driveway when she took the garbage out,” Morgan explained, his shades blocking the way the cogs turned behind his dark eyes.
“Right?” Reid asked, his own sunglasses now covering his eyes that winced at the brightness, surrounding them.
“Garbage can in the kitchen is completely full, she never took it out.”
“She lied,” Gideon said with finality, the penny beginning to drop for him too.
“She could be half way back to Dolgo-whatever by now,” Morgan scoffed, his arms smacking against his side as the lightbulb went off over her head, the final puzzle piece falling into place.
“Dolgoprudny?” Spencer asked, exchanging a glance with Cramer, “Isn’t that where Lysowsky’s from-”
“Yes, YES, of course!” She exclaimed, grabbing onto Spencer’s arm as he spoke.
He looked at her with wide eyes, not that she could see since his shades blocked the way, only to feel her shake him harder in the midst of her enthusiasm. Part of him wanted to rip his arm out of her grip, waiting for the sickness to crawl up his throat at a strangers germs touching him, but the oddest part of him reasoned she had the same germs as Emily did, that the fifty percent DNA the women shared negated the fact she was a stranger, just as it did when he met Jack. Jack had Hotch germs. Bugsy had Emily’s. He didn’t feel so sick thinking of it like that.
“I knew I was missing something,” She said, turning to Gideon, “He was lying before, about his favourite dessert. There was no way he could have had Leningradsky with his mother. Given his age, at that time in Soviet Russia, shortbread was incredibly expensive, only extremely wealthy families could have eaten it. That, and given the Central dialect he speaks in, I’d pinpointed he lives somewhere near or around Moscow, which means there was no way he was eating that cake considering it was only ever baked in one shop at first, one way up in Leningrad, where St Petersburg is now, like nine hours away from Moscow-”
“What’s your point?” Cramer asked, tired of the somewhat slew of thoughts she’d been saving until she knew for sure what she meant.
“Before when he said it was ‘our favourite’, I don’t think he was talking about him and his mother,” She explained, looking to see if Spencer at least understood what she was getting at.
“It was him and his own child…” Spencer finished, as Morgan’s phone began ringing.
“Yeah, what?” He asked, the frustration clear in his tone that they were all still without the evidence needed to pin it on Lysowsky, “You’re sure? Uh-huh. Okay, thanks doll,”
The four of them looked at him expectantly as he nodded to her, “Garcia just got into the bank’s system, somebody wired 500 thousand dollars into the account ten minutes ago,”
“Who wired it?” Spencer asked, though he was still reeling from the way she’d touched him, the way her voice went up about five octaves and a dozen decibels.
“She didn’t say, but the name on the account is Lyov Fulenko. She says that’s Lysowsky’s wife’s maiden name. Fulenko.” Morgan replied, and her brows furrowed.
“Why did she bring us into this?” Gideon asked, though the solemn look on his face said he already knew, “Because she needed to put pressure on the other victim,”
Gideon headed towards Mr Gorban’s house once more, though it was clear he had already sketched out in his head who was their unsub and Natalya’s involvement, he simply needed the confirmation.
Morgan clapped a hand on her back, “Nice job, baby Prentiss. Those were some mean profiling skills out there,”
She frowned at him, scoffing, “I’m not a profiler, that’s Emily’s job. It was just basic linguistics really; more a display of how I need to lay off cake for a while.”
The man kissed his teeth with a grin, “Don’t put yourself down. What’s your degree even in?”
She shrugged, picking under her nails for something to do, “Individualised genomics and health.” She said as if it were child’s play, though Spencer’s head shot to her.
“Biotechnology?” He asked, and she glanced at him with a nod, “What’s your thesis on?”
Gideon had returned by the time he’s asked, and began corralling the two of them back to the car, “We’re heading back to the restaurant. We need to speak with Lysowsky again,”
But it had fallen on deaf ears as Spencer looked at her expectantly.
“Just some new research into prenatal screening, nothing too fun,” She simpered, climbing into the back seat as he nodded with her.
“I read a fascinating paper on the uses of hCG in a woman’s body-”
“Reid,” Gideon cut him off with a short glance from the front seat, “Continue this conversation once we’ve found Mr Chernus alive,”
Spencer blushed, feeling like a kid caught in the cookie jar, “Sorry, sir,” He looked over at her, only to see her hiding a smile to herself.
He thinks it was then he’d decided Emily had been wrong about her.
-
“You paid the ransom already,” Gideon said plainly, the four of them trailing behind him as he followed Lysowsky to a small seating area in the front of the restaurant. She could tell the whole way Spencer had been itching to ask her more questions about her paper, barely contained as his fingers had twitched in his lap, but he seemed to straighten himself out once she’d reached the restaurant, “You paid all the ransoms,”
“Sit,” The boss ordered, barely glancing at them as he held his strong whiskey up.
“Are they going to kill Mr Chernus?” Morgan asked, cutting to the chase as Lysowsky spared him a bored glance.
“No,” He replied shortly, the look on his face about as grumpy as when they’d left.
“The account is in the name of Lyov Fulenko. Lyov is a man’s name.” Spencer input, crossing his arms as the boss glared at him, “A son’s name. Vory v Zakone. Never have a family of your own. No wife. No children.”
“Lyov,” He looked at her then, gesturing to her with the glass of strong liquor, “You know what it means?”
“The Lion,” She replied gravely, steeling herself against his dark eyes.
“No one else would be so stupid,” Lysowsky ran a hand over his weathered face, swigging his drink as if it was the only thing keeping him talking. “At first it didn’t mean much. It was a way of letting him earn his own money. I could afford it, it came from the fund. And no one questions the use of the fund-”
“Where is he?” Gideon asked, his elbows on his knees as he leaned in.
“What else could I do?” He was ignored, “I couldn’t admit I wasn’t blessing the kidnappings, I couldn’t even admit my son existed.” He huffed when he saw Gideon’s face unmoving from the glower, his question still unanswered, “Chernus will be home in a few minutes. You should be there, he will need medical attention,” He shooed them away, with his final words, drink sloshing in his hand. His face darkened, impossibly so, and the five of them looked at him, something sad and remorseful shining back.
“What are you gonna do?” She asked, though she had a feeling she already knew the answer.
“Vory v Zakone.” He said heavily, nodding to her, “We take care of our own troubles.”
It was a silent journey back to the Chernus’ house.
-
Morgan and Reid pulled up to the campus, the younger girl in the back seat almost dozing off with the rhythmic hum of the engine, the evening sun much nicer on Spencer’s sensitive eyes.
“This is you, baby Prentiss,” Derek’s voice jolted her out of the half sleep she was in, straightening herself from where she had her head pressed against the window.
“Thanks,” She muttered, rubbing her eyes and unbuckling herself as they did the same, assuming they wanted to walk her back to her dorm since it had gotten dark, “I’ll be okay on my own, campus security should be out by now,”
“You sure?” Reid asked, flicking his watch up to his eyes to see the meagre 6:13pm staring back at him, “I thought they started at 7,”
She blinked at him, her eyebrows quirking for a moment, “How do you know that?”
“Johns Hopkins was my backup option- well actually it was my third, I much preferred Caltech’s curriculum, Yale was my second-” He started, flicking a glance to her where she waited for him to finish, “Not that Johns was bad, there were just better- alternative options out there-”
“Don’t shit your pants, I’m hardly the dean of the university,” She chuckled indignantly patting them both on the shoulder before sliding over to open the door, “Nice meeting you both, I’ll just get back to my mediocre college with my poor curriculum, nothing like the solid gold bathrooms at Caltech-”
“I never said that!” She laughed again, with her whole chest, at his defensive tone as she stepped out the car, hand on the door to shut it behind her.
Leaning down to give them both a wave goodbye, Derek’s voice stopped her again, “Baby Prentiss, do us all a favour and enrol yourself into forensics, we need more people on our team,”
Smirking at him, she shook her head, “Very funny. Never gonna happen. I like my little slides and samples, thankyou,”
Slamming the door on the two of them she headed for the front gates, swinging her purse over her shoulder. She was stopped by a hand on her shoulder, and she quickly realised she’d been too tired to even realise a set of footsteps jogging after her.
Maybe she should have taken that walk home after all.
Whirling around, her eyes widened as Spencer had clearly not been leader of the track team as he was half out of breath just from the few feet he’d covered, though she reckoned she could have guessed that seeing his lean ribs beneath his shirt.
He shoved a business card in her face as he caught his breath, though it was more just his name and credentials followed by a phone number.
“I-I don’t have email otherwise I would-” He huffed, scratching his forehead as she frowned and looked at him.
“I’ve never been hit on via business card before,” She bit her lip with a smile, reading over the card again as he choked on his words even more than before.
“N-no, I-” He spluttered, ignoring the way Morgan beeped the horn for him, seemingly in a debate with a ticket metre that had caught him parked on yellow, “If you needed us for anything, or if you needed a second pair of eyes for your thesis, I’m happy to help,”
“You don’t have faith in the dummy that got into Johns?” She asked, and his head couldn’t shake fast enough, though he seemed to catch her teasing and shared her smile, “Thanks, Dr Reid,”
“Spencer’s just fine,” He said, giving her a small nod and a wave as Morgan’s palm bounced on the horn a dozen times. She flashed him one more smile, pocketing his number and heading back to her dorm, wondering what the doctor would think about the paper due in tomorrow she’d yet to get started on.
+1. The one where you get arrested.
The case had been heavy. They’d felt it in the car on the way back to headquarters. A little girl, molested and groomed by her own uncle, his own wife covering for him.
His mother always told him love makes you do crazy things, but Spencer hoped that whatever part of him worth loving would at least stay sane by the time he found the one. He was loyal to his team, to his mother, but that was where he drew the line. He was loyal to his family, undoubtedly so.
Yet so was Emily.
The call came to the second SUV, her phone set up to hands free mode, quickly flicking to answer the call on speaker, the other half of the team ahead of them on the freeway.
“Prentiss, speaking. Who is this?” She spoke clearly to the unknown number, her knuckles going white at the wheel when she heard a nervous laugh.
“It’s me,” Her sister mumbled through the speaker, “You wouldn’t by any chance be near DC would you?”
She huffed, cursing the knack Prentiss women had for showing up at the worst times.
“Can’t this wait, I’m on the clock,” Emily hissed, her finger edging towards the ‘End Call’ button, “I’ll call you after,”
“Wait, wait, don’t hang up!” As if sensing her movements, she all but screeched, “This was my one phone call, they won’t let me have another,”
The car went silent for a moment, Spencer’s eyes narrowing on the dash from his place in the passenger seat, JJ also leaning forward from the back with a frown.
Emily grit her teeth, her upper lip twitching the way it did when she was mad.
“What do you mean by one phone call? Where are you?” She bit in a cautious tone, though knowing how reckless Bugsy tended to be, she had a pretty good idea.
The hesitation on the other end of the line was palpable, as was the way she awkwardly cleared her throat.
“Fairfax County Jail,” She murmured sheepishly, “But it wasn’t my fault, these assholes don’t know what they’re talking about, I swear-”
“Stay there and keep your mouth shut,” Emily ordered, her expression furrowing into a sneer, “And for the love of god don’t antagonise the officers,”
The agent didn’t even wait for a response, knowing it would probably be something snarky, her mind already racing at what the hell her sister could have done this time, every worst possible explanation jumping to the forefront.
“I’ll call Hotch and tell him to turn around,” JJ offered, her fingers already searching her contacts for their boss, as Emily sighed through her nose.
“Tell him not to worry, I’ll drop you guys back to headquarters, make my way there myself,” She said, picking the skin of her nail softly with her thumb.
“By the time we’ve reached Quantico, visiting times will be over and she’ll have to stay the night,” Spencer pointed out, his own surprise evident. Sure, she had certainly been a personality when they had met, but a criminal seemed a stretch.
“Maybe it would teach her a lesson,” Emily mused, shaking her head to herself, “Who am I kidding, that psycho would Shawshank her way out of there by dawn,”
“You don’t actually think she would hurt anyone do you?” JJ said, the dial tone ringing out from the phone she held to her ear.
“Wouldn’t put it past her. She once cut a girl's pigtail off for wearing the same dress as her on her birthday,” Emily winced as Spencer’s eyebrows shot into his hairline.
“I thought getting swirlied was bad,” He muttered, watching out the window as Emily made a U-turn at the traffic lights. He and the now twenty three year old had been bouncing research papers back and forth for a few months, the odd one every week, Bugsy even once joking it was much more interesting and riveting than foreplay, which had his face red hot at his desk.
She was like that, he’d quickly realised, had a vulgar sort of humour about her, yet he couldn’t help the snigger that came out whenever he’d receive one of his papers back through the mail with pink writing scrawled all over his ideas. The little hearts that dotted her exclamations whenever she wrote “AMAZING!”, the odd time she’d written “sexy ideas, doctor Reid” which he’d come to understand meant it was really good. He’d even gotten back the drawing at the end of the paper of a stickman of the two of them, his hair a curly scribble and a purple tie which told him immediately who was who, her line of a hand pointing at his caricature with the speech bubble, “everyone point and wave at the smart man,” which had made him laugh.
She was odd, toeing the line between childish and witty, nothing like the scholars he usually worked with, and the writing he usually sent back on her papers were all in standard black ink, his own pharmacist handwriting staring back at him as he crammed in his every thought of her research into the margins. If she couldn’t read it, she hadn’t said, but he liked to think she took notice of it all, even if it wasn’t strewn with stars and doodles and the occasional flirt he knew meant nothing. He knew her from her writing, knew her from her ideas that sometimes kept him up at night thinking more about them, but the two of them hadn’t spoken directly, most certainty hadn’t seen one another since that day with the Chernus’.
Emily hummed, fingers drumming on the wheel, entirely unaware of the thoughts rattling around in Spencer’s head, then again that’s how it always was, “I just pray to god she’s listened to me for once in her damn life and keeps quiet,”
-
“Fucking bitch. The nuns in Moscow hit harder than you,” She spat, blood dribbling from her split lip. She wasn’t entirely lying, but god did her mouth sing with pain as she tried to muffle a moan.
“You got jokes, pig lover?” The other woman asked, a tattoo covering half her cheek, her nose crooked from the shiner the Prentiss girl had already given her. “Won’t be fucking laughing when I’m done, bitch,” The woman was quick to tackle the girl around her stomach, slamming her into the hard concrete of the holding cell. Bugsy felt her skull rattle, the wind whooshing from her chest as rough hands grab her shirt and pin her down harder.
The younger girl reached the nerve under her opponent's armpit, the soft of her ribs, twisting until the woman gave a bark of shock, and she took the opportunity to shove her off, climbing on top of her as they both scrambled for some sort of control.
“I got one for you. What’s got a broken nose, a black eye and doesn’t know what’s good for her?” She swung twice as hard, the other women in the cell rattling against the bars as if watching a matador taunt a bull, the air thick with excitement as the two of them cursed eachother out.
Emily’s sigh was audible across the room as the wardens separated the cat fight, the largest of the officers all but grabbing her sister by the scruff of the neck like a feral beast, dragging her over with stubborn feet to where the BAU stood in the lobby, eyes widened at the state of her.
“You better start acting your age, little girl. Mommy’s not gonna be around forever to save you,” The officer hissed in her ear, manhandling her over to where Emily glared daggers into the side of her head. She knew that look, it was eerily similar to mom’s that time she’d been caught sneaking out of the house, something in the warm brown of Emily’s eyes frosting over into a cold blackness. Fury.
She chewed her words for a moment, waiting until the man had turned around with a grunt of acknowledgement to the badge Emily had flashed to get his attention, before she spoke.
“She’s not my mom, she's my sister, dumbass-” Emily slapped a hand over her mouth, gripping her shoulder with the bear-like strength her jagged nails possessed when she was mad, the scoff of disgrace leaving her mouth as her team trailed behind the two of them.
“What the hell happened, baby Prentiss?” Morgan asked, ignoring the way Emily’s heated gaze turned on him, “What’s got you so worked up?”
“Don’t entertain her, Morgan,” Emily seethed, all but shoving her into the back of the SUV. She looked up at her sister with an open mouth, the guilt flashing in her eyes as she wavered under the pointing finger Emily jabbed in her face, “Don't you even dare,”
“But-” She stammered, cut off when she saw the glare intensified, if that had even been possible.
“I don’t want to hear another word from you for the rest of the day unless you’re prepared to give me a good explanation why I’ve dragged my team out here to save your sorry ass,” Emily hissed, and the girl’s mouth bobbed a few times, feeling the rest of the team watching as she got thoroughly chewed out.
“Wait-” Emily’s hand lingered at the car door, ready to slam it in her face as she rubbed her cuff over her chin, mopping up the damage. Her head tilted for a moment, hoping her sister had something good to say, only for it to be; “He just called you old, I hope you realise that,”
Emily’s gaze darkened, slamming the door shut with an anger she imagined her mother had kept warm for the past twenty three years, whirling around heatedly when she heard a snigger from one Derek Morgan.
“Damn, mama, hear the girl out.” He said, slapping a hand on the woman’s shoulder as he passed, heading back to their own SUV, “Maybe she’ll surprise you,”
If Emily was going to bite anything back, she didn’t. Instead she ran a hand over her brow, the group disbanding to their cars now the problem child had been picked up from daycare, except for Hotch who watched the older Prentiss with a scowl, despite the worry in his eyes.
“Hotch, I’m so sorry, just take it off my timecard, I’ll cover all the costs,” She said shakily, her own frown adorning her face as she felt herself blush from embarrassment under her boss’s gaze.
“I understand she’s your sister, but this was a gross misuse of agent time and resources, Prentiss,” He said, his gaze drifting to where Spencer sat next to the girl, pulling a packet of tissues and hand sanitizer out of his satchel while JJ rooted through her own purse for a plaster, “Don’t let it happen again,”
Emily nodded vehemently, flushed with anger, her palms sticky as she wiped them on her jeans.
“Absolutely sir. Believe me, this ever happens again, she’s on her own,” She replied, though they both knew she didn’t mean it. Emily would never.
He nodded stonily, deciding quickly that it was punishment enough that she felt so ashamed, he knew from his years of arguments with Sean what it was like to have a sibling stray so far.
“We can fill out reports in the morning, just get Reid and JJ home,” Hotch said, putting a tentative hand on her shoulder as he passed her to head towards his own vehicle, “And try not to kill each other in the company car. It doesn’t look good on paperwork,”
She beat off the smile on her lips as she got back into the driver's seat, the air that engulfed the four of them foul as she glared over her shoulder and into the back. Spencer twitched in his seat uncomfortably, his hand still passing over tissues to the bloodied girl.
“So, you gonna tell me what that was about?” Emily asked, her tone brittle and warning, not in the mood for any snarky response she could give, “Or is this old lady going to have to lay into you some more,”
The smell of strong ethanol engulfed her nose as she held the soaked tissue to her face, frowning into her lap silently and avoiding the burning stare as Emily stuck the keys in the ignition and started the car.
“Let’s start with why you were there,” JJ input, the same tone of voice she used as when talking to victims, calm and motherly, unlike the pissed off snarl Emily gave, “You wanna tell us why you were arrested?”
“You two really gonna pull the good cop, bad cop on me?” She snapped, her lip swelling around the wound, tongue grazing it softly despite the heavy taste of the sanitizer.
Emily said her name in a warning, her last warning, and she knew better than to push her luck even more, the SUV pulling out of the station and onto the road.
“I was just shopping for groceries,” She started, fiddling with the bloodied tissue, wincing under her tongue stroke, “Store clerk made a pass at me, I told him I wasn’t interested. So he put a pack of smokes in my handbag while I wasn’t looking; the alarms went off. I didn’t even know what was happening until security grabbed me at the door,”
JJ flashed a glance at Emily, like two parents deciding an appropriate punishment, the brunette’s lips straightening out into a line.
“You’re telling the truth?” She asked cautiously, glancing in the rear view mirror to see how her sister balled the mess of paper between her palms.
Rolling her eyes, she gladly accepted the other packet of tissues Spencer slid over the leather seat between them.
“I went out for milk and oranges, I was not looking to get picked up, Em,” She bit back, groaning when she felt it jostle the cut, “And certainly not for cigarettes, you know I only smoke on New Years,”
Spencer looked at her with a frown, and she caught his confusion quickly, pulling another leaf of paper from the packet.
“Emily and I had a rule after she caught me smoking when I was like fourteen, that we could have one cigarette between the two of us on New Years eve,” She explained, JJ also perking up to hear it, “So that by the time morning came around, it would be last year’s mistake, and it would be like it never happened,”
JJ smiled to herself, remembering the time she caught Roz sneaking one of her dad’s cigarettes on the back porch back when she was just ten. She remembered the little secrets the two of them kept back then, held them even all these years later.
“So how did that lead to, well,” JJ gestured to her lip, “That,”
“Yeah, didn’t I specifically tell you to not antagonise anyone?” Emily chimed in, signalling she was changing lanes as they headed down the freeway for a second time that day.
“Technically you said not to antagonise the officers,” She pointed out, before Spencer had the chance to, shutting his mouth as he caught the glare Emily shot through the mirror.
“Keep talking,” The older Prentiss ordered, as Bugsy sighed and blotted her lip some more.
“That woman, Mira I think her name was, anyway, she recognised me from that picture mom had us take on Independence Day, the one they put in The Hill, and she asked me if it was true my sister was a fed,”
Emily’s fingers twitched at the wheel, knowing the status agents and even people associated with agents held in prisons; knowing just being a Prentiss in a jail cell held a big, dazzling price over her head that said ‘kill me, kill me!”
The air sucked out of the car, a look passing between JJ and Reid as they thought the same thing, waiting for her to go on.
“So then you hit her?” Emily guessed, the bitterness slowly ebbing as she understood maybe her sister wasn’t as unruly as she thought.
“No, I told her to leave me the fuck alone, but she said you guys sent her brother down for something a while back, and she asked again if my family were all Pigs,” She picked her nails, the blood stain on her sleeve staring back at her, “I told her if she didn’t stop calling you a Pig, I’d make her squeal like one. And then I hit her,”
Emily tried to pretend she didn’t smile hearing that, her cheeks tightening, lips pulling down as she fended it off.
“Is that good enough, officers, or will you be needing fingerprints?” The girl chimed after a moment, a weight seemingly lifted from the car as Emily quickly realised she had, for once, not been entirely at fault.
“I want a handwritten apology to my boss for wasting his time,” Emily demanded, her unforgiving gaze softening when she saw her smile, “And you owe my team coffee,”
“I can do coffee, coffee coming right up,” She agreed, shoving the used tissues into her purse with a crooked smile, “It’s a date,”
Spencers ears turned red, looking over the seat at where she dabbed at her lip gently. She didn’t look much older for six months, but she had gotten her nose pierced since the last time he’d seen her, unless he just hadn’t noticed it before, and the streaks of red were slowly fading out into a blush pink that said it was old, and he wondered if she’d done it herself in that tiny little cubicle bathroom of hers she shared with the four other girls in her block.
