#how weirdly uniting it is to know how many others have felt this before. i am not the first and sadly wont be the last

[warmthpdf]

sending love to everyone else who finds the holidays through to the end of year period hard to get through, i wish we were the ones having a big warm dinner together ♡

[gilbirda]

Friendly neighborhood vigilante. Chapter 21

BatmanxDP crossover. JasonxJazz

[Read on AO3] [Read on FF.net]

Based on this post

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“I’m so sorry.”

“I’m fine.”

“Your ankle is twisted.”

“Is not that bad,” Jazz said for the tenth time. And it really wasn’t, she had worse before, and it would be healed in a few days, tops. She wasn’t in top condition since she had to share her last dose of ectoplasm with him; but that didn’t mean she would let a sprained ankle bother her so easily.

“Are you sure you are okay? Jason is an absolute unit.”

“Hey.”

“What? You know it’s true!”

Dick nodded at Tim. “I almost broke my back trying to carry him piggyback once.”

“Really?” Jazz looked up from where Alfred was kneeling with the first aid supplies. She had already tried to insist she could deal with it herself and had been ignored twice. “Are there photos of that?”

“Sadly, no.”

“Damn.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be on my side?”

Jazz turned to smile at her boyfriend, not-that-secretly enjoying his slightly pink cheeks.

“Hmm?”

Everyone turned to look at Alfred when he hummed. The butler was frowning, eyes fixed on Jazz’s right foot — not in her red and swollen ankle he was about to bandage, but on one of her toes. It was crooked and stood out next to the other perfectly aligned ones.

Oh. Right.

“What happened?”

Jazz felt a bit crowded when the siblings leaned in to see her foot. She could feel their eyes scrutinizing her feet, and she never felt more self conscious before. She could have painted her toenails, at least, but she didn’t find time to do so before the dinner.

“I broke my toe a long time ago.”

Dick wore what she had come to understand was his “that’s nice” smile. She had seen him use it many times during gymnastics class, when he definitely had some comments to say but bit his tongue and said “that’s nice” instead. He had used it with her a few times, but she didn’t hold it against him.

“It didn’t heal fine.” Tim beat him to the comment. Jazz expected it, and sighed.

She gathered her thoughts as Alfred carefully twisted her foot this and that way, not upsetting her injured ankle.

“I was… eight? Ten? I think I was ten years old. I ran upstairs a bit too fast and stumbled with the last step and broke it.” She fixed her eyes on her feet when she continued: “I thought — It was just one toe. I thought I could power through and it would heal on its own.”

Someone tensed. From the corner of her eye she saw Bruce shuffle closer. She didn’t miss his troubled eyes as she ranted about her childhood back at the dinner table.

“Your parents didn’t take you to the hospital?” He asked, trying very hard to mask his horror and disappointment. Cute, but unnecessary.

“They would have, if I had told them.” Why did she get weirdly defensive, even after all these years? “But I knew I couldn’t afford the hassle of getting a toe splint and the bed rest. Danny — We had to eat. The house wouldn’t run by itself.”

Jazz had time to reflect and address how unfair it was for her to assume that role so young. She didn’t help either, trying so hard to be treated like an adult and shoehorning herself into the parenting position; but her parents gave up control to her too easily and faster than what should have been legal.

“So you walked around with a broken toe? For months?”

She didn’t look at Jason, but nodded in response. Memories of the pain coming back to her mind. It hurt so much. It really, really hurt, but she just couldn’t give up. Giving up meant not eating. Meant her grades slipping and having the school call her parents. Meant worrying Danny.

“At the time I was dealing with a lot of pain. It wasn’t until we discovered the long lasting effects of ecto contamination that we realized that the pain Danny and I experienced for the best part of our childhood and adolescence was the ectoplasm changing us from the inside out. I thought it was just growing pains. So I just… ignored it all and moved on.”

It truly was how she lived her life, huh? Ignore the pain and power through. That’s how she dealt with things when she was a kid, how she did during highschool. How she managed to just adapt and give up her dreams so she could become Danny’s pillar and support during the preparation to be King. How she came out in one piece after fighting at his side for so long.

She had always been such a hypocrite — advocating for staying in touch with your inner child, to address mental health, while ignoring her own. Nagging and pushing Danny to not let things accumulate and talk about them with her or with his friends.

And when it was about her? Power through. Ignore. She would have time to work through it later.

A soft touch on her shoulder brought her back to the moment. She breathed out slowly, looking into the eyes of the one person she knew would poke her until she admitted she wasn’t as fine as she thought, and sit with her as she worked through her thoughts.

“I’m okay.” She told Jason with a little smile.

And truly, she was.

Someone cleared their throat, and Jazz jumped, feeling her cheeks burn. Oh, Ancients. She hoped she hadn’t been staring at his eyes for too long.

By the quiet snickers and how the group that had formed around her dispersed, she assumed she did. How embarrassing!

“In any case,” she tried to get back some of her dignity, “that’s the story why the toe looks weird. It healed wrong but,” she shrugged, not really wanting to dwell on that.

“Well,” Alfred continued after a brief tense silence, “we may not have recent pictures of Jason at hand, but I know where the old albums are stored. If you want to see.”

Old albums? As in, Jason when he was a kid?

Jazz perked up at the thought — he must have been such a cute kid! — but looked to check on him if it was okay. Jason was very private and he didn’t talk much about his days at the Manor.

He looked… relaxed? He was lifting an eyebrow and looking at Bruce with a little smile. “I didn’t know you kept the pictures.”

The other man looked a bit tense. “I keep all the pictures of my kids.”

“Awww,” Stephanie leaned over where she was resting over Tim and Bernard’s laps on the other sofa, arching her back to look at Bruce upside down. “Even mine?”

“You are not one of my children, as you like to remind me every day.” Bruce said with a tired sigh, but that made it obvious he was joking.

“Damn right.”

Jazz giggled, a numbing cream Alfred was applying on her ankle tickling her a little. She stayed put as he bandaged her ankle with practiced moves, with just enough compression to support her injured ankle but not enough to cut her blood flow. Jason mentioned that Alfred usually patched them up after patrol.

“Thank you.” She said to the butler when he was done, a conversation about “baby pictures” and half hearted threats flowing around the room.

Alfred smiled at her, softly patted her foot and then gathered the first aid kit stuff and left quietly.

“Picture time!”

Jazz had little time to prepare before Dick dropped a thick album on her lap and sat down on her free side, opening the album on the first page.

The pictures were old and some were shaky and off-focus. They had this homey feeling that reminded her of the days before her parents became obsessed with the portal and family time took a backseat in their lives.

They watched her thumb through the pages and answered questions about the pictures — mostly Bruce, Dick and Alfred — and tried to not crowd her too much. Jason kept himself distanced from the situation, maybe to give her space too, maybe to be able to watch her react to the stories and the pictures of a faraway past. Jazz was polite and showed genuine interest, laughing at the memories with the rest of the group.

Soon they got to the pictures that featured the second addition to the family. Everyone breathed in relief when any reaction from the estranged family member was overshadowed by their guest’s high-pitched squeal.

“So cute!” She murmured, hand hovering over a picture with a much younger Jason covered in bandaids and glaring daggers at the camera.

“It was shortly after he arrived at the manor,” Alfred supplied the information, “and young master Jason didn’t like posing for pictures.”

Her cheeks colored pink, eyes fixed on the picture of a frowning child with curly hair. They watched in silence as she went through the pictures of her boyfriend, wondering what she was thinking. Back then Jason was a completely different person, did she notice the differences? Did she mourn the kid that he was? The man he could have been?

Jazz turned the page and a pile of pictures slid down the album. Jason was the fastest, picking up everything before it hit the floor.

They were Batman and Robin pictures.

“Oh shit,” Tim grumbled, trying to reach for the pictures, “forgot those were there.”

Jason moved his hand, and the pictures, out of his reach.

“I thought I told you to remove them, Master Timothy.” Alfred’s disappointment was perceptible, but his worried glances at Jason’s face minimized the impact.

Everyone held their breath as the man looked at the pictures, smiled, and showed the one at the top of the pile to everybody.

“I forgot how ugly the old uniform was.”

Jazz yanked the picture from his hand and held it close to her chest. “Don’t say that!” She reached for the rest of the pictures. “I liked it.”

“But that’s because you were a groupie.”

“You were a Robin fan?” Bernard jumped at the opportunity to keep the mood light.

“A me fan!” Dick smirked, flipping his hair like a diva. “Our dearest Jasmine was the club president for years!”

“Just two.” She grumbled, face red as a tomato. “And yes, I may or may not have been a Nightwing fan —”

“But you said—”

“I know what I said!” Jazz huffed, keeping her eyes on the pictures. The Robin in those pictures was Dick, given the wavy hair parted on the side. And the giant smile on his face, showing his dimples. “This is so embarrassing.”

“And yet you keep looking.” Did Jason focus on messing with her to ignore everything else? He was as calm and collected as he had been during the whole evening.

“Robin pictures have always been very difficult to come by. Good quality ones, at least.”

Tim smirked, pleased. “Some of my best work, if I do say so myself.”

“These are yours?”

“Yep,” he popped the ‘p’, “although I didn’t catch Dick until his last few months as Robin.”

Jazz hummed in response, eyes still focused on the pictures. “The resemblance is uncanny.” She murmured.

“With?”

“Danny, my brother.” She smiled up at Dick. “He dressed up as Robin one Halloween. Costume was really good, my parents bought the good quality stuff.” She chuckled. “I threw the biggest fit ever — Danny didn’t even like Robin! He thought he was lame and not as cool as Superman. But it was what my parents got him and everyone at school told him he could pass as the real thing; and well, he caved and didn’t give it to me.”

“You wanted to be Robin?” Dick asked, amused.

“Yeah! I was sooo mad. ‘Girls can’t be Robin, Jazzypants’” She scoffed. “Of course my parents weren’t helpful.”

Stephanie hollered, not looking up from her phone screen. “Yeah, girls can’t be Robin. That’s absurd.”

“In the end I went as Wonder Woman, since I didn’t have time to get another costume.”

“You don’t like Wonder Woman?” Jason asked her.

“No, I like her just fine. It’s just—” she sighed, leaning on the backrest of the sofa, gathering her thoughts. “Robin, for me, was more than a celebrity. I was… Growing up, I felt so helpless. Everyday I ended up exhausted and wondering when it would end, counting the days until I turned eighteen and I could take my little brother and leave that house. I think —” her voice got tight for a moment, but she cleared her throat fast, “ — I think that I was a huge fan because Robin was such a capable hero while being a kid like me. If he could do so many amazing things then I could, too.”

Jazz was suddenly pulled into a muscular chest, arms squeezing her so hard she was about to beg for mercy when Dick finally let her go. “That was so nice to hear, my dear number one fan.”

She chuckled, unsure of what to say, feeling everyone’s eyes on her person after such an embarrassing speech. She patted the man’s forearms a few times before moving out of the hug.

“I don’t think I’ve ever shown you guys a picture of my brother. The one with the costume should be somewhere in my childhood house — I remember taking pictures that day — but, here.”

She pulled her phone out and went to the gallery app, quickly finding a selfie of her with Danny. It was at the Nasty Burger and was a bit old, about a year old, but it was safe to show it. No Realms business.

“Tim, he could be your clone.” Bernard murmured, eyes on Jazz’s phone.

Jazz giggled. “Doubt so. We would know”

“What?”

“What?” She answered Tim, a nervous smile on her lips. The other narrowed his eyes, pondering her words, but let it go.

“I can see what you mean about the resemblance,” Dick moved on, “and I’m sure you could have passed as Batgirl, with the red hair. Babs’ is a bit darker, but it’s close enough.”

“I thought about it the next year but Danny said he was ‘too old for trick or treating’ and I also didn’t see the point of spending money on an expensive costume and, well, life happened.” She sighed, going back to the pictures, maybe looking for one of Batgirl. “I should have insisted, who knows. Is in the past now.”

