#harry styles revenge

[harrysxcarolina]

Revenge - 05

Word count: 5.3K

Warnings: angst, mention on slight stalking, mention of blood, mention of past death, I take no claim in owning the pictures used in this story along with the people mentioned in this story.

Authors note: Hello lovies! Just wanted to give you a quick introduction to this chapter. Chapter five is a filler chapter, and basically just holds some basic information you, as the reader, will need to continue on with the story of Raeelynn and Harry. Trust me it is about to get ✨ spicy and juicy ✨ with drama. So buckle up and enjoy this short update because chapter six is gonna leave your head spinning!

Spending the entire day laying in bed, eating complete junk, and going over the work that Casey did for me was quite shockingly the one thing I needed the most. I’m quite impressed. For someone who is not taking English literature, she sure knows more than just the basics of the study. Sighing as I finally finish reading over her notes and the peer review she did for my assignment, I close my laptop and begin to gather up the loose papers that I have spread out across my bed. Clicking the pen in my hand over and over again, I lean back and stretch out my muscles. I think over the last few days. Staring blankly at the ceiling, I trace over the swirl patterns in the plaster above me. I lay there trying to convince myself that it wasn’t real. It never happened. Getting up out of bed, I make my way to the opposite side of my room. It had to have happened, or you wouldn’t have been late. You wouldn’t have owed a debt. Standing face to face with the closet door, the thought of if I really wanted to look played over and over again. I could simply go back to my bed and keep them hidden deep in the bottom of my closet and forget they exist. But that just isn’t possible..

Taking a step back and fidgeting with my fingers, I go over the facts that I know are to be true. There were three of us. The blood soaking through the tips of my shoes. His lifeless body laying there. The way he stood above him as if he meant nothing to him.

The life that he so easily took. The burning ache in my legs and lungs as I tried to run.

His hands on my body. His grip getting tighter as his chest beat against mine as we tried to regain our breathing.

Fast cars. Tinted windows. Reckless driving.

Green eyes staring into mine. The window. Blondie.

Bloody hell. I really saw a stranger murder someone in cold blood.

Gnawing my lip raw, I push aside the thoughts and open the closet door. Closing my eyes for a brief moment, I give myself one more out. I sigh, crouching down so my knees are on the carpeted floor. I slowly reach my hand in and feel around for them. Soon enough, my hand makes contact and I clasp my fingers around my white vans. Carefully pulling them out, I hold my breath.

Maybe it was just a dream. A nightmare if you will. Surely it didn’t really happen. There will be no blood. You’re just tired and making things up.

I open my eyes slowly and look down at the canvas and rubber in my hands. My breath hitches and my palms get sweaty. My once perfectly white vans are covered in rusty red blood. The material ruined and stained with the memories of that night. The coldness that slid its way down my spine as his lifeless body slowly fell to the ground. The look on his face at the reality that he’d been caught red handed with his crime. The ache of my muscles as I pushed my legs and lungs harder than I ever have before. The darkness of his emerald green eyes getting darker the more he looked at me as I refused to follow his instructions. The nauseated feeling that kept creeping back as the thoughts of whether I would make it out alive or not was on a continuous loop in my head.

How the hell did I witness a murder and make it out alive?

How did they just let me walk away? Surely they will come back for me. They have to. There’s never once been a book that I’ve read where they ever just let the witness leave unscathed and move on with their life as if nothing ever happened. Surely they will be back. Maybe this is their game. How they get off making people go crazy in their own home until they can’t handle it anymore. Not knowing whether they will come back to finish the job or leave you alone. Maybe that’s what he wants. For me to go mad with fear and off myself. Save himself from having another body to clean up right? Count it as a suicide…

I quickly throw the vans into the off my closet and slam the door shut. Leaning against it, I try to regain my breathing. Bloody fucking hell. Raeelynn you just keep digging yourself deeper and deeper don’t you?

The front door opens and slams shut causing my gaze to shoot up and look out into the hallway. Staying silent, I don’t dare move a muscle.

Heavy footsteps echo down the hallway getting closer and closer to the bedroom. Holding my breath, I inch closer against the wall. As my eyes don’t move from the door. Nothing was scheduled. He didn’t have an appointment for me today. My heart beats in my chest like a drum. Blood rushes into my ears. I surely couldn't have forgotten another one. The door knob slowly turns. The person on the other side doesn’t say anything. My lungs are begging for air as I sit and wait.

“Hey Raee, you still up? I stopped by that Thai place that you like. I was thinking we needed a pick me up after our weekend,” Casey calls out as she swings the door open and throws her purse on the floor next to my dresser. My body instantly relaxes and I lean my head back against the wall. “Girl, why are you on the floor looking like you just saw a ghost?” She asks as she holds up the bag full of food. This is why I love her. She doesn’t ask questions. She shows up and supports me with no hesitation. A small smile spreads across my face as I push myself up off the floor and make my way over to her. I engulf her in a tight hug. The force of my body pushes her back a few steps, but she doesn’t hesitate to wrap her arms around me.

“Thank you,” I whisper in her ear as I fully relax against her. The adrenaline coursing through my veins slowly dies down and my heart slowly goes back to its normal rhythm. She stays silent for a second before a chuckle leaves her lips.

“I mean, I love all the attention I’m getting at the moment, but what exactly am I being thanked for?” She asks as she lets me go and heads out to the kitchen. I follow her, sitting down at the bar, waiting as she begins to plate the Thai food.

“For just being you… and for helping,” I say quietly I avoid her gaze as she slides a plate across the counter. It’s silent for a moment before she picks up her plate and points over at the television.

“Binge watching session. Now. Get ready we are going to make that couch our home for quite a while,” She announces, bouncing her way into the living room and flops down on the sofa. She glances over her shoulder at me and throws me a smirk. “C’mon, Raee I am not getting any younger here.” Trying to fight the smirk that’s making its way across my face I shake my head. I follow her example and grab my plate and welcome the distraction that she knew I needed.

***

“Alright, guys. That's a wrap on today’s class. Don’t forget to leave your essays and peer reviews on my desk as you make your way out. I will have them graded for you by next week. Please begin reading and working on the next assignment. Your final writing project will be worth eighty percent of your grade, so you all need to take this seriously. I didn’t give you the entire semester to work on it for nothing. Make sure you utilize the journal you have been keeping. I am available all week if you guys have any questions.” Professor Tilly announces as she ends the class for the day. Students begin packing up their belongings and collecting their assignments and make their way out. Sighing, I follow their lead and make my way towards the front of the class. Dropping the assignments off on her desk, I hurry up and make my way out of the class fighting the crowd in the process. I push open the doors of the literature hall, squinting at the blinding sun, making my way down the steps.

Holding my bag straps tight, I zig zag between people, wanting to just make it to my car before this pound of makeup Casey applied this morning melts off.

“Look you can’t walk up on campus with your face looking like this without people questioning it, and you most definitely can’t say you fell. No one will believe you.” Casey states as she pins me to my bathroom counter. My face in between her hands as she continues to blend everything in. Groaning, I try to move my face back.

“Look Cas. I appreciate all your help but trust me, wearing this much makeup is going to be way worse than a bruise the size of Manchester on my face,” I bargain as I jump down off the counter and turn to look at what the masterpiece she was trying to create.

“Raeelynn Michelle,” Casey scolds, grabbing my shoulders and turning me around to stop me from over analyzing myself in the mirror.

“Okay. Okay. You win. Finish up, though I gotta leave a bit early to stop by the library.” I give up and take my seat back on the counter, letting her finish her work.

Rolling my eyes, I continue my walk through the busy campus. My lip was almost completely healed, surprisingly which gives me one less thing to worry about. I can’t help but feel slightly paranoid that someone is watching me. Glancing over my shoulder, I quickly look around to see if anything is out of the ordinary. Nothing. Just a bunch of college students rushing around. Some are listening to music. Some are on their phones. While others are simply just enjoying the sunshine. Taking a deep breath and shaking my head, I turn back around to continue my journey but run into a brick wall instead. A brick wall with chocolate brown eyes.

“Bloody hell.” I huff, my hands catch my fall scraping against the rough sidewalk.

“Oh my god! I am so sorry. Are you okay?” A deep voice asks as their hand hangs in front of my face, offering to help me up. Furrowing my eyebrows I squint up at the mysterious man. I hesitate for a few moments before placing my hand in his. He gently pulls me up and takes a step back.” I should totally watch where I am going. I am so sorry,” He apologizes again. His eyes scan up and down my body and gives me a lopsided smile. He’s tall. Has dark hair that is perfectly styled up and slightly to the left. His facial hair is neatly trimmed. It compliments him perfectly. Tattoos line up and down his arms, covering any skin that once was bare.

“It’s okay. Totally not your fault. I was the one that just stopped out of nowhere.” I chuckle softly as I gently wipe off the back of my jeans and straighten my shirt out.

“Well, let me make it up to you. Can I buy you a coffee at least? My mum would be so disappointed if I wasn’t the gentleman she raised me to be,” He said a slight chuckle leaves his lips and he lifts his arm up to run his hand through his locks.

“I’m uh actually late for work,” I say as my lip finds its way between my teeth. I can’t help but scan up and down his body. He’s attractive. Nodding slightly, he smirks.

“Maybe another time then? Uh-” He asks as he holds his hand out for me to shake.

“Raeelynn.” I enclose our hands together, gently shaking it.

“I’ll see ya around. Sorry again.” He takes a step back and motions for me to continue. I quickly step around him. He looked oddly familiar, but, for some reason, I can’t place where I have seen him before.

***

“Oh, dear, how are you feeling? Richard and I were so worried when Casey said that you needed the whole weekend off,” Gloria says as she wraps her arms around me and gently sways us back and forth. I rub up and down her back softly as a small smile spreads across my face.

“I’m doing so much better. It must have been something I ate,” I lied. She withdraws her arms from around me, holding me at arms length. I stare at my shoes to avoid her gaze. I can’t help but feel guilty that I left them high and dry this weekend with what was going to be the biggest sale of the year.

“I’m so sorry! I feel terr-” I start off but she cuts me off.

“Now, don’t you dare apologize. You have already done enough for us and this store. You can’t help that you weren’t feeling too well, now, can you, Darling?” Gloria says as her tiny hands move to my cheeks and forces me to look at her. “All that matters is that you are here and feeling better,” She whispers. She gives me a small smile and lets go of my face. I smile back at her, giving a silent thank you before excusing myself to drop my things off in the breakroom.

Inhaling deeply, I welcome the sweet, musky smell of the books surrounding me. Being away from this place for a few days didn’t help the feeling that engulfs me when I am here. The freedom. The way I am so at ease inside these four walls. I’m myself here. I can be whoever I want to be when I am here with no fear of failing. No fear of punishment. No fear of him. I’m grateful for Richard and Gloria giving me the chance to work here. They didn’t need to accept the small, wide eyed, eager girl who showed up at their storefront all but four years ago ready to beg, bribe, and talk her way into a job. I smile to myself as the memory floods my mind. I run my fingers across the row of books absentmindedly as I make my way down the aisle to the back of the store.

I wave at a few of our normal regular customers as I make my way through the store and slightly tidy up along the way even though I’m technically not on the clock. I just can’t help it. The fact that I have not been here for almost two days has created an itch deep inside me. I need to just run through all the aisles, picking up every single book. Set up displays. Talk to customers about the new hot author is at the moment. To just be here and soak up as much normalcy as I can. It’s the one place I can really be me.

I quickly type in the code for the back room and throw my belongings on the chair. I clock in then head back out to the floor. I rummage through the collection of books that customers changed their minds on before purchasing. Grabbing one of the small book trolleys, I grab a few books and neatly stack them by genre. Making sure they all still have the correct price sticker, I fill the cart up and start to work my way aisle by aisle putting the books back in their rightful place.

I’m on my third trolley before I notice the same weird “someone-is-watching-me” feeling from earlier work its way back up my spine. The air around me seems to chill as I place another hardback book on the shelf. Glancing over my shoulder, I squint and look down the row. Taking a deep breath, I shake my head slightly brushing the thought away and get back to work. Grabbing a few more books off the trolley, I grab the step stool, and place it in front of the non-fiction section. I run my fingers up and down the spine of the top book, welcoming the rough service. I bring it up to my nose and inhale deeply. The smell of new books invades my senses causing a smile to form on my lips before placing them in their rightful place on the shelf.

Grabbing the shelf for levage, I stretch to try and pick up a book that was left laying down. I balance myself on the shelf as my tip toes balance my body on the stool. My fingertips barely brush the paperback as I stretch with everything in me to reach it. Groaning, I finally give up and decide that I will just have to move the stool over a few inches to reach it.

“Need a hand?” A deep voice calls out behind me. Quickly turning on my heel, I lose my balance. The step stool jolts back and forth underneath me. Gravity wins and I reach out for anything to stop me from falling backwards but fail. I brace myself for the hard landing but it never comes. The fall feels infinite until I feel warmth surrounding my body. Arms hold onto me tightly, holding me hostage. My heartbeat pounds in my ears as the adrenaline courses its way through my veins.

I slowly open my eyes, not knowing what to expect. I slowly look around me before following the lines of the arms that have found home around my body. My eyebrows furrow as I try to wrap my head around what is happening.

“You alright? Didn’t mean to scare ya,” The brown eyed boy from earlier asks as he smiles down at me.

“Are you following me?” I ask in shock. I quickly remove myself from his grasp. He frowns down at me and he stays silent. I run my hands up and down my body fixing my uniform of any wrinkles. I quickly looked around in hopes no one saw what just happened.

“Are you just going to stand there gawking at me or are you going to answer?” I demand as I take a step back distancing myself from him. He chuckles under his breath as he leans up and grabs the book I was previously reaching for and holds it out to me before leaning against the bookshelf.

“Sassy one, aren’t ya?” He laughs as if he just made a joke. He notices me not reaching for the book and he gently lays it down on the trolley before running his fingers through his hair. “I’m looking for a book. This is a bookstore innit? I don’t necessarily believe that leads to inquiries of following someone,” He shrugs as a smirk soon finds its way onto his face. Running my tongue over my teeth, I contemplate his response.

“You were at my school. You asked me to get coffee with you. I said no. Now, you are here. At the place that I work. What are the coincedences of that? There are plenty of other bookstores in the area, so I will ask again. Are you following me?” I tuck a piece of fallen hair behind my ear and reach for the trolley.

“Books’n’Realities is the closest bookstore to where I live. Plus, it is the only store that is currently in stock of the book I need,” He explains as he makes his way in front of the trolley stopping my movements.

“What book is that exactly?” I ask with a raise of my eyebrows. He licks his lips as he looks down.

“Okay, so you got me. I wasn’t intentionally following you, but I fancy you. I have for a while. And when I ran into you today I kind of thought that this was my moment to talk to you,” He admits as he slowly lifts his gaze back up to meet mine. I’m at a loss for words. Everything is finally falling into place the more I take in his appearance. He’s the guy. The guy Casey was talking about. The one who comes in and sits up front and asks her about me.

A chuckle of disbelief leaves my lips as I move the trolley to the left of him and continue down the aisle.

“You’re unbelievable. Let me save you time and energy. I am not interested. Clearly you didn’t get the memo when I never spoke to you before as you tried to harass my friend for information. I bet the whole “running into me” today was a total gateway in your pea brain. News flash! That is creepy and quite frankly unacceptable. Get a new hobby and leave me and any other women you might have done this to alone.” I seethe glaring at him. I decided to leave the trolley behind and just get away from him. He steps in front of me once again, blocking me in. His eyes turn from the rich chocolate brown to coal black. His stare doesn’t falter as he takes a step forward, causing me to take a step back. He lifts his hand up to graze his fingertips along my cheekbone. He slowly leans closer causing his breath to hit the side of my neck.

“Trust me. You rather it be me watching you than any one of the others. I’m the nicer one of the pack.” He whispers, causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand straight up. My face falls. Pack? Without even a second ticking by, his presence is gone from my personal space. Looking up at him my eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Wha-” I start but he interrupts me once again.

“Don’t ask questions. Just keep to your normal routine and nothing will happen.” He threatens as he slowly backs away, turning on his heel and makes his way down the aisle. He stops right before the end. He glances at me with a smirk “Oh, and I have a message for you. He has something of yours. He will be by to deliver it in due time.” He goes to turn back around. Taking a step forward, curiosity gets the best of me.

“Who are you? Who are you talking about?” I question.

“The names Liam,” He declares as he pulls his jacket closer to his body.

“What do you have of mine?” I demand, taking another step in his direction. He holds his hand up, stopping me. With a tilt of his head, he once again smirks at me.

“You know the saying ‘curiosity killed the cat’?” He whispers. Nodding my head, my lip finds its way in between my teeth.

“Trust me. You’re gonna wanna be alive for it. All I can say is make sure that friend of yours isn’t in your apartment, or he’ll change his mind.” Before I can even comprehend what has happened Liam is gone in the blink of an eye and I am left standing alone curious and terrified of what the hell is going on.