“You finished your stats papers yet?” He made polite conversation, though part of him was dying to know out of curiosity if she could crunch numbers and equations as well as she could in her own labs.
“Got two more this week, they’re kicking my ass man,” She replied with a huff, and he didn’t think he’d ever been called ‘man’ by a woman before. He knew if he’d known her in college, ignoring the fact he would have been twelve, he would have thought she may just be the coolest person alive, “I miss my labs with my microscopes and watching all the little baby cells move around in the ethanol. Stats are like, just not sexy,”
He smiled at her as she stared out the window, unaware of the way she’d managed to make DNA sound like a play pen full of kittens. He held off from telling her he found stats really quite sexy, knowing it would never sound the same coming from his mouth.
He pulled a leaf of the tissues from the packet, producing his own pen from his pocket and began doodling carefully so as not to rip the delicate canvas.
Sliding it over to her after five minutes as Emily and JJ made conversation in the front seat, she didn’t care that the grin tugged on her split lip, the reaction was instant, she couldn’t stop it if she tried.
Two stick men stared back at her, her hair a close match in texture and a childish triangle drawn as means of a dress, a very tall stick figure next to her patting her metaphorical head, a speech bubble coming from his mouth.
“Maths is fun!” It said, and she flicked a glance at him, her smile the most genuine he’d seen yet. He just smiled back.
+2. The one where you graduate
Emily felt the looks on her the moment JJ had mentioned Maryland. The case was a little under their pay grade, nothing more than a stalker, no bodies or bloodshed, but one very rattled woman that had turned to the communications liaison with fear for her life.
With Hotch and Rossi in Boston helping a case of their own, the rest of the BAU had been twiddling their thumbs waiting for something to come across their desk.
“This case is in my hands now, and if we do nothing and something happens to her,” JJ took a heavy breath, her eyes lingering on the three names Keri had given her in case of her untimely death, “I’ll be the one notifying her family,”
Derek, despite his own hesitations about using their time for a case like this, caved the moment he saw the guilt on the blonde’s face.
“Okay,” He shuffled the papers into a pile, Emily and Spencer gathering their own resources on the case and standing from the round table.
Luckily, one government SUV was more than enough to carry the four of them for the hour drive North, all of them well aware Hotch would flip if they used more funds than necessary.
JJ piled into the front beside where Morgan climbed into the driver’s seat, leaving Emily next to a particularly fidgety Reid. It took all of fifteen minutes of the man flicking a glance at her, his mouth quirking as if he were about to use it, before he thought better and looked out the window, and the whole thing would start again.
Derek, the less shy about his thoughts of the two men, even glanced at her through the rear view mirror, before he too returned his gaze out the window silently. JJ shifted in her seat, knowing she had to tread carefully around mentioning Bugsy to Emily, particularly after the last time they’d seen her. Emily had said they’d grabbed coffee once or twice since then, but that was all she spoke about it, which left her team walking cracked eggshells at the thought of bringing her up.
It seemed the three of them were bursting at the seams with the same thought, and it wasn’t until Reid cleared his voice, his puppy eyes stuck in his loop, that she had had enough.
“Does anyone here have something to say?” Emily huffed, Derek immediately reaching to turn the radio up the same time that JJ flicked the AC on for something to do. Realising they weren’t easily broken, she turned to Spencer who already looked slightly guilty, thumbing at his sweater, “Reid?”
“Did you want to see your sister?” He asked without hesitation, as if the words had fallen out of him, “You know, since we’re so close on this case. It would be a good excuse to-”
“You did say she owed us a coffee,” JJ pointed out, spurred on by Spencer’s nerves, “Wouldn’t mind cashing in if we’re coming all this way.”
“Morgan, do you have anything to add?” Emily asked with raised brows, though she already knew what was coming.
Derek chewed over his thoughts a second, “I’m just saying, you only get to see your baby sisters grow up once- you know, and it couldn’t hurt to see her even if she runs rings around you with that smart mouth-”
“Shouldn’t we be focusing on the case?” Emily cut him off incredulously, but received three knowing looks back. She met JJ’s gaze where the woman had swivelled in her seat to talk to her, and Prentiss was fast to catch the buried grief in her best friend’s eyes. She knew it pained her to even bring up sisterhood, let alone watch Emily throw hers away for the sake of a decade and a half between them. It was the desperation in JJ’s face that did it, knowing she would give anything to spend just an hour with Roz one more time, that had her drawing her cell out her pocket and calling the contact with the little ladybug next to it, “Fine,”
As a profiler she would have been tempted to ignore the way Spencer smiled into his lap; as a sister, her eyes narrowed at him.
The phone rang surprisingly only once before she answered, and she heard an unnaturally tame version of her sister answer.
“Emily?” She asked, her voice hushed, worried almost, “You okay?”
Her brows furrowed, “Yeah, I’m fine. Are you?” She got no more than a hum in return, somewhat agreeing though Emily could tell clear as day she was holding something back. “Look, we’re gonna be in Silver Spring, I was thinking tomorrow we could grab lunch-”
“Can’t, I’m busy, it’s an all day thing,” Her sister cut her off, yet it wasn’t rude or demeaning like usual. Nervous almost, sad, “Sorry,”
“What’s an all day thing?” Emily asked, the concern matching her words.
Her sister swallowed on the other end of the phone, before she found her words, or maybe even the balls to actually speak, “I’m graduating tomorrow,”
Emily’s face lit up, the smile spreading fast on her face, ignoring the way Morgan’s words seemed to ring true in her ears; she was growing up too fast.
“Graduating, why didn’t you say!” She asked, the joy in her tone unmissable, “How’d your papers go?”
Spencer held himself off from correcting her that she’d only done five papers, that the rest of her results had come from theory and labs, thinking better than to interrupt the one conversation they’d had where there was no underlying argument brewing.
“Full honours, obviously.” Bugsy drawled with a snicker, and Emily shook her head, the smile never dimming.
“Look at you, y’little superstar,” Emily bit her lip, ignoring the guilt that tore at her when she realised she barely knew what Bug spent her days doing, “Did Mom and Dad get good seats? Oh god, dad’s not bringing Stephanie is he?”
The silence on the other end had her halting, the light in the conversation wavering for a second, before she understood the nerves, the quick defence her sister had been on the moment the call had been answered.
“Bug-”
“They’re not coming,” Her heart ached in her chest hearing it, “I sent Mom the details, she said she’s in Ukraine this week settling some papers. Didn’t even get a chance to ask Dad before he and Stephanie were off on their fifth honeymoon in the Bahamas until October,” A painful laugh echoed down the line, as if she were holding back the gravity of the situation.
“Bug,” Emily tried again, picking her thumb viciously, punishingly, hating herself for being so blind to her sister’s troubles, “Why didn’t you invite me?”
“I figured you’d be busy,” Came the reply, sad and tender, the most honest she’d heard in a while, “You’re always busy,”
“Never too busy for you,” Emily’s guilt tripled when her sister didn’t answer, knowing if she were to counter the statement with hard evidence it would only hurt both of them, “Look, I have some time today, probably,” She didn’t, not even a few minutes, “Why don’t we get that coffee, you don’t even have to pay,”
Bugsy gave a sad laugh, “Sorry, Em, I gotta get my dress fitted today, and some of the lab techs invited me to a party later. Maybe some other time,”
“A party with biology nerds?” Emily asked with false excitement, the air turned stagnant between them now, “Well, rock on, science freak. Don’t leave your drinks with strangers, and don’t walk home alone, and for god sake use protection-”
“Bye, Emily,” She said with a chuckle, the older of the two gracing her with the same, as they put the phone down.
The car was quiet, waiting for Prentiss to speak, none of them missing the way her lip pulled between her teeth, a bitterness on her face that told them she was holding in something close to sadness. You’re always busy. It echoed around her head, stabbing at her chest to think her sister was graduating alone, no one to congratulate her, no one to pat her on the back and tell her how clever she is despite the fact Bugsy would happily tell anyone just how smart she was on her own. Never too busy for you.
“She’s graduating tomorrow,” She said to the three people waiting for an update, Spencer’s brows shooting to his hairline. He hadn’t heard from her since her last paper got sent off, and why would he? They had exchanged a few little anecdotes and doodles, sent each other research papers to be graded like teachers exchanging lecture notes, “She didn’t even tell me. She’s gonna be alone,”
JJ grimaced, “What? What about your mom- or, or your dad, an uncle, someone-”
“Mom and dad are out of the country, Mom’s brother lives in Mexico with his seven kids, he can barely get a night’s sleep let alone a day off to travel up to Maryland. Dad’s sisters passed away when I was a kid,” Emily explained, running a hand over her face, “I can’t let her go up there alone,”
“So we don’t,” Spencer said, as if he’d never been more sure of anything in his life, “We don’t let her do it alone,”
-
“Graduating with Masters in Biotechnology; Jasper Adams, Tom Adamson, Kristen Afkins, Gavin Agriths-”
The dean read off the names of the students as she fiddled with the hem of her dress.
The dress fit beautifully, her make up done to near perfection, her hair styled neatly, she was graduating with full honours for christ sakes. Why couldn’t she just be happy with what she had? Why had she got to be so spoiled?
Lots of peoples parents missed their graduation, lots of people her age didn’t even have parents anymore, she ought to be grateful her mother was increasing famine aid in foreign countries, all the lives she would save, or even be happy her father had found a pretty, rich new wife to tour every known vacation destination with. Or even that her sister had called her just yesterday and told her in a few words she was proud of her.
But none of them quelled the feeling of loneliness that blossomed inside Bugsy. The kind that had always been there, the kind that just wanted someone in her corner, telling her she was doing pretty good for a kid who raised herself in all those big houses they’d moved to, who saw the au pair more often than her own mother.
All those rooms were so empty, the houses so quiet besides for her. It was like living in a cemetery.
“Robert Lewsinsky. Marcus Linford. Tara Lorence. Katie Macauley.”
P would be up soon. Each name of her classmates drew an applause, some whoops and screams, one family she swore there must have been ten of them in the back row cawing and howling like monkeys at a zoo, proud of their son for making it.
She willed a smile on her face, hearing Orla Parkins get called up, and she knew just by the steward that directed her where to stand in line she was close.
“Kenneth Patterson. Joshua Perriman. Harriet Pimms. Lauren Pintons.”
She held a rattled breath as Renly Prackett walked ahead of her, strolling over the stage to collect his degree, flashing the crowd a wide smile and a fist pump. She had always liked Renly, having been his experiment partner for a year, despite the fact he never washed up after himself in the lab.
Then it was, her name was called. The one no one but her mother and Stephanie ever called her, she solely went by Bugsy courtesy of Emily. It was a family name, a nice one at that. Maybe it had been the fact she had been eight and her cool big sister crowned her the new name, or maybe it just rolled off the tongue better, made her feel less like a Prentiss, that she chose to go by her monika.
She tried not to think about where or what Emily was doing, only hoping she was safe, as she began walking over the stage, her heels clicking loudly with her hesitant steps.
To her utmost surprise she heard a loud whistle echo through the auditorium, a group of jeers and screams of her name, even an air horn signing off that had her almost tripping over her own feet turning to see who it was.
Surely it was a joke, a cruel prank, she barely had any friends in her class. Acquaintances sure, but no one so bold as to make such a fuss over her.
Squinting down at the audience, her cap nearly slipping off her head as her head turned to the source, she felt her chest burst when she saw the dark hair and bangs, her sisters butchered fingertips in her mouth with a loud cattle whistle, screaming like a firework right to the stage where she graciously accepted her award, despite the fact she barely paid any attention to the dean anymore, more to her sister who smiled at her widely as she clapped. Behind her, her team she’d met on the off chance, the pretty blonde, JJ, who pressed the air horn a few more times, cheering just as loud for her. Morgan, the handsome one who had stood himself on top of his chair, cupping a hand over his mouth to scream “Kicking ass, baby Prentiss!” at her, ignoring the way other people stared wide eyed at them.
And Spencer, tall enough to be seen over the crowd even without the help of a chair, who smiled at her, clapping those big hands of his loud enough to reach her, his own whoops never ceasing even as she stepped off the stage to head back to her seat.
The rest of the ceremony dragged, a speech from one of the alumni and the exit music playing, but she simply grinned into her hand, where her degree smiled back at her, counting down the moments she would be allowed to stand.
And then she was fast walking down the stairs, amongst the bustle of students, the black gowns flurrying around her as she burst out into the square where parents, fiancees, brothers, sisters, cheered their loved ones, pulling them into tight hugs.
Her eyes scanned the wave of black hats, landing on two dark eyes, the thick sable hair framing the dazzling smile that awaited her with open palms. All but shoving her way through the crowd, she stopped in front of her sister, the urge to jump at her with a hug shying the moment she got close.
“Told you. Never too busy for you, Bug,” Emily said, pulling her in by her shoulders for a tight hug. She knew her sister wasn’t one to beg for affection, wasn’t one to let her guard drop so soon, but she also knew she’d needed it by the way she melted against her, the way she chuckled into her hair, pulled her closer.
“Do I owe your boss another letter of apology for this or do I get you guys for free?” The girl asked, as her sister pulled away, keeping an arm around her shoulder as they turned to the rest of the team.
“No, this one is entirely on us, promise,” JJ said with a smile as she saw Emily beaming maternally over at the girl, the flat of the cap knocking against her cheek as she squeezed her in once more, “We’re very proud of you,”
She heated under the woman’s words, wriggling in her shoes as bad as Emily did when she felt awkward, Derek chuckling and taking the degree out of her hand.
“Alright, lets see the creds, Prentiss,” He held it up next to her face as she shrugged, the ‘4.0’ clear as day next to her name, “Good looking, and smart. Those boys in the lab ought to watch out,”
She grinned under his teasing, “What can I say, I got the deep end of the gene pool,” She teased, feeling Emily swat her ear, her eyes falling to where Spencer held a plant pot with a poorly wrapped bow of twine around it, the soil a little displaced from the journey.
“This is for you,” He said, handing her the small green sproutling, his cheeks blushing as her face lit up, reading the small inscription on the front, “It’s-”
“Dionaea muscipula,” She said, biting her lip as she smiled at him, “This is so cool! Where on earth did- I had a paper last semester on the ways to study their electrophysiology you just have to read- oh thank you!”
“English, please?” Emily asked, though the warmth flooded her chest when her sister threw her arms around a very rigid Spencer.
Thinking she should grab her and warn her the man disliked touch almost as much as she does, she was surprised to see him give her a small embrace back, smiling proudly the way he did when he’d made someone happy.
“Piège à mouches Vénus,” Her sister responded cockily, tugging herself away from the tall man, to inspect her new plant, well aware that Emily rolled her eyes at her use of French, “Venus Fly Trap. I’ve never seen one so young, still I should be able to pull some slides on the Rhizomes in the soil-”
Emily put a hand to her temple, JJ smiling widely as she saw for once Spencer be the one on the receiving end of an earful, chuckling to himself when she began dishing out name ideas for the sapling.
“Holy shit, there’s two of them,” Morgan grumbled, nudging his shoulder into Emily who simply sighed, her migraine already starting as Reid began jumping in with his own thoughts, which didn’t take much effort.
“Don’t even,”
+3. The one where you’re taken hostage
“Tell us about the 911 call,” Spencer requests, flicking through the file himself beside her in the back seat. She had her own set of paperwork in front of her, her pen attached to a clipboard the lanyard around her neck reading her real, honest credentials, unlike the fake ones Emily and Reid were given. She’d been to one of these sects before, invited kindly as part of her research on the effect isolation has on cultivation of crops, knew one of the mother’s well from her last research paper, and had managed to get the group a foot in the door to entering the Separtarian Sect with little fuss.
Hotch, usually hesitant to allow outsiders in on the job, especially as young and spirited as Bugsy, had to admit it would calm any potential unsubs and make them see the team as unthreatening if they had a friendly face there. He’d signed the papers with a frown that morning, and they were on their way to the little apartment the girl occupied just outside Baltimore, sample tubes stuffed into her pack ready.
“I believe the he that they refer to is the church’s leader, Benjamin Cyrus,” Nancy, a woman from child protective services, replied from the driver's seat, Emily thumbing through her papers as they neared the compound.
“Benjamin Cyrus, no criminal record; no record of him at all actually,” Reid replied, watching Bugsy scribbling notes into her lab book, perfecting her report before she had even begun, “What else do you know about him?”
“The sect I spoke to before, the one in Utah, said he was rumoured to be practising polygamy and forced marriages,” The younger woman said, looking back at him with a frown, “They were much more modern in their beliefs than these guys. Last time I spoke to Marina she was happy there, I can’t see why she would want to move here,”
Spencer looked as if he were about to answer, perhaps to tell her he was sure her contact would be just fine, when Emily shrugged and turned to Nancy.
“Do we know who the caller is?” She asked, sipping her now lukewarm coffee out of the disposable cup.
Nancy’s head tilted in a so-so motion, “Uh, Jessica Evansen is the one who the age fits, but we can’t be sure.”
“Well given their view on outsiders, it would be best if you didn’t identify us as FBI.” Emily instructed, handing Reid his new, fake credentials and his gun she’d kept in her bag through customs. “Just use our real names and introduce us as child victim interview experts.” Nancy nodded, the compound coming into view, the dust flurrying under the car wheels as the road turned into nothing more than a sandy path.
A guard seemed to be expecting their arrival as he stood, unarmed at the main gate, unlatching the bolt in the middle and opening it wide for their vehicle to pass through. She nodded in thanks, her eyes flicking out the dirty window to see a collection of mobile homes surrounding a large church, a few smaller outbuildings dotted around the compound. It was quiet, not full of laughter like the last group she had been to, the children nowhere to be seen, only a few of the handier members of the flock that were either fixing up walls, trimming trees besides a man sprawled too casually on the steps of the chapel, a bible in his hands he seemed to be catching up on.
The car pulled to a stop in front of the man that barely batted an eye at their arrival, the safety locks flicking off each of the doors, Nancy collecting her briefcase and exiting the car first.
She had all but reached for the handle when Emily stopped her, swivelling in her seat to look her dead in the eye.
“Your job is mediator, you got that?” Her sister had never looked more serious, but then again she did know her almost too well, “You and your field research are a… buffer between our investigation and the unsub. Just try to take the focus off what we’re doing, but do not provoke anyone,”
She raised her hands in innocence, “Got it, jeez, what could I possibly do that could ruin this investigation?”
Emily stared back at her blankly, unnamused, as if they both knew there was a lot she could, and would, do that would blow the whole thing.
“You look like mom when you give me that look,” She bit back, leaving the car, as Nancy spoke to the man laying on the steps, “It’s terrible,”
“I’m looking for Mr Benjamin Cyrus?” Nancy reported, her tight, knee length skirt and blouse entirely out of place amongst the dirt track.
“You found him,” The man replied, still not so much as granting them a glance of interest as he flicked through his passages.
“I’m Nancy Lunde, we spoke on the phone regarding the allegation,” She replied, which was the only thing that garnered his attention as he looked up at them behind slightly bent reading glasses.
“Savages they call us; because our manners differ from theirs,” He said, though it was clear it wasn’t entirely his own words, more likely a segment of his preach he’d repeated a handful of times. Bugsy tried to hide her disgust behind her hand tightening around her lab books she kept tightly to her chest.
“We didn’t come here to hear you cite scripture, Mr Cyrus,” Nancy snipped as he approached the group, pocketing the glasses though he kept hold of the bible in hand as if it was part of his own arm.
“Actually it’s Benjamin Franklin,” Spencer murmured to the woman, which had Cyrus’ cold brown eyes narrowing at the tall man, assessing for a motive.
“Emily Prentiss, Spencer Reid. They’re child victim interview experts,” Nancy introduced them quickly, the two of them flashing their badges, the unofficial ones at least. Gesturing to the youngest woman, she introduced her with her real name, his gaze flicking to her as he seemed to recognise it.
“Marina’s friend? The plant lady?” He asked, face half amused as she fought her lip from twitching into a sneer. Instead she smiled, holding out her hand.
“That’s what they call me,” She said, shaking his hand, ignoring the way he flashed her a cheshire cat smile, “Hope you don’t mind me dropping by, Marina said I could take some samples for my research,”
He laughed, shaking his head, looking at Spencer, “Women and their flowers, right?” Spencer swallowed back a retort, shrugging his shoulders, though Bugsy’s eye twitched. Benjamin patted her on her shoulder, “Of course you can honey, I’ll find Jared, our head gardner, and you can run along for your research,”
He said it as if she were lying, that her degree and endless hours of work would only ever chalk up to a few doodles in a notebook, or a garden full of hydrangeas, or tulips, or roses, because she couldn’t possibly care about anything else but pretty flowers.
Nodding her head graciously, choking back the hateful response she wished to spit in his face, she gave him a polite thankyou, feeling Spencer’s eyes burning into the side of her head.
“The children are in the school as I indicated,” Cyrus said, turning back to the other three, Emily and Nancy taking off in the direction he pointed, the former knowing her sister was at risk of blowing a fuse if they were here for long.
Spencer hung back, partially because he had a plan of distraction in mind to allow the women a chance to speak with the children whilst Cyrus wasn’t around, partially because he didn’t want to leave Bugsy anywhere on her own. Sure, Emily had said they were both trained in self defence when they were kids, but with no weapon of her own, he was reluctant.
“You're using solar power?” He prompted, gesturing towards where the eight blue panels warmed under the Colorado sun.
“We’re completely self-sufficient,” Benjamin nodded along, catching the impressed look on both their faces, “Electricity, food, water. Ben Franklin said ‘God helps those that help themselves,’ you look surprised,”
“No, impressed actually,” Spencer replied, and he wasn’t entirely lying. The system was incredibly complex, particularly if they received no help from outsiders, for as many people as there were in the compound.
“Thankyou; for admitting that,” Cyrus said earnestly, flicking his gaze back to Bugsy who studied the solar panels, “I’ll go find Jared, he can take you to the greenhouses,”
Thanking him again, he led the way towards the school where Nancy and Emily had headed, as the two of them exchanged a look, Spencer smiling half piteously, wishing he could shake her and tell her just how smart she was and that Cyrus knew absolutely nothing.
He didn’t miss the way she walked closer to him, or how she thumbed the corner of her notebook, or how she looked back at him, biting the inside of her cheek. He thinks he might get slapped if he pointed it out, but Emily had the exact same tell when she was nervous, which is why he bumps their shoulders together in means of reassuring her he was still there.
It was only then she gave him any sort of smile back.