“I mean, if you want the suit, it’s in the basement.”

She gave Dick a look, raising an eyebrow. “No, thank you.”

Dick opened his mouth to insist but he choked with the words, watching Jazz pick the next picture on the pile, showing a much younger Robin. It was Jason, of course, who was pictured running and flying around Gotham’s rooftops.

Everyone watched Jason. Jason watched Jazz.

“You look weird without the white streak,” she smiled up at him, lifting a picture where the kid wearing the bright colored uniform was clear and in frame, placing it next to his scowling face. “Yeah, I think I like you more with the punk hairstyle.”

“It’s a death souvenir.” He said, trying to act nonchalant, but everyone noticed the slight tension in his jaw as he watched her reactions.

“Oh I know. I knew it wasn't dyed since that day in the elevator.” At his incredulous look she added: “I told you. I know death, buddy.”

He rolled his eyes, but picked up the pile of Robin pictures in her hands. Eyes somewhat distant, the now young man went through the pictures without really stopping at any of them.

"These are really good." He commented.

"Thanks…" All Tim got in response was a grunt.

Jazz leaned in to look at the pictures too, one of her hands softly placed on his without drawing attention to the gesture. Jason didn't comment on it either, choosing to continue looking at the pictures.

"Hm." He finally said. "The short pants were a mistake."

Bruce exhaled slowly, realizing he had been holding his breath. Jason looked calm enough, even after everything that happened. Was this a sign that things were going to get better?

“If you hated them so much then you should have changed them,” Jazz’s voice lacked actual bite, and her glare was playful.

“Didn’t have enough time to change anything.” He stopped at a picture where the little kid looked more adolescent. Maybe it was taken the year of his passing. “And I knew Dickolas would flip if I changed the outfit. He hated me—”

“I didn’t—!” Everyone jumped at Dick’s outburst. He shrunk in his seat. “I didn’t hate you,” he started again, softer, “I was mad at Bruce. I shouldn’t have misplaced my anger like that.”

Jason considered his brother for a few seconds, ignoring everyone’s stares, and nodded. Without any other comment, he turned towards his girlfriend and asked:

“What did you think about the second Robin? Wasn’t he also a child hero?”

Bruce didn’t know what hurt more; that he spoke of that child like he was a stranger, or that “hero” was obviously not Jason’s first choice of words.

Jazz snorted and looked down at the picture of a serious-looking fifteen year old Jason Todd wearing the Robin costume.

“I hated him.” She answered in the middle of a tense silence. “He wasn’t as funny.”

Bernard was the first one to break into incredulous giggles, shortly followed by Stephanie. The rest watched in horror, waiting for the trainwreck to happen, unsure what to do at their guest’s statement.

Jason blinked once, twice, and joined the laughter as he grasped Jazz’s face with one hand, squishing her cheeks.

“You are weird.”

“And I’m right. You weren’t as funny.” Her words were almost incomprehensible since she couldn’t move her jaw.

“What are you talking about? I’m hilarious.” He leaned in, pulling her towards him so their faces were very close. His smile wasn’t kind but the corner of his lip twitched with amusement. “You love my death puns.”

Jazz rolled her eyes. “I’ve heard every death joke under the Sun. You are not special.” She said as best as she could articulate.

Everyone saw the young man’s eyes travel down her face to her lips, and what was once a tense silence became charged with the obvious attraction between the couple. If there was ever a doubt they cared for each other, it was gone now.

But instead of kissing, he let her go and leaned back to his lounging position. Jazz chuckled and let her body fall so she could let her head rest on his shoulder. She picked up the picture, admired it for a few seconds and gave it back to Dick to put it with the others in the pile.

“Thanks for showing me these,” she gestured at the album. Whatever else she was going to say was drowned by a big yawn she hid behind her hand.

“I think—”

“You guys could stay the night.” Bruce interrupted Jason. He smiled nervously. “I mean, it’s late and,” he vaguely gestured towards Jazz’s bandaged foot. “Alfred could give you a lift tomorrow.”

It was easy to see through the attempt, even for those that knew Bruce the least.

“Everything is as you left it. Your room—”

“Are you fucking serious?”

“Or I can prepare a guest room immediately.” Alfred manifested out of thin air, having left during the picture time to tend to his duties.

Jazz looked up at her boyfriend’s face, worried. She picked his hand but stayed leaning on his side, maybe hoping her weight kept him grounded. Jason was very tense, and she could feel his breaths grow quicker and shallow.

“You can show me your room another day.” She muttered, unsure if it was the correct thing to say.

He looked down at her eyes, searching for something. Exactly what he wanted, she didn’t know; but Jazz held his gaze with determination, letting him know she would follow his lead with whatever option he chose. If he really didn’t want to stay, she was fine with riding back to their apartment with her injured foot.

Jason clicked his tongue and breathed deeply once. “My old room is fine. Just for tonight.”

Goodbyes were brief and hasty, the mood ruined after the uncomfortable exchange. Tim left with Bernard and Stephanie, since the couple was giving her a ride home, and Dick decided to stay the night as well. Duke made a tactical escape to his room with barely saying good night. Cass disappeared for a moment and came back wearing her pajamas, picking up Jazz’ bag and discarded shoe to bring back to Jason’s old room, leaving a spare pajama set for Jazz on the bed by Alfred’s orders.

Bruce watched all happen from his loveseat with a worried face. He glanced at Damian as he passed by with Titus behind him, both coming back from the dog's last walk of the day.

“They are staying the night?” His son asked when he approached, watching Jason pick up the young woman in his arms.

The older man smiled at her blushed face and embarrassed antics at being carried like a princess. “It seems so.”

Damian considered the situation and nodded, his thoughts concealed. Bruce was positive his youngest’s opinion of the new addition to the family changed during the evening; but he didn’t know how Damian felt regarding having Jason back. His son didn’t deal well with change, even less when it was regarding family dynamics, and he was worried about the whole situation.

For the moment everything seemed okay — Damian nodded again and went upstairs to his room without asking anything else.

And so, Bruce was left alone with Alfred.

“I like her.”

The butler hummed at his master’s words. “Shall I prepare a new suit, Master Bruce?”

That finally made the man laugh. “She’s not a vigilante, Alfred.” He said when he calmed down. “I wouldn’t drag her deeper into this life than she already is.”

Alfred gave Bruce a look, lifting one thin eyebrow, like he knew better but was biting his tongue.

---

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[shwarmii]

i just moved three boxes (two light and one heavy-for-me) to my car to take to the storage unit after a break and i AM SO BRAVE

context: i am still in the process of moving (un-moving? i am here, in a new residence, but i am surrounded by boxes and shit ugh) and i was very kindly gifted a storage unit by my parents since i down-sized so much (and my dad is a hoarder so he was very "YOU CAN'T GET RID OF YOUR BREAKFAST ISLAND CHAIRS JUST BC YOU NO LONGER HAVE A BREAKFAST ISLAND" even tho i got the three plush chairs for a total of $20 bc thrifting yay). but i couldnt supervise the movers (bc i was so wiped i was gonna throw up or faint if i didnt lay down and let them do whatever) and they apparently read like.. 2 or 3 of my labels and none of the rest. so they ignored so many that instructed them to put things in the storage unit. and i dont feel comfy calling them for a discount bc they had to deal with so much regarding me and my disability already (mainly: that i didnt finish packing before they got there. yeah. i did 2 or 3 all-nighters in a row just before they came, worked for weeks, and still couldnt do it all. best i could do was make them piles of the remaining stuff and go "please help")

but yeah, im quite disabled and sickly and i have muscle weakness, and i am spent FOR A DAY after a carrying a single case of Arrowhead water from my car to my personal cart to my apartment, so you can imagine the havoc a medium-to-large Costco Box of board games is apparently causing me

(read more is just more of me complaining about boxes, ft. me breaking down how my internalized ableism skews my pov of how difficultly heavy things are by using my little sister for comparison)

i was so shaky after, it sucked so bad. im so glad my storage unit has carriers by the door so i dont gotta haul that shit long-distance anymore. my body is so disregulated, jfc, that box felt like it might as well have been 50 lbs but i know for a fact it was on the heavier side of "light". bc my little sister helped me out with the worst of my heavy boxes a week or so ago (aka: my book boxes. bastards were the heaviest thing by far bc i have a concept art book collection and those books are weirdly shaped and hardcover and even just five of them is heavy enough for me to struggle. though, in my defense, i had a physical therapist test my muscle strength and she openly said "Oh, god, that's not good" lmao rip) and like.. my lil sister is an athlete, sure (and built like a model jfc she is so tall and dainty, hOW?? shes got muscle mass but its so stretched out that she looks like she doesnt have much. but bitch works out for fun, runs at least a mile every morning before college classes, and does sports and dance for shits and giggles. and also she's STEM. beauty and brains. jfc, i love her, her future partner better worship the ground she walks on, i swear. but yeah, her favorite way to show love is acts of service and she likes doing physical labor, so when i asked for help all hesitantly and ready to bribe, she was like "Okay!!✨️" before i even finished and rejected any form of payment that was more than a starbucks frap. she's back in college on the other side of California now anD I MISS HER COMPANY.. AND ALSO HER MUSCLES...) but she truly carried all my book-boxes like they weighed as much as a handheld-basket of laundry

and i even asked her "Is that an okay weight? I can grab another cart, we can take as many breaks as you need, would you like a water, thank you so much for doing this, are you okay??" and she just laughed like a mix of Santa Claus and the blonde girl from Utena (/positive)

she was so fine with what she was carrying. the only reason she agreed to a cart was to make shit faster with less trips, but she didnt care about the weight of the boxes themselves. she even said "These aren't nearly as bad as you made them out to be!" (as bad = me telling her I couldn't lift them. i had to make the boxes and tower then ontop of one another and put a book in individually at a time. after they were filled, i could not lift those boxes at all). she openly found these boxes easy to deal with. they were about Office Depot File Cabinet size bc i worried using a BIG box for books would be truly unliftable. but yeah no she was fine. my sister was very open about it even and did a couple of tricks for the comedy of making me go "EY EY EY, BE CAREFUL, DONT HURT YOURSELF" and fuss over her

so. like. i know she'd be able to carry this board-game box i am currently struggling with, probably even one-handed if it wasnt for its awkward size of it which would necessitate she use two hands. and you might go "shwarmi, your sister is probably not an accurate representation of a person's strength, im sure those boxes were heavy, books are heavy, so are board games" and im like:

the book-boxes were likely heavy but mangeable for most people. the board game box was definitely heavy-end-of-the-"light" weight-spectrum. also, my sister is a great barometer for me because i am in F-tier, maybe D-tier on a good day, and she is A-tier. she is likely not S-tier, she isnt a body-builder, doesnt have obvious muscle definition, no a six-pack, no evident biceps or calfs, nothing. so most people are B- or C-tier. so she is actually a good litmus test for me, personally, because i see the strain on a B-/C-tier person and i spiral into thinking they feel like me when they DONT. so seeing my sister have no problems or strain beyond "this cart that your storage unit supplied sucks to steer!" makes my dumbass go "...ahhh, i see how different me struggling versus a B-/C-tier person struggling is now that i see my sister's limits and think of her proverbial Strength Stat as ridiculously high". i have a few other friends (and a brother, who teagically lives far away from me boo) who pride themselves on their strength that similarly make me do a double-take of "OOOOOOH.. oh, okay, my frame of reference has been righted, okay"

really brings to light a reminder that i still have a SHIT TON of internalized ableism. it is very hard rn to not kick myself for only doing three boxes in one trip today. my dumbass really wants to go "DO A NORMAL PERSON AMOUNT OF STORAGE MOVING" but, my comrade, i am not normal. i am disabled. i very physically weak. there is a reason why my loved ones and i make frequent jokes comparing me to "sickly Victorian ghost children" (hence why my @/playbychoices account had that John Mulaney quote as its blog-title for so long). i can do these three boxes today. hopefully, i can do the equivalent or more tomorrow, but i also could have another week-plus long flare-up like i did this past period before today. so. today. just three. very sadge. but alas, the way things do be

anyway

praise me for this stupid fucking board-games box. the other two were easy, even for me. one was even the same awkwardly medium-large Costco box but just had lighter shit inside. but the board game box??

shit sucked. im sitting next to an a/c with an ice-cold drink and my feet up, trying to get my likely-POTS-raddled body regulated back to a mangable level

but still

shit sucked

[sagefranklin]

Clearing the table and loading whatever dishes they'd used into the dishwasher seemed to take no time at all. For the toddler waiting on her, however, it must have felt like an eternity, because as soon as she made her way back into the living room, she could already tell the tiny blonde was feeling the late hour of the night, curled up in Yasemin's lap with her eyes drifting shut occasionally, despite trying her best to stay away to watch the cartoon that was playing on the woman's phone screen. "No cookies, that'll be a first," Sage spoke quietly back, a soft chuckling following as she recalled just how many cookies Maggie managed to consume during the holidays. Maybe skipping cookies for one night wasn't such a bad idea, God knows the toddler was probably still digesting the sugar from everything she'd eaten in the month of December.