Trying to finish my shift at the bookstore was anything but easy. My mind raced a million miles a minute with everything that has taken place these last couple days. Trying to get lost in my work seemed difficult as I tried to start a new project. I would zone out with all the possibilities of how Liam knew who I was, why he had been following me, and why the hell he had spent so many weeks hounding Casey about me. In the process of trying to remain calm, I had knocked over two displays of new releases, forgot to put price tags on the new arrivals that needed stocked, nearly tripped over the mop bucket as Gloria and I were finishing up the closing chores for the night.

“Dear, are you alright? Do you still feel ill? You haven’t been yourself all day,” Gloria asks as she places the back of her hand along my forehead. A small smile works its way across my face. Nodding slightly, I grasp her hand and give it a gentle squeeze.

“Yes, I will be fine. Just been a long day, that's all. No need to worry about me.” I assure her quietly. I gather up my belongings and slide my arms into my jacket sleeves. Reaching for my backpack, I quickly stuff some of my school work back in and begin to zip it. “Hey, you haven’t happened to see a small, black journal laying around, have you Gloria?” I ask as I sling the straps over my shoulders. Turning slightly to glance over her shoulder, she takes a moment to think about it. Her eyebrows furrow as she sets the price gun down on the counter top and turns to lean her back side against it.

“No, I haven’t, unfortunately. Why? Have you lost one?” She asks as her arms cross over her chest. Worry consumes her facial expression as she frantically moves her glance across the room. Straightening up, I adjust my jacket and the loose pieces of hair that lay in my face. I look around the break room one last time.

“Uh, yeah. I seem to have misplaced it. It’s for a school assignment and I can’t find it anywhere. No worries, it's probably in the back of my car or stuffed on one of my bookshelves at home,” I lie. She nods her head before pushing herself off the counter and walking over to me, pulling me into a tight hug.

“Alright. Well you get on home now. It’s getting late and Casey mentioned that you had a big assignment due today so you must be worn out. I’ll finish up here and have Richard come and get me once I am finished. Hopefully you find your journal, Dear. I’ll keep an eye out here for it as well.” She says as she backs away, holding me at arms length. I give her a small smile before saying my goodbye. I make my way up to the front of the store, but stop myself before grabbing the handle. I turn towards the back exit.

No, Raeelynn. Don’t even think about it! You know what happened last time.

Gulping, I take a deep breath and make my way to the back door. I fight the urge to just leave through the front door and head home. My hands hover over the door handle, debating with my subconscious on if I really wanted to go through with what I know I need to. Making the rash decision and pushing the door open, I welcome the cool wind that brushes against my burning skin. Deja vu takes over as that night consumes my thoughts again. I make my way into the dark. Coming near the dumpster, I see nothing but an empty alleyway. Holding my breath, I round it, waiting to see his lifeless body still on the ground. My eyes grow in disbelief.

My heart stops beating. There is absolutely no fucking way.

The body is gone.

The blood is gone.

No evidence to prove what happened that night was actually real. The adrenaline from that night pulses through my veins once again. The chill of watching his body fall in slow motion to the ground consumes me. I picture the blood soaking through the concrete and through my shoes. Kneeling down, my fingertips gently grazed the rough ground where his body laid. Where his blood flowed. Glancing over at where the tinted black Mercedes sat, there is just an empty street. Not even the tire tracks from Harry flooring it away from there. Surely there should be some trace. Surely someone would have found the body and reported it to the police. Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen anything about a missing person. Or even a murder on the news.

I quickly stand and make my way out of the dark cold alleyway, heading towards the light. Gripping my keys tighter between my fingers, I make my way home through the empty night. The slight burn of my calves draw me out of my daydream as the muscles scream for me to slow down. I was speed walking without realizing it. Glancing over my shoulder, I try to rid my mind of the thoughts that someone was still watching me. I let out a breath I was holding as I see my building come up into view. Basically running the last few yards, I throw open the glass door and take the steps two at a time until I reach the third floor.

Fighting with the keys in my hand, I struggle with finding the right one to fit the door knob. My hands shake as I find the right key, slide it in, and twist it open. Stepping in and quickly closing the door behind me I lock it and throw my stuff on the floor. Relief floods my body as I welcome the safety of my home. Taking a few steps in, my hand searches blindly for the light switch. The kitchen fills with light and I make my way to the fridge in search of something quick and easy to eat before I throw myself into bed.

"Well, you’re home early," A deep, raspy, familiar voice calls out. I see a shadow move out of the corner of my eye. My body goes rigid. I grip the door handle tighter. My breath hitches in the back of my throat and I glance to where I keep my kitchen knives. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." He warns. His voice becomes louder, closer, and deeper, "I heard you met a friend of mine tonight. Glad to see that you received my message." Harry says as he wraps his fingers around my wrist and slowly removes it from the fridge door.

"What do you want?" I ask. My voice is rough and scratchy. "I didn't go to the police. I kept my word." I whisper as tears pool in my eyes, threatening to fall. I knew this was gonna happen. I knew that he would come back for me and finish what he started. I clear my throat and slowly turn to face green eyes staring down at me. He corners me against the counter, letting out a loud laugh.

"I wasn't worried in the slightest whether you would go to the police or not. They wouldn't have believed you anyways." He taunts as he takes a step back, flinging his long limbs onto the counter. He crosses his legs and his fingers grip the edge of the granite. He leans forward.

His eyes never leave mine. I don't answer him. We just continue our silent stare down. I lick my lips and try to control my rapid heart beat.

"What do you want with me?" I ask. I keep my tone hushed, afraid anything louder will cause him to snap. I take a step forward, hesitantly glancing around my apartment trying to plan my escape.

"Don't worry about anything else other than keeping your normal routine," Harry says as he runs his fingers along the outside of his mouth with a shrug. "I had something of yours. I return what isn't mine. It's only fair." He jumps down off the counter and walks towards the front door, totally ignoring my question.

"Better lock up. Wouldn't want strangers wandering into places they shouldn't be. It's a dangerous world we live in, Raeelynn," Harry teases as he quickly opens the door and steps out without another glance in my direction. Stunned and confused, I quickly ran to the door and locked it. Deadbolt and all.

What the bloody fuck is going on?

[mochikofi]

"Good girl" respectfully, please kindly wrap yung hands around my neck and slowly fuck me and call me your good girl all over again.

[jordanjump-scare]

Old Hot Top website. :-(

[swiftiesbuddie]

Inspired by this TikTok

Is this playlist

(Additional suggestions are welcome)

[shakemyassfortomriddle]

spotify not even acknowledging the lyric change truly delulu just like me fr

[harrysxcarolina]

Revenge - 04

Word count: 6.1k

Warnings: mention of domestic abuse, slight mention of blood, gory body images, angst, flash backs to childhood memories, sexual encounters ( m -receiving), slight mention of unwanted sexual activities. I’m honestly not sure if there is anymore, but if you see anything please don’t hesitate to inform me and I will update accordingly!

Enjoy lovies!

Raeelynn’s POV

Groaning, I force my sore, and tired body up the last two steps before I finally make it to my floor. Gripping the ends of my coat sleeves, I take a deep breath as I force myself down the long hallway until I am face to face with the light grey door that leads to my apartment. I reach into my pocket and pull out my keys, welcoming the cold sting of the metal on my fingertips. I slide the key into the door handle, wanting nothing more than to take a long, hot shower, climb into bed, and forget tonight ever happened. My mind is still running a mile a minute as I look over my shoulder before quickly swinging my door open. I hurry up and step in, closing the door behind me, making sure to lock the handle and the deadbolt.

“Where the hell have you been?” A deep cold voice rings through the dark room. My eyes grow wide as the color drains from my face. Fuck. I take a step back, my back comes in contact with the cold door. Silence fills the room as I realize who is waiting for me. This can’t be happening. Bracing myself for what is about to come, my eyes swell with tears as I slowly slide my hand up the wall to find the light switch. I squint at the sudden brightness before forcing my gaze in his direction.

“Do you know what you caused me to lose tonight? Did you forget the arrangement that was made when I allow you to do the things that you do? You are taking advantage of my kindness, Raeelynn, and I will not allow it.” He seethes as he gets off of the stool and slams the cold beer bottle onto the countertop. The condensation slides down the glass bottle and lands on the marble.

“I’m sorr-” I start to whisper before he stops me.

“Shut up! I don’t want your excuses! I don’t want to hear a bloody fucking peep out of you.” He yells from across the room before making his way over to where I am standing. He grabs a fist full of my hair forcing me to look him in the eyes. His face moves closer to mine and I can smell the stale beer on his breath.

“You know the rules. You missed an appointment and you owe a debt.” He spits through clenched teeth. Anger radiates off him. My heart rate picks up as I know what is coming. I close my eyes, waiting for his next move. “Lucky for you, your appointment agreed to wait. Once you pay your debt to him you will pay your debt to me.” He whispers. His breath hits my cheek.

Hot tears fall down my cheeks. He jerks me away from the door and throws me down the hallway. A loud thud echoes through my small apartment as my head feels the rough texture of the carpet. The ruggedness of it scratches the side of my face. I brace my hands under me and try to push myself up off the floor. “You have ten minutes. Don’t make me look stupid.” He towers over me. I get to my feet before making my way to the bedroom. My hand hits the handle but his voice stops me in my tracks. I refuse to turn and meet his gaze. “Raeelynn? You fuck this up and you won’t see the light of day again. Do you understand? You don’t want a repeat of last time.”

***

Pulling the loose strands of hair that have fallen in my eyesight back behind my ear, I quickly remove the ice pack from my face. Staring at myself in the mirror, I don’t even recognize the girl staring back at me. The dark bags under her eyes are sunken making the redness in them pop. The dark bruise that covers the whole right side of her face is different shades of purple and blue. The outline of a hand is prominent along the cheekbone. It’s sure to be swelled tomorrow. My eyes work themselves down her body.

Her lips are already swollen and dark maroon from the dried blood that slowly seeped its way out of the slice from the corner of her mouth. Her shirt has fallen off her shoulder as its collar was torn in half. Reaching up my fingers capture the ripped cloth and gently place it back in its rightful place. I wince at the pain shooting through my arm. A cut works its way down from my elbow to the middle of my forearm. Must have happened from the fall. At least that is what she will tell anyone who notices and starts to ask questions.

“Yes, a fall. I am very uncoordinated and clumsy. I know, I should really watch where I am going,” I rehearse as I bend down and pull the first aid out from under the bathroom sink. Deciding to just wipe it clean with an alcohol wipe and place a bandage over it, I set down the ice pack on the edge of the sink. Once finished, I make my way back down the hallway, following the low-lit way to the bedroom, leaving the mess for future me to take care of. Crawling into bed and surrounding myself deep in the safety of the covers I fight back the tears that threaten to fall at any moment. Curling into a ball, I can’t fight anymore. My body is exhausted and I give in to the overwhelming feeling bubbling inside of me. I am tired. I am barely holding on. I let the tears fall until I run out and the only thing that is left is the emptiness that is always with me.

I lay there in the darkness as my eyes slowly fall shut, not wanting to feel the burning sensation anymore. The silence soon invades my space and I can’t stop the tightness from spreading across my chest. My mind roams to the place I go when I sink this deep. When I am far too gone to do anything but lay here and wish that things were different. With my eyes closed and my body wrapped tightly in my arms, I force myself to picture anything good left in this world. It’s not much but anything, even a sliver of something, is better than what I am used to. Even if it is made up.

I pray that sleep doesn’t find me soon because I don’t think that I can handle the visions that will take over when I can’t protect myself.

We don’t always get what we want now, do we?

***

“Get down on your knees. Now!” He yells as a hand forces me down on the ground. I’m face to face with something foreign.

I force myself and my thoughts to go to my happy place…

-

It's warm and sunny. The sun is beating down on us as we lay in the dark green grass. Welcoming the smell of the flowers we planted in the backyard along the fence. The sun rays cover your face as you look over at me and smile.

“Isn’t this lovely, Raee?” You ask as your hand reaches up and points at a funny-looking cloud. Your laugh fills the air but only for a moment before you guide me to sit up. “Promise me, Raee. Promise me that you will listen and be good?” You ask as I close my eyes tilting my head back once again welcoming the warm rays beating down on us. I’m not sure what you mean by that, so to get you to focus back on the warm sunny day I reach over and grab your hand and give it a slight squeeze.

“I wish this lasted longer, but it never does. I wish the sun would always stay out. I hate when it’s dark and cold,” I whisper as I slowly open my eyes to look over at you. You just give me a small smile before you pull me in close and kiss the top of my head.

“I know love. You’ve always struggled with the dark,” You whispered as we gently laid back down in the grass. “I’ve got you though. I will always have you, Raeelynn.” Your tone hushed as we lazily stare up at the clouds.

-

It’s not fair that I am stuck here with no way out. Not since you left me. Left me to deal with this. To have to give pieces of myself to people who don’t deserve them.

My happy place soon fades as his voice rings through my ears.

“You will do as you’re told young lady. Do you understand me?” He spits and grabs my face, forcing me to look up at him. I stay silent. I don’t understand why he is doing this. His hand makes contact with my face and I’m flung to the floor. My hands automatically rush to my face and I feel the sting radiate across my cheeks. “I asked you a question and I expect an answer. Now, your appointment will be here any minute and there will be no funny business. Do what we discussed. You will behave or you will have hell to pay,” He states once again but this time he slows down his speaking to get his point across. He walks out of my view.

I lay there, my hand clutching my cheek. A door opens and a new voice appears. There are mumbles between them. Words I can’t make out at the moment. I quickly wipe my eyes and sit up adjusting myself to look presentable. They get to me, though, I don’t see them. Just their feet. I refuse to glance up. I refuse to meet their gaze. The stranger speaks first.

“Sure is a beauty.” The comment twists a knife in my stomach and nausea radiates through me. I still don’t meet their eyes. I focus on the beige carpet, trying to memorize the pattern woven into it. Anything to keep from acknowledging the two men in front of me. Fingers suddenly trace my jaw and I jump in surprise. They are gentle as they caress my jawline. I can tell it’s the stranger. These fingers aren’t filled with hatred.

“You know the deal,” The familiar voice rings out. The stranger's fingers disappear as he makes his way between us. Fighting back the tears I take a quick glance up at him. Disgust written all over my face. I wonder what it is this time that he wants. I hope that it is worth it. I hope that it is worth all the pain that he is causing me.

It’s not like he cares, though. He never did. No one ever does. I am left to take care of myself. I sniffle to quietly and force myself to stop the tears from falling. Focus on the present. I can't change the past as much as I want to. You’re not coming back. You’re not coming to save me.

Hands entangle themselves deep into my hair. Fingernails scrape my scalp as I am forced further down. The air is trapped in my lungs. Tears fall down my face, mixing with the saliva, making it hard to breathe.

You’re almost done.

You are almost done and then you can go back to burying this deep in the box that has been created for moments like these.

Just finish this appointment and then you are free.

You are almost done and then you can run.

You can go back to the false reality that you have created for yourself.

The sunlight invades my room. Buried between the sheets, I toss and turn. Refusing to open my eyes, I pull the duvet up and over my shoulder to cover my face. Wincing as my shoulder does a full rotation. For a moment, I forgot the events from last night. Flashbacks take over tiny slivers of moments as I fight the sleep from my mind. Blood. Running. Dark curls. Green eyes. Digging my face deeper into my pillow, hopeful that I can get rid of the nightmares, but fail miserably. Hands entangled deep in my hair. His taste invades my mouth. The sting of the hits echoing off my body. Groaning, I give up and throw the duvet off my me, and shiver as I place my feet on the floor. Slowly making my way out of my small room and into the hallway.

Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I blindly lead myself to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. As the water slowly dumps into the back of the coffee pot, I close the lid and scoop up the coffee grounds, inhaling deeply and welcoming the strong aroma. Turning on my heel, I make my way down the hallway slightly bouncing on the tips of my toes. I force myself to the bathroom. I avoid looking in the mirror. I don’t want to see the black and blue marks on my body. The person I would face would be so disappointed and unfamiliar yet so deeply a part of me that I wouldn’t even know how to describe the love-hate relationship between the two.

You know how to fight, so why the hell didn’t you? He taught you everything you’d need to know…

I’m too tired to even fight my subconscious anymore. I’ve given up on him a long time ago, let alone myself. I gave up on the both of us the night that everything went up in flames. I was a child living in a daydream. I soon would have to wake up and be stuck in a nightmare. Running my fingers through my hair, tucking the loose stands behind my ear as I reach into the shower to turn on the water. I start my to-do list in my head in hopes of distracting myself enough to end the thoughts.

Shower

Eat

Call in sick to work.

Rehearse your story so it’s believable.