-
Jared, as expected, had been just as condescending and patronising as Benjamin whilst she slipped on her latex gloves, scooping no more than a handful of homemade fertiliser into one of her test tubes. It had been a partial cover, their story, but she had been telling the truth when she’d contacted Marina and asked if she could drop by. She’d been meaning to expand her field research in hopes of stumbling on a job opportunity since she spent most of her postgraduate days reading while her cat pawed at her leg for more treats than he deserved, the odd phone call with her sister much more common than it had been before.
She didn’t miss the way Jared’s hand fell into the small of her back as he led her back towards the school, after having noted down a few more readings, fussing over the state of the carrots that seemed to grow entirely naturally thanks to the systems they’d been smart enough to set up. He seemed rather bored by the whole thing, for a head gardener, more interested in staring at her legs as she leaned down to identify the fat black beetle that crawled along the rockery.
It wasn’t until they were halfway to the school that the sound of tyres on a dirt path met her ears, and she saw five armoured SUVs out the corner of her eye.
She hadn’t even the time to question what was going on, before Jared’s face dropped, the hand gently holding the soft of her back grabbing on her forearm hard enough to leave bruises, as he was dragging her to the chapel they had seen when they had pulled up.
Emily had said the rest of the team stayed in Quantico, if it wasn’t them, who was it.
“Whats going on- who is that?” She asked him lamely, her feet stumbling as she half fought his heavy hand off.
That was when the shooting started.
She thinks it came from the compound first, she’d seen two men stationed on top of one of the outbuildings, thinking nothing much of it, until she saw clearly now the assault rifles they bore, pointing it straight at the vehicles that drew closer. The whistle of bullets, bangs of the chambers emptying their artillery, and it wasn’t until she heard the doors to the SUVs start opening, more gunfire began hitting the wall ahead of them that she started running. Running fast, for the cover the church provided until she figured out just what the fuck was happening.
Jared all but threw her past the chapel door, where Cyrus and four other men were waiting, a heavy barricade in their hands, her chest pounding with adrenaline, she couldn’t help the yelp that left her as Cyrus whirled on her, grabbing her shoulders firmly and looking her dead in the eye.
“Did you know anything about this?” He asked, his calm demeanour cracking when she scrambled for a response, “ANSWER ME,”
“No-no not at all.” She shook her head, voice weaker than she’d like, but the sight of more guns in the men’s hands twisted any resolve she had, “Where are the others- the- the experts-”
“Take her into the tunnels,” Cyrus ignored her question, nodding at one of his men to grab her as Jared armed himself. She felt another callused hand yank on her upper arm, and part of her wondered if that was how men handled all women here, as if they were herding cattle, as she was dragged down into the catacombs below the church.
They’d made plans for a day like this to come, she realised.
Her heart constricted at the sound of bullets rattling above them, she hadn't been able to tell in that last moment whether Cyrus believed her or not as, nor whether she was being taken to the tunnels for her own safety or to be questioned harder about the gunmen.
She could only hope Emily was safe.
She felt her tongue too big for her mouth as the man all but shoved her into the bunker, the nervous chatter of women and children, some of the more elderly men, as they clung to one another for safety, the scathing remark she would have usually made about his heavy hands failing her as she scanned the room for her sister.
Emily was faster however, and she nearly yelped again as two bony arms yanked her into a hug, a rare one, and she knew by the blazer and the sigh of relief in her ear it was Em.
Usually she would bat her off, tell her to stop fussing like a mother hen, but today she embraced her right back, trying to note if her sister had any bullet holes in her before she allowed herself the same relief.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Emily asked, the whole thing coming out in a slew of worry, and she nodded, pulling away as if she needed to see the proof in person.
Bugsy’s eyes were wild, as if she were a doe in a meadow hearing a rifle cocking near. No scratch that, she was a doe being chased and shot at and hunted, narrowly escaping being mounted on a wall.
“They were all shit shots,” Bugsy said, through a laugh she didn’t quite mean, “You would have done much better.”
Patting her sister on the shoulder, Emily finally released her when she realised the humour meant she at least had her head on her shoulders. Spencer watched her with meticulous eyes, knowing the shock that registered on her face, knowing it was the same one he wore when he first had shots fired at him. He saw her own eyes quickly check him over, satisfied with a breath of relief when she saw they were both fine.
“Where’s Lunde?” Emily asked, and she realised then Cyrus had followed her down into the shelter, two of his men grabbing handfuls of guns she had never seen before, likely imported out of country, and returning to the ground level, preparing for more shooting.
“It wasn’t us,” Cyrus replied, as if that negated the fact their recklessness had gotten the agent killed.
“What? You can’t shoot it out with the cops, you have children in here,” Emily seethed, her voice harsh and incredulous.
“I didn’t start this,” Cyrus bit back, looking towards his men as they grabbed boxes on boxes of ammunition, “I’ll take the front, you take the roof,”
And with that they stormed their way back through the tunnels, leaving the three of them to look between each other, knowing this could only end badly. Knowing the only people that could figure out how to get them out of this mess was the BAU, all 1,700 miles away.
–
They’d been in the bunker for fourteen hours when there was finally movement. The shooting seemed to have quietened down, in which Spencer whispered it was around 11pm and it was likely neither party had a clear shot. She’d managed to fall asleep leaning against the wall, Emily’s blazer draped over her legs. She’d regretted wearing cropped pants, despite how the shade of green complimented her eyes nicely, and she’d been shivering by the time she fell asleep, Emily’s hands stroking her hair gently as if she knew she was struggling to relax.
She hadn’t realised she was staring at her little sister, frowning even as she slept, which made part of her want to laugh, until she caught Spencer’s tired eyes looking between them, something knowing and warm in his gaze.
“You know, she’s always scowled in her sleep, ever since she was born,” Emily said, quiet enough it didn’t interrupt the hum of small snores, the odd baby cry that filled the bunker, but loud enough for him to smile at her, “She used to sleep walk terrible too. I’d find her in the kitchen trying to make pancakes with a cheese grater. It’s like that big brain of hers doesn’t know how to shut off,” Emily shook her head with a fatigue, rubbing her eyes.
“Was it weird? Being fourteen years older?” Spencer asked, his own hands shoved into his sleeves to try defend from the draught. Emily thought for a moment, her hand slowing for a second on her sister's hair, before she answered.
“I felt guilty leaving her in that house with my mom when I went to college,” Emily answered, Bugsy unconsciously tucking her face closer into the jacket, “I think part of her kind of hated me for it for a while.” She went quiet, the shame in her voice thick as the silence that encompassed them, “She’s never been very affectionate you know? Before her graduation I don’t think I’d hugged her in twelve years,”
Spencer held himself back from pointing out that she had been just as touchy with him since they’d met, and that maybe it was Emily’s own regret that seemed to shut the both of them down. He wasn’t one to rub salt in the wound, not since he’d gotten this job and learned to watch what he said.
He didn’t know what to say, didn’t want to give her advice, knowing the whole subject of their slowly repairing relationship was a sore one. He had no siblings of his own, had a mother who loved him despite how much she grappled with her own mind, and he had only known the girl briefly enough to consider her a friend at a push.
“I always thought the two of you were similar,” Emily chose to continue, offering him a small smile. He returned it, his face blushing at the fact that was a huge compliment to him, “Granted, you roll your eyes at me less and don’t act like I’m dumb, but you remind me of her,”
“Thankyou, I wish that were true,” He replied, eyes flicking to her sleeping form, the way her eyebrows were indeed scrunched in a permanent frown. He wondered if she was actually angry, or if she was just thinking hard, perhaps her dreams were full of equations or labs she needed to sort through. Either way, he wanted to know. “She’s much cooler than I’ll ever be,”
Emily snorted, shuffling against the wall to cosy herself, “That’s one way to put it,” She said, smiling over at him as he did the same, his head resting against the wall, Bugsy’s legs stretching out to knock against his feet, and he didn’t mind that she scuffed the bottom of his already dirty trousers. “Get some sleep,”
And so they did.
–
Cyrus had corralled the whole flock into the church, where the shooting had stopped and the bodies had been removed, stating at the break of dawn that there was a hostage negotiator coming in to make sure everyone was safe before they made any deals.
She sat next to Spencer, the three of them stiff from their sleeping arrangements, and her stomach churned with hunger. It had been over 24 hours since they’d gotten here, and besides the small bit of bread and water Cyrus gave everyone for breakfast, she was starving.
“Remind me to never leave the house, ever again,” She grumbled, as everyone waited in the pews for the negotiator to arrive, “My cat is gonna be pissed I’ve not fed him,”
“Since when did you get a cat?” Emily inputted from the other side of Reid, keeping one eye on the door in case any agents start shooting again.
The girl shrugged, “I got lonely, there’s not much to do now I’m not studying anymore,”
Reid watched how she clutched her stomach, feeling his own complaining at the lack of nutrition, “Morgan wasn’t lying when he said you should sign up for the academy. We could always use the help, we wouldn’t have solved that case in Baltimore without you,”
She snickered, nudging his foot with her boot, “You’re being modest, you would have done it just fine,”
He was a little, wasn’t surprised she called his bluff either. “Okay, so probably yes- but it would have taken us a whole lot longer. Mr Chernus likely would have died,”
She shook her head, glancing at Emily who watched her carefully, “That was all you guys. I just translated.”
Emily and Spencer exchanged a glance, leaning back in their uncomfortable seats calmly.
“You’re probably right,” Spencer said, dusting the dirt off his trousers, “Probably couldn’t handle it, high intensity mind games and such,”
She blanched, looking at him as if he’d grown a second head, not knowing him to be so brutally honest, realistic yes, but not bordering on rude.
“And it’s a lot of work,” Emily jumped in, her mouth a straight line, “I don’t know if you’d be dedicated enough,”
Bugsy scoffed, indifferently. “I have a masters degree, I was offered a scholarship to do a PHD, asked to be an assistant professor at Yale, I can work hard, Emily,” She snipped, and perhaps she was particularly just hangry or they had struck a nerve with their doubt, “and I could do it if I wanted to, I’d have the best shot they’d ever seen, guaranteed- mom made me take lessons when you left- trust me I could do it-”
She shut up when she saw their small smile exchanged, as if she’d told them a joke, or moreso they’d had the same identical thought and that alone was hilarious.
Scowling at them, she looked from where Spencer looked almost, almost, guilty at making her the butt of the joke, to where Emily had a ‘told you so’ smirk, and she kissed her teeth at their childishness.
“Are you guys reverse psychology-ing me? Seriously, so original guys,” She snapped, crossing her arms and straightening herself in her seat, ignoring the snigger that passed between them.
“You’re not wrong though,” Emily replied quietly as Cyrus walked past them, his eyes falling to them with a frown. Bugsy kept her head down, heeding Emily’s warning of not provoking anyone, and Spencer eyed the way she leaned closer to him.
If she was going to retaliate, whether agreeing or not, she stopped herself, the doors the church opening and an older gentleman walking through the doors, arms full of supplies she’d figured must have been part of the negotiation. He was patted down by an armed guard, searching for his own weapons do doubt, or a wire perhaps, as he handed the box over to another who took it without a thankyou.
“Rossi,” She heard Reid whisper beside her, and from the look he shot Emily and Spencer she gathered he was from the BAU, just as they’d expected. His eyes fell on her, softening as alot of Emily’s team did when they saw the two of them, as if they were picking her face apart for the tiny ways in which she resembled their Prentiss, or maybe it was the way she curled up in her seat, tired, hungry, on the defence. He just looked sorry for her.
“The children,” Cyrus said with no greeting, the air between them particularly frosty. He gestured towards the three of them, though Rossi had already clocked their tired faces staring at him with worry, “And our guests,”
She saw him trying not to react, guessing they had not let it slip to Cyrus he worked with the two undercover FBI agents, looking away from them as if the sight of their forlorn figures was enough to turn him sick.
Judging by the way Cyrus and he spoke quietly, tensely, Bugsy just hoped they had a plan to get them out of here soon as he soon left with a rigid handshake to the man keeping them hostage.
–
The three of them had been moved to a backroom a few hours later. Her stomach ached, the little sustenance Rossi had brought being distributed to the community before they’d been offered anything, which hadn’t left much. Reid and Emily had tried to get her to take some of their sharing, and despite how her insides cried out for it, she declined, stating they would be more use than she would; that they needed their strength more than her if they were going to get out of here alive.
The two of them hadn’t liked that answer judging by the frowns on their faces, but they sat in their seats with little fuss as they waited for things to quieten down after Cyrus’ staged “mass suicide” that had turned out to be nothign more than a test of loyalty and grape juice.
They had been sat in silence, aside from her foot bouncing on the floor impatiently, as she picked at the threads on her pants, the material uncomfortable on her skin after a day of wearing it. The door slammed open, Cyrus entering the room with nasty scowl. She didn’t know what had changed in the man in a matter of hours as he stormed over to them, two of his men behind him, loaded rifles in their arms.
This was not good.
“Which one of you is it?” He asked almost too calm for his demeanour, his eyes flicking between the three of them, where Emily attempted to brush her hair using her fingers, Reid played with the hem of his cardigan, an she sat beside him, resting against the cold stone wall behind them, her eyes narrowing at his furious expression.
The three of them remained silent, waiting for him to explain more, though clearly it was not the answer he was looking for as he threw his jacket open, revealing a loaded pistol tucked into his jeans. Drawing it into his dominant hand, her body tensed up, her back straightening like a rod as she looked up at him through fear.
“Which one of you is the FBI agent?” He repeated in that same calm tone, and her heart fell through her stomach.
She opened her mouth to say something in retaliation, though the way she saw his hand shaking with fury, she knew it was better to stay quiet in case her voice would be the final straw that made him trigger happy.
“Why do you think one of us is an FBI agent?” Spencer replied softly, and if he was panicking even a fraction amount she was he held it back, though his eyes flicked to Emily.
But it was a tell. The smallest movement alone was a tell he was lying, or perhaps it was the fact he’d answered a question with one of his own, distracting from the attention on them with the unsubs own answers. Maybe his quiet and calm showed how trained he was for a situation like this, showed he had gone up against bad guys before and won.
Whatever it was about him, it had Cyrus cocking the barrel of the gun straight at Spencer’s temple.
“God forgive me for what I must do,” The preacher murmured, his finger moments away from the trigger, when she lurched forward in her seat, hand shooting out to grab his wrist deathly tight.
“It’s me,”
She hadn’t realised she’d said it until the room went quiet. She thought for a moment it had come from Emily, Emily had always been the braver of the two of them, but it wasn’t until Cyrus’ unforgiving, dark gaze fell to her where she froze in her spot, that she understood her mouth had been the one moving.
Emily looked as if she was about to vomit, Spencer looked dumbfounded, but all she could do was stare back at Cyrus as if to will herself not to back down, knowing all three of them could fall victim if she gave them reason to doubt her; he could kill all three of them just to be sure the mystery agent was dealt with.
“It’s me,” She repeated, voice stronger this time, and she felt her chest relax just the tiniest amount as he turned the gun away from Spencer’s head.
He stared back at her for a moment, before the weapon smacked across her face in a sharp whip, her cheekbone crying out in a sting she knew was going to bruise.
He grabbed her hair at the nape of her neck, yanking her into a stand hard enough she yelped, despite not wanting to give him the satisfaction of the torture.
“Watch the other two,” Cyrus barked, dragging her out of the room as she squirmed under his hand, feeling it only tighten into an unforgiving pull.
She barely caught Emily bolting out of her seat to yell at the other men, all but fighting in their heavy grasp to follow wherever it was he was taking her, only for the door to be slammed shut behind them.
It was only then she realised how fucked she truly was.
–
She struggled to breath through the blood clotting in her nose. She didn’t think it was broken, not that she could check where her hands had been tied to the bedpost, tape over her mouth to stop her calling for help, her feet bound. She’d done nothing but give him hell as he’d been laying into her, keeping her cries and groans of pain silent as he’d kicked her in the ribs hard enough to know he’d damaged something at least.
She’d not made it easy for him to tie her down, worried about what they were planning next, she’d managed to headbutt him in the mouth, and the way he clutched at his jaw when he’d left gave her a sick satisfaction, though her temple now hurt more than she’d like to admit. But they’d only covered her mouth after she’d screamed obscenities at them for an hour or so, hoping to attract attention, hoping if the BAU were on their way, Emily and Reid would be able to find her fast before they could dispose of her.
Bugsy didn’t want to go like this. Tied up like cattle, gagged and beaten, the spirit kicked out of her as the dehydration gnawed at her limbs, making her too weak to even try wriggling out of the binds.
She felt herself dropping off to sleep, or maybe it was a concussion, he’d slammed her face into that mirror quite viciously, she wouldn’t be surprised if it had rattled her head around. Fighting with her eyelids to stay open, she jumped in her battered skin as the door unlatched, and she thrashed on the rickety bed to get away from the impending second beating.
But it wasn’t Cyrus. A fawn haired woman entered, her eyes falling on the girl on the bed, where blood trickled down her cheek, pouring from her nose like a thick liquor. Frowning, she was on high alert as the woman approached, a small, damp cloth in her hand.
“Relax, I’m not going to hurt you honey,” She hushed, approaching the young girl. Bugsy didn’t believe her for one second, her head pulling away from her as far as it could, her eyes wild and distrustful as the woman kneeled down beside the bed. “I’m Kathy,”
Bugsy debated jabbing an elbow in her face then and there, telling her in few words to stay as far away from her as possible, that the moment she was free she didn’t care who she hurt; she was getting out of here even if she had to crawl.
“That woman’s your sister right?” The blonde said, and the words stopped her heart for a moment, giving the woman the chance to run the cloth over the dribble of blood, “Emily,”
“Where is she?” She tried to ask, but the gag made it little more than a muffled cry, the woman’s eyes turning down in sadness. Pity. Bugsy hated every second of it.
“She’s okay, she’s worried about you though,” Kathy said, wiping under her nose, making her wince at the feeling, “Put up a hell of a fight after they took you away,”
She must have rolled her eyes, or perhaps it was just telling on her face that that didn’t surprise her as the older woman wiped over the superficial cut on her forehead she hadn’t realised was deep until the cloth went over it and she yawped like a dog having it’s tail pulled.
“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Kathy cooed, and she seemed genuinely guilty as she did. She tutted, shaking her head, fighting the urge to smooth the girls hair down the way she did when her own daughter was upset, “Emily said they’ll be coming for us at 3am, Cyrus has a mass suicide planned but they think they can stop him, you just have to hold on a little longer honey,”
“I want to see her,” Bugsy tried to talk again despite her mouth being covered, only for it to come out unintelligible once more. Huffing, she resigned herself to glaring at the ceiling, biting back frustrated tears. Kathy seemed to want to say something else, but thought better of it as the twenty something year old turned away from her to stare out the window, as if she were being dismissed.
Sighing, she rose from the bed and headed for the door, praying the FBI would get them out in time, before Cyrus put his plan into action.
–
Bugsy didn’t start panicking until it hit 2:50. She’d managed to kick the small analogue clock on the beside into working, the red numbers seeming to take a millenia to change over.
Yet it wasn’t until 3am neared, and the hallways remained silent, did she start to wonder if Kathy had been telling the truth at all. What if they had found out Emily and Reid were FBI and not her? What if they’d already been caught?
She really had wanted to see Emily, wanted to scream at the woman, who had meant well, to bring her sister to her or she would make every damn bible basher in this compound regret the day they were born. She felt helpless. She despised feeling helpless.
It was only when she heard shots rattling from outside did the cold fear set in. 2:52. Any minute now.
It was then an even worse thought struck her. What if they didn’t bother to come for her? Reid and Emily were safe downstairs, at least that was how Kathy had made it seem. If they got the women and children, the agents out first, she wondered if they would leave her for last since she wasn’t their top priority.
2:53 stared back at her.
At least Emily would make it. She was more important, had more going for her. She was supposed to be an only child anyway, mom had said it herself. Bugsy was the product of a failing marriage and a shared bottle of 1896 Bourbon that had been a wedding gift they’d never opened.
2:54.
She could have sworn she tore something the way her head snapped to the door as it swung open on its hinges, as if two large men had thrown their weight into it. But it wasn’t two men at all, just one frantic Derek Morgan with an FBI grade assault rifle.
The relief in his eyes was immediate, and he pulled a pocket knife from his boot, rushing over to where she lay, almost in shock, wondering if he was real at all, her heart pounding as she heard shouting in the corridor.
“I’m gonna get you out, kid,” The man promised, slinging his gun over his shoulder as he sliced through the rope on her ankles, her eyes trained on the 2:55 that watched them as if to laugh at them.
She whimpered, cursing behind her gag when she heard footsteps pounding through the hallway, and she was sure they were going to get caught. She thought then it would have been better if they’d forgotten about her, that at least Derek would have been safe, and he could have made sure the children got out safely, could have gotten Spencer and Emily medical.
Derek whirled on the doorway the same as she did as a tall figure all but skidded around the corner, his legs weak as hers felt, too long and not at all built for running. Clumsy almost.
Spencer. She should have known from the way he looked white as a sheet the moment he saw her it was him, but maybe she really did have concussion, as it seemed within moments he was fussing over her face, tearing a little too sharply at the tape over her mouth.
She thinks she groaned, or maybe cursed him out, as he started apologising immediately, his eyes a puppy kind of sad as she stared up at him, Derek handing him the knife to cut her arms free.
He was talking, but she couldn’t make a lot of it out, just that he was really sorry, it was 2:56 now. It was like her brain switched itself back on when she realised she was free, and the two of them were trying to haul her to her feet.
“Come on, princess, we gotta get out of here,” Derek said, as Spencer looped an arm around her waist, helping her limp across the room where her weak limbs did little to hold her upright, her ribs throbbing with every step, “We managed to stop Cyrus from detonating it manually, but the circuits are all still live,”
Morgan took the lead with the rifle, knowing some of Cyrus’ men had stayed to look for them, that they would go down with the building even though he’d already shot their leader the moment they’d breached the front door, because that was how loyal they were. They’d proven so already with the wine.
She kept her groans behind tight lips as they made it down the stairs, knowing Spencer didn’t mean to hold her bruised bones so tight, that he was just worried and her legs were doing the bare minimum to keep them both moving very fast. It wasn’t until they made it within a few feet of the door that they seemed to pick up the pace.
And she saw why.
Jesse, Cyrus’ child bride that had been the reason they’d come here in the first place was holding the detonator, her face tear streaked at the sight of her husband and prophet dead on the floor, the people responsible all but dragging a lame girl through the foyer and to the doors as if they hadn’t killed a handful of her flock tonight.
Bugsy saw the moment Jesse decided she wanted vengeance on them, but then, she guessed Spencer had already acted as he slung one of her arms over his shoulder, yanking her out the front door in a matter of seconds as Morgan pulled up the rear, and the two men shoved her down behind the small wall outside the church steps.
Bugsy expected the bang to be louder as the rubble flew over their heads, the floor shaking with the impact of the bomb detonating, and it was then she realised one of Derek’s large warm hands held her head into his shoulder, protecting her already rattled skull as best as he could. Spencer had done the same, throwing half his body over her back as he covered his ears, the two men tucking into the wall tightly and waiting for the dust to settle.