"We should get her to bed, yeah?" The question was posted as though they were a unit, Sage not even realizing the phrasing until she met Yas' gaze and immediately flushed when it dawned on her just how weirdly normal this all felt. It was nice, to have someone around during a night like this, to have a second set of hands, someone to take care of the mundane little things like dinner and blanket forts and bedtime. It'd been a long time since she'd gone through these motions with someone else, but the other woman didn't need to be sucked into it, not yet anyway. Not if she didn't want to. "I mean, um... she should probably get to bed. I'll... get her to bed." Nodding, semi-happy with her correction, she bent down to press a kiss to Maggie's forehead before she scooped the little girl from Yas' lap into her arms. Maggie protested for a second before her arms and legs wrapped around her mom and her head rested lazily against her shoulder. Soon, Sage could hear the telltale heavy breathing of sleep and couldn't help the soft laugh that escaped her lips. "Warm soup always seems to do it... even if half of it didn't make it into her mouth."

@yasdogan

With an overexaggerated gasp, Yas pressed a hand to her chest and looked over at Maggie. "You're ditching me next weekend to go hang out with the coolest dad ever?" she asked the young girl teasingly, a wide smile quickly blossoming. "Just make sure you tell him that I make way better blanket forts, okay?" Admittedly, there was a twinge of sadness that the weekend coming up wouldn't be spent similarly to this one. While she knew it was insane to believe that they'd just happen upon each other every weekend and find a way to make excuses to spend time together, she wished that could be the case.

Attention shifting towards Sage as she mentioned booking herself a cabin, Yas bit at her lip before nodding a bit. "That's great. It's supposed to be pretty nice weather, so uh, yeah. That's really great." Tipping her wine glass back, Yas drained down the rest of it before setting it aside, the urge to start clearing the table taking over as her brain spiraled into thoughts of what the cabin in the mountains meant. It wasn't a secret that it was Valentine's weekend, which now had Yasemin's brain filled with thoughts that Sage had some romantic getaway planned with someone and this was her way of telling her that.

"Yeah, okay, if you're sure. I'll go make sure the little scamp in there doesn't take down the blanket fort," she managed to say back, pulling her thoughts away from what, exactly, Sage had intended by mentioning the cabin. Rather than dwelling on it, like she very much wanted to, Yas stepped back from the table to follow Maggie back to the living room. Keeping the toddler entertained was an easy enough ask, especially with so much fort to run around through. By the time Sage was back in from clearing the table, Maggie was practically falling asleep, curled up next to Yas watching Bluey on her phone. "I ah - don't think she's going to make it to cookies," Yas whispered towards Sage, not wanting to move much and disrupt the now calmed toddler.

@sagefranklin

[reids-rendering-reality]

Criminal Collar

Summary: Spencer meets Y/N’s ex-boyfriend and renowned criminal consultant for the White Collar Crime Unit of the FBI, Neal Caffrey.

(A/N: this is a cross-over between White Collar and Criminal Minds. There are no spoilers for WC and you don’t need to have watched it to read this. Also, I know I made Neal a little meaner than he is, but it fits better with my storyline oops)

Type: angst, with the end being fluffy and a little smutty

Warnings: mentions of criminal activity, insecurity, jealousy, making out

Word Count: 2.4K

Reader’s POV

I joined the BAU about one and a half years ago, after leaving the White Collar Crime Unit of the FBI. Honestly, I was kind of glad when Strauss requested my transfer and my new team suits me way better. Especially because I’ve started dating Dr. Spencer Reid 6 months ago and he makes me really happy. However, I guess luck wasn’t on my side this week.

Like it always is when things like this happen, it was a regular day at the FBI. I was working on some paperwork at my desk before JJ would brief us on the new case in half an hour. That was when Hotch appeared from his office.

“Y/L/N, can you come into my office?” he said looking down at me into the bullpen. When I just looked up at him confused for a moment, he continued “now, please.”

I got up slowly, exchanging a few worried glances with Spencer before walking into his office.

“Agent Burke from the White Collar unit has requested you to go downstairs and consult on a case,” Hotch said in his typical ultra-serious voice.

“Do you know what case this is? I am working on this team now,” I said, a little worried that I would have to return to the WCU.

“I don’t know. But don’t worry, you won’t be transferred again. Head down now, we’re leaving in an hour. Spencer will brief the case to you on the jet,” he said while mustering my anxious stance.

When I returned to the bullpen, I quickly organised my desk so that I could leave for the jet right away.

“What did he want?” Spencer asked, suddenly standing next to me which made me jump a little.

“WCU needs a consult on a case, but I’ll be back in time for take-off,” I said, avoiding his eyes and getting ready to leave for the elevator.

I walked past Spencer and didn’t turn around once, but I could feel his eyes on the back of my head. Not only his though, I felt the entire team stare me down as I disappeared into the hall.

 The rest of the week was relatively eventless – for the BAU at least. I gave Burke his consult on the case and headed to Texas with the others. The case was not too difficult or straining.

When we returned to the office, it wasn’t even late. It was midday, and everyone was chattering about happily in the elevator. But when the elevator doors opened, the mood shifted completely. Right there, in the bullpen, sitting at my desk, I saw a figure in a black fedora. My breath hitched and I could feel Spencer look over at me. When we exited the elevator, the figure turned around and revealed his face.

“Is that-“ Morgan began baffled.

“Neal Caffrey,” I finished a clear sour undertone to my voice. Both Morgan and Spencer looked at me weirdly. It was unusual for me to talk in this way, I don’t think they have ever heard it before.

I pushed open the glass doors and hurried away from the others towards the man sitting at my desk.

“Y/N/N! So nice to see you again,” he grinned up at me as I approached him. I could still feel the four pairs of eyes burning into the back of my head.

“Neal, what are you doing here?” I said, my voice even more furious than before. At the same time, my mind was racing about how I would explain all of this to Spencer and the others later.

“Can’t we just talk like we used to? I saw you in Burke’s office on Monday,” he said, still grinning and making no move to get out of the chair.

“Fine, come with me,” I walked away towards the conference room, hearing him following behind me in his typically slow and casual stride.

 Spencer’s POV

I felt my jaw being open during their entire interaction and quickly shut it as they entered the conference room.

“What was that all about?” Prentiss asked curiously.

“That’s Neal Caffrey, the criminal consultant down at the-“ I began to explain almost automatically.

“I know who he is, but how does he know Y/N and why is he here?” Prentiss interrupted me.

“Well, Y/N worked down at the WCU before she was transferred here. I heard a rumour from a friend that works there. Apparently, Y/N was dating him during her time there and when a case ended badly for them, they suspected that she couldn’t work there with him anymore. He did some scandalous things that not only endangered the reputation of their entire team, but also the entire FBI. Some say, Y/N was in on it and didn’t tell anyone. But after a couple of examinations, she was transferred here instead because Strauss thinks she’s invaluable to the FBI,” JJ explained to all of us.

“She dated a criminal? Damn, I never would’ve expected that from her,” Derek said and looked up to the conference room and then said a little more quietly, “quite a change in her type since she came here.”

I looked at him incredulously, before looking at my hands and fidgeting with them.

“Did you know about this, Reid?” Prentiss asked me.

“Me?” I looked up again, “What- uh- no, of course not!”

“How did you not know that your girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend is one of the most famous white-collar criminals?” Morgan asked.

“We haven’t really talked about that stuff,” I said quietly, “it’s not like I would’ve had anything to share.”

“So you’re telling me, you’ve never had the uncomfortable talk about exes with her? For a genius, you do not have a lot of experience with relationships,” Prentiss said, her tone almost joking.

“What do you think they’re talking about in there?” I tried to deflect the topic of conversation away from me while looking up at the conference room, where Neal was just closing the blinds.

 Reader’s POV

“So, why did you come here?” I asked, closing the door to the conference room behind me as Neal looked around.

“Surely you miss the WCU. This place is dark and gloomy. The cases are grim and the undercover operations aren’t nearly as glamorous. Plus, I’m not there,” he grinned at me. I couldn’t help but chuckle at his attempt at flirting with me.

“Cut the crap, I left the WCU for a reason. Don’t make me ask again: why are you here?” I could feel my annoyance rise.

“I’m here because of you. I just want to talk to you. We haven’t seen each other in so long, I wanted to catch up a little,” he paused, walking around the table, “you can’t tell me you haven’t missed me.”

“I haven’t,” I said.

Before I could continue to speak, Neal continued, “right. Like I would believe that,” he looked out the window into the bullpen where the team was standing, trying not to stare too obviously, “but then again, here’s that lanky boy. He keeps looking at you in a certain way. Is he your boyfriend?”

Neal glanced at me for a moment, before turning his attention back to the window and closing the blinds with a bright grin.

“That’s none of your business. My life is none of your business anymore. You put me in so much danger without even caring about the consequences. That’s why I transferred here. So please, just leave me alone.”

He now walked over me in casual strides. I mustered him, the memories resurfacing at the sight of him in that typical classy Italian suit, with a pin on his tie. He was always dressed so properly. But the way he behaved was just the opposite. Yet, a tiny little part of me looked at him and saw that attractive man that I had fallen in love with over the years working with him.

He stopped when he was standing right in front of me, brushing a strand of hair out of my face.

“Y/N, don’t you think it’s time to let that go? That was such a long time ago.. I’ve changed, you know?” he looked into my eyes with a sincerity that I would’ve believed one and a half years ago. But working at the BAU taught me a lot about reading people, seeing typical communication and manipulation strategies. I wasn’t falling for his lies anymore.

“Is that all you came here for, Neal? Trying to get me back? Because I won’t ever go back to you. I’ve moved on and I realised that dating you, to begin with, was a huge mistake,” I said with the most confident tone I could muster.

That last part wasn’t entirely true. While he did hurt me, my reputation, and everything I stood for repeatedly, he still was a part of me. We had been in a relationship for years. There were so many good times that I had to let go for my well-being.

To be convincing with my words, I walked past him, towards the door, “it’s time for you to leave.”

After a little bickering back and forth, he finally walked out of the BAU. I could see that the team had left, only Spencer was still sitting at his desk, working on some paperwork. He was waiting for me to go home together, just like always. The sight warmed my heart; Spencer was so good to me.

But of course, Neal wouldn’t just leave without a bang. Walking past Spencer’s desk, he stopped for a second and said, “take care of her. She obviously needs you to get over me.”

Spencer looked up at him with wide eyes as he spoke and didn’t even respond before Neal had left into the elevator. Spencer turned his head and looked up at me.

 We were on the way home to my apartment, just like always when we returned from a case. We sat there in silence, Spencer’s eyes focused intensely on the road as he was driving.

“Spencer?” I asked softly looking over at him. He just gave a tight-lipped hum in response.

“Can we talk? I assume you have questions, but you haven’t said anything yet.”