Stipping down to nothing, I throw the garments in the hamper before I turn and reach for a towel only to stop mid-stretch. My eyes widened. My stomach twists in knots. I see the color drain out of my face for what feels like the millionth time this weekend. My eyes move down my naked body. Black and blue bruises consume my entire back. The cut on my forearm is a fiery red. Tilting my face, I make out the large handprint that outlines my jaw. The cut on my lip is crusted with dried blood and swollen.

My heart seems to stop in my chest and my lungs burn as I stand in shock at the look of naked self. Breath, Raeelynn. My lips quiver as I scan my body, searching for anything inside me to grab onto to stop myself from crumbling eternally completely. Your list. Focus on your list. Distract yourself and in a few days the bruises will slowly fade, the swelling will go down and you will be able to continue on like this never happened. What’s next on the list?

Finish my essay.

Peer review the few essays in my email for my classmates.

My eyes rise in shock, but this time, not because of my body. Turning on my heel, I run out of the bathroom, not caring that I am completely naked. Goosebumps take my body hostage as I frantically search my apartment. Running to the bedroom, I scan the room. Clothes overflow from my hamper onto the floor. The duvet is a crumbled mess on my bed. My phone, untouched, still connected to my charger.

C’mon where is it? This can’t be happening. Turning and making my way down the hallway to the living area, my eyes tear apart the rooms. The bar stools are pushed away from under the island. Empty beer bottles thrown all over the counter top, stove, and along the floor in front of the trash bin. My purse lay half-hidden under the couch. A few tampons, my extra phone charger, and my keys are spread out on the floor. My breath hitches in my throat.

Where the fuck is it?

Flipping the couch cushions, I frantically search the crevices and around the tv stand in hopes that it just had fallen out. It isn’t here. Standing in the middle of my apartment, my hands deep into my hair as I continuously turn scanning for not only my book bag, but my journal. Well fuck.

***

Wrapping my body up in a towel, I step out of the shower. Turning the water off, I pull the shower curtain close and grab another towel to wrap my hair. The fabric of the carpet squishes between my toes as I drag myself down the hallway and to my room. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I unplug my phone and dial the stores number.

“Good morning, thank you for calling Books’n’Realities. Where every book leads you to a new reality. This is Casey speaking. How can I help you?”

“Oh thank god. Cas, it’s you. Can you do me a huge favor?” I ask quickly, standing up clutching the towel tighter and pace the space between my bed and my closet.

“Raeelynn? Why are you calling the store?” Casey questions. I hear the mumbling of customers in the background along with the constant sound of the bell ringing from the front door opening and closing.

“Look, I need you to let Gloria know I won’t be able to make it in today.” I tell her. My lip finds its way between my teeth.

“You’re kidding right? Today is the big sale. Did you forget?’ Casey huffs out.

“Look, Cas… something came up. And I-” I pause. Tears swell up and threaten to fall. Taking a deep breath, I battle myself with coming clean. Shaking my head even though she can’t see me. I know I can’t. It will just ruin her as well. Wiping my eyes quickly with the back of my hand. I focus on what I called to do in the first place. “I’m not feeling well.” I whisper in a rush hoping that she heard me. The line stays silent for a few minutes. “Casey-”

“Okay. I’ll let Gloria know. But you owe me big time, Raee.” Her voice cuts me off. I hear her rummage through one of the drawers.

“I need one more thing, Casey. Check the back and see if I left my bag there. I’ve looked everywhere and I can’t find it,” I say as I force myself to stop pacing the floor and sit back down on the bed.

“Yeah, I’ll take a look right now. Give me a second to get to the back.” I hear her excuse herself from the register and makes her way to the back room. “How late were you here last night? This place looked incredible when Gloria and I showed up this morning,” She asks. Chuckling, I slowly take down my towel turban off the top of my head and run my fingers through the wet locks.

“I was there till about 8:30. Gloria had more displays that needed set up, and I didn’t really want to go home too early last night. I knew that trying to finish it all in the morning would have been a rush,” I lied fighting the knowing thoughts of the real reason why I didn't want to come home right away. The agreement he had set up. Shivering as the memories once again creep back into my mind.

Now, I wish I would have just come home instead of staying late. None of the last 12 or so hours would have happened if I would have just left at the normal time like always.

Fast cars. Reckless driving. Blondie. Thick accents. Green eyes.

Shaking my head, I try to get his image out of my head.

“Well, Gloria was impressed, but also slightly upset that you stayed so late. Something along the lines of she needs to have a life and not spend all her time deep in the books here.” Casey’s laugh fills my ears and a smile spreads across my face. The books are my escape. I will always spend my time that way. Just like our store motto: every book leads you to a new reality. Anything is better than my reality. Sighing, I wait patiently as Casey looks around the backroom for my bag.

“Yes, you left your bag here last night. I can bring it to you this afternoon when I get off, if you like? I’m sure you are going to need it seen as your big paper is due this Monday, right?” She asks as I take a deep breath in relief.

“Uh, yeah. It’s due Monday along with the peer reviews I need to do. Speaking of, peer reviews, I need yours. Professor Tilly is adamant on us having them with our final draft,” I say as I drop the towel from around my naked body. My breathing calms along with my heartbeat now that I know where my belongings are. “Cas, you don’t have to bring it all the way over here. I can grab it after you guys close up the shop tonight.” I urge, remembering how my skin is sporting the dark blues and blacks and my swollen lip.

“Nonsense, young lady. When have I ever skipped out on you when you were sick? We are in this together. Now, I really need to get back on the floor before Gloria loses her mind with these displays being perfect for the sale. I’ll see ya after my shift. Love ya!” She cheers before I hear the dead dial tone echoing in my ear.

How the hell am I going to hide these bruises? I think to myself as I throw my body back onto my bed, taking a deep breath and try to come up with a plan.

I’ve spent the entire day trying to come up with an explanation as to why I am not really sick, and how I got all these bruises. Casey is not an easy one to fool. Sweatpants and a baggy uni sweater will cover up most of my body. I can’t do much for my lip, but trying to cover this huge handprint on my cheek seems to be my most difficult assignment. It also doesn’t help that, as I am stressing about my physical appearance, I don't have my journal. All I need is for that to land in the wrong person's hands. God how could I have been so stupid and careless? Leaving it at work where anyone could get it. I can’t have people asking questions. I’m so close to finishing my dream, and to just have it ripped away if he finds out. If he finds out that I have been careless. Irresponsible with my part of the deal. I’ve worked too hard. I’ve been through way too much for him to just rip it away in a spilt second.

A knock at the door that startles me out of my thoughts. I freeze in place. Fuck she’s early. My breath hitches. I quickly pull my hair down from the messy bun on top of my head in hopes that it somewhat covers the bruises on my face. My hands clenched tightly welcoming the slight sting of my fingernails digging into my palm. You fell. You are clumsy. It’s believable. You fell. You fell. You fell. I chant in my head as I take small steps towards the door. Swinging the door open, Casey is standing there with a wild smirk across her face as she holds up a brown bag.

“Hey, I brought you soup-” She starts off. She moves to walk around me but stops completely. Her eyes slowly work their way down my face. The bright blue of her eyes soon fade to black as she takes me in. “What the hell happened to you, Raee?!” Her voice echoes down the hallway. I grab her arm and pull in my apartment quickly, closing the door behind her.

“It’s nothing really. I just fell-” I start. I lock the door and turn to face her but quickly regret it.

“Raeelynn, do not lie to me. Yeah. You fell, Right into someone's palm. Tell me now.” She shouts as she slams the brown bag down on my counter. Tossing my bookbag on one of the stools before storming over to me and moving my hair out of my face. I wince at the sudden contact. She gently grips my chin and moves my face back and forth, fully examining it. Tears pool in my eyes and I can’t meet her gaze.

“Cas really it’s not a big deal. Please, just drop it.” I shrug her hand off me and make my way around her, heading straight to my bookbag. Unzipping it, I rummage through the items, looking for my black notebook. I feel my body begin to tremble as the tears fall down my cheeks.

“Raee, I will not drop it. Someone hurt you and you need to tell me who. Was it Logan? I thought that was over.” She demands as I feel her eyes burn holes into my back. Ignoring her, I keep searching the bag, but come up empty handed. God where the hell is it?! My thoughts go rampant as the endless thoughts of who could have it or where it could be. I know for a fact, I put it in my bag before leaving class.

My body slides to the floor as I slowly force myself to accept what’s happening. Everything is crumbling apart. There’s no coming back from this. He’s going to find out. He’s going to find out that I’ve been keeping a secret from him. I welcome the uneasy feeling that is slowly taking over my body. I can’t stop the tears from creating waterfalls down my cheeks. I shake as my body tries to find the oxygen that is missing from my lungs. My back screams in agony as the bruise and marks are being pushed up against the island. Everything around me fades into black. I zone in on the darkness that is threatening to take over my entire being. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t fight it. I can’t hide it. I especially can’t keep living it. I soon feel gentle hands wrap around my small body and hold me tight.

“Shh, it’s okay, Raee. I’m here. You’re okay. Shh, just let it out,” Casey whispers in my ear as she holds me tight and gently rubs my arm. She doesn’t say anything else as we just sit there on my kitchen floor. Her body heat slowly invades me as she pulls me tighter against her. My tears stain her black work shirt. Our bodies gently rock back and forth. I sniffle and bury my face deeper into the side of her neck.

Casey runs her fingers up and down my head slowly, combing through my hair. She doesn’t say anything, giving me the choice of when to speak. I don’t know how long we sit there on my cold floor, but she doesn’t rush it. Soon the sunlight gets dimmer and my butt starts to get numb. My cheeks are now raw and stained with dried tears. I force myself away from the safety of my best friend. Taking a deep breath, I tuck some hair behind my ear and pull the sleeves down over my fingers. The urge in me is screaming to run and lock myself in my bedroom. To shut it all out and pretend that none of this is happening. But life isn’t that simple. It never has been. At least, not for a long time. Bringing my knees to my chest, I wrap my arms around them and tuck myself in.

“Logan isn’t real. I made him up.” I whisper as I lay my head down onto my arms and close my eyes. I hear a slight gasp before I feel her hand wrap around my shoulders. “I mean the situation is real, but the person isn’t. I um- it’s a long story and I’m not sure if I am ready to talk about it.” I state as I turn my head to look at Casey. Her eyes are scanning me. Her face is soft and welcoming. That’s what I love about her. It doesn't matter what is going on, she is never one to judge. Always just there, listening and taking care of everyone around her. Taking another deep breath, I slowly unwrap my arms and legs and stand up. Looking down at her, I reach out my hand to her. She looks at me questioningly before clasping my hand in hers and getting up off the floor. I pull her towards the bathroom.

“I can’t explain it, so the only thing I can do is show you.” I softly state

She doesn’t say anything and just nods as she stands back and watches my every move. I turn my back to her as I take one last glance at myself in the mirror. You can’t go back from this! Don't show her! My reflection screams at me, but I ignore her and slowly lift my sweater up and over my head.

What are you doing?! He can hurt her too! Raeelynn!

Dropping my shirt to the floor, I slowly wrap my arms around my torso, allowing her the chance to get a good look at my body and the discoloration. She’s silent as I see her slowly move closer to me in the mirror. Her eyes are full of tears as she gently reaches up to trace my skin. Hanging my head low, I avoid looking anymore. Ashamed of myself and the fact that I failed at the one thing I was supposed to do.

“If you tell a soul about this, Raeelynn, I swear I will take everything away from you. That precious job at that god awful bookstore. You going to uni. The apartment I let you live in. You don’t get these things in life for free. You will work for them. You will keep them if and only if you behave and do as you’re told. Do you understand me?” He seethes in my ear as he grips my arms tighter. I stay silent as he shakes my body back and forth.

“I don’t care if you are eighteen. You will do as you’re told. You are mine, and will work for me until I say so. One wrong move from you and they will be gone.” He states before he lets go of me.

It’s going to all be gone. He will find out. He always does.

“Raeelynn, how long has this been happening?” Casey finally whispers. Her fingers still gently trace my skin as she works her way at outlining every blue and purple marks.

“A while.” I murmur. My voice cracks as my hand moves up to wipe one of the tears that escaped.

“Why-” She starts off but stops herself. Silence fills the space around us once again. She stares at me through the reflection in the mirror. Silently asking me for permission. I nod my head and she leans down to pick up my shirt off the floor, handing it back to me.

“Why haven’t you said anything? We could hav-'' She pauses as she sees me wince as my arms slide back into the warmth of the sweater sleeves. “We could have helped you.” The last sentence comes out as a whisper. She clasps my hand and leads me out of the bathroom into my bedroom. Casey lets go as she moves to my bed, moving the blankets back and motions for me to lay down. She covers me up then lays beside me and pulls me into her chest.

“I can’t say anything, or he will take everything away.” I say in a hushed tone as I pull the blankets up to my chin, hiding my body from the world.

“What do you mean?” She asks as she leans her cheek against the crown of my head.

“The bookstore. Me going to uni. The fact I can live here by myself. He controls- he controls everything I do. If he finds out I told anyone-” I start off but stop as my body begins to shake as the fear of him finding out. “Casey he can’t find out. I can’t go back there again. I can’t.” I cry. The tears slid down my cheeks once again. I fall into her and she pulls me closer into her and she just holds me. She softly shushes me and rubs my back soothingly.

***

I wake up to the smell of bacon. My mind is foggy. I slowly sit up and look around my sunlit room. Rubbing my eyes, I remove the blankets from my body and follow the smell that engulfs my apartment. Casey is standing at the stove with her back to me as she softly hums an unknown tune. My eyes search the kitchen. My laptop and notes are spread out on the island. A coffee mug is placed right next to it as I see stacks of pancakes neatly placed on a plate. A candle is lit in the living room, giving off the smell of fall leaves and pumpkin spice. My purse and belongings are neatly placed on my couch as soft music plays in the background on my television.

“Cas?” I whisper, standing there in shock. She turns around. Her eyes light up and a small smile spreads across her face.

“Ah good afternoon sleeping beauty.” She sings as she bounces over to me and pulls me into a hug. Afternoon? Confused, I quickly glance at the clock above the stove. 2:36 pm. My eyes spring open. “You slept all night and the entire morning. You were so exhausted, Raee. I kinda finished your paper and the peer reviews that you needed done. I also attached my peer review to an email for you to turn in with your paper tomorrow. Oh, and I cleaned up and made breakfast! Well, lunch for you.” She smiles. A soft chuckle escapes as she looks at me and shrugs. Casey watches me as she patiently waits for me to wrap my head around everything she just said.

“Casey, you didn’t have to do that.” I softly state as I take a step around her and look down at my laptop and notes, seeing that she did in fact finish my assignments. I bite back a small smile as I flip through the notes she made on the peer reviews. She even printed them off for me.

“I know that I didn’t have to, but with everything going on, I wanted to help you. I know I can’t help with some things, but this I could.” She bounces back to the stove and flips the bacon.

“About last night- I, I’m sorry.” I whisper as I sit down on the stool and pick up one of the mugs that are filled with coffee.

“Do not apologize! You did nothing wrong. You will tell me when you are comfortable, and I want you to know that I will be here no matter what. Do you understand?” Casey reminds me as she quickly turns and stares me down sternly. Nodding softly, I tuck my hair behind my ear.

“Now I gotta go, but I called Gloria and let her know that you still weren’t feeling good. So, you would have today off. My shift starts in about half an hour, but make sure you eat something. Relax today, okay? I’ll come back after my shift and then we can binge watch that new show that just came out on Netflix, okay?” She asks as she makes her way around the island and holds me at arm's length. I quickly open my mouth to protest, but she stops me. “It’s not a question, and no, I am not doing this because I feel some type of way. I’m doing this because you are my best friend and you are all I have in this world. It’s okay to fall apart and feel the emotions you keep bottled up, but what we aren’t going to do is stay down. There is nothing wrong with you. I won’t tell anyone. I just want you safe, so yes I will be back tonight.”

“Hey Cas?” I call out, causing her to stop and glance back at me. She raises her eyebrows in anticipation. I smile. “Thank you.” I grab a piece of bacon she has placed on a plate next to the pancakes. I take a bite as she smiles back at me and opens the door, disappearing into the hallway.

[lostetiquette]

pleasing 🧶

Eras Tour ~ Toronto, Canada

Night 4 ~ Surprise Songs

11 / 21 / 2024

11/ 13 / 2024,

Pleasing posts:

The "pleasing • Original audio"

was to the tune of

"elevator music"

and if you'd like your own

"perfectly pleasing" merch,

you can find it on Pleasing's website

~ not affiliated, lol, but I've come dangerously close to purchasing the nail polish, however it better make my nails have magic powers for $18 (!!!)

and while we're on the subject of nails:

🕳️🐇

edit: The bunny in the purse is a LOT bunny! 😂 Taylor's purse looks like a Top Hat 🎩 - she's the magician with the Rabbit (Harry) in her hat ... tricks up her sleeve!