Spencer started coughing first, though his position over her never faltered, and she heard his chest wheezing, and knew they needed to move away from the thick smog that blew into their faces. Morgan released her ear, tipping her head back to check her over once more.
“Kid! You okay?” He fretted, noticing the way her nose had started bleeding again from all the movement; the way the bruise had already started blotching her cheek from where Cyrus pistol whipped her.
“I didn’t think you’d come for me,” Was all she could say, and Derek thought it was the saddest he’d ever heard her.
Reid was pulling her to her feet then, where he was still hovering over her, despite the fact the blast had already cleared, still sputtering and hocking up a lung, but it didn’t stop her from throwing herself at his middle, burying her face in his dusty sweater, not caring one bit if he jostled her aching ribs.
He was trying to be gentle with her as he squeezed her back, but she knew by the way he pressed his face into her hair he needed it just as badly.
“You saved my life,” He said, his long arms wrapping around her waist, hauling her whole body against his.
She laughed through a cough, their cheeks brushing past one another as she pulled him in tighter, thankful, relieved.
“You saved mine,”
And then she heard Emily. Emily, who sounded frantic and heartbroken as she called for her, her voice breaking as if she was crying, or atleast on the verge of, and as comforting as Spencer’s long arms around her cracked ribs were, she needed to see her sister was okay.
Ripping herself from his embrace immediately, she tore off after the sound, and there she was. Her older sister, who had always seemed immovable, like she wouldn’t so much as budge for a bucking horse, like water couldn’t drown her, or however many unsubs she’d faced could stop her from catching them. Her older sister, who looked like she’d taken a few punches of her own, judging by the blood on her blue blouse, that looked around the crowd of fleeing people with watery eyes and a shaking bottom lip.
“EMILY,” She yelled, her voice a bleat, a lamb calling for its mother, as she sprinted down the steps, whatever strength she had left carrying her to where Emily was rushing towards her, taking the stairs in threes, “EM-”
She crashed into her sister’s chest, and it was only then she started crying.
“I swear I’ll never give you trouble again, I’ll never talk back, I’ll never be a bitch ever again-” It was all a slew of mumbles against her sisters shirt, that was beginning to wet through at the rate the tears were coming, “I thought he was going to shoot you-”
“I was so scared, Bug, oh my god,” Emily murmured into her hair, squeezing the life out of her baby sister that sniffled and sobbed, “You don’t ever, ever do that to me again,”
Bugsy shook her head, clawing at Emily’s back as she pulled her closer, feeling Emily stroking her hair softly to calm her even in the slightest. They stayed like that until she managed to wrangle her sobs into little sniffs, the fire burning her eyes where it burned the rest of the church to ashes.
She stayed with Emily for a month after that.
+4. The one where you leave the altar.
She knew she was turning heads, walking down the street of a drizzly day in Virginia, hair wet and sticking to her face, makeup running down her cheeks, and the sodden, dove white wedding dress clasped in her hands as she paced towards the government building.
Whether the guards recognised her as the Ambassador’s daughter, or whether they really didn’t want to get into it with a bride looking like that on her day, she didn’t know, but they opened the door for her nonetheless, exchanging raised brows as a trail of wet followed her gown over the marble floors.
Heading up the desk, she flashed her driver's licence, which was enough to gain her a visitors pass she didn’t bother putting to use as she headed for the elevator, her ballet pumps squeaking under the body of the dress. Waiting for the doors to start closing when she finally let a few tears slip, burying her face into her cold, drenched palms, undoubtedly making the mess of mascara even worse.
Her heart gave a leap when she heard someone stop the doors, hoping she could get to her sister with little delay, and she quickly wiped her face with whatever was left of her pretty, dobby cloth shawl she had yanked on before she’d ran.
Whatever excuse she was about to give, whatever one liner she was about to drop to clear the awkwardness this agent was about to walk in on was sucked out of her when she saw Spencer staring at her, his briefcase in his hands he’d used to hold the doors, a wide eyed look plastered on his face as soon as he saw her state.
“Bugsy,” It was somewhere between surprise and sadness, jumping into the elevator before the metal could shut again, the button for the sixth floor already lit up in a ring of red, “What are you- I didn’t even know…”
“Spencer!” As seemed to be a common occurrence between them now, she threw two very cold arms over his shoulders, tugging him for a hug he quickly reciprocated, feeling like she needed it in the moment, “It was so awful, I just couldn’t all those people staring at me, and he- I just feel so-”
“Hey slow down,” He soothed, slipping his favourite cardigan off his body to put over her shoulders, ignoring the way he cringed as it quickly got sodden, “Let’s get you to Emily, I’m sure we can fix this,”
She nodded, though he could tell she was still shaken up, the elevator dinging to a stop on the fifth floor where an agent looked ready to step in, his face dropping when he saw the sight.
“Sorry, we’re full,” Spencer said, with little room for discussion, pressing the button to close the doors once more, and taking her by the elbow as she began shivering, “We’re gonna be just fine, you look beautiful,”
She laughed sadly with a roll of her eyes, the tears sticking to her cheeks. She knew she looked no better than a drowned rat, windswept and disgruntled, her dress full of muck from the street.
“Thankyou, Spencer,” She mumbled, the door sliding open to the sixth floor, where Penelope and her everlasting smile greeted her favourite boy genius.
She almost dropped her glitter pen when she saw the woman stood next to him looking like Dorothy dragged through the twister.
“Oh you poor little lamb, what has happened to you honey!” She all but cried, the cute little pom poms in her hair bouncing as she brought Bugsy closer, taking her hands tightly. “Your hands are ice! You’ll catch cold with that wet hair, and your gorgeous dress-”
“Garcia,” Spencer cut her off, though the woman didn’t seem to mind being manhandled into the kind grip, he guessed her state had her letting her guard down, “This is Bugsy, Emily’s little sister.”
Penelope gasped, her ponytails swishing around some more, the gems on her glasses as bright as the light in her eyes as she yanked the younger girl in for a tight hug.
“It is so nice to meet you! Emily talks about you all the time,” She said, pulling away and fumbling through her pockets for her fresh pink handkerchief she always carried around, mopping up the girl's eyeliner.
“She-she does?” Bugsy asked, sniffling, her body trembling as the AC beat down through the water ladened on her body.
“Of course she does, come on, let’s go get you coffee, I have a new machine in my office that makes the best espresso-” Garcia grabbed her hand as if they were kids in the playground, as if she’d known the girl years, which she sort of had. She had, of course, stalked every single one of Emily’s known relatives, even a distant cousin that never left Europe, and that had thrown up the quiet corner of the internet that Bugsy took up.
“I needed to talk to my sister, if that’s okay,” Bugsy braved enough to say, the swishing of her dress on the carpet making her wince, practically hearing the gallon of rain that soaked the expensive fabric.
“Ofcourse! How silly of me, I’ll bring it out right to you, little bug. You just go with Spencer,” Handing him the handkerchief, she set off towards her ‘bat cave’ in search of a hot beverage for the shivering woman, “Spencer, clean her makeup!”
He did as he was told, dabbing the water off her face as he led her to the BAU, where Emily and Morgan sat on their desks, chatting as they finished off lunch, Emily flicking through photos on her phone of baby Henry that JJ had sent over to her that morning from maternity leave.
“He’s just the sweetest little boy, he’s got the biggest blue eyes just like Jayj,” She said through a smile, “You know Will even said-”
“Holy shit-” Morgan cut her off, and she glanced at him, wondering about his use of a curse. Following his eyes over her shoulder, she swivelled in her position to see where Spencer led a very wet, shaken version of her little sister through the doors of the BAU, a snowy ball gown hanging off her, a veil clinging to her hair that had seen much better days.
“Holy shit,” She agreed, immediately darting for the girl that tugged Spencer’s cardigan tighter to her body, “Bugsy,”
“Emily, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t take up too much time- I just couldn’t do it- and I know mom’s always saying ‘Bring home a doctor, bring home a rich man,’ but I just couldn’t no matter how rich his daddy is, he wasn’t even too bad-” It all came out in a slur, not making too much sense, and she didn’t stop until Emily held up her hands, as if easing a wild dog.
“Woah, take it easy, kiddo,” Morgan hushed, as Emily brought a hand over her sister’s cheek, wiping away the last of the mascara, “What happened?”
Bugsy took a deep breath, looking between Emily and Derek, feeling the rain drip down her back.
“So a few weeks ago, Mom made me go to that stupid debutante ball,” She started, rolling her eyes already as Emily winced, knowing Elizabeth loved any excuse to dress her youngest up like a Barbie doll.
“I hated those things,” She confessed, shaking her head, “I thought you’d agreed you didn’t have to go to them anymore,”
“That was while I was in college, she said at least I could focus on my studies,” The girl explained, as Garcia tottered back through the office, a steaming cup of coffee in her beloved Bratz mug. Taking it from the chirpy woman, she took a deep gulp, not caring if it burned her mouth as she wished for the damn chill to go away, “Thankyou- But she made me go to this one on the condition she would pay off some of my college loans, and I was dumb enough to fall for her bribe,”
She huffed, taking another sip, her stomach warming with the hot liquid settling through her throat.
“You know how she is at these things, she knows everyone, and everyone knows her. I had four guys asking for my dance card within minutes of arriving there, it was like trying to walk through a dog pound wearing a meat suit, all the hand holding, trying to touch my waist- one guy even called me Madam Prentiss,” She grimaced, shuddering at the thought of it, “Madam? No one even calls mom that-”
“Focus,” Emily reminded gently, and she seemed to nod to herself, setting back on track.
“Right. And then he was there. Byron Hastings.” Bugsy said, wrapping her hands around the mug some more.
“Oh, isn’t he that super yummy bachelor that just inherited his fathers business?” Garcia jumped in, not noticing how it made her wince, “I hear his dad totally owns a bunch of shares in Facebook and as like just signed a deal with a new company that will change the future of computing-”
“Not now, baby girl,” Morgan said calmly, patting Penelope on her shoulder when she saw the bride’s crestfallen face.
“Right, sorry. Your turn, little bug,” She said, shaking her head and fiddling with her dozen rings.
“Yeah, that’s him.” She replied, running a slightly warmed finger over her eyelash where rain even collected there, “And you know, I wasn’t complaining, he was certainly easy on the eyes, and he smelled nice, like he just smelled rich, but man alive he was so boring,” She sighed, “I like computers as much as the next girl, no offence, but he didn’t once ask me what I was into or, and when I tried to bring up my degree he just patted me on the head and said ‘That’s nice’ like I was some child that had brought him a pretty colouring or something,”
“Ouch,” Emily grimaced, rubbing her arms over the cardigan to warm her up a little more, “And then?”
“And eventually, his dad and my mom cut a deal that we’d make a good pair. He said we could be married within the season, and suddenly everyone seemed up for it, and it was like no matter how hard I tried to dig my heels in, no one would listen, and mom just seemed so pleased with me-” She spluttered, sipping her drink to catch her breath, “I just let it happen and just thought, you know, maybe we could learn to like each other, or we could just be like mom and dad and separate in everything but paper,”
“It’s your life, who is she to tell you how you’re gonna live it,” Emily was outraged, the tip of her nose pink, her dark eyes stormy as her hands fell to her hips, huffing as if it had been her backed into a corner, “I can’t believe she would do this to you,”
“I was fine with it, really. It's not like its the fifteenth century when I’d be forced to consummate- anyway,” Bugsy rubbed her face, “I just got there, and mom put on my veil and told me I’d make a lovely Mrs Hastings, and just the sound of it- I couldn’t-”
“What on earth is going on?” A new voice cut through the BAU, and the group disbanded like kids caught trading answers to the homework. Rossi and Hotch stood by the unit chief’s office, brows furrowed at the wet bride and his team that tended to her as if she were a princess.
“Should we be expecting four wet bridesmaids too?” Rossi asked, the two of them making the steps down to the floor, approaching the guilty faced woman, noting Spencer’s cardigan wrapped over her shoulders.
“Nope, just me,” Her joke fell flat as she met the stony face of Aaron Hotchner, who looked thoroughly unimpressed, “Nice to see you again, Mr Hotchner, sir,”
His gaze slid to Emily, mouth opening to share whatever scathing remark bounced around his mouth, but the younger girl beat him to it, everyone’s eyebrows raising when she all but cut him off.
“This wasn’t on Emily, sir, I just showed up out of the blue, I can go- I’ll go- I just need to figure out where I’m staying since I left my purse at the church- don’t you worry I’ll be out of your hair, Aaro- sir,” Bugsy stammered, plonking the mug onto Emily’s desk, backing away to the doors of the office, clutching her visitor pass tight in her fist.
Maybe it was because she looked so hopeless, or maybe it was the way his team shot him the same look of horror he would be so regimental, or maybe even it was the fact part of her reminded him of Sean, only his brother wouldn’t have had the courtesy to apologise for his mess.
Sighing, he gestured her to come back, “Wait,” He said her name, her government name because the other one didn’t fit right in his mouth, “Reid, get her some clothes out your go bag. Emily, tell your mother she’s safe and will be staying in Quantico until you can figure something out,”
Heaving a sigh of relief, she launched her still sodden form at the chief, wrapping him in a stiff hug, bolder than anyone else on the team had ever dared to be.
“I swear to god, Mr Hotchner, the next letter you're getting will be the best one yet,” She mumbled into his hard chest, and he fought off the way the corners of his lips twitched upwards. Patting her on the back gently, he ignored the way his dress shirt wet through.
–
let me know what you think! mAYBE A FEW MORE PARTS COMING UP ??
Edit: This is a part one of 3 or 4 I have planned, thankyou so much for all the love on this I did not expect the reaction 🥺🥺
SECOND EDIT: part two and three are out now!! Have a look at the top where it says ‘next chpt and it’s there bbys!!
THIRD EDIT: we are now balls deep into this universe here's th link for the masterlist
#spencer reid x reader#Spencer reid imagine#Spencer reid fanfic#criminal minds x reader#Prentiss#prentiss!Reader#criminal minds fanfiction#dr spencer reid#criminal minds fic#spencer reid fanfiction#mathew grey gubler#Matthew grey gubler x reader
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tinder buddies | ln4
hi! i have no idea how to comment on that. i've got inspiration from the rumors that are now going on twitter and tiktok about lando and his activity in sm and i thought man, i need to write something in this narrative because sexting with him??? scuse me??? but of course all of this is fiction and and i dont have any statement on the rumors about lan, mostly because all of these are rumors and not facts. anyway, pls leave his poor papaya ass alone and enjoy this instead!
summary: when you met your tinder buddy irl and realize how indeed world is small
warnings: masturbation on cam (both male and female), bit of swearing, in general alott of sexual tention
pairing: fem!journalist!reader x lando norris
Y/N thought that she was good at what she was doing. She thought that despite her young age she fit in the world of motorsport really well. Sometimes it even crossed her mind that she was no different from her older colleagues, what's more, sometimes she even thought that she was better than them. However, she admitted this only to herself with complete modesty and behind tightly closed doors.
Apart from the fact that Y/N was a really good journalist whose career was growing at a surprising pace, at the end of the day she was just a twenty-two-year-old girl who, like many other twenty-two-year-old girls in the world, had her smaller and bigger sins.
Y/N breathed heavily as she entered her hotel room. She set her suitcase and bag aside, taking off her shoes and plopping down on the bed. It was well after midnight, her flight was delayed by several hours and she was simply exhausted by the passing day. Even though she was excited about the events that awaited her in a few hours, right now she was just tired. However, she knew perfectly well what would help her relax before going to sleep. Not so much what, but who.
The girl unlocked her phone and easily found the Instagram icon, clicking on it and going straight to the messages. She entered the first conversation and was about to write some prosaic message, but she didn't have time to type out half of the sentence when a new message appeared in the chat.
"u up?"
Y/N smiled to herself. It looked like she could count on a pleasant end to the day.
"I was just about to ask you the same thing"
The reply message appeared a moment later.
"i was waiting for you to be available. i thought the evening would be wasted"
"And yet you see, surprise"
The person on the other end smiled and untied the drawstring on his sweatpants. He quickly wrote his answer with one hand.
"wanna call?"
"I think you know the answer"
She smiled and reached for the switch and turned off the light, pressing the camera icon with her other hand.
Y/N and the boy she had been messaging with for a little over a month knew next to nothing about each other. She had a private account and a few photos, he had a black icon and an empty profile. He only knew her name, she only the first letter of his. They met on Tinder, their profiles there looked quite similar. She has a few photos, more of the body than the face, he has the same, mostly in black and white. They had never seen each other's faces, but they knew each other's bodies inside and out.
Y/N placed her phone on the table and leaned it against the lamp, which she turned on a moment later. The light from it was dim, but it illuminated her body enough. The angle her phone was at only showed her from the neck down. She was perfect at maintaining her privacy.
"New background?"
He asked, seeing that the surroundings behind her were different from those he had seen before. She pulled her sweatshirt over her head, leaving her in only a bra and a thin t-shirt.
"I'm away from home"
"Work?"
"Too many questions"
There was quiet laughter on the other side. He liked her temperament. He liked her curves even more and the sounds she made when, at his command, she pushed her fingers inside her and brought herself to orgasm. Yes, he liked that too.
"Yeah, you're right. Strip."
Y/N pulled the t-shirt over her head and her interlocutor saw a red, lace bra that he never seen on her before. He smiled and ran his hand over his crotch. He felt a chill run through him.
"You look good, baby. Red suits you"
She laughed and pushed her hair behind her shoulders.
"Is this the first time you gonna tell me to keep my bra on?"
"For now, yes. I'd love to look at it for a while" he squeezed his cock and began to lightly massage it through the fabric. "You know what to do, dont'cha?"
Y/N bit her lip and lifted her hands, placing them gently on her shoulders. She slowly moved them down her body and when she found her breasts, she slowly started massaging them in circular motions. She closed her eyes and tilted her head slightly, hearing the sigh that came from her phone. He watched her carefully, following her every move.
"Take it off," he said after a while, "It's pretty, but I think I prefer you without it."
She quickly took off her bra and threw it aside. He smiled at the sight of her breasts. Y/N returned to them, continuing their massage. As she lightly pinched her nipples, she moaned softly. His cock vibrated at the sound that came from his headphones. He smiled.
"Does it feel good, baby?"
"Mhm, yeah" she answered, looking again at her phone "But you're playing unfair again. I have to see you too."
He chuckled and shook his head.
"You don't let me enjoy you"
He replied and put down the phone, quickly pulling his shirt over his head. He fell back on the pillows and turned on the light on his phone. Y/N smiled at the sight of the familiar, slightly tanned and toned torso. Her interlocutor didn't see it, but she smiled even more when he tightened his hand on his cock, which was now clearly visible on the gray material of his trousers.
"Take off the rest of your clothes and lie down"
He ordered. Y/N obediently lay down, taking off her pants and underwear. When the rustle of fabric could be heard on the other side, he easily freed himself from his pants and tight, slightly damp boxers. He spat on his hand and spread the saliva over his cock, feeling it tighten under his touch. Fuck, what he would give if instead of his hand it was this tiny hand that disappeared between the pair of thighs he saw on the screen of his phone.
The girl complied with his command and he saw her middle finger slowly sinking inside her, only to come out after a while covered with her juices.
"Fuck," he muttered under his breath, "You're so wet, baby."
“I wish you were here and licked me clean.”
Y/N said, rubbing her clit. She felt that she wouldn't need much to reach orgasm.
Her interlocutor smiled under his breath, but she wasn't able to see it.
"I'm afraid that i would make you even more wet."
"Someone has quite an ego here"
"I know my capabilities, baby."
She snorted under her breath and made herself more comfortable, inserting her finger into herself again. First one, quite slowly, and soon she added another one. A long moan filled the hotel room as she began to move them, imagining that it was not her but him who was fucking her. And not with his fingers, but with his wet, hard cock.
"Yeah, just like that, baby. Keep going."
His eyes carefully followed the screen and the activities taking place on it. His hand moved smoothly over his cock, his lips were slightly opened. As he was stroking himself, the glass of his watch on his wrist reflected the light from the phone. He wore it every time they cam together. Y/N didn't know anything about watches, so she didn't know what brand it was or whether it was expensive. They never talked about it, honestly, they basically never had a normal chat. However, he once asked her about the tattoo on her forearm, just below the inner bend of her elbow. He noticed it after the first time they met on camera. When it was all over and they were about to hang up and return to their real lives, he asked about it.
"What does 33 mean?"
He asked when the girl started getting dressed.
"What?"
"Tattoo on your arm"
The girl looked at her forearm and only then did she understand what he was asking about.
"I can't tell you because you'll make fun of me"
Hearing this, he smiled. Not because there was probably some stupid story behind it, but because the girl was concerned about not looking bad in front of him. Even though they absolutely didn't know each other.
"I barely know your name, I don't know why I would make fun of you."
Y/N was silent for a moment, glancing at her tattoo and lightly stroking it with her thumb.
"Do you know Formula 1?"
He smiled and nodded. His reaction, however, was beyond her reach.
"I know a thing or two"
"My favorite driver drives with this number. Well, actually he did, now his number is 1. But for me it will still be associated with 33"
The girl explained. She felt a bit embarrassed to expose herself to him, especially with something like this. However, he did not laugh at her or comment on her confession in any negative way.
"I have a friend who is also involved in motorsport and has the same number. Actually, not anymore, because he also had to change it. But for me it will also be associated only with 33"
Y/N smiled at his words. Sometimes she wondered if they could become friends and get to know each other a little better. But then she decided to come down to earth and remind herself that she had no time for relationships or friendships. Now the most important thing for her is work and career, everything else can wait. After all, no one will satisfy her as much as herself. Right?
"Fuck, I could fill you so good, baby," he moaned, gasping for breath. He felt that he was only seconds away from orgasm "You have no idea how much pleasure I would give you."
The girl's lips were opened, her eyelids were shut tightly. She massaged her clit with her left hand and moved the fingers of her right hand inside her in quick, uneven movements.
"I'm about to- I…oh my god-"
“Yes, baby, thats it" he gasped, speeding up "Cum for me.”
She felt a wave of pleasure wash over her. The moment her back arched, she heard a long "fuck" coming from her phone. He came shortly after her, staining his toned abs with his sperm. He squeezed his eyes shut and tilted his head back, trying to calm his breathing. There was silence on both sides for a moment, neither of them moving an inch.
After some time, Y/N sat on the bed and reached for a tissue, wiping her hands on it.
"I have to go now. I have a lot of work waiting for me tomorrow."
"Me too. I wanted to let you know that we may not be able to have a call tomorrow."
He answered, also wiping himself.
“It's okay, no big deal,” Y/N replied and took one last look at the muscled, tanned torso visible on her phone screen, “Good night. And good luck with your chores tomorrow.”