He cleared his voice before responding calmly and quietly, “I just didn’t want to discuss it at the office. There isn’t anything to talk about. I know about one of your exes now.”

“But what he said to you. And everything. It must-“ I huffed, “you look like it bothers you. Don’t you want to share what you’re feeling? Maybe I can help you process.”

Spencer gave me a quick glance, seemingly ignoring my concerned face with a cold expression.

“What do you want to hear? Do you want to hear how I keep thinking I’m not good enough for you, regardless of what happened today? How that just made me feel worse? Do you want to hear about how embarrassed I was when JJ told us that he is your ex-boyfriend and I, your current boyfriend, didn’t even know about it? Do you want to know about all the other things I’m imagining you hiding from me? How my mind is racing with all my insecurities that you already know about because I tell you things that bother me while you don’t?” he said, his voice getting louder and louder with each question while his grip on the steering wheel tightened.

“Do you want to know about how Morgan even commented on the fact that he is so different from me and your type has changed a lot? How do you think all that makes me feel? When it isn’t coming from you?” he continued angrily.

I didn’t know what to say. To be honest, I was a little speechless. I thought it would bother him, but not like this.

“See? That’s why I didn’t want to open up. It’s not like you have anything to say about it anyway,” he said, his tone ice-cold.

The rest of the car ride was silent. My mind was racing with things I could respond to him, but nothing came to mind. When we arrived at my apartment, I was surprised that he parked the car. I had assumed that after that speech he would just drop me off and go home alone.

Before I could move, Spencer had turned towards me and taken my hand into his gently.

“Can I come inside?” he asked softly, his demeanour completely different from before.

“Yes, of course, Spence,” I replied gently.

Upstairs in my apartment, we sat on the couch together.

“I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier. I’m just really bothered by it. He is everything I’m not. He is attractive, charming, has a good style, and even just muscles. He is-“ Spencer began, but I cut him off.

“and he is a criminal. Listen, Spence, I completely understand how you feel. But, behind his attractive mask, there is so much more, that just isn’t attractive. To me, his personality wasn’t attractive. He didn’t treat me well and only cared about himself. He only cared about the lifestyle he wanted to lead and he could never let go of his criminal past.”

Spencer just looked up at me from his hunched position with his big brown puppy eyes.

“Plus, just because he is attractive doesn’t mean you’re not. God, I think you’re so hot. Your face, your hair, those sweater vests. You’re completely different from him, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t attractive. And when you use that big brain of yours to solve cases and explain things, that no one else knows and that most people don’t even understand. I think you’re incredibly attractive. And your intelligence is very charming, and-,” I began to ramble about all the things I loved about him.

But before I could continue speaking he had grabbed my face and kissed me on the lips passionately. His lips moved against mine, as his hands entangled in my hair. I almost moaned into his mouth as his tongue found mine and my hands reached for the back of his neck.

When we pulled apart, he was breathless and said with a slight pant, “so you think I’m really hot, huh?”

And I didn’t know how to respond to that in any other way than to just slip onto his lap and kiss him again.

[theyreonlynoodlesmike]

Coin Toss (Star x Michael, Poly!Lost Boys x Michael)

Warnings: cursing, mentions of bloodlust

Word Count: 1.9k

A role reversal fic where Michael is a full vampire that spots a new girl on the boardwalk

When Star came to Santa Carla, she thought she knew what to expect. She'd lived in countless cities. She'd hitch-hiked up and down the entire west coast ever since she's left home the day she'd turned eighteen. She'd had nothing more than a suitcase full of necessities, the clothes on her back, and money she'd been saving since she’d gotten her working papers.

Now, that very same suitcase was tattered and patched up as best as it could be, and her most recent ride had wished her luck when they dropped her off in the beach-side town. For a trip with no exact destination in mind, it was as good as a place to stop as any. It was almost dark, and Star knew better than to accept rides after the sun set. So, she counted her cash, bought the cheapest room she could find, and began her search for a steady income. At least, for a few weeks. She knew that if the search turned out to be fruitless, she could always scalp a few townies with some of her less treasured possessions. They wouldn't know the difference between real vintage and fake if she slapped them with it, and most town folk were used to exuberant prices anyways. She could sell the ring off her finger for twenty-five bucks if she needed to, and, in 1987, that could, at least, get her food for a couple of days. 

Star also knew better than to entertain a distraction like a boy. She was supposed to be looking at the help wanted posters stapled to the bulletin boards, not catching a Jim Morrison look-alikes stare. 

He had a dark brown mullet and stubble dusting a cut jaw and a handsome face. He was wearing shades, even if it was nighttime. She'd only seen his eyes the second time she'd glanced over, and it'd only been a fraction of a second. She thought she'd felt someone staring, and she'd watched as he pulled them down his nose and how his lips curled up into a smug smile. She expected his eyes to be red and glassy, as that was the only reason she thought he'd need the shades. Instead, for a flicker of a second, she saw that they were clear and blue. While she was the one who had caught him staring, somehow he made her feel embarrassed. The flush rushing up to her cheeks caused her to quickly turn her head, her curls bouncing as she reached out to rip off the first piece of paper her hand made contact with. She didn't even register what it was as she tried to recover. 

He was obviously a biker, as the machine he sat on and his friends besides him gave it away. He was flanked with two on either side, and, while all of them were attractive, the middle brunette had caught her attention first. They were punks, or, at least, his friends were. The middle one only wore a t-shirt and jeans, with the only thing giving him a bit of an edge being the leather jacket he wore. She'd known both good and bad when it came to that type, and briefly recalled a biker gang that had given her a ride all the way from Oregon to Washington. And the others that were the reason she carried a knife in her bag. It wasn't the most impressive bike out of the line, as his bleach haired friend was sitting on a Triumph. But it was better than nothing, which was what she had. She glanced over at him once more, and caught his eyes again.

He'd kept his glasses down, and it seemed his eyes hadn't left her in the seconds she'd looked away. She could hear his friends jeering and racketing, but it almost seemed to fade as she really caught sight of those ocean blues. She watched as he clicked his jaw, an amused smile on his face, but Star almost registered none of it. She didn't even register the way his friend slapped his shoulder, or the fact that it wasn't just his attention that she'd caught now. The sounds and lights of the boardwalk almost seemed to fade away, and an almost foreign thought danced around in her mind. I should talk to him. If she was able to focus on anything, she would've noticed the oddness of the thought. Sure, she knew that she could have fun sometimes. But never the first night in a new place. Still, her feet were almost aching to step forward. She hadn't even noticed that the overly-packed boardwalk was weirdly sparse in this area. As if the locals knew better. Usually, a decision like this, and like most, was like throwing a coin in the air.

It wasn't until the brunette pushed his glasses up that she was able to pull her eyes away, and she glanced down at the paper in her hands. It was a missing poster, and, in her shock, she dropped it. It was enough to dispel the previous thought from her head, and she reminded herself of just how many missing posters she'd seen on her walk. She dared to cast the group of bikers one more glance, before she decided that, good or bad, she needed to keep her head down for awhile. 

***

"Swing and a miss, Mikey." Paul laughed besides him, and Michael scoffed as he readjusted his grip on his handlebars. They watched as the girl Michael had been trying to reel in walked away, getting swept up like a leaf in a current by the ever-moving stream of Santa Carla's crowd.

"You're getting better." David said to him from the other side of Dwayne, but Michael didn't want his encouragement. He wanted dinner. He'd been turned for over a month, and he still couldn't get mind-tricks to stick. The second he thought so, David said besides him, "It takes time, Michael." And he didn't know if it was the hand Dwayne put on his shoulder or those words that made him snap.

Michael was known to have a short fuse even before he became a blood-thirsty creature of the night. They remembered the first night how he'd punched David clear across his face. Vampirism didn't make his anger issues much better, and, even with some herbal supplement from Paul, Michael had a hard time keeping himself calm when his thirst was acting up. 

"Fuck that. I'll get her my way." He said, shaking off Dwaynes hand and nearly taking the handlebars with him when he pushed himself off his bike. The boys didn't even try to stop him. Michael was like a freight train at the best of times, and it was only by sheer luck that David was able to steer him in the right direction most of the time. As Michael walked off, Marko called,

"And what's your way, Michael?" And the brunette only replied with a single finger as he disappeared into the crowd. It earned a round of laughter, but David shook his head and sighed out a mouthful of smoke. 

"Maybe he'll learn." Dwayne said, his voice half hopeful. David shot him a look. He doubted it, but he didn't bother stating so. He crossed his arms, leaning forward on his bike. He could feel that Michael was out there, smell him, but he couldn't see him. He was lost to the crowd, and, unless he wanted to do a mental tap, they'd have to wait for him to return. With or without the girl. 

But it wasn't Michaels failure that bothered him. He and Michael, well- They had something. The same thing he had with the rest of the boys. And yet- he'd seen the way Michael had looked at her. David guessed that it wasn't just bloodlust propelling him forward, pushing him towards finding the girl. Perhaps it was a different kind of lust altogether. After a moment, he blew out another gust of smoke and said,

"Who knows? Maybe his way will work." And his tone was only slightly bitter.

***

"It's a ripoff." She turned, startled, and saw the boy from before. He'd pushed his glasses up and away from his face, and he smiled to reveal a row of pearly whites. She gave him a shy one in return as she asked,

"What?" And he pointed at the earring station. She'd been considering applying. While she hadn't used the machinery before, Star had steady hands and was a quick learner. He was backing away, just a few steps, and Star betrayed herself by following. 

"If you want your ear pierced, I'll do it." He offered, and Star let out a soft laugh at the suggestion. She watched as he flicked his own piercing, and Star tilted her head. Perhaps he was more of a punk than she thought. She pushed back her hair, revealing her already pierced ears.

"Should've asked me a few years ago." Star said, and she watched as the boys scoffed out a laugh. He shook his head, before he asked,

"What's your name?" And Star found herself smiling and giving it to him despite herself.

"Star." She answered, and the brunette gave her a smile. It was similar to the smile he'd given her on his bike. A certain level of smugness to it. Perhaps it didn't deter her as much as it should've. 

"I'm Michael. You lived here long, Star?" He asked, and Star tried not to think of the way her name sounded when he said it. Star looked ahead, her hands out in front of her. The boy was right besides her now, and she was almost positive that if she let her hands loose at her sides he would take the opportunity to brush their knuckles together. Maybe she wouldn't mind.

"A few days." More like a few hours. But she wasn't going to tell him that. Not if he turned out to be some psycho killer freak. 

"Staying long?" He asked, and she noted that he almost sounded hopeful. She decided to lie a little, and said,

"Maybe. I'm visiting some friends." She said, and he hummed. It was a half-truth. If she counted the ocean as a friend. When it came to human beings, she didn't know a single one on this side of the continental united states.

"Wanna make some more? Get something to eat?" And there it was. He'd slipped it in so seamlessly, she was almost impressed. Both had it's pros, both had it's cons. And she wouldn't really know all of them until the coin fell. She gave him a smile, and brushed her hair behind her ear. They'd been walking with no destination in mind, but she could see that they'd headed back exactly where she'd come. She could almost see his friends and their bikes.

As much as she needed to find a job- as much as she knew this was probably a bad idea- she never turned down a free meal. It definitely helped that there was something she liked about the boy. With the way he smiled at her, she could tell that he was probably thinking the same. When she looked into his eyes, she felt different than she has before. Nothing faded out, but she still felt the same flutter in the pit of her stomach. Maybe, just maybe, she'd stay in Santa Carla long enough to find out what it was. And just like that, the coin was caught. It was smacked on the back of her hand, and it was time to see which way she'd sway. It was time to call it. 

"Okay." 