🪄 🐇 🎩

🎶 I thought the plane was going down

How'd you turn it right around 🎶

🛬🛫

sounds very much like a "touch down"

😏

[louisplumpyass]

ONE HARDER PULL AND I WOULD HAVE GOTTEN SHIRTLESS LOUIS ON TOUR JUST ONE PULL THAT'S IT FUCK

[apricusapollo]

better than revenge “I hope you can see, the shape that I'm in while he's touching your skin, he's right where I should, where I should be” barty

[rebekahandwoodstock]

Hi I’m Rebekah and welcome to my blog!! I’m not gonna give to much personal info but I will show you what to expect from me lol. The other part of my username is the name of my cat, Woodstock, my baby. I also saw Louis Tomlinson live!! On here you will see:

•Olivia Rodrigo

•Joshua Bassett

•hsmtmts

•Conan Gray

•One direction

•Harry styles

•Louis Tomlinson

•heartstopper

•any alice oseman projects

•stranger things

•maya hawke

•do revenge

•Taylor swift

•tsitp

•rwrb

•Daisy Jones & the six

• and more, anything that I hyperfixate on or get recommended, that’s just what I probably mostly post!! Enjoy the scroll lol.

[rivertakis]

HAHAHHA PISS OFF

[blueelectivire]

so i made this mashup of my chemical romance's i'm not okay and harry styles's as it was.

this is everyone's punishment for not stopping me from learning how to use audacity.

[brooklyn-babylon]

all the sins you didn’t have

by brooklyn_babylon / @twopoppies (E, 100K)

It’s 1880, and premier danseur Harry Styles is running out of time. At twenty-five, he’s fast becoming too old for the lecherous benefactors who frequent The Paris Opera Ballet’s infamous backstage, and the only way to ensure he isn’t left penniless or rotting away in a brothel is to secure a permanent patron.

Enter Lord Louis Tomlinson: wealthy, young, handsome. And, unfortunately, a notorious rake. Harry strikes him and his gigantic ego off the list immediately… At least until they realize they have a common set of enemies and a common goal: revenge.

Though their ruse starts smoothly enough, the decadent freedom of Belle Époque Paris gives way to the rigid social rules of aristocratic Victorian London. Can a relationship that started as a calculated deception withstand the harsh realities of societal expectations and family duty to become a love more honest and profound than either has ever known?

[avis-writeshq]

01 — better than revenge

summary: “she’s not a saint, no, she’s not what you think. she’s an actress.”  pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader genre: best friends to lovers, mutual pining, slow burn warnings: fluff, angst with a happy ending, Lila is a real piece of work here, VERY CANON COMPLIANT, Spencer’s a bit of an ass :( wc: 10.4k a/n: special mention to @astrophileous for beta reading MWAH SPARKS FLY MASTERLIST // MAIN MASTERLIST

“Hey kid, wheels up in thirty.” Derek nods towards you, dropping a case file on your desk. 

You raise an eyebrow, flicking open the case file to the first page. A small laugh of disbelief leaves your lips. “Ooh, Los Angeles, media capital of the world. What’s the occasion?”

“Three murders, all shot in the head executional style.” 

Your face falls into a grimace as you grab your go-bag and tuck the file under your arm, following the rest of the team to the jet. “Spence and Gideon are there already, right? Talk about timing.”

Elle can’t help but grin at your words, slinking an arm over your shoulder. “Looks like you’ll see loverboy a lot sooner than you think.”

A shriek of betrayal leaves your lips as you throw her arm off of you. “I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

“Sure you don’t,” JJ all but cackles as she boards the plane, grinning the entire way. 

“I’m gonna kill you,” you grumble, dropping your things on one of the seats in the jet. “Seriously, I mean it. I know how to get away with murder.”

Hotch raises an eyebrow at you, his gaze that of a disappointed yet amused father. “Not the brightest thing to say while you’re in a room full of FBI agents.”

Elle lets out a ‘hah!’ as she sits across from you, crossing one leg over the other as she grins. “Get comfortable, buttercup, six hour flight and you’re not going anywhere.”

“Assholes.” You roll your eyes teasingly, brushing a strand of hair behind your ear as you turn to your case files. “And it’s not like that.”

“Oh, of course not,” Elle snickers, “you’re just friends.”

You throw a pen at her and it bounces off her leg harmlessly. “I can smell the sarcasm.”

“You’ll be smelling more of it,” Derek laughs, ruffling your hair. “Sit tight, kid, we’re in for a long flight.”

Once everyone was settled and the jet was high in the air, the team began to look through the files with Garcia on speaker as usual. 

“First two victims, Wally Melman and Chloe Harris,” You recite dutifully, glancing over the grotesque crime scene images. “Seems like they were both killed in public places.”

“Chloe was killed while walking her dog on the beach in Santa Monica which she did every morning, and Wally was killed outside of a massage parlour,” JJ reiterates, sitting down with a cup of tea in her hand. 

“In Culver City,” Derek adds. 

“Which he went to every Tuesday,” Elle continues.

Derek looks to the rest of the team, a thoughtful look on his face. “Well, if he knows their schedules, maybe that means he follows his victims for a while.”

“And not a single witness. So we know this UnSub can blend in,” Hotch mutters. “Regardless of the location, he has the ability to hide in plain sight.”

“So, he’s meticulous.” Elle nods, her eyes drifting from Hotch to the case file. 

“The media is calling Natalie Ryan’s murder the biggest celebrity homicide since Sharon Tate,” JJ adds, looking through the images of the newspaper clippings that were sent to her laptop.

“Great,” You muse, although frustration is clear in your voice. “What does that mean for us?”

Hotch lets out a sigh. “That everybody will be watching.”

***

“This guy is an assassin?” Detective Kim asks with disbelief as the rest of the team reiterates their thoughts once they were in the police department. 

“When you look at the victimology, there’s no obvious links,” Morgan points out. “All the kills were clean except in the instance of the last victim, Jeremy Collins.”

You nod, tucking a strand of hair as you reference the case files. “There’s absolutely no evidence left at the crime scene. Labs have found zero DNA, no manifestation of psychosexual release, and from what we can tell there’s no detectable signature of any kind. These kills are straight forward, almost like he’s on a mission.”

“Remember, our profiles are formulated not just by what’s present at the scene but also what’s absent,” Gideon says to Detective Kim.

“From all the evidence that we’ve gathered, we believe you’re looking for a Type Four Assassin,” Elle explains.

“Type Four?” 

Spencer immediately jumps in to explain, gesticulating throughout his explanation. “Type One’s are political assassins like John Wilkes Booth. Type Two’s are egocentrics looking for simple recognition.”

“Type Three’s are psychopaths,” Hotch continues, “cold-blooded killers who leave far messier scenes. Type Four, our UnSub, suffers from a major mental disorder and is frequently delusional.”

“The closer we come to figuring out that delusion, the closer we’ll get to finding the UnSub,” Reid points out. 

Everyone is left to their own thoughts and you look over to Spencer, a soft grin on your face. “How was your father-son bonding time?”

Spencer gives you a pointed look, but a soft laugh leaves his lips. “It was… fine.”

“Fine? Out of everyone on the team, Gideon chose you to present a talk about behavioural analysis and profiling to the LAPD. You love conferences. C’mon, give me something!” You nudge his shoulder gently. 

“We uh.. we went to an art gallery the other day. We met a movie star, so that was cool…” his cheeks are dusted with a soft pink as he talks and your curiosity only increases. 

“A movie star, huh? Look at you, mingling with the high and mighty.” You poke his cheek with a laugh. “Tell me about them.”

He flushes at the contact, clearing his throat. “Um… her name is Lila Archer. Have you heard of her? She’s–”

“Reid, (L/N), we’re meeting with someone,” Derek cuts in, nodding towards the both of you.

You blink in confusion as you follow him to another room. “Suspect?”

“Someone received a note,” Derek says quickly, glancing over at the note in Elle’s hands. “On a newspaper clipping of the latest murder.”

“Lila?”

A blonde woman was sitting in the next room over, her legs crossed over as she waits. Her eyes light up in recognition and she stands up. You can’t help but be impressed as you give her a quick once over. She’s gorgeous, exactly what you expect from a famous movie star. 

“I’m Agent (L/N),” You say gently, moving from your spot next to Spencer and holding your hand out. “This is Agent Morgan and I’m assuming you already know Doctor Reid. I understand that you received a note this morning?”

She wearily shakes your hand, her blue eyes flitting between you and Reid. “Yeah.”

“We just have a few questions to ask. We know that these things are sensitive, but we promise we’ll try to make the situation as easy as possible for you.” You shoot her a kind smile, excusing her weariness for fear or anxiety. “Is that alright?”

“Sure.” She respond curtly, shooting a smile towards Spencer before walking past you.

“Uh… okay?” You let out a little laugh in confusion and Derek raises an eyebrow at you.

“What was that about?” He asks, frowning.

You shrug your shoulders, watching as Spencer leads her to an empty desk. “Trust me, I have no idea. Maybe she’s just nervous and wants to talk to a familiar face.”

Derek hums in thought. “Maybe. But usually victims like this are more willing to speak to someone of the same gender. It’s strange that she was so direct to you.”

“She’s been through a traumatic experience. If I got a newspaper clipping with a message written in blood, I probably wouldn’t be too thrilled meeting new people either,” You defend, pursing your lips. “She’s probably just… scared, right?”

He doesn’t respond, moving to follow Spencer and Lila further into the police department. A few questions were asks about her relationship with the other victims, only to find that she was in fact the connection between the other victims. Wally Melman was a producer who Lila met with a few times to discuss a role, only for him to cast Natalie Ryan instead. Chloe Harris looked an awful lot like Lila, so it was likely that the UnSub got rid of her in order to ‘ice-out’ the competition. 

“(L/N), may I talk to you for a moment?” Hotch asks quickly, waving you over. 

You blink in confusion but nod, walking over to where he stands by the desk. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“I want you to try and get as much information from Lila as possible.” He gestures to where Lila sits in one of the victim waiting rooms. “This is your area of expertise. Try and find out if there’s any distinct information that she’s given to anyone so that we can track the UnSub.”

“Got it.” You offer a smile, fixing your shirt as you agree. “I’ll update you if I get any new information.”

You make your way over to where Lila was sitting, trying to look as friendly as possible. “Hey, Lila. Are you alright? Can I get you anything?”

She glances over you for a second, looking you up and down before shaking her head. “I’m fine. Where’s Spencer?”

Your brows furrow at his words. “Doctor Reid…? He’s currently going through the timeline of events with our colleagues. In the meantime, I was hoping to ask a few questions, maybe shed some light on the entire situation.”

She raises an eyebrow before nodding. “Okay.”

“Alright…” you clear your throat, taking a seat across from her. “You mentioned that you receive a bowl of red anemones on the seventh of every month. Do you mind… telling me why you like those flowers so much?”

She shrugs dismissively, running a hand through her blonde hair. “They’re pretty. I like the colour.”

You nod slowly, writing that down in your notes. “Well that’s understandable; they’re very beautiful flowers. But they’re a little uncommon as a favourite flower, don’t you think? If you like the colour, a more common favourite flower would be poppies or roses… are you sure there isn’t another reason? The meaning behind red anemones is forsaken love and death… does that intrigue you at all?”

She scoffs, “are you trying to accuse me of something?”

“Not at all,” you say quickly, “I apologise if it comes off that way. I’m just trying to find out as much as possible about the entire situation. For all we know, those flowers could have been sent by the UnSub.”

A short silence lulls in the room as well as an awkward tension. So, you try to take things from another angle. 

“I love hydrangeas,” you say gently, a small smile on your lips. “I like the way they’re always bunched together and the colours are beautiful. Only a few people know that I like them though. My close friend and colleagues, my family… do you remember telling anyone about your favourite flower?”

She’s quiet for a moment before shrugging. “I don’t know.”

Your face falls and you press a little more. “Are you sure you don’t remember? Maybe… maybe your manager, or a friend of yours?”

“I said ‘I don’t know’, okay?” She snaps, her hands balling into fists as she glares at you. “God, it’s not that hard to understand.”

You lean back in your chair, your gaze hardening. “I understand that this is difficult for you, but any information–”

“I don’t have any information!” Lila huffs, her hands placed in her lap. “Are you stupid or something?”

“The likelihood of these people being murdered because of you is incredibly high,” You say sharply, shutting your notebook. “If you’re withholding information from us it could prove detrimental to the investigation. I’m only trying to do my job. Asking you questions is part of my job.”

Her lips twitch at your words and she scowls. “I already told you I don’t remember.”

“Not remembering and not knowing are two different things, Ms Archer.” You place your card on the table. “If you remember anything, please give me a call.”

You get up from your seat, heading to the door, only to see that it was wide open with Derek and Spencer standing at the doorway. In seconds, Lila’s gaze softens and she runs out of the room, sniffling as she does. Your gaze follows her as she runs out of the police station, a look of disbelief on your features.

“What the…”

“Seriously (Y/N)?” Spencer demands, a frown on his face. 

You gape at his words. “What are you–”

He cuts you off, running after Lila. Derek raises an eyebrow in their direction before turning to you. 

“You okay, pretty girl?” Derek asks gently, patting your shoulder. 

“Honestly? I have no idea,” You confess quietly, biting your lip. “I’ve never seen him get so…”

“Upset? Angry?” he finishes, a small laugh leaving his lips. “You and me both. Look, kid, it’s not your fault. She was clearly being dismissive of your questions and she needed a reality check.”

“It’s not like I’ve never spoken that way when interrogating someone before,” You point out, brows furrowed in frustration. “Even then, Spencer has never had an issue with it. I just– I don’t understand what’s got him so worked up.”

Derek can’t help but laugh. “You’re a profiler. Isn’t it obvious?”

You pause for a moment, thinking through their interaction. “He has a crush on her, doesn’t he? He likes her. Of course he does. Brilliant, now he’s involved.”

Derek pats you on the back sympathetically. “Come on, pretty girl. We’ve got a job to do.”

***

Despite your original hesitancy, Hotch asked you personally to go with the others, meaning that you had no right to refuse. Well, you could, but that would mean throwing Elle under the bus and she would be much more helpful at the precinct than on set. So, before you could fake being sick and bail the investigation, you,  Derek, and Spencer went to check out the set of Lila’s movie, hoping to better observe her interactions with her costars and the staff. 

The inside of Lila’s small trailer is hot. Incredibly hot but relatively empty. As you look around, you gather that she’s either a minimalist or just didn’t have to spend a lot time in the trailer at all. Lila sits in front of the little group, wearing a robe to cover her costume: a cyan sequinned bikini set that she looked absolutely criminal in. Her hair has been styled in a classic blowout and you wonder how much time it took to get it to look so effortless.

“I’m not stopping my life,” she says, her voice almost stern as she steps out of the trailer and back onto the set.

You purse your lips as you glance at the paper in the plastic pocket, now labelled as ‘evidence’. Apparently it was taped up to the door of her trailer. Your eyes shift to Spencer who’s gaze doesn’t leave the door that Lila just walked out of for much longer than necessary. Neither of you have spoken since yesterday’s incident.

You hum thoughtfully, as you pull out your notebook, glancing at the notes you’ve been making. “Well, I guess the only thing we can do is talk to the people on set. Maybe they saw something. I’ll see if I can find out who has access to Lila’s trailer.”

Spencer nods in your direction. “Yeah, that’s… that’s a good idea.”

One of your eyebrows quirk up. “Okay…? Why do you sound so surprised?”

He flushes under your scrutiny, clearing his throat as the three of you begin to walk out of the trailer and towards the set. “I’m not! I– I’m not surprised. You’re good at your job.”

“You didn’t seem to think that yesterday,” You respond lightly, your tone petty and passive aggressive, gaze flickering between the cameras and lights on set. 

Derek coughs awkwardly before excusing himself and entering further into the set leaving you and Spencer alone outside by a vending machine. Spencer falters at your words and he runs a hand through his hair. The harsh Los Angeles sun beats down against your skin and you fiddle with the notebook in your hands. In turn, he fixes up his sleeves, rolling them up to his elbow, giving you a clear view of his forearms and large hands. 

“I’m sorry,” He says softly, chewing on his bottom lip. “I didn’t– I was out of line.”

“You were,” You agree, your gaze shifting between the chilled bottled drinks in the vending machine and him. “Buy me a drink and we’ll call it even.”

A boyish grin grows on his face and he nods, pulling out his wallet. “Yeah. Yeah, okay, awesome. Iced coffee?”

“You know me so well,” you respond with an equally large smile, poking his cheek. “Thank you!”

He presses a few buttons, grabbing a Cola for himself. You can’t help but laugh, giving him a pointed look. He quickly moves to defend himself, “It’s a hot day, okay? An exception.”

“An exception,” You repeat, trying to hide your smile as you crack open the lid of your drink and take a sip. “What happened to ‘Cola has 50 grams of sugar in it. That’s the equivalent of eating two full bars of milk chocolate’?”