“Good night, baby. You too.”
She smiled and reached for her phone, ending the call. Exhausted from the previous day and the evening cam session, she just buried herself in the blanket and shortly after fell asleep. The next day, when her alarm went off, she was full of energy despite several hours of sleep. She couldn't wait for saturday's qualifying and all she was thinking about as she was getting ready was whether she would be able to get good material.
As she put on her red bra, she smiled involuntarily as she remembered last night. She wondered if he had already gotten lost in the whirlwind of his today's duties. Y/N quickly got dressed, gathered her things and, putting her pass around her neck, left the hotel. When she got to the track and was in the paddock, she couldn't think about anything else. Her only thoughts revolved around what was going to happen on the track in a few dozen minutes. However, for a split second she wondered what her tinder buddy actually knew about Formula 1. Maybe they could have something to talk about? Maybe she could even take him to some grand prix?
Her thoughts disappeared when she noticed Lando Norris hanging around the McLaren garage. The girl asked the cameraman to prepare the equipment and she would ask the Brit if he would be willing to have a short conversation. She squeezed the microphone in her hand and without thinking, she approached him, introducing herself and asking if it was possible to record a short conversation.
Hearing her name, his heart did a flip. He knew that name very well.
"Sure, no problem"
He replied with a smile, obviously not revealing himself, and ran his hand through his hair. The glass of the watch strapped to his wrist gleamed in the sunlight. Y/N had seen this watch before. Many times.
The girl smiled back and, hearing his agreement, gave a thumbs up to the cameraman. When she raised her hand, the sleeve of her shirt rolled up, and Lando's eyes involuntarily caught the tattoo on her forearm. A slight 33, just below the bend in the elbow.
He felt a sudden wave of heat wash over him. It's a coincidence, right? It must be.
"How's your mood before qualifying?"
Y/N asked, putting the microphone down and straightening her shirt. As she was arranging her collar, Lando's eyes caught a glimpse of her red bra strap. He smiled to himself and looked down. He wondered how many accidents and coincidences had come together in the universe and resulted in this situation.
"What? Something wrong?"
The girl asked, not knowing what made him react like that.
He shook his head and after a moment looked up again. He looked at the girl carefully. However, she was completely lost and looked at him questioningly.
"Sorry, as you can probably see, my mood is great. I'm positive about today's qualifying."
Y/N tentatively gripped her microphone. When the cameraman approached them, they started recording the footage and she had no time to analyze Lando's strange behavior. In fact, it was possible that this was their first and last conversation ever, so why should she care about it. When they managed to record a short material, Y/N thanked him and wished him successful qualifications. After that everyone went their separate ways.
Immediately after entering the garage, Lando found his phone buried in a pile of his things. He quickly entered his latest conversation on Instagram and, without thinking, decided to send the girl a message. Worst case scenario, he'll just make a fool of himself, which isn't a big deal since they don't know each other at all. At best, he would spend tonight as he had long dreamed of.
"ure even prettier than i thought, baby."
Y/N felt a vibration in her pants pocket and without thinking, she unlocked her phone. She was surprised to see a notification coming from Instagram, and she was even more surprised when she noticed who sent her the message. After reading it, she felt a cold sweat break out on her. However, she decided to think and act soberly.
"How do you know what I look like?"
"turn around"
Lando replied quickly and leaned against the threshold of his garage. The girl clutched her phone in her hands and obeyed his command with her heart beating wildly. Lando smiled at her, holding his still unlocked phone. Y/N felt a lack of saliva in her mouth. It's impossible, it's not really happening.
"Are you sure we're looking at the same person?"
She replied, having difficulty pressing the appropriate keys with her fingers. He was amused by her reaction. This whole situation didn't make sense to him. It was crazy.
"im looking at a pretty neat journalist with a mad bunda who has a tattoo with my friend's racing number. and u?"
Y/N blushed. Fuck. It's him.
"I see that your jumpsuit is a little tight in some places."
Lando snorted under his breath. The girl wasn't lying. The whole situation made quite an impression on him.
Y/N bit her lip and looked up. She'd be lying if she said it wasn't arousing.
"u know exactly why its tight"
"I guess I have to find out in real life. The camera likes to lie."
When she sent the message, she looked up again and their eyes locked. The Brit winked at her and quickly replied, turning on his heel and disappearing into the depths of the garage.
"my driver's room in five minutes. ill be happy to dispel your doubts"
#f1 imagines#f1 one shot#f1#formula 1#f1 oneshots#f1 imagine#lando norris#ln4#lando norris x reader#lando norris smut
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Analysis of ALNST Character Relationship Metrics
My art book won't be here for a minute, but I ran some screenshots I saw on twt through an image translator and have a lot of thoughts:
TILL: Despite claiming to hate everyone in the world, Till ranks Ivan at 70% intimacy even as he identifies perturbing behaviors of Ivan's going back years and refers to him as "a bother". He also ranks Sua at 10% in spite of having little to say about her and finding it uncomfortable to be around her.
Though he postures at being misanthropic and has all the manners you'd expect of a boy who was half off at the human child pound, he's actually quite gentle and sensitive. This is reflected in one of the graduation messages he's left by a classmate as well:
The person he feels closest to is an unattainable crush, and someone who doesn't feel that close with him in return, likely because he's too shy to really approach her or carry on a conversation.
MIZI: That's Mizi, of course, who's rather childlike and naive initially. She likes everyone, but since Till chokes when he tries to speak to her and often keeps his distance, she wonders if he's avoiding her because he dislikes her.
Mizi gravitates towards people who she sees as "perfect", which is how she describes Ivan and Sua in her graduation message to Ivan:
She doesn't see the darker side of Ivan's personality (which has been described on several occasions, even by himself, as "twisted") because he's attractive, successful, and helpful to her.
Though she likes everyone, Sua is her "God", and the only thing that can keep them apart is the tragedy of their situation, which forces Mizi to grow up in a brutally painful way.
SUA: Sua is far less idealistic and naive than Mizi, and has clearly thought about sacrificing herself to save Mizi, since Ivan picks on her for thinking of doing so in an official comic. Accordingly, her feelings about Mizi are far more tinged by the knowledge that they will one day be torn apart by external circumstances. She laments that reciprocating her feelings will one day cause Mizi great pain.
She's always been more somber, and despite her surface similarities to Ivan (which he notes in a follow-up comic wherein he realizes he was wrong about Sua's feelings for Mizi being unrequited), she's quite different on the inside. Sua's more sensitive and thus her colder exterior serves to protect her, whereas Ivan's outward persona creates an illusion of normalcy that doesn't reflect his reality.
Sua views Ivan and Till as a threat and a nuisance, respectively. Like Till, she senses something strange about Ivan, and when it comes to Till, it's just one person too many around for her. This is fascinating to me, because I thought she might pity Till! Her feelings about Ivan were already pretty clear from this panel of the 'piggyback' comic, and she seems deeply hurt in the first comic linked by his prodding.
IVAN: For his part, Ivan is fascinated by Till even though he's content to sit back and observe, pestering him to get a reaction or his attention for a brief time. He doesn't expect anything in return but wants more than anything to be on Till's mind (hence behaviors like stealing Till's belongings and returning them to him, pretending he had found them).
He prefers Sua to Mizi despite his awareness that Sua doesn't particularly like him, seeing her as a sister and even telling her she's "twisted" like he is. He likes Mizi well enough, especially her sincerity, but seems to find her optimism a bit much at times.
The fact that Mizi and the others would likely consider Ivan and Mizi quite close while Ivan does not reflects how much he postures even in his closest relationships. He struggles to connect with those he's most compelled by and it's not clear if he really wants to.
Some Ivantill thoughts before I go:
There seems to be a common sentiment that it's tragic Till was unable to see how much Ivan loved him, and I think we'll likely get more of Till's perspective on Ivan and their relationship in round 7. But it may not be the case that Ivan even wanted his true feelings to be seen, or would have known what to do if Till had reciprocated them.
There's something almost voyeuristic and self-negating in his feelings for Till (see: "I can’t reach you, so I imagine alone/You who shines, I stand next to you" from 'Black Sorrow'). He has far more self-awareness and willingness to accept things as they are than Till, who doesn't see that Mizi only has eyes for Sua and who would likely struggle to accept that reality.
Ivan, on the other hand, is well aware that his feelings for Till are "shallow", a bright fantasy to get him through his dark reality, and he seems to sincerely believe that his death won't scar Till because he's never really broken through to him. He's a schemer, and comments he makes in his graduation message to Till and the interview he gives in advance of round 6 suggest that he may have been planning to sacrifice himself for some time.
Part of me wonders if he hoped it would leave a mark on Till. Choking, kissing, and violently sacrificing oneself are all aggressive, forward acts, especially from someone who used to toy with people to get his kicks but was otherwise quite passive and unfeeling.
There are a lot of parallels in the one-sided loves, like Till acting out of his usual character for Mizi, and Ivan doing the same because of Till, putting all hopes of being saved in something just out of reach, staying in chains for that one special person. But Ivan's psychology is quite different from Till's, and in fact closest to Luka's re: low or no empathy. Both Ivan and Till are significantly traumatized by their upbringings but Ivan's difficult early life in the slums and his experience being dangled off that rooftop seem to have damaged his ability to connect to others or feel much of anything.
Till is the first person for whom he feels anything while for Till, Mizi is an early crush he puts on a pedestal in a much more commonplace way. I think the shared trauma of competing on that stage makes it much more difficult for either of them to imagine moving on, but Ivan is not wrong in identifying that he won't find that feeling again.
The thing that intrigues me most about this series is the way the contestants' differences play out, particularly with regard to how they view love and how they respond to their individual and shared challenges. I'd love to get into it further another time but this is quite long already so thanks for sticking with it if any have (haha)
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Break in
Jay Halstead x reader
summary: when Jay's girlfriend is home alone while he's at Molly's, someone tries to break into their house
Y/n was looking disinterestedly through the fridge, closing it with a sigh when she couldn't find anything to eat that she felt like. It was a slow night, her workday had been quiet at the hospital, with only a few patients showing up.
Her boyfriend, Jay, had invited her to join him and the rest of the police department at Molly's. However, she refused, wanting him to spend quality time with his friends, feeling that she had already stolen him from them long enough after he took a few days to take care of her after she fell ill.
Detective Chuckles: Is everything okay out there? The guys miss you! Wish you could be here with me :(
The ringing of her cell phone snapped her out of her thoughts, a small chuckle escaping her lips as she read Jay's message. But she couldn't deny the butterflies that invaded her stomach knowing he was thinking about her. Their relationship was relatively recent, but they had never felt stronger love.
Jay once revealed to her that he realized she was the most important person to him when he was called on an undercover mission. They had only been dating for about 2 months. When he returned, after all the time they hadn't been together, he was shocked to see her waiting for him. He thought she had abandoned him, realizing that she couldn't live with his job, but he was wrong. He ran to her, picking her up and spinning her around a little, her laughter echoing through the room.
After answering his text, Y/n lay down on the couch, watching a movie while waiting for her boyfriend to come home. She didn't even notice when, halfway through the movie, her eyes started to get heavy, and she gave in to sleep.
She woke up again when she heard the lock on the front door click, almost as if someone was trying to get in. Too lazy to get up, thinking it was Jay trying to get in, Y/n tried to call him to remind him he had a key, in case he was already a little tipsy.
At the end of the second ring, the cop answered, but something made Y/n freeze in place, glancing at the door in alarm. She could hear the noise coming from the other people at the bar, meaning he wasn't the one at the door.
"Baby, you there? Is everything okay?" Jay's voice brought her back to reality.
"Jay, aren't you the one trying to get in by any chance?" her voice shook, still standing in the same spot on the edge of the sofa, now raised.
"What? Guys, shut up, I can't hear Y/n. Baby, I told you I'm at the bar with the rest of the group." his voice immediately became serious. "Why? What's happening?"
"Jay, I think someone is trying to get in." Y/n muttered, holding the phone tighter to stop it from falling due to the shaking of her hands. Her wide, frightened eyes were fixed on the door.
As soon as those words left her mouth, Y/n heard a noise on the other side — Jay was shouting something to Severide. Then, there was silence until the sound of Jay's jeep engine was heard.
"Y/n, I need you to listen to me very carefully. You go to our room and lock the door. Then you go to the bathroom and stay in the bathtub until I come and get you. No one else, just me. Do you think you can do that?"
From Jay's voice, Y/n noticed that he went into police mode, speaking calmly but with authority. In fact, this was just so he wouldn't lose control and be able to help his girlfriend, despite the fear that was spreading throughout his body.
"I need verbal responses, baby. Do you understand?"
"I understand." her voice shook.
"Good girl. Everything's going to be okay." Jay tried to comfort her, breaking all the traffic rules and having the sirens on to get home faster.
His heart was tightening in his chest, almost stopping him from breathing. He blamed himself, he knew he should have stayed at home with Y/n, and now she was in danger, and he couldn't protect her.
Behind him, Severide followed him in his vehicle on a 911 call.
"I'm scared, Jay." Y/n's scared voice caught the police officer's attention.
"I know, baby, I know. But I need you to be brave until I arrive. I won't let anything happen to you. I just need you to hold on and then we'll finally go to bed and cuddle. Does that sound good?"
"Yeah." She felt tears coming to her eyes but tried not to let them fall. Just like Jay said, she had to be brave until he came to save her.
Y/n then started to go to her room until she stopped halfway up the stairs when the front door handle stopped turning. For a moment, she thought she was exaggerating and it was just someone who made a mistake in the house. But the panic returned when the automatic rear light came on, indicating that someone had passed by.
Jay only heard the gasp she let out. "What? What's happening?! You need to talk to me, Y/N."
"I think they're trying to get in through the back. I don't know if I locked that door!" She stopped her speech suddenly. "Oh god, I just remembered I left Missy sleeping in the kitchen."
"Y/n, do not go in there just because of the fucking cat!"
Jay didn't even like the little furball who seemed to hate him from the moment Y/n started dating him. However, he knew that his girlfriend would never forgive herself if something happened to the cat.
"Don't scream at me! I would be such a bad owner if I didn't come back to get my cat."
"I don't care about the damn cat when you're in danger!" Jay argued, but he knew Y/n was already heading downstairs to get Missy.
When Y/n arrived, she quickly found the animal on the dining table, looking super calm, an emotion quite contrary to what Y/n was feeling. Picking her up and quickly kissing her head, the girl thought about what her next step in the plan would be: go back up the stairs or find another place to hide.
However, the intruders finally opened the door, and the choice became obvious. Y/n quickly ducked and hid behind the kitchen counter so she wouldn't be seen. On all fours and with Missy under her arm, she grabbed a knife and tried, as silently as possible, to head towards the pantry.
"Y/n, don't go silent on me. Tell me what's going on. I'm three minutes away."
"They're here, Jay. I'm in the pantry with a knife." Her breaths were ragged and shuddering. She had to put her hand over her mouth to stop herself from crying. "I was so stupid. Why didn't I do what you said? I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize. God, don't apologize, sweetheart." Jay muttered with a heavy heart, running his hand over his face in despair, never having felt greater helplessness.
"They're getting closer." Y/n whispered, closing her eyes and holding her hand in front of her mouth so you wouldn't hear her heavy breathing. Jay slammed his hands on the steering wheel, clenching his jaw and thinking about what he could say to his girlfriend. "I love you, Jay. So much."
"Don't say that like it's goodbye, Y/n. I can't take it." He shook his head, using all his strength not to break down and burst into tears. "I'm almost there. One minute."
But Y/n was no longer able to respond. That's because a man, dressed all in black, entered the kitchen and looked around. She was peeking through the pantry bars, hoping he wouldn't be able to hear her and that Missy kept quiet.
She just had to hold on for one minute. Jay would be there on time. Either way, she held the knife in front of her, ready to attack. But deep down, she knew she had no chance against the muscular man. Very easily he would be able to throw her down and take the knife from her. But she wouldn't go down without a fight.
She knew that if it came to that, she would have to try to scratch him to get his DNA under her nails. That way Jay and his team would have a better chance of catching this man.
The man got closer and closer to the pantry. Y/n's hands were shaking uncontrollably. She just wanted to close her eyes and discover that it was all a nightmare. But as much as she wanted to, this was reality and the fact that she could die that day became more and more real and scary.
She didn't want to die without kissing Jay one last time. Without calling her parents to tell them she loved them. Without telling her best friend she should take the first step and text the boy she liked. She wanted to be a mother. She wanted to marry Jay and experience an eternity with him.
But just as she was ready to run out with the knife pointed at him as soon as he opened the pantry door, the man was pulled aside. She heard a moan of pain followed by things falling to the floor. Y/n wanted to go out and see what was happening, but Jay's words echoed in her head: stay hidden until he came to get her.
And then came immense relief. She heard sirens. Before she could process everything that was happening, the pantry door opened. Y/n, in a moment of panic, got up and tried to attack, the person easily dodging and putting his hands up in defense. It was only then that she realized that the person in front of her was Jay, and the intruder was on the ground, bruised, and being arrested by another police officer.
Missy, with all the commotion, quickly ran up the stairs, probably hiding in the guest room until things calmed down. In turn, Y/n dropped the knife on the floor, her face contorting and her lips trembling. She began to cry, finally releasing all the panic and fear she felt. She was pulled into Jay's arms and into his chest.
With his arms around her, feeling his warmth and the movements of his chest, Y/n finally felt safe. Jay kissed her head, saying words of comfort in hopes that she would calm down.
"Jay…" she cried, grabbing his shirt with a very tight grip.
"I'm here, baby. I'm not going anywhere. It's okay. You're safe. Shh…"
Jay then just pushed her away slightly, holding her face with both of his hands. "Are you hurt?"
"No, I'm okay. I was so scared."
"I know, baby. But you were so brave, I'm so proud of you. And I'll never let this happen again, I promise." he gave her a small kiss on the lips, pulling her back to him. She would never disappear from his sight again.
"Hey, sweetheart." Gabby's voice broke the moment between her and Jay. Y/n she turned her head to look at the woman she adored so much, only now realizing that Severide and Brett were watching the scene from afar. However, she continued to grab Jay's shirt, ensuring he stayed close to her. "Do you mind if we go to the ambulance just to make sure everything is okay?"
A moment of hesitation. Brett, realizing the problem, stepped forward and with a gentle smile said, "Jay can come too."
So, Y/n nodded in permission, following the paramedics to the ambulance. Outside, there were two more police cars and neighbors were in front of their houses in their pajamas to see what was going on. Always under Jay's arm, Y/n waited for Dawson and Brett to do their assessment, ensuring that everything was really okay.
After ensuring that there was no need to go to the hospital, despite a lot of resistance on Jay's part, Y/n won the argument with the condition that the next day, Will would stop by to check on her. But at that moment, Y/n just wanted to sleep with Jay next to her.
Once in bed, the man had one arm over her protectively, making sure there was no space between them. "I will protect you until the end of my life. I love you."
"I love you too." she looked at him with just love in her eyes. Finding a more comfortable position, Y/n closed her eyes and tried to sleep.
But Jay stayed up all night. The most important thing is that Y/n recovers after that traumatizing night. And if she had any nightmares, he would be there to protect her.
#chicago pd#jay halstead x reader#jay halstead#jay halstead x you#jay halstead x oc#jay halstead imagine#jay halstead x y/n#chicago pd imagine#chicago pd x reader#will halstead x reader#jay halstead x female reader
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My Charming Red Savior [1]
・❥ You’re harassed by a man following you down the street. Luckily, a rather smiley demon swoops in and claims to be your husband.
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |
x: no use of y/n. i said this was going to be short and I lied, it’s about 6k words.
warnings: mild swearing
Warning! Battery at 1%! Device will power down in 3..
You stared down at the phone in your hands as the message lit up on the screen. Eyes widening, you quickly tapped the screen, trying to bypass the pop-up and get another glimpse at the digital map you were using.
2…
“Hold on now! Just let me see where I'm going, please!” You begged the small device, your grip tightening around it as you tried to figure out what direction you needed to go.
1..
You peered around the small pop-up. Okay.. Pete Ave was that way, which meant you needed to take a right after the stoplight and go-
Device powering down! Have a nice day :)
“Damnit!” You growled as the screen flashed once, and then faded to black. You squeezed your eyes shut, face lifted to the sky as you took a deep breath to center yourself.
“Move it, won’t ya?” A demon woman chastised as she hurried around you. Lowering your head, you realized you were standing in the middle of the sidewalk, your spot interrupting the flow of pedestrian traffic. Quickly, you backpedaled until your back hit a brick wall of a building.
It was getting late in Pentagram City, and that meant you needed to hurry to get to your friend's place before the worst inhabitants of Hell came crawling out.
She had just gotten married and moved into a rather quaint little home, and you were very happy for her. You had not seen it yet, just in pictures she had shown you on her phone and the one time you drove past it.
“Oh, pleaseeee won’t you come over tonight? I can’t wait to show you all the renovations we’ve done! It looks so much better since we bought it.” She had begged over the phone that afternoon.
You had stood there, your nails clicking against the countertop in your kitchen as you thought. You had nothing important going on, just some light cleaning and shopping. What was the harm in going over there and visiting?
“Okay, sure. Yeah, I can come over.” You finally spoke.
“Ahh! I’m so excited, we’ll have a big dinner and everything. I can even rent a movie for us to watch, what are you into again? Those sappy romance flicks?”
“Whatever you want to watch, it’s your milestone we’re celebrating. I’m not the one picking.”
“Geez, you know how hard it is for me to decide things like that! But, i’ll do it. Oh! Before I forget, could you stop by the store on your way and get some Cajun seasoning? It’s for the meal!”
“Of course. I’ll see you soon.” You had told her, before hanging up. Eyes moving to the clock, you realized you two hours before needing to arrive. Which meant you had to get moving on those dishes and errands.
It didn’t take long before you were out the door. Wearing a nice outfit and new shoes, you strolled down the street. The digital map on your phone guiding you across the city as you moved.
Being so close to the city center, you didn’t have a personal vehicle. Instead, you took public transport all the way past the Entertainment District, your eyes gazing up at the rather tall VoxTek building as the bus sped by.
You didn’t know much about the Vees, other than they were very powerful Overlords with a lot of influence in the media industry. In fact, you didn’t know much about Overlords at all. Were they nasty demons? They must be, if they bartered in souls.
But there had to be better ones, right? You knew of the cannibal, Rosie, and despite her, well.. dietary choices, she seemed to be a rather motherly and courteous demon. In such a way that the residents of Cannibal Town held very high regards for her, which proved her ability to lead in a just manner. She couldn’t be the only one with a more ethical moral code.
Your mind lingered on that train of thought, before you were pulled back into reality by the bus driver’s call for your stop. Quickly, you had hurried out of the vehicle, before continuing your directed path forward.