[jessmalia]

(@jonismitchell I'm replying to this in reblog as to avoid the character limit)

Oooh, good question. I haven't read them in a while so I don't remember the details all that well. I do think overall they're way less good than PJO cause they're less cohesive, the themes aren't as strong and the seven main characters (plus Nico and Reyna) are a few too many to balance. That's why I enjoyed the first two books with the trios way more. I do like all of the characters, though, even if Riordan deciding to make them more diverse really made his shortcomings regarding writing groups he's not a part of, especially racial minorities, show. I'm white, though, so I'm not the authority on any of this. The main criticisms I've heard from other people actually a part of these groups is serious stereotyping of Latino men with writing Leo, giving the female characters of color Eurocentric features under the guise of godly genetics, using fetishising language like comparing their skin color to food (which I noticed on my Lightning Thief reread he did with Medusa too) and just a general inability to really ground the characters in realistic POC experiences. I'm sure there's more I'm not recalling or haven't heard of.

On things I can actually personally speak on, though, his villianzing of femininity goes up so much with Piper's chronic Not Like Other Girls syndrome and the villianizing of Drew Tanaka (the fandom has done a really good job of reclaiming Drew and rewriting her, though, which I'm happy about). I'm also not thrilled with how Nico is forcibly outed by Cupid, though I do really love the spotlight he gets in the books, since he was one of my favorite characters from PJO. And I do love that it is revealed that he's gay and in love with Percy (both for his personal journey and cause I was a big percico shipper when I was fourteen), I just wish it was handled a little differently. On that note, too, I think Percy was written out of character in their relationship, because he cared about him way less than in the main series.

The book I remember liking the most was the first one. I just loved the Piper/Jason/Leo friendship so much, I think they made a great trio. The second book was a bit lower on the list for me cause I liked the roman camp less and also that trio felt less united cause Percy spent so much time thinking about his old memories.

As for the remaining books, I remember liking Annabeth's quest, cause she's way less annoying when she's away from Percy. I also thought it was well written. I LOVED the Piper and Annabeth scene with Ares' and Aphrodite's sons Fear and Panic, cause the whole love and hate are very similar emotions thing and the contrast between Athena logic vs. Aphrodite feelings, and it made me quite a big Pipabeth shipper (the endgame in my head). I have mixed feelings on Percy and Annabeth in Tartarus, but I really wanna reread that part before I put an analysis out there. What I can say, though, is that I don't think it had the lasting effect it should've had. I also think the whole thing with Percy's loyalty fatal flaw was very weirdly payed off. Like, they did this whole thing building up how Percy was gonna screw up saving the world cause he had to save his friends and then in the end Leo's just kinda goes "No, let me sacrifice myself," and Percy's like "Okay, fine," so it didn't seem like it was that big of a problem lol. I think that was very much a result of the series having too many main characters.

Overall, it was enjoyable throughout, though it was more so in the beginning, and I liked returning to the characters I loved and falling in love with some new ones, but it was ultimately a mix of well written and badly written stuff that just didn't reach what I thought was a real genius that the original series possessed.

Some of these things might change when I reread, so you never know. Though that will probably take a while since I want to return to Trails of Apollo before that.

you know i’m also neutral-to-anti percabeth depending on how annoyed i feel that day and i feel extremely validated by your anti percabeth tag bc i feel like everyone thinks im insane

I know! But it's the fandom that's insane. They're all fooled by the mist of the narrative but we're sighted mortals who see the truth, for real.

[ailelie]

I recently rec'd this to a friend, but I'm going to do a general rec, too.

Read Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers. It has nothing to do with Harry Potter and pre-dates that series by a lot.

This book is pure joy. I love it. When I'm in a bad mood I can cheer myself up by reading sections of it out loud. It is fantastic.

This series of short essays (more or less) and poems (I'm less fond of them) is by Don Marquis (Mar-quiss, weirdly enough), who also penned the much more well known Archy and Mehitabel that I've excerpted before.

Hermione is a privileged young woman who wants to be forward thinking and open minded. So she gathers her little group of serious thinkers together and they listen to various speakers and discuss such deep topics as vibrations and being other-worldly.

It is a product of its time, but is also a product of Hermione who just...tries so hard and gets so much wrong.

And then there's her ongoing, basically catchphrase: Have I (been independent/been untrammeled/vibrated in tune with the Infinite/Utile today/been a Stimulating Influence/etc) or have I FAILED?

The book is available for free here on Project Gutenberg.

To close, I will include some quotes and such from the book.

From "Politics"

I'M thinking of taking up politics in a practical way.

I've never been an active suffragist, you know, on account of that horrid yellow color on the banners and things.

But one must sacrifice Ideals of Beauty to Ideals of Usefulness, mustn't one?

And politics is fascinating; simply FASCINATING!

Going about and organizing working girls, you know, and seeing Corrupt Bosses and enlisting them for Moral Causes, and making one's self felt as a Force — could one make one's self more Utile?

More spiritually Utile?

Utility! That is what our Leaders of Thought need to develop!

Nearly every night before I go to bed I say to myself: "Have I been Utile today? Or have I FAILED?"

Politics, practical politics, will be such an outlet for my personality, too.

And when I reopen my Salon I can make it count for the Cause, too.

From "Hermione on Psychical Research"

And Spiritualism is somehow more — well, er — VULGAR if you get what I mean. The sort of people one cares to know well have dropped Spiritualism for Spiritism.

Though, of course, a ghost is a ghost, whether it is materialized by spiritualism or Spiritism.

I have been often told that I am naturally very clairvoyant — if I were developed I would make a splendid medium. Mediums have seen shapes hovering around my head, and once when I was at school I did some automatic writing.

It was the strangest, easiest thing! I had a pencil in my hand and without thinking of anything in particular at all I just scribbled away, and what I wrote was, "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary; When in the course of human events it becomes necessary," over and over again.

I was quite startled, for the last thing I had been thinking of was an algebra examination, and not history at all. We had had our history examination days before.

I felt as if an unseen hand had reached out of the Silences and grasped mine!

Wasn't it weird?

And I know who it was, too. A distant relative of Mamma's on her father's side, by marriage, was one of the men who signed the Constitution of the United States in Faneuil Hall, in Philadelphia, in 1776, and it was HIS spirit that was trying to de- liver his message through me!

From "How Suffering Purifies One"

Oh, to go through fire and come out purified! Suffering is wonderful, isn't it? Simply WONDERFUL!

The loveliest man talked to us the other night — to our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you know — about social ideals and suffering.

The reason so many attempts to improve things fail, you know, is because the people who try them out haven't suffered personally.

He had the loveliest eyes, this man.

He made me thin[k]. I said to myself, "After all, have I suffered? Have I been purified by fire?"

And I decided that I had — that is spiritually, you know.

The suffering — the spiritual suffering — that I undergo through being misunderstood is something FRIGHTFUL!

Mamma discourages every Cause I take up. So does Papa.

I get no sympathy in my devotion to my ideals. Only opposition!

From "Fothergil Finch, The Poet of Revolt"

This one is a little different. She is quoting Finch who read her his "greatest" poem.

Look at me! Behold, I am founding a New Movement! Observe me. . . . I am in Revolt! I revolt! Now persecute me, persecute me, damn you,     persecute me, curse you, persecute me! Philistine, Bourgeois, Slave, Serf, Capitalist, Respectabilities that you are, Persecute me! Bah! You ask me, do you, what am I in revolt against? Against you, fool, dolt, idiot, against you, against     everything! Against Heavy, Hell and punctuation . . . against     Life, Death, rhyme and rhythm . . . Persecute me, now, persecute me, curse you,     persecute me! Slave that you are . . . what do Marriage,     Tooth-brushes, Nail-files, the Decalogue,     Handkerchiefs, Newton's Law of Gravity, Capital,     Barbers, Property, Publishers, Courts, Rhyming     Dictionaries, Clothes, Dollars, mean to Me?

I am a Giant, I am a Titan, I am a Hercules of Liberty, I am Prometheus, I am the Jess Willard of the New Cerebral Pugilism, I am the Modern Cave Man, I am the Comrade of the Cosmic Urge, I have kicked off the Boots of Superstition, and I run wild along the Milky Way without ingrowing toenails, I am I! Curse you, what are You? You are only You! Nothing more! Ha! Bah! . . . persecute me, now persecute me!

[presumenothing]

first: do no harm

(AO3)

Dr. Mensah’s attention zeroed in on me like a well-tuned surgery bot arm. “You have medical training.”

I was going to deny the hell out of that. I really was.

And then I said: “Not recently,” instead of no or even more accurately I frankly don’t think the company’s education modules count as training by your standards. (As far as I was concerned, the only thing worse than those modules was the one on breaking bad news, but what did I know. Maybe humans actually felt comforted by those tactics they described.) (No, I didn’t think that was likely, either.)

Which reminded me of a necessary addition. “The company won’t cover liabilities related to any non-security tasks you assign me to, if that’s what you’re intending.”

Mensah made a sound that was both grim and viciously annoyed at once, which I immediately saved for further analysis and replication. “Then we’ll just have to not make any mistakes, won’t we?”

–

I hadn’t exactly been thrilled with getting assigned to this mission. Not that mining installations were much of a walk in the park, but this was just asking to turn up memories that were better off buried (preferably forever) in my organic parts.

I don’t usually pay attention to mission briefs, as you may have noticed, and I wouldn’t have this time either except that my half-assed scan turned up the fact that the team weren’t science-doctors on a survey like I’d initially assumed, but medical-doctors. On a medical mission.

Of course they were.

(I wanted to say that someone had allocated me to this on purpose, but realistically speaking the company didn’t give enough of a shit, and the universe disliked me enough that this could totally be pure chance.)

Considering all that, the mission so far had been… much less worse than it could’ve been. Though the bar for that was admittedly very, very low. Possibly somewhere in the negatives.

Anyway. Up until the whole thing with Bharadwaj and Volescu getting almost-but-not-eaten, the task of making sure no one died had mostly been the clients’ job for once, which was a nice change since they were actually competent at it.

I still didn’t care enough to read their background info, but it was pretty clear just from observing that these doctors had experience with working in less-than-great conditions, even if Ratthi did sometimes sigh wistfully about equipment they couldn’t have in field hospitals. It meant that my job had pretty much amounted to patrolling, lurking visibly around the supplies storage in case anyone got ideas about that, and helping to fetch various medical items when I happened to be there and it wasn’t Gurathin asking.

It wasn’t terrible. I’d even got some media-watching time in.

(There might have been the vague thought that things could’ve gone much better if I’d been deployed with a team like this instead of Corporation Rim fuckery that literally bled payment from patients, but part of the reason medical-use constructs had been developed in the first place was so that hospitals could draw up forty-hour shifts and other assorted fun without worrying about doctor and surgeon unions, which told you everything you needed to know about our existence.

Also, the thought was inherently depressing and I already had enough of that in my head, thank you very much.)

The contract was more than halfway through. All I had needed to do to avoid awkward questions was continue making sure no one noticed that I was weirdly well-versed in all this, which wasn’t difficult since they only seemed to have theoretical knowledge about SecUnits at best.

Then the fauna happened, and poof went my cover.

Now all of PresAux knew I was – whatever the hell you called a catastrophically failed MedUnit who got turned loose onto security, because at least if I screwed up here the press wouldn’t be as bad. And that wasn’t even getting into the hacked governor module.

Even constructs didn’t have a term for all that.

–

Of course, none of that stopped this from being a Very Bad Idea. Even if apparently no one except Gurathin (ugh) seemed to agree.

“I’m a SecUnit, Dr. Mensah. I scare people. Patients are harder to assess when they’re running away.” I thought basic logistics might work here.

“You had better bedside manner with Bharadwaj and Volescu than many doctors I’ve seen. Human ones, might I add, and not actively injured themselves at the time.” Mensah’s tone was brisk as her pace – which wasn’t difficult to keep up with either, given my vertical advantage, but impressive nonetheless. “And no one wants to be around Pin-Lee when she’s holding a scalpel. That’s what the sedation is for.”

It’s because SecUnit hasn’t seen her in court yet. Trust me, it’s much scarier, Ratthi chimed in over the feed, with the text signifier for “amusement” but not “joke”.

Pin-Lee just smiled.

It was terrifying. I wasn’t even looking directly at her.