He pouts at your words, opening his drink and you watch as a few bubbles rise to the top of the bottle. He takes a swig of his drink, sighing in content. “Shut up.”

You laugh again once you officially enter the set, nudging Spencer with your arm teasingly. He nudges you back, rolling his eyes and poking your cheek. You retaliate by doing the same, swinging your drink as you walk. 

Before you could do or say anything else, Derek taps your shoulder. “Hey, I need to talk to you about something.”

Spencer’s brows furrow. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, just wanted to cross reference answers,” Derek dismisses. 

“Let me pull up my list,” You respond helpfully, grabbing your notebook. “Hey, Spence, do you mind canvassing the rest of the crew? See if anyone pays any special attention on Lila?”

He nods at your words, moving towards Lila, sipping on his drink. In the meantime, you turn towards Derek, a curious look on your face. 

“Little Miss Madonna has been glaring at you since the moment you entered the set,” Morgan says quietly, his gaze flitting to where Lila was making coffee. 

You practically snap your neck as you look up in her direction, watching as she quickly fumbles to make herself a cup of something. You turn away and you could practically feel her gaze burning against your scalp. A frown makes its way onto your face and you resist the urge to roll your eyes. You glance over to where she and Spencer were talking, blanching when you watch as she takes a swig of his Cola.

“You don’t mind, do you?” You hear her ask as she drinks and Spencer hurriedly shakes his head.

A quiet scoff leaves your lips and Derek nudges you with a look that reads ‘behave.’ You lift your hands in surrender and follow him over to where Spencer now stands by himself, Lila gone to talk to some other staff member.

“An exception, huh?” You ask Spencer, referring to his aversion to germs and sharing food. Your tone is mostly teasing despite the underlying bitterness beneath it. 

“Shut up.” He mutters quietly, cheeks hot from embarrassment of being caught.

Derek snorts, clapping his shoulder before moving on.

***

The next day, you were going over the evidence that was provided by the LAPD. Considering that it was a relatively young case, there weren’t copious amounts of evidence, meaning that there were still untied strings to go through. The entire situation proved more difficult than necessary; no one seemed to notice anything  amiss when it came to Lila and her relationships, and considering that the actress wasn’t very forthcoming with the information she knew, you were hitting dead-end after dead-end. 

Although geographical profiling was more of Spencer’s expertise than yours, you figured it wouldn’t do anyone harm by triangulating the previous three murders. He was standing beside you, his presence not unwelcome as he guides you step by step on how to plot an understandable and accurate profile. Hotch had asked him to coach you through the entire situation and explain his point of view, as well as his thought process when it came to geographical profiling. With a comfort zone now clearly expressed, you were discussing probable suspects on the phone with Garcia.

“Will Hunter… currently the town hermit, previous criminal record of armed battery and robbery,” Garcia recites, and you pull up his file.

“Mm… maybe? No, I don’t think so. His crimes don’t match the UnSub’s profile. He seems to be messier, uh, tending to use bats and knives than a clean shot to the head. And the profile suggests that the UnSub is able to blend in with the crowd.” You hum in thought, turning to Spencer.

“Hermits like Will Hunter wouldn’t be able to do that,” He explains to Garcia, putting his file into the ‘unlikely’ folder.

Garcia sighs in frustration and you can hear her furiously type away on her computer. “How about–”

“Hold that thought,” Elle says quickly, cutting Penelope off apologetically. “(Y/N), did you know Lila’s here?”

You blink in confusion, slowly shaking your head no. “She’s here? I didn’t get any calls from her.”

Elle shrugs at your words. “She looks like she’s going to burn a hole through your head.”

Your brows furrow and your gaze shifts to the blonde woman through the office window. She has her arms folded over her chest, a scowl on her face, before her cheeks burn in embarrassment of being caught. Spencer follows your gaze, his face lighting up at the sight of the actress. It’s almost as if he has selective hearing when it comes to his celebrity crush, clearly not hearing the part where Elle points out that Lila has been glaring at you the entire time.

“Can we talk outside?” You ask Elle quickly, getting up from your seat, not taking no for an answer.

Spencer opens his mouth to say something before he shuts it, watching as you drag your other co-worker out of the room. Your attention shifts between Lila and Elle, your brows furrowing. 

“What is it?” You ask, your back turned towards the actress. “Why is she here?”

“She gave me a list of people who know what her favourite flower is,” Elle says quietly.

Your ears go red at her words, your eyes practically bulging out of your head. “Excuse me?”

“She called me yesterday,” she explains, handing you the list of people. “She said that she remembers who they were and came in today to give me a list of people.”

You scoff in disbelief, throwing your hands up in the air in frustration. “I gave her my card.”

“She called and asked for me.” 

You scoff again, rolling your eyes. “Oh, so suddenly she can remember everything when she talks to you, but nothing when she talks to me? She’s not very slick.”

The door behind you opens, revealing Spencer who has been listening in the entire time. His jaw is clenched and a frown is etched upon his features as he looks at you accusingly. 

“Maybe she just didn’t remember,” he points out harshly as you and Elle re-enter the room.

An incredulous look makes its way into your face. “Excuse me?”

“She didn’t remember, and now she does,” Spencer says, and from the corner of your eye you watch Elle slowly leave the room once more. The door closes with a soft click.

“That doesn’t change the fact that she went to Elle and not to me,” you respond, trying to keep your voice even and your words clear. You take a deep breath in an effort to calm yourself down.

Spencer scowls at you. “Maybe she has every right to go to Elle after you snapped at her the first time you tried to talk to her.”

“Are you– are you being serious right now?” A humourless laugh leaves your lips as you glare up at him. “Look, Reid, I’m sorry that I’m not her biggest fan and that I don’t kiss the ground she walks on, but I was doing my job. A job that I believe I am quite good at. It’s not like speaking harshly is unheard of when it comes to the retrieval of information.”

He flinches when you call him by his last name but he stands his ground. “If you were so good at your job, you wouldn’t have to speak to her that way,” he argues, and you can see the vein in his forehead begin to protrude.

His words sting and bite you and suddenly you feel your resolve snapping. “You know what?” The words are slow and deliberate as they leave your lips, and you jab a finger against his chest. “I get that you have a crush on her and that you’re finally going through puberty but that does not mean that you can ignore the job you are currently on.”

He swallows thickly and he opens his mouth to retaliate but you push your finger against his chest once more.

“I am not finished.” Your voice is low with frustration and annoyance as you scowl, glaring up at him. “I don’t care who you’re attracted to or who you want to sleep with. I don’t give a damn if that someone is victim in the investigation because it’s not my problem. I do, however, have a problem when you undermine my ability to do my job and do nothing to fix it.

The worst part is the fact that you’re my friend. You’re supposed to be supportive and helpful and– and– and understanding.” Your mouth is moving quicker than your brain can register and you’re stumbling over your words as you snap at him. “I’m supposed to be able to go to you if I’m going through something. I should be able to talk to you if someone or something is bothering me, but now I’m just afraid that you’ll call me crazy and then criticise me all over again.”

His face falls and he looks at you like a kicked puppy as the words slowly sink in. He reaches out to you, his hazel eyes searching your face but the only emotion that you’re showing is anger. You push his hand away, the frown set on your eyebrows. It’s only then when you realise that Garcia has been listening into the conversation the entire time, your heart lurching to a stop when you hear her cough on the other side of the line.

“Um… is now a bad time to say that I didn’t get any other hits for the profile?” She asks tentatively through the speaker, and you feel your face burning.

“I need air,” you announce to no one in particular, before grabbing your files and storming out of the room.

Elle catches your arm on the way out, her eyebrows knitted together in concern. “(Y/N)-“

“Hey. Sorry.” You bite your lip, loosening the grip you have on your papers. “Where’s Hotch?”

“With Derek and Gideon,” she says gently. “Lila got another note and we’re going to check on her manager. Do you want to come with?”

You exhale before nodding. “Yeah. That’d be good.”

“Okay.” She squeezes your arm gently, her eyes flitting between you and Spencer who was inside the conference room, pacing back and forth. “Is… everything alright?”

“Honestly? No.” You offer her a wry smile, shoving your files into your bag. “But it’s fine.”

She chuckles a little in disbelief, leading you to the black SUVs outside. Derek and Gideon were already there, waiting patiently for the two of you while Hotch has already left in another SUV. Apparently the ‘no profiling each other’ rule was thrown out the window as soon as they saw the state you were in, and Derek quickly makes his way over to you.

“(Y/N), are you–”

“I’m fine,” you snap, before closing your eyes tightly and letting out a deep breath. “Sorry, Morgan. I’m okay, just had an argument with Reid.”

At that, his eyebrows shoot upwards. “Since when did you call him ‘Reid’? And what do you mean you had a fight with him? He literally can’t say no to you.”

“Yeah, that was before a Miss Archer walked into the room,” you mutter bitterly. “Shot a literal arrow through his heart. She put her name to good use. I never stood a chance.”

“Hey now, don’t say that,” Elle says, climbing into the SUV. You follow closely behind and she continues. “He’s just confused right now.”

You can’t help but scoff. “I really doubt that.”

Gideon starts the car, looking at you through the rear view mirror. “You’re a profiler. What do you really think?”

The words die at your tongue and you deflate into the seat of the car. You hate to admit it, but Gideon is right. You should be able to figure out exactly what Spencer is thinking. After all, he’s your best friend– you shouldn’t have to be worrying about guessing games when it comes to him.

Hotch is the first to arrive at the manager’s office, watching as your group pull up in front of the building. Once everyone clambours out of the car, they enter the building, a sigh of relief leaving them as they enjoy the air conditioned lobby. With a flash of a badge, the receptionist is quick to tell you which floor and room number Michael was in.

“Floor 11, Room 03,” you mumble to yourself as you scribble it down in your notes.

The elevator ride is silent and you rock back and forth on your feet as the lift begins to rise. Your head is spinning with thoughts and regrets as you consider the harsh words that you spat at Spencer’s face less than an hour ago. You must not have been hiding your frustration well because Hotch finally says something. 

“Is everything alright?” He asks, much like a father would when their child is having a tantrum. It’s fitting.

You shrug. “I will be.”

“Is it to do with Reid?” 

You cough awkwardly, glancing back at the notes in your hand. “That obvious?”

Derek snorts from behind you. “Yeah, a little.”

“Everyone knows you’re in love with him,” Elle adds, a teasing lilt to her voice.

“I am– I am not in love with him!” You all but shriek, shooting her a half hearted glare and you stutter out a response. “I mean, I– uh– I like him but–“

“You are a horrible liar,” Derek cackles and you groan. 

Hotch and Gideon watch amused at the interaction, and the latter finally pipes in.

“Profiling isn’t something you can just turn off,” he explains to you, his tone gentle. He reminds you of a grandfather giving advice to their youngest grandchild, and a small smile makes its way onto your face. He continues to speak, “it’s subconscious and it becomes a habit. The only time it stops is when you either need it most, or when you don’t want to see anything.”

The elevator comes to a stop on the eleventh floor and Michael’s office wasn’t far away. The writing on the frosted glass reads ‘1103, Michael Ryer & associates, talent management’ and Elle raps on the door.

“Hello?” 

“Mr Ryer?” Gideon calls.

She knocks a few times again before opening the door entirely. “Michael–”

You’re met with Michael Ryer, dead in his arm chair and shot to the head, just like all the other victims. Despite having faced these circumstances before, you still feel sick to the stomach as you stare at Michael’s lifeless body and soulless eyes. It’s unnerving.

“Up until now every victim was a person who could be perceived as a threat to Miss Archer,” Hotch comments as they enter the room, pulling out his phone.

“Yeah, but Michael was a friend,” Elle says with a frown.

You look up from your notes. “He was a threat to the stalker.”

In less than twenty minutes, the LAPD dispatched forensics and evidence teams to the office. Lila and Spencer were on their way back to her house, deciding that it was best to deny the stalker access to her. You rifle through Michael’s belongings: his schedules, his files… everything until you come to one particular manila envelope. 

“Morgan, Elle, look at this,” you murmur, pulling the photos out of the envelope. “Pictures of Lila… nude.”

A flash of a grimace passes along Elle’s face, but it’s gone as quickly as it appears. “He was probably paying someone to keep them out of the press.”

“The name on the file says Joe Martinez,” Derek mutters, turning the envelope over.

The name must have struck a chord, because Detective Kim’s head immediately snaps around to look at you. “Paparazzo?”

You blink. “You know this guy?”

“Yeah, I deal with him a lot,” Kim responds, his face stoic. 

“We should follow that lead,” You comment, tucking the photos back in the envelope and looking over at Detective Kim and Derek. “I’m ready to go when you are?”

After an okay from Hotch, you, Derek, and Detective Kim make your way over to the Joe Martinez’s place. After knocking on the door to his place multiple times, Derek decides to open it in the way he knows best: by kicking it down. You grip your gun, holding it out in front of you as you travel through the hallways. 

“Clear!” You yell out upon pushing another door open, seeing nobody inside.

“(Y/N), you need to check this out,” comes Morgan’s call, and you follow the direction of his voice

Pinned above a small desk are picture upon pictures of Lila Archer. When she has lunch, when she’s out with her friends… it’s almost as if this person has completely documented her life. It’s a little nerve wracking, knowing that someone could follow you and take photos without anyone even realising.

“Hey is that–” you pause, pulling a piece of paper off the wall. “This is Lila’s schedule.”

Derek blinks in surprise. “I’m guessing he’s not supposed to have that?”

“No,” Detective Kim responds, and your gaze shifts to the table.

“Hey, isn’t that–” you feel your heart practically stop as you see who’s in the photos. 

“That’s Reid,” Derek mutters.

Kim shifts through the photos. “There’s a whole bunch of them,” he says, pulling out at least five or six print outs. “Is he a target now?”

Derek scoffs, throwing the photos on the table and pulling out his phone, making a beeline for the exit. “Not if I can help it.”

You and Detective Kim follow him out, making your way to the SUV. 

“Reid? Hey, it’s Morgan. Listen, you gotta watch your back over there, we just found a bunch of close-up photos of you at this guy Joseph Martinez’s studio. It looks like he could be the UnSub.”

As he speaks you feel your heart pound in your ears. Your head is dizzy with fear and you’re following after Morgan who’s walking unbelievably quickly. 

“He has a ton of photos of Lila and Nathalie plus a call sheet for Lila’s show,” Derek continues, the speed of his walk not wavering. “(Y/N) and I are on our way right now but I need you to be real careful until we get there, all right?”

You look down to shove your notes back into your bag when you hear it. The distinct vrooming of a motorcycle engine. You don’t think too much of it, only turning your head to look over your shoulder, your hand finding the handle of the car door. That’s all it takes for the motorcyclist to drive straight toward you and the others, pointing an arm out.

“Gun!” You manage to scream, just before the UnSub open fires, hitting Detective Kim. 

You dive behind the car, grimacing when your knee collided roughly against the pavement. By the time you manage to recover and grab your gun out of its holster, the UnSub is long gone. You stare as Morgan fires a couple shots before watching the motorcyclist ride off into the LA traffic,  and you turn to Detective Kim.

“You got hit. Where?” You ask, shoving your gun back into its holster.

He grunts in pain, his entire weight on the car as he groans out, “yeah, it’s fine. Just my shoulder.”

“Derek, call for help,” you order, pressing firmly at the wound with your hand to lessen the bleeding. He lets out a cry of pain and you wince. “Sorry, it’s bleeding a lot. Gunshot wound to the shoulder, no exit wound. Seeing as you’re not already dead, I don’t think it hit any major arteries, but it might have busted your collarbone. You’re lucky if that’s the extent of the damage. The shoulder contains a bunch of important and major bloodlines, as well as nerve endings.”

Derek turns to you with a wry smile. “You’re starting to sound like Reid.”

“You spend four years with him, you’ll start to learn a few things,” you respond with a humourless laugh. You continue to press against Detective Kim’s wound, murmuring an apology. 

“You should talk to him,” Derek prompts.

You scoff, “we have a detective bleeding in front of us and the thing you’re worried about is my love life?”

“Isn’t the first rule of relieving pain through distraction?” He asks. You shoot him an unimpressed look and he quickly nods his head. “Okay, sorry.”

Ten minutes later, Detective Kim is hoisted into the ambulance. You cringe as you wash his blood off your hands, once, twice, then a third time to make sure everything is gone. Your shirt has a couple of blood spots and you can’t help but frown; you liked that shirt. At least the stain isn’t too big– just a few splotches here and there. 

“It’s a good thing you held the wound,” an EMT praises, working quickly to secure Kim’s shoulder. “He shattered his collarbone, but you seemed to have managed to control the bleeding.”

If it weren’t for the circumstances, you would have shouted a clear ‘I told you so’ to both Derek and Detective Kim, but you keep your mouth shut.

Hotch, Gideon, and Elle arrive moments later, speaking to Derek about the detective’s injuries. 