You arrived at the large storefront, a cozy cottage-like building that whispered of deliciousness as the scents of spices and other meal-making goods wafted through the open door.
Taking a step inside, you quickly darted through the aisles, searching for the Cajun seasoning. What was your friend making tonight? You weren’t too familiar with these kinds of ingredients. Hopefully, it was going to be tasty.
When you found it, you turned it in your hands, inspecting the product. Yep, you’ve never seen this before in your life.
After paying for the item, you quickly departed. Your next destination set on your phone.. but not for long.
Just a few more blocks, and you’d have been welcomed by the two love-birds with open arms. A nice, hot meal and a good movie to finish the night.
Except, how were you supposed to get there now?!
Your phone was useless, and the digital displays around you showed nothing but advertisements and the latest news.
Frantically, you looked around for any familiar landmarks, hoping to rely on your memory to guide you. But the streets of Pentagram City, with their twisting alleys and repetitive buildings, all looked eerily similar in the dimming red light of dusk.
Taking a deep breath to steady yourself, you tried to recall the route from memory. Pete Avenue, right after the stoplight, then… was it a left or a right at the next intersection? You berated yourself for not doing a better job at memorizing the way before you left.
Turning, you raised a fist at the VoxTek HQ building, cursing them for your suffering. Stupid technology and their shitty battery life.
Slowly, you started walking again. Past the neon signs beckoning you to take a glance at what they had to offer, past the girls on the corner who were calling out to you to come have a ‘good time’.
Sometimes, you wished you had someone else to lend a hand at times like these. But, your heart and your home were unimaginably lonely when it came to a romantic partner. It was something that others around you couldn’t stop pestering you about.
“You really need to get out more,” another friend of yours had said one day, while you two dined at a cafe, “there’s this new dating app, called ‘Ozzie’s Love Link’. Everybody is buzzing about it. You should totally give it a whirl!”
You had rolled your eyes at her suggestion, a dating app? Those things were practically a fraud. The demons on there either wanted sex, or their idea of a relationship was twisted and foul. You even had heard stories of people playing into sick traps of the perfect first meet, only to be murdered and left in an alley to rot.
“I want something real, not some.. temporary escape. Have you ever met anyone that’s actually found ‘The One’ through one of those things? And, who knows, maybe the demon of my dreams will just walk right into me one day.”
She had laughed at your words, holding a hand to her mouth to contain her giggles.
“Oh, you. You’re still hanging on to those silly stories of a Prince Charming, hm? C’mon now, this is the real world. Nobody is going to swoop in and save you, and then fall hopelessly in love with you. That's a fairy tale. You need to put in the effort.”
You shrugged. Maybe, she was right. Maybe, those stories you had digested were just fairy tales, meant to enrapture you with promises of the perfect life. You were in Hell, after all.
‘She just doesn’t understand,’ you reminded yourself, ‘all her relationships have been toxic. She doesn’t know any better.’
You weren’t going to let her judgments get to you, you could live your life however you wanted, with whatever dreams you chose.
As you walked down the bustling streets, you couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. It was as if unseen eyes followed your every move, sending shivers down your spine.
‘Stop freaking out,’ you told yourself, ‘it’s just your imagination, there’s people all around you. They have their own lives, they’re not watching you.’
Nearing the curb to an intersection, you glanced up at the street sign. Pete Avenue, finally. Now, think. Left?
Looking left, you peer down the rows of strip clubs and bars. The crowds only got bigger from there, and there seemed to be no residential streets. You turned your head to the right, and it began to branch out into more domesticated buildings and neighborhoods. The farther your gaze traveled, the quieter the sidewalks became.
So, right it is.
You turned the corner of the block and kept moving, your pace quickening as you checked a large digital clock on the side of a building. It was getting closer to the time you had promised to be there.
But, now where were you supposed to go? You turned your head, until your gaze landed on a small imp standing near an alley, a cigarette between his lips.
Walking forward, you raised your hand up in greeting. “Excuse me, do you know where Magdalene Drive is, by any chance? I’ve just gotten a little turned around and would greatly appreciate some guidance.”
The imp regarded you for a moment, his eyes squinted in thought. He pulled the cigarette from his lips, and exhaled a large breath. A plume of gray smoke vented from his lips, and he coughed harshly.
“Yeah, I do. You see that big statue over there?” He pointed to your left, the cigarette hanging between his fingers.
Turning your head, you leaned slightly backwards. Off in the distance, a large marble statue depicting an unknown owl demon practically glowed against the darker backdrop. It seemed to hold resemblance to an Ars Goetia family member, but you couldn’t put a finger on who.
“Right when you pass it, take a left. Go two blocks straight, then take another left. One more block, and another right, and you’re on Magdalene Drive.”
Jeez, that was a lot of directions thrown at you in one sitting. Not wanting to pester the man any further, you waved a thanks and walked away.
How far have you come, exactly? You turned your head behind you, looking down the sidewalk of where you had just come from. Something flickered in your peripheral vision, a dark figure skirting from your gaze. Was someone watching you?
You shook your head. No, it’s just your imagination. Keep moving.
Slowly, you turned back and started walking. The sidewalks were practically empty now, the glow from the street lamps above you illuminating your path as you strolled up the large statue.
Twisting your head to get a better look at it, your gaze skimmed across the royal figure. The owl-demon was staring up at the sky, one arm raised with what seemed to be a ball of energy in his grasp. Swirls of gold marble laced the pearly white sphere. He was holding up, like it was an offering to Heaven.
Maybe, you’d come back later and take a look at the plaque below the statue. There had to be some significance, although you didn’t see yourself as a master of the fine-arts to te-
Crunch
What was that? That sounded like someone crushing a twig beneath their feet. You twisted to face behind you, and saw nothing once more.
‘Alright, this is getting a little freaky.’
You weren’t going to stop now though, you didn’t want any potential onlookers seeing you stalking the perimeter like a weirdo simply because your paranoia was having you hallucinate things.
Keeping your pace, you took a sharp left on the corner and continued down. How many blocks did that guy say? Two, if you could recall correctly.
That’s how many blocks you traveled, before stopping in your tracks. Which way did he say to go? Right? Left?
You rubbed your face with a hand, why did you suck so badly with directions?! If only you had charged your phone before you left, you wouldn’t be in this predicament.
Turning your head, you tried to figure out which way could be the correct one. There was nothing, though. It didn’t remind you of anything you’d seen when you had driven past her house.
“Hey, you lost?” A gravelly voice came from behind you. Eyes widened, you spun on your heel to face the stranger. He was tall, much taller than you. He sported scars running across his face, one eye half-lidded permanently from some kind of nasty wound.
He sported a dark leather jacket, with a thin sweater underneath. His hoodie was up, masking most of his features like a shadow. His skin was a dark red, and his eyes were a pale yellow. He seemed to be a Succubus demon, being too large for an imp.
There was no kindness in his tone or in his smile. Your brain screamed danger, you needed to get away from him. Quickly, you shook your head, trying to give him a well-meaning smile.
“No, i’m not! I’m just uhh- waiting for someone, they’ll be here soon anyway.”
“People that aren’t lost usually don’t ask strangers on the street for directions,” he chuckled darkly, “why don’t you tell me where you’re trying to go? I can give you a lift.”
As he closed in, you could smell the bitter taste of alcohol on his breath. You had to steel yourself not to recoil at his looming figure. Widening your smile, you attempted to not display any fear as he got closer.
“No, thank you. I would hate to bother you, my.. partner should be here soon, so you can continue on with your day!”
“Don’t you know this place ain’t safe for sweet dolls like you to be roaming alone? C’mon, let me take you to where i’m parked, i’m sure you’ll enjoy my company.”
You quickly stepped backwards, trying to widen the distance from this creep. It wasn’t until your back hit the wall of an abandoned storefront, did you realize you were trapped.
“I said no. I’m not some damsel in distress. Now, if you can excuse me, I need to keep going before it gets too late.”
You turned away from him, trying to break any kind of contact with the demon. Maybe if you kept your cool, he’d abandon his little mission.
That was until you felt his hand snake around your wrist, his grip tightening and pulling you to face him. In your state of shock, you dropped the bag containing the Cajun seasoning. You tried to tug your wrist free, but his yellow nails were practically digging into your skin, preventing your escape.
“What’s the rush, Doll? Scared i’m gonna bite or something? Don’t worry, I ain’t gonna harm you. I just want to show you a good time.”
Your eyes narrowed, gaze heated at the stranger. You frowned, glimpsing at his hand on your wrist in disgust.
“What are you doing? I don’t want anything to do with you, now let go of m-!”
“There you are, my dear!” A masculine voice exclaimed next to you. You felt the creep’s grip on your wrist loosen suddenly. His hand yanked away by another, and your gaze traced the light touch of unknown dark-red fingers gently taking your hand instead.
You snapped your head to the unfamiliar voice, taking in the sight of a second demon standing right besides you, a large grin on his face. He was tall, and he stood a little bit higher than the creep in front of you. His hair was styled in a cropped, angled bob, with an odd pinkish-red shade. Two small antlers protruded from the top of his head, and were those.. ears next to them too?
He was dressed rather formally, with a red pin-stripe coat adorned with a large black bow-tie. Over his right eye, you took note of the small oval-shaped monocle. He held a cane, with an odd looking end. The small oval in the center of it reminded you of an eye. He looked very dapper, like he was from a much older era.
His gaze was soft, as he looked at you. It wasn’t until his eyes snapped to the stranger in front did they take on a cold, dark glare. That smile never faltered, though.
Who was this guy? Why was he touching you? You felt the need to tear your hand from his grip as well.
Except, when he turned back to you, his eyes sent you a hidden message. Something like, ‘Go along with it, if you want to get rid of him.’
Seeing as you were stuck between two strange demons, with no idea what this new guy had in store for you, maybe it was a good idea to follow his silent command. Your hand went limp in his grip, and the deer demon raised it to his chest, patting it lovingly.
“Goodness, I leave for ten minutes to go pick up your favorite herbal tea and poof, gone! You are a slippery one, my sweet.” Static dripped from his voice, seemingly connected to the cane at his side. Was it some kind of microphone?
“Who are you?” The stalker questioned, backing up a step as he regarded the new face.
The red demon laughed, an audible ‘ha ha’, as if the creep just told a rather good joke. He extended his free hand in greeting, and the succubus only eyed the gesture with suspicion.
“The name is Alastor! Pleasure to be meeting you, sir, quite a pleasure. It’s rare for people these days to not recognize my face, although i’m sure it’ll become familiar soon enough.”
That ‘soon enough’ sounded quite ominous to you. And, was he some kind of celebrity or something? You didn’t remember him from anywhere.
“Well, do you mind? Me and the lady were in the middle of a conversation.” The succubus retorted, a slight growl in his tone.
“The better question is, do you mind, my good sir! Here I am, searching for my dear wife, only to see you bothering her on the corner!”
Wait a second, did this guy just call you his wife? You stood there, shocked, as you listened to the two bicker. Never would you think you’d hear that uttered from a man.
“Not only that, but touching her without her consent? My word, what degenerate behavior!” The demon, Alastor, continued. He shook his head in disapproval, an audible tsk-tsk coming from his lips.
“There was no harm in it, we were only having some fun. Ain’t that right, Doll?” The stalker turned to you, fire in his gaze as if daring you to speak.
You shook your head, your gaze snapping to Alastor. He watched you for a moment, before turning his attention back to the succubus.
“It seems your mother neglected to instill in you even a modicum of respect. If my wife weren’t here to witness, I'd be more than obligated to educate you on proper decorum.”
Something flickered in the creep’s eyes, and for a moment he looked almost afraid. After a moment, He sneered, eyeing you up and down. "I don't see a ring on her finger."
Alastor smirked, and gently lifted your hand forward for the demon to get a look at. His grin was that of triumph, as though he was showcasing a prized possession.
Your eyes widened at the sight, a gasp almost escaping your lips. On your finger, was a small gold ring. It was snuggled nicely around your digit, a perfect fit.
The Succubus leaned in, and so did you. Where the hell did that come from? That was not there a few minutes ago!
On closer inspection, you noticed something about the small band. Engraved in a tiny rose-gold font, was a single letter.
A.
"There, now do you see?" Alastor's grin widened, his demeanor playful yet menacing. His eyes narrowed, as he waited for the demon's response. You felt the air crackle with some kind of energy, it was dark and cold. The hair on the back of your neck began to stand on its end, like static. Which one of the demons was doing that?
The stalker’s expression shifted from arrogance to confusion, then to frustration. He furrowed his brow, studying the ring intently as if searching for some kind of flaw.
Was he going to try and argue? The proof was there, albeit fabricated. Alastor dropped your hand, and instead snaked his arm around yours, locking you in place.
There was no argument didn’t, instead, the succubus took another step back. The demon straightened himself and shrugged, like the scene before him was not a bother, like his filthy plan wasn’t thwarted by the appearance of the powerful deer man.
“Whatever, I ain’t got time for this anyway. Enjoy the rest of your evening, Lovebirds.”
As the man turned away, Alastor’s grin widened as he nodded his head. “Farewell, and may your endeavors be as futile as your manners!”
He turned to you, that dark look gone from his eyes as he gently tugged at your arm, still laced with his. “Now, my dear, shall we continue on our evening stroll?”
You nodded slowly, and together, the two of you turned away from the creep and began to walk. You had only made it a few steps before you heard the soft knocking of Alastor’s staff hitting the cement walkway. What was he doing?
Behind you, a strangled cry filled the silence, before a loud thump hit your ears. You jolted at the sound, did something just happen? It sounded like someone got hurt!
Right as you were about to turn your head to look at where the noises had emanated from, Alastor’s head snapped to you and you felt another gentle tug on your arm to turn your attention back to him.
You looked up at him, a smile forming on your lips as your nerves settled. “Thank you, for saving me, kind sir. I could have been a goner.”
“It was no trouble at all my dear, and please, call me Alastor. I was simply in the neighborhood and couldn’t just stand by and let that rapscallion manhandle you like that! Now, where are we off to, if I might ask?”
“Oh, well, Magdalene Drive! It’s a house right at the end of a street, my friend's place actually. She’s expecting me for dinner, that’s why I have this bag of…”
You became suddenly aware of the empty feeling in your hand. Did you forget to pick up the seasoning after you dropped it?! You groaned internally, your head hung in defeat. After all that, you didn’t have the one item you had taken this route to get.
Alastor raised an eyebrow at your reaction, and you quickly explained, “I needed to get Cajun seasoning for the meal they are making, but I dropped it when that.. man was harassing me! I’m terribly sorry, I have to go back and get it.”
Alastor only smiled, as usual, and shook his head. He waved his hand in a sweeping motion, brushing off your attempt to turn around.
“Nonsense! We don’t need to bother that poor soul any longer. Here, let me give you one from my personal collection!”
He lifted his free hand, and snapped his fingers. In a flicker of green light, a small spice jar landed in his palm. Your eyes widened, an amused smile gracing your lips as you watched the little trick. That was pretty cool. Was that the same kind of magic he used to secretly place the ring on your finger?
“Here you are! The best Cajun seasoning you can find in Pentagram City, my personal favorite. I was going to use it for something special, but it seems you are in need of it more than I.”
He lifted his hand toward you, and you took it gratefully. Lifting it to your nose, you inhaled deeply. It was an odd scent, one you couldn’t quite place, but it smelled quite delicious.
“Not many dishes require such flavoring, what is the meal you are having tonight?”
You shrugged, “I'm not really sure, to be honest. She didn’t say.”
“Hm, a pity. Have you ever tried Jambalaya? It is a rather magnificent dish, my personal favorite actually! My mother was quite the cook, indeed, and her craft would never miss when producing such delicacies.”
“No, I've never tried it before. What does it taste like?”
“It is hard to put a description on it. It’s almost like.. fireworkings popping off in your mouth! Ha ha, that is a good way to put it. You really must try it sometime.”
You smiled at Alastor as you listened to his words. Perhaps, you would.
“What got you into this pickle, anyway? Surely you didn’t actually feel like taking a stroll so late in the evening, hm?” He questioned as the two of you continued your pace, “a pretty face like yours will cause quite the stir amongst the filthy rats that like to inhabit this place.”
“Oh, well, I was using my phone for directions. It died on the way here, unfortunately I'm not familiar with this area and couldn’t find my way forward.”
His words finally processed in your brain. Did he just call you pretty? You didn’t get to think about that for much longer as his static-laced voice filled the air once more.
“Ah, of course. This new.. modern technology is nothing short of a fraud, if I do say. What ever happened to the old fashioned paper map? If it were up to me, we wouldn’t be so reliant on such faulty equipment.”
“Is that what your staff is? It looks like a microphone.” You said, pointing to the cane in his other hand.
Alastor glanced down to his cane, and then back to you. “Aha, a clever one indeed! Yes, my dear, I use it for my radio broadcasts!”
You perked at that. Radio? You had one of your own at home. Although it was quite dusty, you did occasionally turn it on to see what latest hits were circling around in the music industry.
“You do radio? That’s actually kind of interesting! Do you have a big audience?”
“Yes, indeed! Back when I was at my highest with it, I had many listeners. Unfortunately, my absence from Pentagram City has led to other forms taking the spotlight. I plan on rectifying that once I've settled in. Perhaps, you could listen in as well to see what I have to offer?”
You nodded at that, perhaps, you would listen in. He had a nice, pleasant voice. It felt like you could sit there for hours and just listen to him speak. Even if the words that came from his mouth was nothing but gibberish, you’d still let his voice drown out your thoughts.
“What about you?” The static dripping from his voice causes you to turn your head, “what do you do for a living?”
“Oh, well, I work at a men’s formalwear store. So, like tuxedos, dress shirts, and all that jazz. I help assist with fittings and greet guests, basically the doorgirl. Nothing too important.”
His ears perked slightly as he listened, and he turned his head to you. “Well, isn’t that interesting! Just recently, I had an awfully rude encounter with another demon, who had torn a piece of my suit. That slippery little serpent got away before I could.. question him about his antics.”
“That’s awful! Who was it?”
Alastor chuckled, rolling his eyes as he recalled the event. “Oh, nobody of importance, I assure you. Just some pretentious upstart fancying himself as an Overlord, with a knack for building rather ghastly creations of destruction. Since that encounter, I've been in the market for a fresh look. If a place of formal employs such splendid characters like you, I think it would be in my best interest to take a look in your establishment for a new coat”
Your eyes widened, he wanted to buy a new suit at your work because.. you were there? How charming.
Taking another glance at him, you realized he was rather good-looking. His red hair popped out against his much paler skin, it shined against the streetlights above. It looked rather silky and smooth, like you could comb them with your fingers and not find a single knot.
And those ears? They were pretty cute, actually. They stuck up from his head, and every so often they would twitch or shrivel in the direction of sudden noises. They seemed so soft too, would they feel as good as they looked if you were to squish them between your fingers?
He was a well-mannered gentleman, a pretty rare specimen in Hell. Not only that, but he stepped in to defend you from that creep when he could have simply walked by. He didn’t, and that made your cheeks heat up. Especially with the fact he called you his wife, instead of something simpler like ‘friend’.
What about when he called you pretty? Did he actually mean that? You never regarded yourself as such, but if Alastor thought that, maybe you cou-
“Is this the house?” Alastor’s words pulled you back into reality. You blinked, before looking up at the pale blue cottage snuggled nicely between two large Victorian homes. The talks you were having must have kept you from noticing the large distance.
“Yes! This is the place!” You exclaimed happily, finally, you were here. You turned to him, before looking down at your arm, still laced with his. Slowly, you pulled your arm free. The cold that replaced his touch was unwelcomed. Which felt odd to you, why did you want him touching you still?
You had only just met him, but perhaps his way of speaking and heroics swooned you enough to miss the warmth of his grasp. Lifting your head to meet his gaze, you tried to see what he was thinking behind that constant smile.
His eyes were unreadable, but the cold stare he had given the succubus, and to the other onlookers that you had occasionally passed was missing as he looked at you. There seemed to be a smile in his eyes, one that was meaningful and true.
“Well, I'm glad I could assist you in finding your way home, my dear. I quite enjoyed our chat, it is refreshing to hear from a new face once in a while. Especially one as eloquent as yours.”
You had to keep yourself from visibly blushing. He really was a gentleman in all regards. You bowed your head respectfully, before meeting his gaze again.
“The only reason why I'm here is because of you, Alastor. Thank you, and I do hope to run into you in the future. Our conversation was very interesting, I'd love to hear more of it sometime.”
He tilted his head at you, as he regarded your words. “Indeed, perhaps we will. Maybe, the next time we cross paths, I can give you a glimpse into my mothers recipe of Jambalaya. I’m sure your friend would be interested in trying something new the next time you sit down for dinner.”
You smiled at him, before waving goodbye. Turning towards the door you lightly rapped your knuckles against its wooden frame. It was then that you realized you never properly introduce yourself.
“Oh! I’m sorry, I never got to tell you, my name is-”
The words halted in your mouth, as you found the space in front of you empty. Alastor had vanished, not a single trace of his presence remained.
He was gone already? Damn, that guy moved quickly. Maybe, he was just a hallucination, a dream too good to be true. You stood there for a moment, before closing your mouth in thought.
Suddenly, the front door was flung open and a hand reached out and grasped your top. You turned your head just as you were yanked inside. Before you had time to blink, the door was slammed shut behind you. The window near it was shielded by curtains in seconds.
In front of you, your friend stood there. She was breathing heavily, a hand to her heart as if she just witnessed the scariest thing in her life. She quickly held your shoulders, scanning your body for any injuries.
“Oh my gosh! You’re lucky I pulled you in here quickly,” She exhaled a breath to calm her nerves, “You could have been that guy’s next meal!”
“What are you talking about?” You asked, an eyebrow raised at her strange demeanor.
“Alastor! The Radio Demon! Y’know, the guy that murdered all those overlords years ago?”
You raised an eyebrow as her words settled in your head. That demon was the Radio Demon? No way! He was such a gentleman, and rather pleasant too!
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not! I don’t know what happened between the two of you, hopefully not a deal, but you need to stay away from him. He’s nothing but a bad omen!”
You smiled, shaking your head at her antics. She was just being silly, Alastor saved you from potentially being kidnapped. You doubted he’d lay a finger on you in a harmful manner.
“Well, I brought that seasoning. Why don’t we go take a tour of the place, hm?” You said, pulling her away from the doorway and down the hall.
She nodded, her face lighting up instantly. “Yes, a great idea! I can’t wait to show you the kitchen, we replaced practically everything. The flooring is a beautiful marble tile and…“
She trailed off as her gaze shot to your hand, her eyes widening at the sight. Quickly, she grasped it, and pulled it closer to inspect it. You tensed, what was she doing?
“..what is that on your finger? I didn’t know you wore this kind of jewelry!”
Following her gaze, you turned your hand slightly to see what she was so enthralled about, and your eyebrows raised in surprise at the sight.