“I don’t have a valid license.” That’d been a part of the legal fallout from the disaster on RaviHyral, though no one had actually bothered with adding malpractice charges or barring me from ever doing medicine again. (Just another side effect of being considered as equipment – I doubted the company would’ve even secured licenses for constructs if not for their paranoia about covering their asses on all fronts.)

But it was a last resort argument, and I knew it.

Mensah knew it, too. “There’s special dispensations for that, especially under the current circumstances, as long as a fully-licensed doctor is in the vicinity at all times. It’s not like any of us can actually get out of each other’s hair in this base anyway.”

Mensah had stopped in a less-chaotic corner and turned to me, not that she could see anything behind the faceplate. I fixed my gaze a generous distance to the left and let my drones do the looking.

“I’m not going to make you agree. You perform a valuable function as our security – far more than I had initially expected, to be honest, and we would all be grateful if you kept doing that. But with Bharadwaj down for the count and Volescu still recovering, we could do with the help.” Her expression was still steady as ever, even though she probably knew better than I did the risks of continuing to operate shorthanded like this. “It’s your decision, SecUnit.”

Right, just the very thing I didn’t need to hear.

I kept most of my sigh internal. “Triage and first-aid only, between patrols. No procedures, and I won’t be responsible if any patients freak out.”

Mensah nodded. “Of course. Gurathin’s on receiving duty today, how about you work out a roster with him?”

I knew it. This was a bad idea.

–––––

You’d be my guardian.

Yes. The education opportunities – most of us were trained on Preservation, if you’re interested in learning and getting your license properly this time. Or not. You can do anything you want.

–––––

ART barged its way into my feed. You’re exhibiting a mildly elevated temperature and respiration rate. Though it could of course merely be a sign of inferior processors rather than emotional distress.

Do you talk to your clients like that?

Do you? ART retorted right back, but obligingly brought up the documentation for its MedSystem before I finished the query for it.

I ignored ART’s attention (with some difficulty) as I flicked quickly through the top few files, taking in the glaring disparities from my existing data. The notable lack of suggesting costly procedures that no-one actually needed, for starters. I’m assuming some of these are your improvements on standard procedure?

I am the cutting edge of medical research, ART proclaimed. You couldn’t accuse it of humility if you tried.

I still wasn’t sure what I wanted, and I still didn’t want anyone to decide it for me. But moving towards the one thing I did want (at least in the short term) had ended up with me running into what was very possibly the most advanced and opinionated diagnosis-treatment AI currently in existence, because that was just the kind of luck I had.

I didn’t have a medium-duty surgical suite in my arms anymore, since that was the entire point of modular Unit construction, but neither did Mensah.

And I didn’t think I wanted to stop doing security, anyway, since it turned out I might not be completely terrible at it; having actual medical knowledge that was MedSystem-malfunction-proof couldn’t hurt.

Plus, overwriting those shitty education modules seemed like a pretty great fuck-you to the company. I was always interested in that.

I tagged some of the more emergency-related files, then added a bunch of the weirder injuries I’d seen on contracts, and prodded ART. Tell me about these?

[scripts4dreamers]

I literally JUST sat down, pt. 6

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Seven

AN: Alone time with Spencer Reid isn’t something you’re ever willing to pass up.  Characters: Spencer Reid, Penelope Garcia, Derek Morgan, Aaron Hotchner, Jennifer Jareau, David Rossi. Pairings: Spencer Reid x reader Spoilers: None Warnings: Mentions of crime and violence, alcohol

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

“I could eat a horse,” Emily grumbled, collapsing into her seat on the jet, “when’s the last time we had solid food?”

JJ shook her head, “God, I don’t know. Maybe yesterday?”

“18:43 yesterday,” Spencer agreed, shooting you a tired smile as he took a seat beside you, “that’s when the call from Martin came in.”

Everyone nodded, remembering the frenzy that followed the call, everyone rushing to gather SWAT units, interviewing witnesses again, formulating a plan of attack and a de-escalation strategy. It had been a blur of movement and activity and that, combined with the nearly 10 hour standoff that followed had carried you for well over 24 hours, and left everyone hungry, tired and in desperate need of a shower.

“Ugh, I did not miss this part of the job,” you whined in time with a loud grumble from your stomach, “do you have any idea how many meals I missed when I was working at the bookstore? None! Not one. I had three meals a day and as many biscuits as I could eat,” you sighed nostalgically, “those were the good days.”

Emily moaned, “Ah, biscuits. Tell me more.”

You chuckled and shot her a fond look.

“You’ve got no idea what you’re missing, Emily,” Spencer cut in, “the biscuits Y/N makes are heaven. The ‘better than sex’ ones?” He rolled his eyes and groaned, a noise that made your cheeks flush and sent a bolt of surprise straight through you, “I dream about them.”

JJ hummed her agreement, closing her eyes as she reminisced, “I remember those, they’re Will’s favorite too.”

“That’s because Will has excellent taste,” you joked, shooting her a flirty wink, “in all things.”

Emily frowned, “Hey! Don’t flirt with her, keep telling me about these Better Than Sex biscuits.”

It had been nearly two weeks since the last big break in your case and, honestly, it was starting to grate on your nerves. No matter what you did it was like there was this massive clock counting down the days until another body would be dropped in your lap, probably with some other creepy detail on it; like your first pet’s name carved into the victim’s forehead. Garcia had been tracking down security camera footage from the shopping center you’d visited to buy your perfume, but there hadn’t been too much luck. A lot of the shops had already taped over their footage, and the ones that hadn’t had been grainy or awkwardly placed. All that they could reliably see was a tall man in a dark coat with a baseball cap on mirroring your movements in a few different stores.

Garcia was trying her best to enhance the images but, until she could, they were stuck. The only thing that helped your nerves was being on cases, and the fact that you almost always had someone with you to help keep you distracted.

“Well, they’re biscuits,” you smiled.

“And?” Emily pushed.

“And they’re better than sex,” you finished.

Emily rolled her eyes, but she was smiling as she did it, “That so?”

“I guess it depends on who you’re having sex with,” Spencer offered, meeting your eye for just a second, “in my experience they’re definitely better than casual meaningless sex, like a one night stand, but maybe not better than all sex.”

Your eyes widened and, much to your embarrassment, you felt yourself flush again. Spencer Reid and sex were two things that you worked very hard to keep separate in your mind. If they ever overlapped it happened in private and late at night, when no one was around to see your pupils dilate. You were a profiler. You were surrounded by profilers, and you’d learned long ago that the only way to keep secrets from a team like that was to make sure that your body language was stable and consistent at all times. Spencer Reid made that difficult. Spencer Reid casually talking about sex while his thigh was brushing up against yours made it damn near impossible.

“I need to try these biscuits,” Emily declared, “Y/N/N, will you make me some? Please?”

You snorted, “When? My shop’s closed indefinitely.”

“You can make them at my place,” Spencer said softly, just to you, “I haven’t used the oven in my apartment since...ever, I think, but it should work.”

“I’m-I’m staying at your place?”

Spencer shifted in his seat, “Yeah, it’s my turn. Garcia didn’t tell you?”

You made a mental note to shave Penelope’s eyebrows off at the earliest possible convenience in retaliation, but you kept your face neutral.

“No, she didn’t. Are you sure you’re okay with this, Spence? I don’t want to be a burden, and I know that you really value your privacy.” You asked, keeping your voice low.

Spencer smiled, something soft and fond glimmering in his dark eyes, “Of course I’m sure, Y/N. This is about keeping you safe.”

“I know but-“

“No!” Spencer interrupted with a laugh, “No buts. You’re staying at my place. Okay?”

You pressed your lips together, a million different arguments fighting for prominence in your mind.

“Okay?” Spencer repeated.

You deflated, “Fine. Okay.”

He leaned back in his seat and gave you a smug smile as he opened the book he’d brought with him. War and Peace, in the original Russian of course. It was a painfully nostalgic image and you felt your eyes start to droop with exhaustion.

“You’re impossible,” you yawned, “you know that?”

He smiled, “Yeah, yeah I know, Y/N. Get some rest, I’ll still be impossible when you wake up.”

You hummed, feeling a rush of comfort and warmth as you let sleep drag you under.

“Night, Reid,” you mumbled.

——————————-

Spencer was weirdly nervous as he fumbled for his apartment keys. It was stupid, of course, you’d been to his apartment before. Hell, you’d practically lived there in the weeks after Maeve’s death, but something about this felt...different. Maybe it was that he knew that you were in danger, and because of that you being there felt like an act of trust. Maybe he was nervous that he hadn’t cleaned up enough, or that you’d spent the entire flight with your head on his shoulder. Maybe he was worried that his oven actually didn’t work and he’d gotten your hopes up for nothing. Maybe it was-

“Spencer,” you said with a gentle laugh, “I can hear the cogs in your brain whirling. Calm down, everything’s going to be alright, I’ve seen your place before.”

Spencer smiled and he felt the tension start to ease out of his shoulders. Maybe it was just because it was you. The key finally slid into the door and he welcomed you in, grabbing your suitcase with one hand as he went.

“Welcome to Casa Reid,” he said, “ignore the books, unless you want to read any of them of course. You remember where my room is, right?”

You shot him a look, “What? No! Spence I’m already intruding on your fortress of solitude, I’m not taking your bedroom too.” You flopped down onto his couch, crossing your legs on the cushion and your arms across your chest with a determined glint in your eyes, “I’ll be right here if you need me.”

He rolled his eyes fondly, “Really, Y/N/N? This is the hill you want to die on? I know you’re as tired as I am. Wouldn’t it be nice to just collapse into a soft bed?”

“I’m sure it would be,” you agreed, “you’ll have to tell me all about it tomorrow morning.” You pushed yourself up and grabbed your suitcase from his hands with a sweet smile, “I would love a shower though. Maybe when I’m done you’ll have thought of a clever comeback? If not,” you shrugged, “we’ll get dinner.”

And with that you strode off in the direction of Spencer’s bathroom, shooting him one last playful smile as you went. As soon as you were out of sight Spencer sighed happily, collapsing onto the couch you’d just vacated and listening as the shower switched on. He was tired, bone tired; he was starving, he was thirsty and there was a dull sort of pressure in his temple that might have been the start of a headache, but despite all that he didn’t care. He was happy, almost giddy really, and that was enough. While the sound of the shower echoed through his apartment, Spencer let himself start to drift off.

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

The moment you were done talking Spencer’s world went quiet. All around him he could see his friends’ mouths moving, their shocked faces burned into his mind as they begged you for answers, but it was like they were on the other end of a really long corridor and he couldn’t quite make out their actual words. Instead there was just this rushing in his ears and the pounding of his heart, just a little too loud, as he tried to process the idea of his world without you in it.

“I’m leaving,” he heard you say again and again, like a stuck record in the back of his mind, “I handed in my resignation a while ago. I’m just here to pack up my things.”

For some reason that didn’t seem right. It didn’t seem right that you could be “leaving” and then be gone for good on the same day. It was too fast, Spencer hadn’t had time. Time to process, to think, to convince you to stay, to come with you, to tell you how he felt, to cry, to yell, to throw things, to laugh to-

“We’ll still see each other,” you lied through a sheepish smile, “this doesn’t have to be goodbye forever. Just goodbye for now.”

Spencer shook his head, his eyes trained on the patch of floor just between your feet like if he stared long enough it might give him the answer. The answer to what? It didn’t matter. He vaguely heard Garcia complaining in her own way, and JJ asking you to reconsider but, still, it was like it was happening to someone else. You’re dissociating, the rational part of his brain supplied, you’re dissociating because you can’t cope with losing someone you care about, you can’t cope with losing Y/N. He pushed the thought away, forcing it into a box somewhere in the very back of his mind as he fought to stay in control in the moment. Oh wow, Spencer Reid has abandonment issues, he thought to himself, how original.

“Excuse me,” he muttered, hoping it was too low for anyone to hear as he turned on his heel and walked straight out of the conference room.