“You okay?” Elle asks gently, squeezing your shoulder. 

“Yeah,” you murmur, wringing your hands together. “Just a little jumpy. I’ll be fine.”

“We need to get to her house,” Gideon mutters, glancing at the group. 

Without another moment to lose, you’re clambering into an SUV, gripping the steering wheel until your knuckles turn white. Elle climbs into the passenger seat beside you, her brows knitted together in concern. She opens her mouth to say something but shuts it, watching as you start the car and speed off into the direction of Lila’s house. 

After slamming the door shut and gripping the gun firmly in the palm of your hand, you follow Derek through the back entry of the house. You weren’t even sure if it could even be counted as a ‘house’; the place looked like it had at least five bedrooms on both floors. Derek glances at you, signalling to be quiet, then another to keep your eyes on him. A quiet splashing in the pool alerts your attention, and despite his attempts of getting you to not look, you do. And as soon as you do, you really wish you hadn’t. 

You are met with the sight of Lila Archer in her bikini-clad glory, in the pool with Doctor Spencer Walter Reid. Doctor ‘pools are incredibly unhygienic, harbouring more than 50 million different types of bacteria’ Reid. And as if it couldn’t get any worse, you watch as their lips touch again and again, his hands cupping her face and her hands arms around his neck. 

Spencer pulls away from the kiss, his breath heavy and his head spinning. This is wrong. He’s not supposed to being do this. His brain is short circuiting and it’s even worse when he considers all the germs that could be in this pool. His head spins with the names of viruses and bacteria that could be festering in the waters he was currently in, and then he remembers he has more pressing matters to attend to. Namely the girl who was literally pressing her lips to his. 

He pulls away, stammering over responses. “We can’t– we shouldn’t. I’m a federal agent and you’re–”

Lila stares at him, amused, with her hands cupping his neck. “There’s no one here.”

“I’m supposed to be protecting you,” Spencer tries again, anxiety gnawing at his stomach. This is wrong. Unprofessional. Then his mind wanders to you and the nagging voice in the back of his mind urges him to do something. 

“There are police out front,” Lila says, kissing him again before continuing, “there are coyotes out back.”

“This is completely inappropriate,” Spencer stutters out, his hands reaching for her shoulders. Her skin is cold from the summer night’s breeze, even more so considering how they’re submerged in disgusting chlorine-filled pool water. 

“This?” She presses her lips to his once more. “What’s this?”

“This isn’t–” he swallows thickly, his cheeks flared. “No, there’s this thing called transference–”

Lila pulls away, her stare drifting from his eyes to his lips as she asks, “you don’t like me?”

Spencer blanches at the question. “What?”

“You don’t like me,” Lila repeats, more sure of herself now. “It’s because of her, right?”

He frowns at the insinuation. “‘Her’? Who’s ‘her’?”

“The other person on your team,” Lila says, her words bitter. “You like her don’t you?”

His mouth goes dry and he opens and closes it like a fish out of water. “What?”

“Let me change your mind,” she whispers, bringing her lips to his for the nth time. 

Spencer barely has time to react, his hands moving to the side of her face and he imagines that she’s you. But she’s not you and you would never kiss him in the middle of the pool. You would never pull him in by his tie and cut him off when he’s speaking. He pulls away. 

“Stop. Stop, Lila, I’m sorry, I have to– I have to tell you something.” His mind is blanking. Why is it that when he needs it, his brain shuts off?

“What?” Lila asks, her lips moving to his cheek and then to his jaw. 

“I didn’t want to tell you this before because I was a bit worried.” He’s screaming at himself in his head, kicking himself because ‘why the hell did he just say that?!’ Regardless of the way he wishes he could shut his mouth and run out of the pool, he continues, “I don’t know how to say it but I can’t not tell you.”

“What is it?” She finally pulls away and Spencer lets out a breath of relief.

The relief is short lived because he starts to blab, “Your manager, Michael–”

“What?”

“Gideon went to check on him but he got there too late.” Spencer thinks he’s going to hurl, his mind running a million times an hour and screaming, ‘No you idiot! No, no, no! Out of all the things you could say–’

Lila scrambles out of the pool, clearly distraught, and he reaches out to touch her arm… only to be swatted away with her sobbing and telling him not to touch her. He figures he deserves that and follows out of the pool after her. 

“How could you– how could you not tell me?” Lila demands, her tears mixing with the pool water already on her face. 

“I was afraid you’d be upset,” Spencer says lamely, water dripping from his trousers and he just wants a towel. 

“You– you knew what you knew and… how could you not…?” She’s on the verge of hyperventilating and she looks at him before looking away. 

“I’m sorry,” Spencer says quietly, not knowing what else to say.

Lila retreats into her house, shutting the glass sliding door behind her and Spencer can only watch as she throws a pillow at the wall before going up the stairs to her room. He stands there, in the cold, dripping wet from the pool water and he wipes his face with his hand. His gun sits on the table, damp, and he has the urge to scream. Before he could do something exceedingly stupid, the sound of footsteps alert him and he spins around. 

“Elle?”

“We found him in the bushes,” she says to Spencer, nodding to the guy being cuffed by Derek. 

“I told her she should cut those.” He says dismissively, wiping his gun with a towel. He looks at her and then at you. He swallows thickly, noticing the way your eyes look him up and down, the disapproval oozing in your stare. “I– uh– I fell in.”

“Yeah,” you respond, holding the camera up and a sarcastic smile blossoms on your face. “I’m sure there are plenty of photos of it.”

He sighs, “(Y/N)–”

“Hey, stop shoving me, man!” Joe snaps as Derek pushes him to walk forward.

“You’re a suspect in the murder of Wally Melman, Natalie Ryan, and Jeremy Collins.”

You watch as Joe’s face comically contorts from annoyance to confusion as he jumps to defend himself. “Murder? What? Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa–”

“Just shut up with the ‘whoa’. We know for a fact that you have hundreds of photographs of Lila Archer and Natalie Ryan on the walls of your studio. You have Miss Archer’s daily schedule on your desk. You’ve been stalking her.”

“Look, guy, hold up. Every paparazzi’s a celebrity stalker,” Joe says and the rest of the group turn to look at him incredulously. He continues to speak undeterred. “If you don’t stalk them, you don’t get the shot, and if you don’t get the shot, you don’t sell no pictures.”

“Yeah, well this one’s gonna cost you,” you hum, holding the camera in your hands and ripping the film out despite his yells of defiance.

Derek steps forward, pushing Joe to keep him walking. “Tell it to your lawyer.”

“Wh– I’m still being locked up?”

“That’s right, at the very least you’re trespassing.”

Elle and Derek walk Joe out of the premises, and you push the pulverised film against Spencer’s chest. He grips it in his hands, a soft ‘oof’ leaving his lips at the contact. 

“You’re welcome,” you mutter, albeit a little bitterly, as you turn to follow the rest of your team out.

“(Y/N), listen, it didn’t mean anything,” he says softly, squeezing the film in his fist tightly while the other hand reaches out to you. 

You roll your eyes, opening up the sliding door. “I told you, Reid, I don’t care who you sleep with.”

He splutters a little, pushing his hair away from his face. “We didn’t– I didn’t– we didn’t sleep together, you know that.”

“Even more reason why I shouldn’t care.”

His hand grips onto your shoulder, turning you around so that you’re facing him. “But you do. ‘Shouldn’t’? You care. You clearly obviously care, (Y/N).”

“I don’t,” you deny, pushing his hand away. “Reid–”

“Stop calling me that.”

“–it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. I’m leaving.”

He grabs onto your arm, stopping your retreat. “Why are you being like this?”

“I am not ‘being like’ anything!”

“(Y/N).”

“Doctor, this is highly unprofessional.”

He has to stop the frustrated groan that was moments away from leaving his lips as he stares at you. His eyes ghost over your frame, stopping directly at the dark red splotches on your shirt.

“What happened?” He demands, taking a step closer. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine.”

“Who’s blood is that?”

“Detective Kim’s.”

“What– were you shot at?” 

His hands fly to your face, trembling and cold, and you would have thought it was romantic if he didn’t do the exact same thing less than twenty minutes ago with another girl. 

“It doesn’t matter,” you dismiss quietly. 

“Don’t say that.”

“God, you act as if we’re dating or something!” You snap, pulling away from him. 

He stops short, his cheeks and ears reddening at your words. His mind goes blank and suddenly he feels very warm at the idea. Dating you? Every moment he had with Lila in that pool is nothing compared to the idea of dating you.

He watches as you roll your eyes before tugging your arm out of his grip. He wants to cry out again, to say something, but his head just seems to repeat the words ‘we’re dating’ over and over again. 

“Just forget it, Reid.” You look to the house and your gaze grows steely once more. “Your girlfriend is calling.”

*** 

“I want to try and talk to some of Lila’s close friends,” you say to the others after getting off the phone with Garcia. “According to Penelope, there’s a girl named Maggie Lowe on the list that Lila gave us and they’ve known each other since college. Apparently, they spent a lot of time together and Lila helped her get a job.”

“I’ll go with you,” Elle says instantly, climbing into the car. “Why Maggie?”

You start the ignition, backing out of the driveway and onto the main road, following the GPS directions. “They spend almost all of their time together. I mean, she must have noticed something off, you know?”

Elle nods slowly in understanding. “She knows about the red anemones, right?”

“Yeah. And she was the one who found the note taped to the door.” You pause, thinking through the evidence again. “Her apartment is right in the middle of the comfort zone.”

“You think she could be the UnSub?”

“It all seems too convenient. But then again, we didn’t profile the stalker as a woman. There have got to be some inaccuracies or things we overlooked because of the gender,” you murmur, stopping at a red light. “Call Garcia for me.”

The phone rings once before Penelope’s unmistakable voice chimes through. “Speak my pretties, and you shall be heard!”

“Hey, Pen, can you check what vehicle is registered under Maggie Lowe’s name?” You ask into the speaker, parking in front of the apartment.

“Checking, checking… aha! It’s a Honda Motorcycle, she just got it serviced six and a half months ago.”

“That’s the vehicle that the UnSub was driving when they shot at us,” you mumble in realisation. “Call the others, the UnSub might be Maggie Lowe. We’re checking the apartment now.”

“Gideon and Derek are at the art gallery to talk to Parker Dunley,” Elle points out. “I’ll let them know we’re at her apartment.”

There’s a typing on the other side of the line and Penelope chimes in once more. “Bad news, my loves. The cameras report Lowe’s motorcycle leaving the apartment complex half an hour ago.”

“Garcia, call Reid and tell him what we know. Elle and I are going into the apartment. We might find evidence or clues on who the next victim might be.” 

With that, you hang up, getting out of the car and running up the stairs with Elle hot on your heels. 

“Maggie Lowe?” You call through the door, knocking once then twice. 

You’re met with silence and you grimace, deciding to do Derek’s favourite move: kicking the door down. With a crash, the door slams open and you grip your gun a little tighter in your hand. Bathroom, clear. Kitchen and pantry, clear. Lounge, clear. Bedroom, clear– you stop short. Pictures– framed pictures– of Lila hung around the wall. A cork board with newspaper clipping and magazine cut outs were pinned meticulously to the cork backing, each one with Lila’s face and name circled with bold red marker. 

“Holy shit…” Elle whispers, holstering her gun and staring at the wall. “This is… this is beyond obsession.”

“You’re telling me,” you respond, putting on a blue glove and flipping through the cork board. “Call the others, Maggie is definitely the UnSub. Someone this obsessed must have…” you pause, filing through the desk on the other side of the room, “… a diary. Each murder was described to detail in each entry, as well as her feelings towards Lila.”

Elle grimaces as she looks over your shoulder to read the diary entries. “Grim.”

You huff out a laugh. “Yeah.”

Above her desk are images of Lila. Every single show she’s been in since Julliard, every time she was mentioned in an article, posters, newspaper clippings of the murders… the entire ordeal makes you feel sick. 

Elle sucks in a breath, staring at the desk. “She’s got Lila’s entire life documented.”

“And she’s probably already at Lila’s house,” you mutter, grabbing your phone. “We need to get over there, now.”

*** 

“The city of angels everything you thought it would be?” Derek asks amusedly, leaning against the wall of the jet as he watches you pour your third cup of coffee in the past three hours. 

It’s a couple days after Maggie Lowe was apprehended and the team were on the jet home getting some much needed rest. The aircon was put on full blast and you couldn’t be more grateful for it, enjoying the coolness on your skin in contrast to the hot Los Angeles weather. 

“I’m never coming back here,” you quip, your gaze shifting to where Spencer sits. He’s reading a book but he hasn’t turned a page for the past thirty seconds. “If I were to overthrow America, Los Angeles is the first place to go.”

Derek snorts, his eyebrows raising. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do,” you huff, finally looking at him. “I’m serious!”

“Sure kid. Totally believe you.”

He’s teasing, a knowing smirk on his face as he watches you chug the coffee with a grimace. Your tongue burns and you fill the cup with water and chug that as well, ignoring the amused look Derek keeps sending you. From the corner of your eye you see Spencer reading his book. At least, it would appear that he was reading to someone who didn’t know him. But you know him. He’s been staring into the pages for the past minute now and that alone was enough to let you know that he was paying more attention to your and Derek’s conversation than to the words on the page. 

You resist the urge to roll your eyes as you sit beside Elle who is already fast asleep. You envy her for a moment as she leans against the plane window, blissfully unaware to your mental torment. Stupid Spencer and his stupidly pretty face. From where you’re sitting you can see the back of his head and you glare at that the ridiculous mop of brown on his head. 

The rest of the plane ride is uneventful and by the time you make it back to the office it’s already late. It’s nearing one in the morning and everyone begins to head home. Derek is yawning as he leaves the office and Elle has a look that screams ‘Don’t talk to me’. Gideon is long gone and Hotch was in his office, packing up the last of his papers and files. 

Spencer is sitting at his desk, combing through the paperwork and stashing a couple pages into his satchel. He bids farewell to Derek and the others before shoving his train pass into his pocket. 

“You’re taking the train?” You ask, finally speaking to him.

His eyebrows raise in surprise and he shifts on his feet, gripping the strap of his bag. “Um, yeah. I took the train here, so...”

“Oh.” You nod, glancing at the clock. “No you’re not.”

He huffs out a laugh. “What?”

“You’re crazy if you think I’m letting you get onto a train at one in the morning,” you say, pointing with your chin to the elevator. “You might be a man and all, but it doesn’t change the statistics.”

You know his weakness. Statistics. Facts. Spencer hates the fact that you know him so well. 

He relents, getting into the elevator with you. “I thought you were mad at me.”

He hears you scoff, pressing B1 on the elevator. “Just because I’m mad at you, doesn’t mean that I’m going to let you do something potentially dangerous.”

He hates the way your words makes his heart flutter and he continues speak. “I didn’t mean to make you upset.”

“It doesn’t change the fact that you did,” you respond curtly, watching as the elevator doors open. “Come on, my car is that way.”

Spencer flinches at your tone. “I’m sorry.”

You laugh. “You don’t even know what you’re sorry for.”

“I–” the words die on his tongue as he wracks his brain. “I thought it was because you didn’t like Lila.”

“That’s true,” you murmur, unlocking the car. “Look, Reid–”

“Please,” he cuts you off, his voice cracking as he practically begs. “Please stop calling me that.”

He doesn’t miss the way your eyes flicker to him as you tug the car door open. “You want me to stop calling you by your name?”

Spencer’s nostrils flare as he gets in the car. “You know that’s not what I mean.”

You laugh again as you start the engine, glancing at the mirrors. “Everyone calls you Reid. It shouldn’t be any different for me.”

He huffs. “But it is different. You’re… different.”

“How?” You challenge, backing out of the parking spot and getting onto the main road. You’ve memorised the route from Quantico to Spencer’s apartment in DC– an almost one hour drive and you understand why Spencer hates driving to and from work. 

He falters before shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter. Just please don’t call me by my last name again.”

“Spencer,” You try again, missing the visible relief in his eyes, “I’m not mad at you because of something as miniscule as a girl. You’re entitled to your own relationships outside of work.”

“I don’t under– oh.” The realisation dawns on him when he recalls all the words you threw at him at the precinct. “I wasn’t a very good friend, was I?”

“No, Spencer, you weren’t.” You don’t hesitate to say it and Spencer winces at how quickly you agree with him. “You were unfair and let your emotions get in the way of the case. You criticised me and undermined my authority and then you had the absolute nerve to act as if nothing was wrong.”

“I’m sorry,” he croaks out, the lump in his throat getting bigger. 

“It hurt, Spencer,” you say, and your voice cracks as well. “It hurt because you’re my best friend and I would have supported you through everything. You know that. And I get that friends fight, but I thought that we wouldn’t fight about something as stupid as who you hook up with.”