Still perfectly snug on your finger, was that gold ring Alastor had magically placed on you. You assumed that it would have dissolved or vanished when he left, but that small A still glimmered in the overhead light.
“I’ll explain it over dinner.” You simply replied, pulling your hand out of her grip and beginning to walk further into the house.
Your eyes kept landing on the golden band, though. Alastor not far from your mind as you listened to your friend fill you in on all the renovations. It was quite pretty, and it seemed to look great on you. For a moment, a rather odd thought crossed your mind, causing your cheeks to heat as you lamented over it.
Would it be so bad if you just.. kept it on?
─── ・ 。゚☆: *.☽ .* :☆゚. ───
woah, first fic of Alastor! I thought he’d be the perfect guy for this scenario. i wrote the reader as sort of a hopeless romantic bc it’s the complete opposite of al and i thought it was funny
EDIT: Part 2 is coming!!
lmk what you think! :)
#Alastor x reader#hazbin hotel#Alastor#radioapple is my crack ship so it makes sense i give al and luci love on my blog lmao
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joost klein x fem!oc smut
warnings: fingering, language.
The club near the beach seemed to be a favorite attraction for tourists.
After midnight, every corner was bustling with life, people were constantly smiling and exchanging long discussions at the tables. There was no room for lack of alcohol; every table was decorated with at least one bottle of wine or, in crazy cases, vodka. The music playing in the background pushed guests towards the dance floor, where they danced to the rhythm of fast songs.
“It's only our third day and we have already made this place our tradition.” My friend Lena exclaimed, accidentally spilling her glass of vodka. “Fuck! I knew everything was going too well!”
Amber and I burst into laughter as we watched our friend make sloppy movements to wash away the stinking liquid. Amber was really beautiful. She had large, almost black eyes. Quite strong makeup emphasized her delicate facial features and full lips.
We met her on the first day of our trip in the Netherlands. We bumped into each other while looking for a hotel in Noordwijk; or rather, we were saved by her. The taxi dropped me and Lena off at a remote location, both of our phones were dead, so we didn't know how to get to the hotel. The fact that it was only a few minutes after midnight didn't help at all. I remember thinking we would be stuck there forever.
Fortunately, we found Amber on a dark street where she was returning from work. She calmed us down and helped us find our way. We thanked her, she wrote her phone number on a piece of paper and the next day she took us here; to a lively beachside pub. We've been coming here every night since then.
“Come on, I'll help you wash it off. It's a waste of such a pretty dress.” She said calmly, standing up and leading Lena towards the door marked with a triangle symbol. Lena's crimson lips curved into a slight smile and she looked at me, her look instantly revealing her shock and nervousness. Oh, I knew exactly how Lena felt about Amber. She told me that the day after we met, they exchanged messages. I often caught her smiling at the phone, but out of respect for them, I chose to act as if I knew nothing.
“We'll be right back, Y/n. Maybe you'll find yourself a nice gentleman who will make your evening even more pleasant!” A smirk appeared on Lena's face. I rolled my eyes, hiding my amusement.
“Have fun and don’t get lost this time!” Amber called after me and giggled.
“Maybe you'd better not come back!” I stuck my tongue out at them in a mocking way.The girls gave me the middle finger before the door finally closed.
I sighed, taking a sip of vodka, washing it down with Pepsi. I felt the vibrations on my body, despite my fatigue I felt the call of the music. There was a smell of alcohol in the air and the smell of smoke released from time to time from under the DJ console.
After one glass of alcohol in a row, I stopped feeling tired. A dance floor full of dancing people seemed damn tempting. The thumping bass and catchy beats effectively encouraged me to devote myself to the music.
Seconds and minutes passed and the girls didn't come back. White light flashed from the ceiling from time to time, blinding for a second. I squinted a bit and checked the time on my phone. 01:01 AM.
Suddenly I felt someone's eyes on me. This may sound funny because, hey, I was just in a crowded club, it's normal for people to look at each other. But this was different, I felt frustrated when someone was staring at me and I didn't even know who.
I looked up from my phone and then I saw him. A few tables in front of me, a man sat alone, sipping a drink. His blond hair was messy and disheveled, and he was wearing thick-rimmed glasses. Something moved strangely inside me when our eyes met. He gave me a brave smirk that it sent shivers down my spine.
When he realized that I had exposed him, he took off his glasses and put them on the table. However, he was too far away for me to get a good look at his facial features. I noticed that he was holding a cigarette in the fingers of his right hand. He took a drag of it, watching me in concentration. Is smoking even allowed in clubs?
Girl, you're in the Netherlands. I reminded myself.
“Y/n!” I heard someone shouting my name as I turned back and saw Amber and Lena running towards me. When they both took their seats, I had a perfect view of their rosy cheeks, uneven breathing and the abashed glances they were sending to each other. I suppressed a smile with a clear throat. “I'm sorry you had to wait so long. Lena got her dress so dirty that we had to take it all off to clean it.”
Why is everybody having sex except me?
“Oh, I can certainly imagine that. Actually, I’m tired of sitting in one place all the time. How about hitting the dance floor?”
“Finally! I thought you'd never ask!” Lena squealed, grabbing both of our hands.
About half a minute later we were in a different state of consciousness. The colorful spotlights seemed brighter and the music seemed louder. We were jumping to the rhythm of some electronic song, shouting its lyrics to each other. The song was in a foreign language and it was the first time I heard it, so Amber was probably the only one in our group who sang the lyrics correctly. My legs were burning with fire. It's been a long time since I spent such a long time on the dance floor dancing non-stop, but I enjoyed it.
Now I was much closer to the table of the man who was staring at me with incredible passion.
I looked at him again, and when we made eye contact, he winked at me. The stranger, dressed in black jeans and a gray hoodie, stared at me with an unreadable expression, blonde hair falling across his forehead. I didn't even know his name, but everything about him was suddenly stirring something inside me. His blonde hair. High cheek bones. His mustache. The tattoos on his hands. His smile too. It was something I couldn't look away from. As if I'd seen him somewhere before, but couldn’t recall where.
When “Careless whisper” started playing and Amber and Lena started to get closer to each other, I decided to leave them alone.
I gave a thumbs up to give Lena courage. She smiled shyly and placed her hands on Amber's waist. I apologized to the people around me and left the dance floor, heading outside. I needed to get some fresh air, and more specifically, listen to the sound of the sea waves.
The night was cold and the wind bit at my bare arms, chills running through my body. I sat down on the sand and scolded myself for not bringing anything to cover my head and shoulders.
I inhaled sharply and then listened to my heartbeat because I was alone. I didn't worry about getting my dress dirty. It was worth it for this view.
I started to feel dizzy. I felt like I was about to fall asleep. I shouldn’t have drank too much.
"Enjoyed dancing to one of my songs, huh?" I suddenly heard a raspy voice from behind me. I turned around to experience the biggest shock of my life. It was the same man who had ogled me in the club. I looked at him with wide eyes. The moonlight fell on him, making his honey skin shine, while the wind blew, making his hair move gently. Even the moon wasn't as beautiful as him.
I scrunched my nose. I tried to recreate all the songs I danced to in my head. I didn't have to wait long until he finally sat down next to me.
“You're a musician?”
He let out a small chuckle and, oh my God, his laugh was so hot.
“Yeah, something like that. But lately people have gotten used to calling me Europapa. I guess, I don't have a name anymore.” I laughed at his words. After his hint, I was finally able to figure out what song he was the author of.
“Ah, it's you. I knew you reminded me of someone. In my country, people already made you a global superstar.” He raised an eyebrow at me and smirked.
“Oh, really? Where are you from?”
I nodded. “Poland, straight from the capital. How about you, Joost?”
I used his name for the first time since I could finally remember it. Judging by the expression on his face, I had to amuse him with my pronunciation because he started laughing. The smile disappeared from my face.
“No, no, no. Mh, I live in Leeuwarden, but currently I’m on tour. Came here in order to relieve my stress a bit. And you can call me whatever you want.”
I almost offered him another way to relieve his stress. It took all my might to hold back my laughter.
“Oh, I feel flattered.”
For a moment I looked at his shapely lips. Of course, he noticed that.
“Is that so?”
“Mhm.” I mumbled in a quiet voice, not knowing what to say.
“Can I get your name?” He asked finally.
“It's Y/n.” I said honestly, looking straight into his blue eyes. “Do you have anything to explain how you were devouring me with your eyes earlier?”
I bit the inside of my cheek, mentally scolding myself. I really should learn to keep my mouth shut.
I looked up, immediately seeing a wide smile on Joost's face.
“Sorry. You're just so fucking pretty, I couldn't help myself.”
I bit my lip, suppressing a loud moan. I hated myself for how much he affected me.
“Can I?” He asked before placing his hand on my bare thigh. I nodded excitedly, waiting for him to move, which made him laugh a little.
“Mh- yes. Please.” I added with a pleading look on my face.
He dragged his hand slowly to my inner thigh, tossing my leg over his thigh, and made a low humming noise that vibrated from his chest.
Before I knew it, Joost's lips were smushed against mine in a passionate kiss. I gasped into his mouth as I melted against his lips, my hands resting comfortably on his muscled arms as his laid against my warm neck. Joost grasped the underside of my thighs and pulled me off the ground, wrapping my legs around his hips.
“Joost..” I moaned breathily as his puffy lips attacked my neck, “I need you.”
“Of course you do, who wouldn't?” He teased, leading me towards his car. It was so dark that even if someone had been on that beach with us, wouldn’t have noticed us.
“Such a narcissist.”
Joost chuckled, “You know, if you shut that slutty mouth for once, you'd be so pretty.”
He opened the car door and put me in the back seat. After a while, he closed the door and sat down next to me.
“Oh, Y/n. I will give your body exactly what it deserves.” He said, a wide grin on his face as he leaned down to kiss me once more.
I bit my bottom lip and answered with one simple word.
“Yes.”
Joost wasted no time. He placed me on his lap and rolled up my tight dress. He moved his hands all over my body, making me go crazy.
“Your body is art.” He murmured.
His eyes pierced through mine, his gaze so intense that I almost melted on top of him. My hand shyly reached for his, playing around with his fingers and I moved my eyes down to look at what we were doing. “Is that what you want?” His voice was soft as if to not scare me away. “You want my fingers?” I looked in his eyes again and nodded my head quickly, feeling a tingling sensation on my stomach from the excitement. His other hand came up to caress my cheek and a little smirk could be seen on his lips.
I moved on his lap when I was ready and one of his hands grabbed my hip while the other one ran up and down my thigh.
“Please.” I moaned, grasping his forearm tightly as I scrunched my face up in pleasure.
His fingertips brushed through my folds, coating them in my juices and I whined when I felt him rub slowly at my clit. “You're a soaking mess, baby.” His voice was so calm, a contrast to how shaky my breath was.
I gasped and he started applying more pressure to my clit. He eased one of his fingers inside me and a soft moan left my lips, my hips moving to ride his finger, his eyes intensely staring at me. “More.” I whined quietly.
“More?” He smirked and inserted another finger, feeling how my walls clenched around his digits, his hand moving to match the movements of my hips, thrusting his finger in and out of my pussy and I could ear the wet sounds it did.
“I'm so c-close, Joost. Just like that.” I moaned louder, locking his fingers between my legs.
“Cum on my fingers, baby.”
“Oh God,” I cried out as wave after wave of pleasure rocked through my body.
When I was done, he slowly removed his fingers from my pussy, moving them to his mouth, sucking my juices from them, grunting at the taste of me which made me sigh heavily at the sight in front of me.
“Take off your pants, Joost.”
“Of course, baby.” He chuckled, politely following my order.
#joost klein#joostice#joost fanart#joost smut#joost klein smut#eurovision#justice for joost#free joost#stand with joost#joost x fem#joost klein fluff#esc netherlands#eurovision 2024#eurovison song contest#esc#ebu#europapa#joost klein x reader#joost klein x you#joost klein fanfic#joost klein angst#joost klein fanart
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Fragments of Hope
Summary: You had an argument with Daniel and you decided to leave him for a while. What you didn't know is that he can't live without you.
Song: MILLION DOLLAR BABY - Tommy Richman
Author’s note: I can't write short stories to save my life. I hope you enjoy this long journey which may take a full day to read. Please like, reblog and share this! <3
Word count: 4.6k
"Daniel, I feel like you're prioritizing your racing career over our relationship. It seems like you don't care about me anymore." You said, stressing over the fact that Daniel didn't understand.
"I understand why you might feel that way, but racing is my passion and it's important to me. I want you to know that you're also a priority in my life." Daniel replied.
"Well it certainly does feel like it sometimes," You muttered, standing up from your seat.
"Y/N please listen to me," Daniel pleaded, standing up to follow you.
"No you listen to me!" you yelled, turning around to face him. "Everyday you stay in the paddock until 1AM or later when you come home and then you leave at 8AM to go back to work. Daniel, I have less than 7 hours to spend time with you and it's mostly used on you sleeping,"
"I understand that it may feel that way, but racing is not just a career for me. It's my passion," Daniel pleaded, his voice filled with sincerity. "I love you more than words can express, and I want to make it work between us."
"How Daniel, tell me how you are going to fix this because right now, I don't feel like I'm in a relationship with you but a friend who helps you."
Daniel stood there, his eyes filled with regret and realization. He had never seen you so upset before, and your words struck a chord deep within him. He knew that he had to make a change, to find a way to balance his racing career with your needs and desires.
"That's what I thought," You muttered, taking your phone before heading for the door, "Don't follow me,"
Feeling frustrated and hurt, you stormed out of the house and went to your best friend's house for the night.
As you're on your way to your friend's place, your phone dies, leaving you disconnected from Daniel. However, when you finally arrive at your friend's house, you decide to check your phone for any missed messages.
Opening your photos or messages, you notice several messages and calls from Daniel. One that read, "I'm sorry for what happened. Are you at your friend's house?"
You take a deep breath, feeling a mix of anger and sadness.
Despite your hurt feelings, you decide to text him back, "Yes, I'm at my friend's house. I need some time to think and process everything. Please respect my space for now."
It's late at night when you find yourself sitting with your friend, doing your skin care routine together. You decide to share your situation with her, expecting some reassurance.
As you pour your heart out to your friend, she listens attentively, her eyes filled with empathy. "I can understand why you're feeling hurt and frustrated," she says, placing a comforting hand on your shoulder.
"It's important to prioritize your own needs and emotions in a relationship. You deserve someone who can dedicate time and effort to nurturing your connection."
"But I have got to remind you how in love Daniel looks when he's with you," your friend said, her voice filled with sincerity.
"I've seen the way his eyes light up when he talks about you, and the way he always puts your happiness first. Maybe this situation is a wake-up call for him to prioritize your relationship and find a better balance. Give him a chance to make things right, but also remember to listen to your own needs and make decisions that are best for you."
You nod, appreciating your friend's perspective and words of encouragement. "You're right," you reply, "I do see how much Daniel cares about me. I'll take some time to reflect on what I need and have an open conversation with him."
The next day, you and Daniel barely exchange any words. It feels like there's a tension between the two of you, but you try to ignore it.
As the race day approaches, you find yourself watching Daniel's race. Unfortunately, he doesn't perform well, finishing in 19th place. The disappointment weighs heavily on both of you and knew that Daniel would be very disappointed in himself, but you decide to give it some time.
You were always the one to comfort him after a bad race, reminding him that everyone has off days and that his performance does not define his worth as an athlete. You would assure him that you still believed in him and that you're proud of the effort he put in.
Feeling conflicted, you decide to reach out to Daniel after his disappointing race. Despite being in your friend's house, you understand that he is most likely in the paddock as usual.
You send him a text expressing your support and reminding him that you believe in his abilities, hoping that it will provide some comfort during this challenging time. . . .
Days turn into weeks, and the tension between you and Daniel remains. One night, you receive a strange picture from Lando, a close friend of Daniel's and you.
In the photo, you see Daniel, his usually composed and determined demeanor replaced with disheveled hair and glassy eyes. His grip on the lamppost is tight, as if it's the only thing keeping him upright.
The streetlights cast an eerie glow on his face, highlighting the exhaustion and despair etched in his features. It's a stark contrast to the vibrant and confident person you've known him to be.
As you study the image, a wave of concern washes over you. You can't help but wonder what has led Daniel to this point.
Is it the mounting pressure of his racing career? The strain on your relationship? Or something deeper that you're unaware of?
Unable to bear the weight of uncertainty any longer, you decide to video call Lando, hoping to gain some insight into what has been happening with Daniel lately.
"Lando, what's going on?" you asked worriedly, your voice filled with concern as you hoped to gain some insight into what has been happening with Daniel lately.
"Oh yeah hey Y/N, your boyfriend is really drunk and he is hugging a lamppost with all of his strength," Lando explained, showing his face and waving at the camera.
"I've been trying to get him to come back to the house, but he's been pretty stubborn. I think he's been struggling with the disappointment from the race and it's just gotten to him."
"Let me see him,"
As Lando shifted the camera towards Daniel, you could see the toll that his recent struggles had taken on him. His usually vibrant eyes were bloodshot and glazed over, filled with a mixture of exhaustion and anguish.
His disheveled hair clung to his sweaty forehead, and his once confident posture had slouched, as if weighted down by the burden he carried.
It was clear that he was in a state of deep distress, and your heart ached at the sight of him clinging to the lamppost, seeking solace in his own thoughts.
"Daniel baby," you said in a gentle tone that you would only use for him. Daniel perked up, looking around for you, his eyes scanning the surroundings until they finally met yours on the video call.
There was a glimmer of recognition and relief in his eyes as he realized you were there, offering him a lifeline of support and understanding amidst his turmoil.
With a shaky voice, Daniel whispered, "Y/N, is that you?" His words carried a mix of vulnerability and hope, as if he was desperate for your presence to validate his struggles and offer him the comfort he desperately needed.
Your heart racing, you didn't waste a second. Without another thought, you hung up the video call and rushed out the door, fueled by a determination to be by Daniel's side.
As you sprinted towards where Lando had described, the worry and fear in your chest propelled you forward, your mind filled with a single thought - you needed to reach Daniel, to hold him, and to let him know that he wasn't alone in his pain.
"Lando, make sure that he stays there and share your location," you instructed, knowing that finding Daniel quickly was of utmost importance.
The urgency in your voice reflected the depth of your concern as you relied on Lando to keep an eye on him until you arrived.
"It's not like he's letting go of this lamppost any time soon," Lando joked
You couldn't help but chuckle at Lando's attempt to lighten the mood. "Well, I'll make sure to give him a little nudge if he's still holding on when I get there," you replied, grateful for the small moment of levity amidst the seriousness of the situation.
Lando chuckled and said, "Just make sure it's a gentle nudge. We don't want him falling over before you get there. I'll keep an eye on him for you, Y/N. He's in good hands."
"Also just make sure you bring some extra strength with you. I have a feeling Daniel might need it," he said, his voice laced with concern.
"I'll be there as soon as I can, Lando," you assured him, your voice filled with determination. "Thank you for watching over him. I know he's in good hands with you."
When you finally locate Daniel, you approach him cautiously. He looks disheveled and confused, unaware of the picture you received from Lando.
As soon as you got off the car and walked over to the two of them, Daniel's eyes were on you. His gaze held a mixture of relief, anticipation, and a glimmer of hope, as if he had been waiting for you to arrive and bring him the solace he desperately needed.
"Thank goodness you're here Y/N," Lando said smiling at you before giving you a hug.
"How is he?" You whispered to Lando, glancing at Daniel whose eyes were still trained on you.
"He's in bad shape," Lando whispered, his worry evident in his voice. "He's refusing to drink water, he's been vomiting, and he has a high fever. But no matter what, he won't let go of that lamppost."
Your heart sank as you took in the state Daniel was in. The sight of him clinging to the lamppost, refusing to let go despite his deteriorating health, only heightened your concern.
"I'll go try and talk to him."
"Good luck but you probably won't need it," Lando replied.
As you approached Daniel, you couldn't help but notice the hollowed look in his eyes, as if the light within him had faded. His once vibrant and charismatic demeanor was replaced by a sense of weariness and defeat.
His disheveled hair and trembling hands were clear signs of the toll this ordeal had taken on him, and it was heartbreaking to see him in such a vulnerable state.
The sight of him clinging desperately to the lamppost, his knuckles white with tension, revealed a level of desperation that struck a chord within you.
Nevertheless, you mustered up all the courage you had and gently reached out to touch his shoulder, hoping to break through the walls he had built around himself.
"Daniel, it's me Y/N, your girlfriend," you said slowly, your voice filled with love and concern.
His eyes flickered for a moment, as if trying to grasp onto a distant memory, before a glimmer of recognition appeared. "Y/N," he whispered hoarsely, his grip on the lamppost loosening slightly.
"I'm here, Daniel," you replied softly, your heart breaking at the sight of his vulnerability. "I won't leave you alone. We'll get through this together."
You placed your palm against Daniel's forehead, feeling the heat radiating from his feverish skin. Concern washed over you as you realized just how sick he was. "We need to get you to a doctor, Daniel," you said, your voice tinged with urgency.
"No doctor," he slurred, his words barely audible. "I don't want their help. Just stay with me, Y/N."
As Daniel's words trailed off, tears welled up in his eyes and cascaded down his cheeks. Each tear carried the weight of his pain and the fear of losing himself and you.
You held him tightly, offering a comforting embrace as his tears soaked into your shoulder, a silent testament to the depth of his despair.
"Daniel," you said gently, wiping away his tears with your thumb, "I understand that you're scared and don't want anyone's help. But I can't stand to see you suffer like this. The doctors can help you get better. They have the knowledge and resources to treat you. Please, let me take you to the hospital. I'll be right by your side the whole time, I promise."
Daniel looked at you with a mix of desperation and gratitude, his trembling hand reaching out to hold yours tightly. "Okay," he whispered, his voice filled with surrender, "take me to the hospital."
You nodded, grateful for Lando's support. Slowly and carefully, with Lando's help, you guided Daniel to Lando's car. As you settled into the back seats, Daniel's trembling hand still tightly holding yours, Lando started the engine and drove off towards the hospital, the weight of the situation heavy in the air.
Daniel leaned against you, his body weak and trembling. Each breath he took seemed to require immense effort, his chest rising and falling in shallow gasps.
The gravity of the situation weighed heavily on your heart as you held him close, praying for his strength to endure just a little longer until you reached the hospital.
"I'm so sorry Y/N," he whispered while taking in sharp breaths, his voice strained with pain.
"What do you mean baby?" you whispered, observing every movement Daniel made.
"I'm sorry.... for.... for not being.... good enough," Daniel stuttered, tears streaming down his face.
Your heart shattered at his words, and you squeezed his hand tighter, your voice filled with love and conviction. "Daniel, please don't say that. You are more than enough, and I love you just the way you are. We'll get through this together, I promise."