As he went he could feel the sets of eyes on his back and the heavy weight of a mixture of confusion and pity they brought with them. For once he didn’t care. All that mattered was that his eyes were stinging and his chest was tight and, no matter what happened you couldn’t see him cry like this. He couldn’t let you see him break down because, the second that you did, he would be found out. You would put your arm on his shoulder and say something kind and he would look into your eyes and….you’d know. You’d see all the pain and the fear and the betrayal and you’d know in an instant how desperately and completely Spencer had fallen for you. And that couldn’t happen, it just couldn’t.

——————————-

Spencer sighed, shaking his head to snap himself out of the sad reminiscing. His heart was strangely heavy at the memory and he swallowed hard past the growing lump in his throat. That had been a hard day, but it had been nothing compared to what had come next. Showing up at work everyday and being met with your empty desk, the suffocating absence of your laughter, your voice, Derek and JJ trying desperately to compensate, Emily’s sullenness, even Garcia and her constant little check ins. Everything they did just made it more obvious that you weren’t there, that you’d really left, and that you were never coming back.

He looked towards his bedroom without meaning to, subtly reminding himself that you were there and that he wasn’t on his own anymore.

For now, the cynical voice in the back of his mind whispered. Until this case is solved and she packs up and leaves again like nothing happened. Then it’ll be just like it was before. Except that that wasn’t true. No, this time it’d be worse.

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

Spencer fiddled with the strap of his satchel, working his jaw as he tried to get up the nerve to either walk into the bookshop or turn and leave for good. It had been nearly four months since he’d last seen you, but you still texted regularly and sent him pictures of the store whenever you could. Not that it ever felt like enough. Four months of fighting himself and trying to figure out what the right thing to do was. Should he chase after you and beg you to come back? Should he offer to help around the bookstore in his free time? What did he want from you? What was his endgame here?

For a long while Spencer just watched you through the glass as the questions whirled around his head like a hurricane. You looked happy, he noticed as you laughed at something one of your employees said, like you were in your element. There was a peacefulness about the way you moved here too, like there was no hurry, like you had all the time in the world. It had been a long time since he’d seen you that happy. Not since that night, the one he wasn’t supposed to think about anymore. Not since he’d ruined everything and set your friendship on a collision course with disaster. You’d never said so, but Spencer knew that that night was why you left. He knew it was his fault, even if you didn’t want to admit it.

He sighed, fighting down a sudden rush of bitterness that tasted like ashes in his mouth. Something about seeing you, really seeing you again,brought all the hurt and confusion of that night back to the surface. Maybe it was just that it felt real now, final, like something that was always meant to happen the way it had. Something he had no control over. But you were happy, he reminded himself, and that was all he really wanted, right?

Spencer felt something in his chest splinter and, while his resolve was still firm, he turned on his heel and walked away. It wasn’t his place, he told himself again and again as he walked, he had no right.

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

“Spence?” You asked, your worried voice cutting straight through his daydream like a knife, “are you okay?”

His head whipped around and he felt the knot of anxiety in his chest loosen as he took you in. Your hair was wet from the shower, your skin dewy and soft-looking beneath your pajamas. You looked calm and strong, and so painfully familiar that Spencer felt something near his heart swell with appreciation. So he brought his attention back, leaving the mistakes of the past alone for the time being so that he could better enjoy the present. He was home, and you were safe and for a moment everything was right in the world.

“Yeah,” he answered with a smile, “yeah I’m good. I-uh-I didn’t want to order dinner before you were finished because I didn’t ask what you wanted.”

You relaxed ever so slightly, “Hmmm,” you started, making your way over to the couch and plopping down next to him like it was the most natural thing in the world, “how about pizza?”

Spencer smiled, “I could do pizza. What kind do you want?” he asked, pulling out his phone to place the order.

“Ohhhh no,” you replied, shaking your head, “no, no, no. I’m not falling for that one again, Doctor Reid,” you joked, “I will not have you topping shame me in my own home.”

“In your own home?” Spencer laughed, “Oh, so this is officially your home now?”

“For the next few days yes, it is,” you shot back smugly, followed by, “I’ll have whatever you’re having, but no mushrooms.”

“Since when do you hate mushrooms?”

“Since now, duh,” you replied with a shrug, “seriously though, so long as it’s warm and filling, I really don’t mind.”

“Two warm and filling pizza’s coming right up,” Spencer said, “Garcia leant me some movies to watch as well if you want.”

Joking around with you the way he always had was an equal measure of comforting and bizarre, but Spencer wasn’t going to question it. As you bickered back and forth about whether or not Legally Blonde was the best courtroom film ever made, he tried to shake off the slight sadness in his chest. It was impossible. Every time he made you laugh or saw the edges of your eyes crinkle with a smile he was reminded of that empty desk, and the hole in his chest, and the way losing you felt like losing an arm. It wasn’t your fault, you were being your usual incredible self, but that was sort of the problem. Small acts of kindness to you, like grabbing a blanket and throwing it over both of your legs without a second thought, were just that, small acts of kindness. But to Spencer they were like patches of warm sunlight when he’d been expecting cold weather. It was painful. By the time the pizza had arrived, he’d changed into pajamas and you’d convinced him to watch Legally Blonde, he thought he had it under control. Or at least under control enough that you wouldn’t notice. He was wrong.

Less than fifteen minutes into the movie you pressed pause, turning to face him on the couch with a determined look on your face.

“Okay, spill it.” You demanded, “What’s wrong?”

“What?” he asked, heat creeping into his cheeks, “I don’t-what?”

“You went somewhere,” you explained, “somewhere in your head. You only do that when something’s bothering you.”

“Nothing’s bothering me, Y/N, I just-”

“Spence,” you interrupted, scooching closer and staring into his eyes pleadingly, “please don’t lie to me. I know you too well for that to work. Just tell me what’s wrong, is it me? Did I do something?”

“No.” Spencer said quickly, desperate to wipe that sad look off your face “No, Y/N/N you didn’t do anything I’m just-I’m not-” he took a deep breath in, thinking through his words, “I’m not sure...how to do this, exactly.”

You tilted your head, confused but, to his relief, didn’t shut him down.

“How to do what?” You asked sincerely, “Watch Legally Blonde? I know it’s not exactly your style but-”

“No,” he laughed softly, “no, not the movie. I don’t know how to be here, with you,” he admitted, “like this. Everytime I think I’ve got it, I remember what it was like without you and I just-” he shook his head, “I shut down. I pull away, and I don’t want to, I want to be here because you’re my friend and I care about you. It’s just that everytime I try….”

“You imagine what it’ll be like to lose me,” you supplied, sadly.

“I don’t imagine it, Y/N, I remember it.” He said, “All those years of seeing you every single day and suddenly you were just gone, and I couldn’t handle it. I kept expecting you to just walk back in one day, or that I’d wake up and the whole thing would just have been some weird fever dream, but it never did. The months just stretched on and on and on and-” he met your eye, “and now you’re back, and everything’s great again, but it’s been more than a year and, I don’t know, I guess I just don’t want to get my hopes up.”

The admission made Spencer feel lighter, like a weight had been lifted from his chest but, when he met your eye, his heart sank just a little bit. You pressed your lips together into a thin line, sniffing as you fought back tears. But they were angry tears, Spencer realised. You were sad, but you were also furious, and it made him swallow hard.

“Spencer, I don’t know how many times I can apologise,” you finally started, “I should’ve given you more warning, I shouldn’t have kept how I was feeling a secret, I know that now,” you continued, “but you didn’t lose me. Nobody lost me. I lost you. I lost my family, my job, my second home, the entire community of people I’d built up, all of it. I was alone, really alone, and starting from scratch in a city I barely recognized because I’d spent the last however many years flying around the country and completely neglecting most of the city I actually lived in. I also discovered that, outside of the BAU, I have exactly two friends, neither of whom live in the state so, at first, I spent 99% of my time just sitting in my apartment crying over what a huge terrible irreversible mistake I’d made and eating cookies.” You explained. Spencer opened his mouth to interrupt but, before he could, you shot him a pleading look, and he let you continue, “And I know it must’ve sucked, not having me around. I know you must have felt completely hurt and betrayed and confused, and I swear to you, I’m not trying to minimize that at all. All I’m trying to say is...it wasn’t easy for me. I didn’t just step out of those doors into some sunny, perfect idyllic life where all I did was bake cookies and read books. It was hard. I worked hard, and I don’t want to have to feel bad about that.”

You looked so sad in that moment that Spencer wanted to cry. He had never truly considered the implications of leaving the BAU, of how hard it must’ve been starting over when being in the FBI had always been your dream. Instinctively, he reached out and took your hand, giving it a gentle squeeze, just so you knew he was there.

“I don’t want that either,” Spencer promised, “I’ve only ever wanted you to be happy, Y/N.”

You nodded, wiping your eyes as a few stray tears slipped down your cheeks, “I know that, Spence, I do. I just-” You let out a deep breath and seemed to pull yourself together, squeezing his hand in return, “it felt like the only person who cared about me was Garcia,” you admitted, “and so, coming back, I was really scared. I didn’t quite know what I was walking into. I thought I knew, but I wasn’t sure so I just-” you shrugged, “acted like nothing had changed. And maybe that’s my fault but-”

“It’s not your fault,” he interrupted, feeling a swell of protectiveness ballooning in his chest, “none of us knew how to handle a situation like this.”

“But I should’ve considered how weird this must be for you,” you insisted, “I should’ve known that you-that you’d need more time, or more space from me than the others.”

“I don’t want space,” he said earnestly, “I promise you, Y/N, the last thing I want is to be away from you again. I’ve made that mistake once and it didn't work out too well.

You gave him a watery laugh and Spencer felt his spirit lift just a little. It was crazy how simple everything became in Spencer’s mind when you needed him, how easily he could be open and vulnerable without fear. It was you, he’d do anything for you, even bare his soul to make you laugh.

“I guess, what I’m trying to say,” You continued, “is that I’m scared. I’m so scared that, the minute this case is over, I’ll be alone again, starting from scratch, with nothing but two Murder Storefronts that no one is going to want to come within one hundred feet of, and you guys will just go on without me.”

Spencer smiled and tugged you close, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you into a tight hug.

“That’s not going to happen, Y/N/N,” he promised.

“How do you know?” You whispered into his hair.

“Because,” he replied honestly, “I won’t let it.”

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

Taglist: @ourfavoritesergeantbarnes, @confused-and-really-hungry, @word-scribbless, @reidloversisforever, @ashookykooky, @l0ve-0f-my-life, @shilohpug, @tangerinenotions95, @petitchatonbleu, @pirateismywayofspeaking, @must-be-a-weasley-92, @whovianayesha,  @holding-on-to-my-youth, @quie-pls, @fear-less-write-more, @astraea-writes, @mac99martin, @levylovegood, @easygoingtheatre, @purpleraindrops, @eevee0722, @bisexualdisaster106, @sgold, @openheart12​, @poisondragon​, @martinafigoli​, @ellegreenawayapologist​

[just-horrible-things]

Here’s some old writing (probably 2014? gee.) from a tabletop game I was once in. This was backstory for my character.

Cameron Blithe remains one of my favourites, and I may yet overhaul the character and work him into something new. 

---

At Attention

"At ease!" the sergeant bellowed, and the thud of two score booted feet hitting the ground echoed round the courtyard. "Not you, Blithe!"  Cameron snapped back to attention, confused and a little apprehensive. Being singled out was never a good sign.  "You stay there. Everyone else, dismissed! Come on, move it along! Don't waste time!"

The courtyard emptied rapidly, footsteps echoing off the concrete buildings along with the sergeant's voice. Soldiers scattered, some walking, others jogging so as not to arrive late to their next posts. Cameron stayed still, eyes fixed on the peeling paint above the door opposite until the movement died down. 

He thought he'd heard the sergeant leave, but he couldn't be entirely sure. It wasn't worth looking round. Either this was some trick to fool him into moving so he could be called up on disobedience again, or he was just going to be left here for an hour or two. 