“I didn’t hook up with her,” Spencer says quietly, and he thinks he might cry. “I’m serious, (Y/N), I didn’t hook up with her. She kissed me–”

“It doesn’t matter.” Your gaze shifts to him for barely a second before it’s back on the road. “Like I said, it doesn’t matter who you’re attracted to. I just didn’t think it would effect our friendship.”

“I’m sorry,” Spencer says again, holding onto his bag. 

You’re quiet before continuing, “ I know you are. I know that. I’m sorry that you thought that you needed to justify your feelings to me.”

He swallows thickly, watching your face carefully. You didn’t do anything to make him feel like he had to justify himself. If anything, it was Spencer’s conscious that made him feel the need to explain himself. The guilt that he felt after kissing Lila was enough to get him to feel sick. The guilt that he felt after knowing how badly he hurt you was enough to make him want to grovel at your feet. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” He mumbles, wetting his bottom lip. “You had– have– every right to be upset.”

“I don’t want to be upset anymore,” You say as you continue to drive down the freeway. 

He’s quiet before he finally says, “I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”

He swallows the lump in his throat and he presses the pads of his fingers into the corner of his eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

You finally park in front of his apartment, leaning against the chair. “I know. I know, I’m sorry too. I said… a lot of things.”

“I deserved it,” he says, a small laugh leaving his lips as he finally looks at you. “You’re right, I wasn’t being fair.”

You hum, leaning over the console to give him an awkward hug. He presses his nose into your shoulder, breathing in your vanilla perfume. His arms wrap around your middle and he realises how much he missed this. How he missed being close to you. 

“I won’t do it again,” he promises. 

“I know.”

“I really am sorry.”

“You need to stop apologising.” Your words come out like a laugh and he realises how much he misses that sound too.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he says into your shoulder. “Coffees for a month. I’ll even get you those croissants you like, even though they’re really overpriced.”

You laugh again and he smiles. 

“You apologising is already good enough,” You say, squeezing his arms. “Now go get some rest, Spence.”

His smile widens at the nickname and he finally pulls away. “Good night. Thank you for driving me home.”

You smile back. “Good night. Don’t mention it.”

The next morning, you find a steaming coffee on your desk and a freshly baked croissant in a brown paper bag. Spencer waves at you and you can’t help the goofy grin on your face as you take a bite into the croissant. 

next part →

full work

reblogs are always appreciated!

[harrysxcarolina]

if i was a blue bird, i would fly to you, you'd be the spoon dip you in honey so i could be sticking to you...

h. styles

warnings: oldies but goodies... haven't written for H in so long, but I do have a couple drafts of revenge and some one shots, sooo maybe if the motivation hits i'll post em...

jealous type x harry is the jealous type, but he makes sure to only show it to you in private.

no control x what happens when you and harry have an unspoken agreement to keep a low profile as friends with benefits? neither one of you wanting to ruin the friendship or friendships you have with others, but eventually things catch up to the both of you and you are forced to make a decision?

more x you want and crave more of harry in ways that he just can't give you.

ring x Harry loves the idea of you wearing one of his rings and makes you promise that you'll never take it off.

revenge x If revenge is what you want, then revenge is what you’ll get.

the story of us x an au that shows the once private relationship between harry and y/n. harry being the famous popstar sensation, while y/n is an upcoming author and Youtube vlogger.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

hi!

we see harry’s anger truly manifest in ootp, and it was a treat reading your analysis on his ptsd!

but it’s been a longheld belief in the fandom that harry is this firecracker with concerningly poor anger management. which is absurd, frankly imo, because i understand his default style is quiet, intense intimidation, or sass and snark. except when his fury reaches the threshold of his control, and he lets go fully and spectacularly. we also see in the later books that harry keeps trying to rein in the onslaught of fury pouring from voldemort, and while he does channel that anger outwardly, he isn’t making a habit of frequently lashing out at the people around him.

what i’m really asking is, what are your thoughts on harry’s anger and how he manages his frustrations from age eleven to seventeen?

Hello 👋

Thank you! I love my boy Harry and his anger and trauma so much! His trauma doesn't manifest in the way most fandoms usually like to portray trauma, but I always loved how Harry breaks when he reaches his threshold. He's a fascinating character and I find myself disappointed in his treatment over the years in fanon.

As to your question, boy, okay, this is complex and is greatly affected by Harry's mental state. I mentioned here how his anger is often colder and sassier and the fiery anger that's all shouting and cursing is something we only really see from him in OotP and onwards and I believe is the result of trauma, as I mentioned here & here.

But I decided, you know what? I can take a few scenes of his anger from each book. It's something I have a lot of notes about, and I'm surprised I haven't written about it here yet since it's a subject I love talking about.

Now, I do think he has issues with emotional regulation in general. I mean, he was raised in a cupboard under the stairs, he is not emotionally well-adjusted even if he knows to appear as if he is. His anger and how it manifests is a result of years of trauma and abuse. Honestly, though, he manages his anger better than he could have considering his life experience.

So without further ado:

Philosopher's Stone:

In the first book, we see Harry angry at the Dursleys and their unfair treatment of him. This anger is interesting. He has every reason to be angry but it isn't just anger. It's his frustration and helplessness that he feels as anger because he lacks the tools to understand/deal with his emotions.

How we see this anger come out though, is mostly through sass. And even then he makes sure to run/duck away before they could hurt him:

“They stuff people’s heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall,” he told Harry. “Want to come upstairs and practice?” “No, thanks,” said Harry. “The poor toilet’s never had anything as horrible as your head down it — it might be sick.” Then he ran, before Dudley could work out what he’d said.

(PS, Ch3)

Harry doesn't really have the luxury to get angry or upset because he's the one who would suffer for it. So, he bottles up all his anger and frustration and only lets it out in cold glares and sass even when he's fuming inside. In his heart of hearts, he wishes he could do something to the Dursleys, to hurt them back, but he can't.

I do want to note that Harry's hold on his range isn't him managing it well, it's him bottling it up. This would be very relevant later in this post.

The incident with the Boa Constrictor is one I like. Harry later refers to it as revenge in a moment of anger:

and the very last time Dudley had hit him, hadn’t he got his revenge, without even realizing he was doing it? Hadn’t he set a boa constrictor on him?

(PS, Ch4)

“Out of the way, you,” he said, punching Harry in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened — one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror. Harry sat up and gasped; the glass front of the boa constrictor’s tank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.

(PS, Ch2)

He's unaware that he's doing it, of course, but Harry's magic is powerful and incredibly attuned to him, so of course, it acts up when he's angry. Of course, his magic gets revenge on Dudley when Harry is so angry but feels helpless to do something with it. Harry's magic here shows Harry wishes he could do something, that he could take revenge:

Hagrid almost had to drag Harry away from Curses and Countercurses (Bewitch Your Friends and Befuddle Your Enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tongue-Tying and Much, Much More) by Professor Vindictus Viridian. “I was trying to find out how to curse Dudley.”

(PS, Ch5)

He just can't. So he bottles up his anger instead.

The other person we see Harry angry at in the first book, is Snape. Harry responds to Snape quite similar to how he responds to the Dursleys:

“Thought you wouldn’t open a book before coming, eh, Potter?” Harry forced himself to keep looking straight into those cold eyes. He had looked through his books at the Dursleys’, but did Snape expect him to remember everything in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi? Snape was still ignoring Hermione’s quivering hand. “What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?” At this, Hermione stood up, her hand stretching toward the dungeon ceiling. “I don’t know,” said Harry quietly. “I think Hermione does, though, why don’t you try her?” A few people laughed; Harry caught Seamus’s eye, and Seamus winked. Snape, however, was not pleased.

(PS, Ch8)

He gets angry, inside his head he is fuming, but outside his head, Snape hears a sassy retort said quietly and calmly. Even when Harry is angry he acts calm and quiet and looks like he's joking from Seamus' response. It's why it's so easy for Snape to believe Harry is like James. Harry doesn't show his anger. External he's quiet and sassy becouse he knows if he started shouting he'd be punished more (like at the Dursleys).

So, 11-year-old Harry is quiet outside when angry. Only really shows glares and sass when he's upset while bottling his feelings up. This would continue throughout the years until year 5, for the most part.

Chamber of Secrets:

We see more of this way of handling his anger in CoS (though way less). CoS is not a very angry book, but I found a few examples.

“I have not been visited yet. The name Malfoy still commands a certain respect, yet the Ministry grows ever more meddlesome. There are rumors about a new Muggle Protection Act — no doubt that flea-bitten, Muggleloving fool Arthur Weasley is behind it —” Harry felt a hot surge of anger.

(CoS, Ch4)

Harry is angry. He likes the Weasleys and hates hearing them being talked about like this. Still, no one else sees his anger because he's hiding, and he knows he'd be worse off if he left his hiding spot. Harry isn't all that impulsive (yet). He just swallows his anger down for the sake of what needs to be done — in this case hiding.

“Dobby is used to death threats, sir. Dobby gets them five times a day at home.” He blew his nose on a corner of the filthy pillowcase he wore, looking so pathetic that Harry felt his anger ebb away in spite of himself. [...] Dobby mopped his bulging eyes and said suddenly, “Harry Potter must go home! Dobby thought his Bludger would be enough to make — ” “Your Bludger?” said Harry, anger rising once more. “What d’you mean, your Bludger? You made that Bludger try and kill me?”

(CoS, Ch10)

Here, we see more of Harry's usual anger and how he bottles everything up. He is rightfully angry at Dobby for everything he did, but he also feels pity for him, his anger doesn't cloud Harry's ability to empathize with others. And if you look at the second quote, you see that in his head Harry is rightfully angry at an attempt to murder him but he's talking calmly and quietly. He isn't shouting. He isn't being violent or impolite. Harry's anger, as seen by others, is cold and quiet because he bottles it up.

“And why did you want to meet me?” said Harry. Anger was coursing through him, and it was an effort to keep his voice steady.

(CoS, Ch17)

This is later, when facing Tom. Harry feels betrayed. He wanted so bad to be Tom's freind, he tried so much to ignore what was happening so he could keep his new BFF and first crush. But when he is betrayed, he gets angry, rightfully so, again. And we see he isn't shouting or acting angry and rashly. He's speaking steadily and quietly and makes an active effort to do so.

Harry knows how he comes off and is actively trying to make his voice steady and not sound angry/scared! He's smart and not impulsive. He's very aware of his external behavior and actively conceals his anger from appearing externally.

My boy is angry, but he isn't a brash hothead.

I do want to note another thing about Harry's anger. Harry responds with anger when he's scared, when he's grieving, when he feels helpless. Anger is just the easiest emotional response for him to go to, and it's why he reacts with anger to a lot of the things he goes through. Anger is an emotion he understands, so everything kinda feels like anger that he can keep pushing down.

Prisoner of Azkaban:

In PoA, we have a few interesting scenes showcasing Harry's anger really well. Some of the anger descriptions from this book are my favorite by far but we'll get to it.

This is the first book we start seeing Harry act out in anger. Until now, we saw Harry fuming inside but acting calm to the outside world. In PoA, he still mostly does that, but we start seeing him cracking under the weight of life. That bottle he's been filling up for years is close to it's threshold.

just as Uncle Vernon burst out of the dining room, his trouser leg in bloody tatters. “COME BACK IN HERE!” he bellowed. “COME BACK AND PUT HER RIGHT!” But a reckless rage had come over Harry. He kicked his trunk open, pulled out his wand, and pointed it at Uncle Vernon. “She deserved it,” Harry said, breathing very fast. “She deserved what she got. You keep away from me.”  He fumbled behind him for the latch on the door. “I’m going,” Harry said. “I’ve had enough.”

(PoA, Ch2)

This above has Harry acting rashly and impulsively in anger. He is ready to just up and go in a moment of rage with little to no forethought which isn't how Harry usually operates. Aunt Marge and Vernon just made him reach his tipping point. Some of that anger has spilled out and Harry's acting out because he doesn't know what else to do.

This is a kid who up to this point never even had the chance to grieve his dead parents properly. He never got to just sit there and feel any of what he's going through. He just keeps swallowing it down and here, we see him start to slip. What he's been pushing down is starting to become too much.

I will note that still, even when he is more brash and angry here, he isn't shouting. He's speaking calmly and evenly even as he's raging inside.

I also want to note the situation with Hermione over the Firebolt:

Professor McGonagall turned on her heel and carried the Firebolt out of the portrait hole, which closed behind her. Harry stood staring after her, the tin of High-Finish Polish still clutched in his hands. Ron, however, rounded on Hermione. “What did you go running to McGonagall for?” [...] Harry knew that Hermione had meant well, but that didn’t stop him from being angry with her. He had been the owner of the best broom in the world for a few short hours, and now, because of her interference, he didn’t know whether he would ever see it again. He was positive that there was nothing wrong with the Firebolt now, but what sort of state would it be in once it had been subjected to all sorts of anti-jinx tests? Ron was furious with Hermione too.

(PoA, Ch11-12)

Harry is mad at Hermione, he has his reasons to be, but he understands why she did it. He is angry, but he's smart and empathetic and he knows Hermione. He knows she only wants him safe, he's still mad, but he doesn't shout at her like Ron does. He pushes his anger down because he doesn't want to upset her. He;s not as furious as Ron is.

In the early books, we see Ron stepping forward to curse Malfoy, shout at Hermione, or stop talking to Harry over the tournament. Ron's the one that is more hot-headed in the early books and springs to act in moments of anger while Harry tends to stay cool-headed (because he pushes his anger down). He is angry inside his head, but he stays calm outside and even stops Ron from going after Malfoy (eat slugs incident, Harry tried to stop him).

(I will note this might have to do with Ron having siblings. Letting your emotions out is a good thing. It is a good thing to tell people you are close to you are upset with them. Arguing with your siblings and shouting at them on occasion can even be healthy! It can keep you from creating grudges and getting bitter. It's not necessarily bad. It's just that Harry and Hermione didn't have siblings and don't know how healthy arguments between people who love each other (which is what Ron is going for with Hermione above) work.)

One of my favorite moments of Harry's anger in the series is everything to do with Sirius when he thinks he's guilty:

A hatred such as he had never known before was coursing through Harry like poison. He could see Black laughing at him through the darkness

(PoA, Ch11)

A boiling hate erupted in Harry’s chest, leaving no place for fear. For the first time in his life, he wanted his wand back in his hand, not to defend himself, but to attack . . . to kill. [...] “NO YOU DON’T!” roared Harry, and he aimed a kick at Crookshanks that made the cat leap aside, spitting; Harry snatched up his wand and turned — “Get out of the way!” he shouted at Ron and Hermione. They didn’t need telling twice. [...] Black was sprawled at the bottom of the wall. His thin chest rose and fell rapidly as he watched Harry walking slowly nearer, his wand pointing straight at Black’s heart. “Going to kill me, Harry?” he whispered. Harry stopped right above him, his wand still pointing at Black’s chest, looking down at him. A livid bruise was rising around Black’s left eye and his nose was bleeding. “You killed my parents,” said Harry, his voice shaking slightly, but his wand hand quite steady.

(PoA, Ch17)

This is the first occurrence we see Harry in a true rage. The kind of anger that pushes him to act impulsively and violently. Harry actually screams in rage.

It's not unreasonable, he thinks Sirius betrayed his parents, these same parents Harry never really got the chance to mourn. But Harry doesn't really shout when angry, he's quiet in his anger usually. But here he actually roars out. He demands Ron and Hermione move from his way, he kicks Crookchanks and goes to kill Sirius. Harry is acting completely from anger without really thinking or realizing what he's doing. This is the kind of rage where you see red and don't really know what you're doing until you're doing it.

I love how he describes it: "coursing through Harry like poison". It's just such a visceral description for a very visceral emotion. This isn't Harry's usual anger, this is rage, this is beyond his usual anger. It's the type of anger most fans associate with him because of OotP. This uncontrolled rage that pushes him to be impulsive is a trauma response. It comes up when Harry is at an emotional low. When there's too much, when he feels to many things and he can't handle them all so he lashes out in anger.

In this case, Harry is facing the man he believes sold out his parents, who trusted him, of course, he's angry and betrayed. Of course, it's different from the anger he feels when Snape is being a dick. It is different. It's rage, and grief, and fear, and pain, and it's a cry for help.

Harry has an impressive capacity to bottle up his emotions, but from book 3, we see him teetering on the threshold. And it just gets worse from here (like his experiences in the books).

Goblet of Fire:

GoF is a rough year, and Harry is very angry throughout this year. Still, we see his usual "cold anger" not his rage. He's angry inside his head, we see it, but he doesn't act out on any of it, nor does he even say anything about it. He's bottling it all up. If we weren't reading his thoughts, we probably wouldn't have these gems of anger:

Harry’s ears were ringing. The injustice of it made him want to curse Snape into a thousand slimy pieces. He passed Snape, walked with Ron to the back of the dungeon, and slammed his bag down onto the table. Ron was shaking with anger too — for a moment, it felt as though everything was back to normal between them, but then Ron turned and sat down with Dean and Seamus instead, leaving Harry alone at his table. On the other side of the dungeon, Malfoy turned his back on Snape and pressed his badge, smirking. POTTER STINKS flashed once more across the room. Harry sat there staring at Snape as the lesson began, picturing horrific things happening to him. . . . If only he knew how to do the Cruciatus Curse . . . he’d have Snape flat on his back like that spider, jerking and twitching. . . .