"I... love you," Daniel muttered. "Please don't leave... me."
"I love you too, Daniel," you replied, tears welling in your eyes. "I will never leave your side. We're in this together, and we will fight through it. You are not alone."
The rest of the journey was mostly silent, as you focused on keeping Daniel awake and alert, gently talking to him and urging him to stay awake. However, Daniel's exhaustion and pain were overwhelming, and he longed for the comfort of sleep.
Despite his struggle, he fought to stay awake, knowing that reaching the hospital was crucial for his survival.
As you pulled up to the hospital, Lando's prearranged call had ensured that a medical team was waiting at the entrance with a stretcher for Daniel. They quickly and efficiently transferred him onto the stretcher, their urgency matching the gravity of the situation.
You watched with a mix of relief and anxiety as they whisked Daniel away, knowing that he was now in the hands of the medical professionals who could provide him with the immediate care he needed.
You and Lando waited in the waiting room, your legs bouncing against the floor in a nervous rhythm. The minutes felt like hours as you anxiously scanned the hallway for any sign of the medical team returning with updates on Daniel's condition. The weight of uncertainty hung heavy in the air, and all you could do was hope and pray for positive news.
"I couldn't help but listen in your conversation in the car," Lando started. "Did something happen before today?"
You took a deep breath, your voice trembling slightly as you replied, "Yes, Daniel and I have been going through a difficult time lately."
"Excuse me, were you the ones who brought Mr. Ricciardo?" the doctor asked, looking at you and Lando. Your heart raced as you nodded, eager for any updates on Daniel's condition.
"Yes, we brought him," you replied anxiously. "How is he? Is he going to be okay?" The doctor's face softened as they looked at you both with empathy. "We're doing everything we can for Mr. Ricciardo. He's stable for now, but we need to run some tests and monitor him closely. It's too early to say anything definitive, but we're hopeful."
"Can we at least see him?" Lando asked on your behalf, his voice filled with concern. The doctor nodded sympathetically, understanding your need to be by Daniel's side during this critical time.
"Yes, you can see him, but please keep in mind that he needs rest and quiet. Follow me."
As you followed the doctor down the hallway, a whirlwind of emotions and thoughts raced through your mind. Fear, hope, and a desperate longing to see Daniel battled within you, creating a tumultuous storm of anticipation.
You clung to the doctor's words of hope, praying that they would ring true and that Daniel would pull through this ordeal.
As you entered Daniel's hospital room, you were taken aback by his appearance. His usually vibrant and energetic demeanor had been replaced by a pale and weakened figure lying motionless on the bed.
The sight of him hooked up to machines and monitors sent a pang of sadness and worry through your heart. Tubes and wires were connected to his body, a stark reminder of the severity of his condition.
Despite the sterile and clinical environment, the room was filled with an overwhelming sense of vulnerability and fragility.
The beeping of the machines provided a haunting soundtrack to the room, punctuating the silence that hung heavily in the air. Daniel's closed eyes gave no indication of his awareness of your presence, and you couldn't help but feel a profound sense of helplessness.
"I'll leave you to it." The doctor muttered, closing the door and leaving you and Lando in the room.
The atmosphere in the room was heavy with a mix of sorrow and uncertainty. As you stood there, surrounded by the beeping machines and the stillness of Daniel's presence, the weight of the situation sank deep into your being.
It was a somber reminder of the fragility of life and the powerlessness you felt in the face of it all.
You sat down beside Daniel, gently taking his hand in yours. The touch of his cold skin sent a shiver down your spine, a stark contrast to the warmth and vitality he once exuded. As you sat there, you couldn't help but silently will him to fight, to overcome whatever obstacles lay ahead.
"This is all my fault," you muttered, silently crying onto Daniel's hand, overwhelmed by guilt and regret. You couldn't help but blame yourself for the situation, questioning every decision and action that led to this moment.
The weight of guilt and regret pressed heavily upon you as you sat beside Daniel, crying silently onto his hand. Every decision and action leading up to this moment played on a loop in your mind, tormenting you with thoughts of self-blame and what-ifs.
The emotions were overwhelming, and you couldn't help but wonder if you could have done something differently to prevent this.
"It's not your fault," Daniel strained, his voice weak but filled with reassurance. You quickly looked up, astonishment and relief flooding your eyes as you saw him awake.
"I'll leave it up to you guys," Lando said as he left the room and left you both having no chance to hear him as he left.
"Does it hurt?" you muttered.
"No but it hurts that you're crying," Daniel muttered, slowly raising his hand to wipe your tears, "It's not your fault,"
"I shouldn't have left like that, I distracted you before your race and now this," you said, your voice filled with remorse and self-blame. Daniel's weak smile broke through the heaviness in the room as he gently squeezed your hand.
"Don't blame yourself," he whispered, his words carrying a sense of forgiveness and understanding.
"I shouldn't have treated you like that for you to leave the house," Daniel stated, his voice filled with sincerity. "I promise to focus more on our relationship and prioritize our happiness above all else."
"You don't have to," you muttered.
"But I will, I promise."
"You know," Daniel began, his voice growing stronger, "I've had a lot of time to think while I was lying here. And I realized that life is too short for us to hold onto regrets and blame ourselves for things that are out of our control. We can't change the past, but we can choose how we move forward from here."
Tears welled up in your eyes again, but this time they were tears of gratitude and hope. "You're right," you whispered, your voice filled with a mix of relief and determination.
"Can you get in here with me? I miss having you beside me when I sleep," Daniel muttered, his voice filled with longing and vulnerability.
You hesitated for a moment, unsure if it was appropriate, but ultimately decided to climb into the hospital bed and snuggle up beside him, finding comfort in the warmth of his embrace.
"Are you comfortable?" you whispered, laying against Daniel's chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
"More than ever," he replied, wrapping his arms around you tightly, as if never wanting to let go.
As you kept quiet, tracing Daniel's tattoos slowly, you marveled at the stories they told, each inked line representing a moment in his life. It was a silent act of love and connection, a way for you to understand him on a deeper level without words.
This was how most of your nights would end, with you tracing over Daniel's tattoos while he tenderly kissed the top of your head and rubbed your back. It was a comforting routine that brought you both a sense of peace and intimacy, allowing you to express your love for each other without the need for words.
In those quiet moments, you felt a deep connection and understood that the stories etched on his skin were a part of him, just as you were a part of each other's lives.
"Will you come to live with me again?" Daniel muttered against the top of your head, his words filled with a mix of vulnerability and hope. You looked up at him, your eyes meeting his, and felt a surge of love and longing.
"Daniel," you whispered, your voice filled with uncertainty. As you looked into his eyes, you could see the sincerity and desperation in his gaze.
A part of you wanted to believe him, to give him one more chance, but another part of you was hesitant, unsure if things could truly be different this time.
Daniel begged desperately, "Please, give me one chance and I promise that I will be more committed to our relationship if given the chance."
Taking a deep breath, you let the love you still felt for Daniel override your doubts. "Yes," you whispered, a mix of hope and caution in your voice. "I'll give us one more chance, but we have to take it slow and work on rebuilding trust."
Daniel grinned, "That's all I need," he said, his eyes filled with gratitude and determination. "I promise you won't regret this. I'll do whatever it takes to make things right between us."
Your heart fluttered as Daniel's hand tightened around your waist, pulling you closer to him. Goosebumps erupted across your skin with every touch, igniting a fire within you that only he could ignite. The electricity between you is palpable, and you can't help but melt into his embrace.
As your lips met, a wave of familiarity and passion washed over you. The taste of his kiss was like coming home, a sweet and addictive blend of warmth and tenderness. In that moment, all doubts and uncertainties melted away, replaced by a renewed sense of hope and desire.
The world around you faded into the background as you lost yourself in the intoxicating dance of his lips against yours, each kiss deepening the connection between your souls.
Time stood still as you surrendered to the magnetic pull of his embrace, savoring every stolen breath and gentle caress. It was a kiss that spoke volumes, a silent promise of a love that had weathered storms and emerged stronger than ever.
You gently tug at his collar, out of breath, and as Daniel asks, "Do you want me to stop?"
Also out of breath, and with a mischievous smile, you whisper, "Just the opposite, please. Don't stop."
Your words are filled with a mix of vulnerability and desire, a silent plea for him to continue. With a knowing smile, Daniel leans in closer, his touch becoming even more electrifying, as the intensity between you grows with each passing moment.
"God, I missed this," Daniel muttered against your lips, his voice filled with longing and a tinge of regret. The weight of his words hung in the air, reminding you of the time lost and the journey ahead.
But in that moment, all that mattered was the fire that burned between you, igniting a passion that refused to be extinguished. . . .
#daniel ricciardo#daniel riccardo x reader#formula 1#red bull racing#max verstappen#charles leclerc#canada gp 2024#daniel ricciardo x reader#daniel ricciardo x you#daniel ricciardo imagine#daniel ricciardo fanfic#daniel ricciardo fluff#daniel ricciardo x female reader#f1#f1 imagine#f1 fanfic#lewis hamilton#f1 fic#spanish gp 2024#f1 x reader#formula one#formula racing#f1 x oc#f1 x female reader#f1 x y/n#f1 x you#danny ricciardo#lando norris#alex albon#austria 24
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not her
pt4
warnings: swearing, smut, kissing, fingering, teasing, mouth covering (idfk), backshots/doggy (guys whats the difference??), slight praising, overthinking ig (?), js smut bc this chap was alr rllyyyy long and next chap will have everything (drama and other things I cant remeber)
taglist
a/n: i am sorry guys
PREVIOUS CHAPTER ~~~ NEXT CHAPTER
~
“please fuck me, matt, please”
that exact day, when matt left the janitors closet he left school entirely, how was he supposed to still attend school after breaking up with his girlfriend? he wasnt even sure if she was going to stay at school, but he’d rather go home then stay and see her at lunch and free periods.
he opened his bedroom door and shut it behind himself, locking the door and walking to his bed.
he collapsed onto it, finding the mattress to be a comfort for him, like the hug he needed.
of course he still felt horrible for breaking up with his girlfriend, she was his girlfriend. despite the fact he hung out with amelia more than her, he just didnt understand why y/n had to make it such a big deal that he had a girl friend and wanted to hang out with her. she just had to be so clingy, and absolutely destroy their relatonship.
what broke him more was that she was still clingy even after she went and kissed other men, more than once. she still wanted to hang out with him even after she offered herself up for other men. he wasnt sure if that was a good thing or not, but what truly mattered was that she cheated, and still had the audacity to want him.
it doesn’t matter, he told himself. you have amelia, he reminded himself. a small grin fighting its way onto his face at the thought of her, completely forgetting about y/n.
he knew he could trust amelia not to go to some other men and replace him so easily.
he knew amelia actually liked him for him.
~
matt laid in his bed, his eyes staring at the ceiling. his bed felt cold and empty, not how it usually did on the weekends. the blankets under his body didnt provide any warmth, it only laid under him with a presence, not living up to its purpose.
the pillow rested under his head didnt feel comfortable, his pillow was stiff and uncomfortable under his head, not sinking into the form of his head and providing a comfortable rest like it normally did, the usually soft fabric was now itchy against him. all it did was lay, lay and lay only, no comfort whatsoever.
the hug of his mattress didnt sink in when he rested in it, it stayed stiff and flat. not providing a soothe of peace to the ache in his muscles. it felt cold and empty—even with him in it.
normally his bed was a comforting and a safe haven, he didnt understand why it wasnt the same now, what changed?
he laid uncomfortably on his bed, before he realized something.
normally y/n would sleepover on the weekends, and now that they werent together anymore.. he was alone, and he wasnt used to it, speaking of how they were together for two years and she’d been doing it almost every weekend.
he told himself, it wasnt that he missed y/n, he missed feeling another person in his bed with him.
before he could double think it, he grabbed his phone from his pocket and tapped messages, pressing amelia’s contact and typing out a message.
‘hey!! did you want to come over tonight?’
~
there she stood, in his bedroom, beside him with tiny little pj’s on—which, she’d done on purpose.
she purposefully put on a pair of short shorts, ones that just barely showed the bottom of her ass, but, if she were to bend over, it’d be a whole different story.
amelia made sure that when she walked to take a seat onto matts bed, that she’d sway her hips just a teensy bit to tease him, and of course, to flaunt her ass to him, like I said, tease him.
she took a seat and pulled her legs into criss cross applesauce, her shorts exposing her inner thighs, matt found himself staring with absolutely no hesitation, curious on what was further past her shorts. her shirt did not help at all, he only wanted to tear off her slightly too tight shirt, showing her perky tits perfectly.
he cleared his throat, already feeling himself go semi-hard, he laid onto the bed next to her, crossing his legs and sticking his hand into his pocket and fisting his hand, attempting to make his pants a little looser around his cock, hiding his forming boner.
he looked over at her, patting the spot next to him with a warm smile on his face.
“wanna watch something?” he asked, watching as she very confidently crawled over to him and laid down next to him, resting her head on his shoulder with a hum.
“sure! I have a movie in mind—well, movies, its a movie series,” amelia looked up at him, her face a little too close to his face.
“its called after.” she grabbed the tv remote resting in matts hand, over his lap. with grabbing it, she purposefully touched his dick with pressure, immediately matts body had a reaction, a grunt leaving his throat and his dick going fully hard.
“are you okay?” amelia asked, her nose scrunched with confusion, fake confusion, anything to get matt to believe it was an accident.
“y- yeah..” he took in a breath, calming his composure “just turn the movie on.” he closed his eyes momentarily, trying to think of the grossest things on planet earth to subside his boner and the touch that definitely didn’t help.
he opened his eyes again, seeing that amelia had already turned on the movie and was getting comfy in her spot, shifting her body over some and pressing her back into matt’s side, laying her head more comfortably in his shoulder.
amelia knew what this movie consisted of, that’s why she turned it on, it was apart of her plan, her plan being
1. come over in small pjs
2. tease and touch him
3. turn on a sex movie
4. make more teasing touches and fuck him, or, more preferably have him fuck her into oblivion.
and now, all she’d had to do was fuck him, which, wouldn’t be so hard, he’s already rock hard and drinking in the sight of her revealed skin, her revealed skin so close to the places he desired.
not too long later.. a sex scene popped up, and amelia could feel the heat radiating from matt’s body, she could see his previously softening dick go rock hard so easily again so fast, he looked like an inexperienced horny, teenage boy.
matt’s focus hadn’t been on the movie, not once, not even the second she turned it on. all he could think about was the sight of amelia’s thighs, they looked fucking devourable. he wanted her thighs wrapped around his head. all he could think about was her body and how much he wanted to kiss and suck all over it, her body was mesmerizing. all he wanted was it, he wanted to fuck her so badly, his eyes were on the tv, but mind on her body.
when he heard soft moans and grunts from the tv, his focus immediately snapped to it, his eyes darting around it and taking everything in.
amelia chuckled, “oops, didn’t know this was gonna be in here.” she mumbled.
matt shook his head, “yes you did, you fucking whore.” his voice was low, grabbing her waist and flipping them over, he was on top of her now, staring into her eyes with a lustful look in them, the blue completely gone and replaced with black. he dipped his head down, connecting their lips with a slow but passionate kiss full of tongue.
that’s what amelia wished matt had done when she said that, but he didn’t, only, his breathing went erotic and his hand slipped to her thigh, holding the one closest to him and his grip tightening ever so slightly.
amelia, purposelly, whimpered.
and that was the last straw for matt. he moved his hand from her thigh and turned his head to her, cupping her cheek, forcefully turning her head to his and attaching their lips in a needy and desperate kiss.
matt moved to pinning amelia to the bed, his own body ontop of hers, his one hand keeping her hip pinned to the bed with a tight force while his other hand slowly traveled from the ball of her jaw to her throat, holding it and ever so slightly, tightening his hold every few seconds.
he pushed his tongue between her lips, forcefully shoving his tongue into her mouth, exploring every inch of her mouth with a passion burning in his stomach.
he used his knee to spread her legs and situate his hips between her legs, grinding his crotch into hers, earning a high pitched moan from amelia.
amelia wrapped her legs around matts waist, sucking his bottom lip into her mouth before she pulled away, “please fuck me, matt, please” she begged, arching her back off the bed.
matt dipped his head down into amelias neck, pressing wet and sloppy kisses all across it, stopping every few moments to suck a deep mark into the senstive skin.
“hang on baby, be patient f’me” he mumbled against her skin, biting lightly onto one of the marks, definitely leaving a deep purple mark for later.
he rubbed her hips before trailing his hand down to her shorts, slipping his hand into her panties and rubbing circles onto her clit, eliciting a moan from amelia.
“matt-“ amelia moaned, rolling her eyes back as his fingers slid to her entrance, slicking it in her wetness before slowly dipping his finger into her entrance, amelia could feel a smirk forming on his lips from them pressing against her throat.
he slid the rest of his finger inside of her, earning a shriek and a loud moan from her, his free hand covered her mouth, whispering against her throat “quiet amelia, we dont want my brothers hearing you, do we?”
he pumped his finger continuously before adding another finger, hearing a muffled sound from amelias mouth, lifting his head from her neck to look at her, the sight only adding onto his ego, her eyes rolled back, her normally pink cheeks a dark red and her orange hair on its way to becoming messy.
he curled his fingers, hitting her g-spot effortlessly, another loud, muffled moan slid from amelia’s throat.
a knot formed in amelias lower abdomen, tightening with every pump and curl of matts fingers.
“‘m close, matty!” she whined from his hand, arching her back, she clenched around his fingers. pushing her hips downwards in an attempt to god-knows-what.
matts thumb curved up and rubbed circles on her clit, reaching her higher to her climax.
he thrusted his finger out once more, before thrusting back in and biting harshly down onto her throat, causing amelia to cum on his fingers with a loud and thankfully muffled moan.
“mmm, good girl” matt praised, pulling his fingers out from amelia and bringing them up to his lips, licking them clean before going back to amelia’s shorts, pulling them off by the hem, then pulling his own sweatpants and boxers down quickly.
he grabbed amelia’s hips, flipping her over onto her belly, “get on your hands and knees” he mumbled, rubbing her back with one hand while his other was at the base of his cock, jacking himself off to ease the throbbing pain.
amelia obligated, pulling her weak legs to be propped on their knees and her palms down, holding herself up, waiting in anticipation for matt to stuff her full.
matt ran his tip through her folds, collecting her wetness before guiding it to her entrance, sliding in slowly, attempting to ease the small burning sensation amelia was most likely experincing, the earlier stretch of his fingers doing nothing.
once bottomed out, matt groaned, grabbing both her hips to ensure she would stay in place and to stabilize himself.
he pulled almost all the way out, before slamming back in, giving amelia no mercy at all.
he continously slammed his hips in and out of her, creating a rough pace that made him feel good—hes not sure he was exactly focusing on amelia’s pleasure.
he wasnt stupid, he knew why he turned amelia around, hes really only ever seeked sex with y/n, and now that she wasnt the one he was fucking, he felt a pang of guilt in his chest. he didnt want to look in amelia’s eyes and find that they arent y/ns. he’d only want to see y/ns in such a vulnerable moment.
only to feel her in such a vulnerable moment, but he didnt have her so he had to improvise.
thats why he really wasnt sure if he cared if amelia was feeling good, a part of him knew he really only cared if he made y/n feel good.
he shook his head, ridding the thoughts of y/n, hes balls deep in amelia, thinking about his ex-girlfriend is not the time.
he fucked into amelia’s cunt again, the pleasure sub-siding as his thoughts began to overbear it all.
what if amelia was a mistake?
what if amelia thinks after this hookup, they’re together?
what if he regrets breaking up with her for the rest of his life?
what if, when he realizes how much y/n actually was apart of him, its too late to go back?
what if he still loves y/n? he still does, he just hasnt realized it himself yet
what if he’ll never forgive himself for fucking amelia and ditching y/n for a random redhead?
oh my god. he ditched the love of his life for some random ass redhead.
his breathing began to go unsteady, but not because of his thrusting, but because of his overriding thoughts.
it took everything in him to stop the thoughts and keep them low, trying to focus on the main point here. cumming and cumming only, not to think about his ex girlfriend.
why would he even want to think about his girlfriend? she cheated on him and was a needy ass clingy bitch.
it physically pained him to think that last part, y/n wasnt a ‘needy ass clingy bitch’ and he knew it. he knew y/n only wanted his love and attention and she wasnt receiveing it, she had to ask and argue for it.
but no, his dumbass was so entranced by some random girl that he completely dumped his special girl.
no, no, he shouldnt be think this. y/n isnt his special girl, she cheated on him.
she cheated
she cheated
she cheated
he had to chant it to himself in his head to actually try and get himself to believe it, but why couldnt he? he trusted amelia’s word did he?, but-
“matt, mmfff fuckk! ‘m gonna cum! ‘m gonna cum!” amelia moaned, bringing matt back to what he was doing.
he closed his eyes momentarily, taking in a few pants before opening his eyes again and bringing himself back to the main point of this interaction.
he reached his hand around amelia’s hip to rub circles on her clit, urging her to her climax.
“cmon, pretty girl, ya gonna cum all over my cock?” he taunted, pulling out, before pushing in and staying inside for a moment, before pulling abrubtly back out.
matts hand moved from her clit, sliding his hand under her shirt to her nipple, pinching at it and stimulating it, with a loud moan, amelia came, her climax taking a huge toll on her, her eyesight going blurry and her elbows buckling on her.
matt grunted, feeling his own climax approaching, he pulled out, pumping himself a few times before shooting his load onto her lower back. subtly making it seem like thats where he wanted it to be in the moment, but truthfully, he didnt want to cum in her at all. that was meant for y/n, not amelia. he didnt want his cum, not inside his special girl.
amelia collasped onto the bed, resting her weak sore elbows and knees, taking in huge breaths and exhaling huge breaths, attempting to recover from the moment.
matt walked to his bathroom, grabbing a wet, warm washcloth and cleaning himself off before rinsing the cloth off again.
he pulled his boxers and pants up again. his eyes looked up into the mirror, where his reflection stared back at him, a disappointed look in his own eyes—towards himself.
he closed his eyes, walking out of the bathroom with the cloth in hand. opening his eyes again he crouched infront of amelia, cleaning her back before grabbing her waist he gently flipped her over onto her back and spread her legs, cleaning her up, his hands gently pulled her panties and shorts back up, then threw the dirty cloth in his laundry basket.
he laid in bed next to the already sleeping amelia, he stared up at the ceiling, folding his hands over his chest while he thought,
thought about how disappointing he was with himself and how he didnt even enjoy himself during his sex with amelia, he felt bad but he felt worse for himself. realizing that amelia would never be y/n, she’d never be similar to y/n.
why would he break up with her? did he really trust amelia’s word or did he just want an excuse to not want y/n anymore.
why did he do that?
amelia isnt y/n, she never was. y/n is his special girl, only y/n.
2940 words
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