(GoF, Ch18)

Harry felt oddly separate from everyone around him, whether they were wishing him good luck or hissing “We’ll have a box of tissues ready, Potter ” as he passed. It was a state of nervousness so advanced that he wondered whether he mightn’t just lose his head when they tried to lead him out to his dragon, and start trying to curse everyone in sight.

(GoF, Ch20)

Harry spends a good chunk of GoF wishing he could curse Snape, other students, and even Ron occasionally. He feels helpless and that makes him angry. But he doesn't actually curse anyone. He doesn't even sass Snape in the above example, he just glares.

But you'll notice, again, the way he handles his anger/other issues is not really about mastering the emotion and letting it go. No, Harry just holds that anger in. He never learned to let it go, so all the times, his anger came off as cold and chill to others; it's because Harry's keeping a lid on things. By GoF, Harry can barely keep the cap on:

From the moment the article had appeared, Harry had had to endure people — Slytherins, mainly — quoting it at him as he passed and making sneering comments. “Want a hanky, Potter, in case you start crying in Transfiguration?” “Since when have you been one of the top students in the school, Potter? Or is this a school you and Longbottom have set up together?” “Hey — Harry!” “Yeah, that’s right!” Harry found himself shouting as he wheeled around in the corridor, having had just about enough. “I’ve just been crying my eyes out over my dead mum, and I’m just off to do a bit more. . . .” “No — it was just — you dropped your quill.” It was Cho. Harry felt the color rising in his face.

(GoF, Ch19)

And so we get scenes like the above. Harry is walking around like a powder keg waiting to explode. He has been bottling his frustration and anger all his life, he comes off as chill not because he manages it well but because he hides it. He makes his voice steady and quiet because it's what he learned at the Dursleys, but it's not that the anger disappears, he holds onto all of it. That's why the worse the situation is, the worse Harry's anger is. He doesn't have the capacity to push it all down.

And this is why he occasionally starts blowing up in GoF. The more helpless and frustrated he is, the more his bottle is filled and he just can't handle it beyond a certain point.

Order of the Pheonix:

OotP is Harry at his angriest. If I wanted to copy all the qoutes from this book that show Harry's anger, I'd probably have to copy the whole book. As it is, I've hand-picked a few examples:

“SO YOU HAVEN’T BEEN IN THE MEETINGS, BIG DEAL! YOU’VE STILL BEEN HERE, HAVEN’T YOU? YOU’VE STILL BEEN TOGETHER! ME, I’VE BEEN STUCK AT THE DURSLEYS’ FOR A MONTH! AND I’VE HANDLED MORE THAN YOU TWO’VE EVER MANAGED AND DUMBLEDORE KNOWS IT — WHO SAVED THE SORCERER’S STONE? WHO GOT RID OF RIDDLE? WHO SAVED BOTH YOUR SKINS FROM THE DEMENTORS?” Every bitter and resentful thought that Harry had had in the past month was pouring out of him; his frustration at the lack of news, the hurt that they had all been together without him, his fury at being followed and not told about it: All the feelings he was half-ashamed of finally burst their boundaries. Hedwig took fright at the noise and soared off on top of the wardrobe again; Pigwidgeon twittered in alarm and zoomed even faster around their heads. “WHO HAD TO GET PAST DRAGONS AND SPHINXES AND EVERY OTHER FOUL THING LAST YEAR? WHO SAW HIM COME BACK? WHO HAD TO ESCAPE FROM HIM? ME!” [...] Harry was not sure his anger had abated yet; but his thirst for information was now overcoming his urge to keep shouting. He sank onto the bed opposite the others.

(OotP, Ch4)

There are two aspects I want to note about his anger here. Harry, as I mentioned above, even when he is mad at Ron and Hermione, he usually doesn't shout at them like this. This is Harry way past his threshold, traumatized with no idea how to handle any of the emotions he's feeling. Ron and Hermione are getting the brunt of that bottle exploding here.

And Harry has a good reason to be angry with them here, don't get me wrong. Harry usually has really good reasons to be angry. I'm just noting that he would have held back his anger if he wasn't in the worst emotional state we've seen from him up to this point. If he had the capacity in his bottle of emotions, Ron and Hermione wouldn't even know he was upset with them.

The other thing I want to bring up is the second section from the above quote. After Harry lets out a bit of the steam he's been building up for years by this point he swallows it down and caps it again because he wants information. He's still angry, he's still upset, but he holds his tongue to get information. He still doesn't feel free or capable of explaining why he's feeling what he's feeling. A lot of it isn't just anger at Ron and Hermione. It's everything. And he has no idea how to parse what he's feeling.

Like I mentioned in the past, Harry doesn't like showing weakness, he doesn't tend to act emotionally or rashly because he knows how people see it. But he isn't actually letting go of all that anger, he lets it build up:

“Harry?” said Hermione tentatively. “Well done,” said Harry, so heartily it did not sound like his voice at all, and still not looking at her. “Brilliant. Prefect. Great.” “Thanks,” said Hermione. “Erm — Harry — could I borrow Hedwig so I can tell Mum and Dad? They’ll be really pleased — I mean, prefect is something they can understand —” “Yeah, no problem,” said Harry, still in the horrible hearty voice that did not belong to him. “Take her!”

(OotP, Ch9)

And up.

He just keeps pushing his anger down. If Sirius hadn't noticed and told him that he and James weren't prefects either, Harry would've kept stewing in it. Because he wouldn't have told Ron and Hermione he was jealous because he doesn't really tell anyone shit. He just lets it build:

“Oh, shut up, the pair of you,” said Harry heavily, as Ron opened his mouth to argue back. Hermione and Ron both froze, looking angry and offended. “Can’t you give it a rest?” he said. “You’re always having a go at each other, it’s driving me mad.” And abandoning his shepherd’s pie, he swung his schoolbag back over his shoulder and left them sitting there. He walked up the marble staircase two steps at a time, past the many students hurrying toward lunch. The anger that had just flared so unexpectedly still blazed inside him, and the vision of Ron and Hermione’s shocked faces afforded him a sense of deep satisfaction. Serve them right, he thought. Why can’t they give it a rest? . . . Bickering all the time . . . It’s enough to drive anyone up the wall. . . .

(OotP, Ch12)

And keeps snapping at everyone becouse he doesn't have a handle on his emotions. He doesn't really process what he's gone through/going through and he's lashing out.

Harry's anger in OotP is the powder keg blowing. It's why he's more rash, more vocal, actually screaming at people in a way he hasn't before. It's why we see him lose control of himself in anger more than before:

Harry was not aware of releasing George, all he knew was that a second later both of them were sprinting at Malfoy. He had completely forgotten the fact that all the teachers were watching: All he wanted to do was cause Malfoy as much pain as possible. With no time to draw out his wand, he merely drew back the fist clutching the Snitch and sank it as hard as he could into Malfoy’s stomach — “Harry! HARRY! GEORGE! NO !” He could hear girls’ voices screaming, Malfoy yelling, George swearing, a whistle blowing, and the bellowing of the crowd around him, but he did not care, not until somebody in the vicinity yelled “IMPEDIMENTA!” and only when he was knocked over backward by the force of the spell did he abandon the attempt to punch every inch of Malfoy he could reach. . . .

(OotP, Ch19)

Because he reached his limit of how much he can bottle up and he has no healthy means of letting any of it out. The D.A. helped a little as a distraction, it helped him feel less helpless, but he only just addressed the traumatic experience he had in the graveyard by talking about it when more just kept getting piled up onto him.

“Harry — no!” cried Lupin, but Harry had already ripped his arm from Lupin’s slackened grip. “SHE KILLED SIRIUS!” bellowed Harry. “SHE KILLED HIM — I’LL KILL HER!”….. [...] Hatred rose in Harry such as he had never known before. He flung himself out from behind the fountain and bellowed “Crucio!” Bellatrix screamed. The spell had knocked her off her feet, but she did not writhe and shriek with pain as Neville had — she was already on her feet again, breathless, no longer laughing. [...] “Never used an Unforgivable Curse before, have you, boy?” she yelled. She had abandoned her baby voice now. “You need to mean them, Potter! You need to really want to cause pain — to enjoy it — righteous anger won’t hurt me for long — I’ll show you how it is done, shall I? I’ll give you a lesson —”

(OotP, Ch36)

Running after Bellatrix was an impulsive decision. It's that same rage that overtook Harry to kick Crokshanks and try to kill Sirius. It's that seeing red sort of rage that encompasses everything. Grief overflowing Harry's emotional bottle and all he knows how to react with — is anger.

Harry, as I mentioned in the past, doesn't cry in front of others. He doesn't let himself. and the emotions gotta get out somehow. For Harry, that somehow is anger.

Half-Blood Prince:

After Sirius' death, Harry is much rawer. He basically starts this book beyond his threshold.

“If there’s anyone else here who’s not from Gryffindor,” roared Harry, who was starting to get seriously annoyed, “leave now, please!”

(HBP, Ch11)

So he gets annoyed more easily. He lashes out and shouts more often. He tries to physically attack more often too:

“Another ten points from Gryffindor,” said Snape. “I would expect nothing more sophisticated from you, Ronald Weasley, the boy so solid he cannot Apparate half an inch across a room.” “No!” whispered Hermione, grabbing Harry’s arm as he opened his mouth furiously. “There’s no point, you’ll just end up in detention again, leave it!”

(HBP, Ch21)

Something he didn't do up until OotP and even then rarely. Harry is hot-headed not because he's easy to anger (again, his capacity for bottling up is impressive if he just seriously started lashing out in GoF), most of his grievances are reasonable, he's hot-headed becouse he's suffering and has no idea how to handle it.

“Just now!” said Harry, who was refraining from yelling with enormous difficulty. And then, suddenly, he could not stop himself. “AND YOU LET HIM TEACH HERE AND HE TOLD VOLDEMORT TO GO AFTER MY MUM AND DAD!” Breathing hard as though he was fighting, Harry turned away from Dumbledore, who still had not moved a muscle, and paced up and down the study, rubbing his knuckles in his hand and exercising every last bit of restraint to prevent himself knocking things over. He wanted to rage and storm at Dumbledore, but he also wanted to go with him to try and destroy the Horcrux; he wanted to tell him that he was a foolish old man for trusting Snape, but he was terrified that Dumbledore would not take him along unless he mastered his anger. ... “Harry,” said Dumbledore quietly. “Please listen to me.”

(HBP, Ch25)

Again, he snaps and shouts way more than before. And he knows he shouldn't, he knows it comes off bad and people take him less seriously when he's angry and lashing out, but he can't help it as much since he still hasn't started letting go. He's still at his threshold all throughout HBP.

It's why we see him react the way he does after Snape kills Dumbledore, too. He was so angry all year. Since Sirius died, he's been running on fumes. The keg already blew in fifth year, and it didn't help him at all while he's barely holding himself together (but no one else sees this). And then, he had more pushed onto him after he already had less than zero capacity to deal with things.

Deathly Hallows:

Much of the anger we see from Harry in this book is due to either the locket or the Horcrux in him, but I'm not counting that sort of anger. I want to focus on Harry's anger.

The grief that had possessed him since Dumbledore’s death felt different now. The accusations he had heard from Muriel at the wedding seemed to have nested in his brain like diseased things, infecting his memories of the wizard he had idolized. Could Dumbledore have let such things happen? Had he been like Dudley, content to watch neglect and abuse as long as it did not affect him? Could he have turned his back on a sister who was being imprisoned and hidden? Harry thought of Godric’s Hollow, of graves Dumbledore had never mentioned there; he thought of mysterious objects left without explanation in Dumbledore’s will, and resentment swelled in the darkness. Why hadn’t Dumbledore told him? Why hadn’t he explained? Had Dumbledore actually cared about Harry at all? Or had Harry been nothing more than a tool to be polished and honed, but not trusted, never confided in? Harry could not stand lying there with nothing but bitter thoughts for company. Desperate for something to do, for distraction, he slipped out of his sleeping bag, picked up his wand, and crept out of the room.

(DH, Ch10)

Harry's feelings of grief over Dumbledore are interwind with betrayal, helplessness, and feeling lost in general, and he feels all of it as anger. As I mentioned above, anger is Harry's go-to emotion when he's grieving, when he's in pain, when he feels too much and has no idea what to do with any of it — it lands him in anger.

It's a big part of why he reads as so angry with Dumbledore throughout the book. He has complicated feelings about the man, feelings he has no idea how to even start to unpack, so he feels angry.

In DH too, we see him more easily agitated than in the first 4 books. Harry is way past his limit in this book, but he tries so hard not to show it. To keep that lid on (nevermind that it exploded two years ago).

“I’d never have believed this,” Harry said. “The man who taught me to fight dementors—a coward.” Lupin drew his wand so fast that Harry had barely reached for his own; there was a loud bang and he felt himself flying backward as if punched; as he slammed into the kitchen wall and slid to the floor, he glimpsed the tail of Lupin’s cloak disappearing around the door. “Remus, Remus, come back!” Hermione cried, but Lupin did not respond. A moment later they heard the front door slam. “Harry!” wailed Hermione. “How could you?” “It was easy,” said Harry. He stood up; he could feel a lump swelling where his head had hit the wall. He was still so full of anger he was shaking. “Don’t look at me like that!” he snapped at Hermione. “Don’t you start on her!” snarked Ron. “No—no—we mustn’t fight!” said Hermione, launching herself between them.

(DH, Ch11)

He's shaking from anger. His voice is calm and quiet like his usual response for hiding his anger, but he can't fully hide it. His body gives him away becouse he feels so much of it.

Harry was 100% right to call Lupin out, but I think the ruler way he did it was because he's suffering. He's in emotional turmoil, and twisting his words like a knife, in a way he knew would hurt Lupin, made him feel a little better. It let him take some of that anger out. It is a form of lashing out.

Him snapping at Hermione after and being ready to fist fight Ron is an extension of this lashing out. Harry, when at his limit, lashes out in anger becouse it's all he really knows how.

(He needs a better grieving method. He needs a fucking hug and for someone to tell him he's allowed to cry. He needs a good cry. I think it's why he's calmer after going to Godric's Hallow. He cried a little, grieved his parents, truly, for the first time in his life, and it helped him let some of his pain out in a healthier way)

“It’s not a case of what you’ll permit, Minerva McGonagall. You time’s over. It’s us what’s in charge here now, and you’ll back me up or you’ll pay the price.” And he spat in her face. Harry pulled the Cloak off himself, raised his wand, and said, “You shouldn’t have done that.” As Amycus spun around, Harry shouted, “Crucio!” The Death Eater was lifted off his feet. He writhed through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain, and then, with a crunch and a shattering of glass, he smashed into the front of a bookcase and crumpled, insensible, to the floor. “I see what Bellatrix meant,” said Harry, the blood thundering through his brain, “you need to really mean it.”

(DH, Ch30)

Still, things just keep getting added onto his plate. How I see Harry's anger is why I don't think the above scene is out of character for him. His anger fueling the curse isn't just about Amycus spiting at McGonagall. It's about how they tortured Neville, Ginny, and Luna. About his year on the run. About Dobby's death. About him being forced into a position he feels he wants ready for and has no idea what to do. This is years of feeling angry and helpless coming to ahead.

Amycus didn't suffer just for that one crime of his. Spitting on McGonagall just happened to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

To Summerise:

Harry isn't really good at managing his anger, or any other emotion really. He bottles it all up. His frustration, fear, grief, anger, helplessness, and pain all go together into Harry's little box of feelings so he can do whatever he needs to do and appear calm and quiet. It's why we see Harry fuming and boiling with rage inside his head while he's externally calm and cold and composed.

This lid he keeps on everything starts breaking as the emotions keep getting bottled up and he keeps not really processing them. So in GoF Harry is teetering on his very impressive threshold and then, after the graveyard, he breaks.

He suffered so much all at once and then was left alone to stew at the Dursleys for a whole month, suffering from nightmares and having no idea how to process any of what he's been through. Of course, he fucking breaks in OotP.

And when Harry breaks, all these emotions he kept down come out as anger. The reason he reacts so dramatically to smaller offenses post-OotP isn't that he's easy to anger, he really isn't. It's just that he has accumulated pain and grief from 14 years of trauma and abuse that are just now being let out in the form of Harry angrily lashing out.

So, I wouldn't say his anger management is amazing, but his problem isn't really the anger itself, it's emotional regulation in general. He needs to learn to deal with his emotions instead of bottling them up. If he does, he probably won't have any issues with anger management and would just sass his way through life.