Well, he was no stranger to standing at attention. If that's what was to happen, then fine. He'd just deal with it. He counted time in his head, taking note of the five minute mark when he should have showed up for patrol. He wondered if the sergeant had reported that he'd left Cameron standing in the courtyard, or if he'd have to explain his absence later. Probably the latter, he mused darkly, and he'd more than likely be punished for that too. 

The air was cold and damp and smelled of sweat and wet concrete. As the warmth of exertion from drilling started to fade, Cameron became aware of the breeze. It carried the sound of men laughing somewhere, and the occasional call and response of patrols passing each other.

Ten minutes became fifteen, then twenty. Despite the demands of the posture and the chill of the air, Cameron found himself mentally relaxing and his mind beginning to wander. In many ways, the inactivity was a welcome break from the constant demands on his attention, time and stamina, and it was certainly less exhausting than drill. He let his gaze wander, examining the back of the barracks and what little he could see of the apparently empty courtyard. It was not so intimately familiar as the square more commonly used for drilling, and though he must have spent at least a dozen hours here, he'd never had the freedom to really inspect things. 

Here at the back of the compound, the lack of funding was even more apparent. Doors were battered round the edges, steps crumbling, and he even saw a window with a cracked pane. Things were clean, certainly. They tend to stay clean when there's a large body of soldiers kept around the place with nothing to do but busywork. Cameron knew first hand how much effort went into scrubbing the roofs clean of moss and mould. But all the cleanliness in the galaxy couldn't compete with a bit of fresh money to replace damaged structures. Fresh paint was cheap enough, but layered over damp concrete it never stayed looking fresh for long. 

The state of the buildings was a bit depressing, really. Clearly nobody cared about a back-end-of-the-galaxy posting like this. The status quo ruled here, second only to the slow grind of entropy tearing things down bit by bit. The future seemed bleak. 

If he were facing the other way, he might have been able to see the mountains over the concrete walls. The distant peaks were frigid, sheer and uninviting, but at least they were something to look at. Unfortunately, it still wasn't out of the question that the sergeant was standing somewhere behind him, waiting for Cameron to move so he could scold him and inflict some worse punishment instead. By necessity, his view was restricted to a small area of flagstones, the wall ahead, and a small slice of dim, clouded sky above. 

He hoped the sergeant was behind him, getting bored. He could suffer there in silence, he wasn't going to get the satisfaction of watching Cameron falter or give in. Of course, if he did get bored he'd be completely free to leave without giving Cameron the time of day, let alone permission to stand down. But at least Cameron would hear him leave, and then he'd know he could afford to fidget. Realistically, he was fairly sure already that he was alone, but at least he could get a bit of petty satisfaction out of imagining the NCO stewing in boredom, irritation and disappointment.

Time passed. The sounds of some other unit drilling rang out for a while, then subsided again. Though he'd long stopped counting minutes, Cameron estimated maybe an hour and a half had passed when the rain started. 

It was no surprise; the sky had been darkening steadily all afternoon. It was light drizzle at first and not unpleasant, though he knew it would soon soak through his clothes and make the cold worse. A bird flapped past somewhere above and behind him, presumably seeking shelter before the rain started in earnest. 

For a while, the rain relieved the boredom a little by giving him something new to look at. The ground darkened in spots, few and small at first, then larger and faster as the rainstorm gathered momentum. He wondered how long it would take for the water to seep into the sheltered spaces under his feet. Maybe when he finally moved away he'd leave a pair of pale footprints behind. 

Drips congregated on the edge of the roof, merged with one another, and fell to the concrete below. Puddles began to form in the dips where the concrete was worn or damaged. Drips gathered on Cameron too, running down his face and down the back of his neck. Standing still, he didn't mind the wet so much as the cold. Wherever the rain soaked in, the wind seemed to blow stronger and colder. Soon he was fighting the urge to shiver. It didn't matter that nobody was watching, someone was sure to come back to fetch him eventually, and he refused to be snivelling and miserable when that happened. Let the weather do its worst, he'd stand like a soldier and show no weakness.

Watching drips grew dull once all the surfaces were saturated. For a while he shut his eyes against the gusts of wind which kept driving the rain into his face, but he wasn't entirely comfortable that he'd hear it if someone approached, so he compromised by squinting angrily into the rain. The light worsened, and eventually he realised dusk was falling. It came as something of a surprise. He must have underestimated the time. He'd expected to hear more noise of people dispersing at end of shift, but it must have been covered up by ambient noise.

Daydreaming about all the ways he'd like to kill the sergeant, he watched night creep slowly over the courtyard. Electric lights flicked on in windows one after the other, but none were close enough or angled right for him to see in. It was a small blessing. At least nobody could see him standing here, trying to pretend he wasn't freezing cold and soaked to the skin. 

It was almost a relief once the rainwater soaked through the last of the warm, dry spots in his uniform. Sure it was cold and miserable, but at least it wasn't getting colder anymore and he could stop trying desperately to cling to the lingering warmth. Provided he didn't stare at the lit windows, his eyes adjusted well to the growing darkness. He consoled himself with the thought that at least he wasn't doing night training exercises, and thus didn't have to count mud, thorns to the face, or being shouted at as among his woes. Things could be worse.

The effects of fatigue snuck up on him quietly. The muscle ache and general sense of exhaustion he was used to as a standard consequence of standing at attention for a few hours at a time. Shivering was less welcome, especially once it set in in earnest and he could no longer resist it by sheer willpower, but not unfamiliar. 

What caught him off guard was the sense of general illness. At first he put the queasiness down to hunger. He'd missed a meal, it was to be expected. When it got worse, he ascribed it to life simply hating him. Clearly this was the perfect time for him to get ill, and thereby maximise his misery. Maybe he was getting pneumonia from the cold. If he got seriously ill, maybe the sergeant would get in trouble. It would serve the bastard right. 

Time continued to pass, and the nausea continued unabated. One by one, the lights in the windows went out. His feet were numb, though he couldn't tell if it was the cold or the prolonged immobility. He wriggled his toes in the hope of improving circulation, and dimly felt them move inside his boots. His hands felt strange too, oddly distant, and the sound of the rain began to echo weirdly in his ears. With a jolt, Cameron recognised the symptoms of an impending blackout.

He considered taking a break, sitting down and waiting for the feeling to pass. Nobody would see. He took deep breaths, trying to steady himself and to avoid throwing up. Nobody would see, but it would still be backing down. He wouldn't let them win. Breathing deeply helped a little. The oddness in his hearing subsided, and the nausea returned to manageable levels. Everything was fine. It was just a passing weakness, he was fine.

He woke sprawled on the ground. 

Rain still fell all around him, and it was dark. Though he was cold to the bone, his face felt flushed and far too warm. The cool, hard concrete was not unpleasant, but he forced himself to sit up and look around. 

He was still alone. Nobody had seen him collapse. 

He checked himself over brusquely for injuries and found nothing worse than a few bruises, a dry throat and a headache. He hadn't thought his uniform could get any wetter, but on standing up from the puddle he'd been lying in, water ran in little streams from the cloth. 

He had half a mind to curl up on the floor and wait for dawn, but he knew his pride would never let him do that. He'd been ordered to stand at attention, and come hell or high water that was exactly what he intended to do. 

Agony ran through his legs as he forced himself back into the correct posture. He gritted his teeth and waited for it to subside, shivering violently. He'd been lying still in the cold, of course he was stiff. The rational part of his mind reminded him that standing still in the cold probably wasn't going to be any better, but he clung determinedly to the conviction that the pain would go away. Surely he'd warm up soon, shivering like this. He'd remember to move his feet more this time, and flex the muscles in his legs to ward off cramp and fainting. 

To his satisfaction, and mild surprise, the strain did again become more bearable. He wondered how long he'd been out cold, but even when conscious he'd completely lost track of the passage of time. With the sky still dark, it could have been any time of the night, and anywhere between one and eight hours left to wait until dawn.

Holding out for the return of the light became Cameron's focus and driving motivation. He guessed at times in his head, building elaborate estimates of how long he had left to wait. When the rain slowed to a drizzle, he convinced himself that the change in the weather must be a result of temperature changes from the imminent dawn. By the time it started pouring down again, he'd moved on to a new hypothesis. 

Realistically, he knew that there was no guarantee that dawn would bring any relief. It seemed increasingly likely that the sergeant had no intention of coming back to tell him to stand down. He must have had this planned out from the beginning. There was no reason to drill here rather than in the main square, except that here he could leave Cameron standing for longer before a senior officer found him and ordered him to do something more useful. 

Cameron had no idea how frequently this courtyard was used. For all he knew he could be here for weeks before anyone came back out here. Morbidly he wondered what they'd do to the sergeant if he passed out and died here before anyone found him. 

Of course, it would be ridiculous to stand here until thirst killed him. Technically, there was nothing stopping him from walking into the nearest building right now and getting a drink of water. He could come back out and nobody would be any the wiser, or he could just bugger off and get some sleep. What was the sergeant really going to do to him for disobeying an order like that, make him do press-ups? 

He could hear the conversation already though, and see that smug bastard's face in his mind's eye. Some people would think Cameron had done the smart thing, and some would think he was being an insubordinate idiot again, but he and the sergeant would know what had really happened. If he walked away now, he'd have backed down, and admitted that he was too weak to deal with standing at attention in the rain for a while. 

Well, fuck that.

When dawn finally arrived, it was subdued and miserable. Much like Cameron, not that he'd let it show in his posture. The greying of the sky that signalled the first light of the new day was accompanied by the noise of a few hundred people turning out of bed at half past five in the morning to present themselves for inspection. Lights clicked on in the windows of the barracks, then off again as the owners vacated the rooms. 

One lonely light stayed lit. Listening wearily to officers shouting, Cameron wondered if the room was still occupied for whatever reason, or if the inhabitant had simply forgotten to turn the light off. Trying to navigate a floor plan of the building in his head kept his mind busy, but not busy enough to shut off the stray thoughts still cataloguing all the reasons he had to be miserable. Thirst and pain fought for dominance, shadowed closely by cold. Hunger, exhaustion, boredom and the need to take a piss were all present, but barely got a look in in comparison.

Despite it all, as the light increased he did find his spirits rising. There were no more reasons to be cheerful than there had been all night, but something about the light made him feel better none the less. Maybe it was just the fact that once again he could tell what time it was, or that there was more to listen to and look at by daylight than by night. 

For an hour and a half, he counted seconds. The numbers got depressing and he kept losing count, but if he stopped he'd have nothing else to do and he wouldn't know what time it was.

Shortly after the ninety minute mark, he was interrupted by someone speaking behind him. "Drilling on your own, soldier?" Startled, Cameron took far longer to reach the correct response than he should have done. "No, sir," he managed, struggling to think of an appropriate way to phrase the reason for his standing at attention all alone in a empty courtyard. 

The man stepped round into his field of vision with an expression of equal parts concern and amusement. Cameron only barely recognised his face, but the lieutenant's stripes on his uniform told him all he needed to know. He saluted the officer, as sharply as he could convince his trembling muscles to move, and was quite pleased with his success.

"Do share then, why are you standing out here in the rain?" "Sergeant Yandle's orders, sir," he responded. Apparently running several seconds behind his mouth, his brain belatedly prompted him with a handful of witty lines he could have used instead. "I see. And when were these orders given?" Cameron's mind raced. Or rather, it felt like it did. From the difficulty he was having calling up mundane facts, he rather suspected his mind was moving at something of a crawl. "At approximately thirteen hundred hours, sir." "Yesterday?" "Yes, sir." "Good grief, man," the lieutenant still seemed torn between horror and laughter, "At ease!" Cameron couldn't quite stop his breath catching as he changed his posture. Every muscle in his body complained at being forced through another set of precise movements, but the relief of moving at all was worth it.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Putting this one behind a “keep reading” link just because it’s entirely self-indulgent. Melancholy reflections and politics and why the world is bad. The usual stuff. Therapeutic for me to post, but best to make it easy for others to skip.

I’m in a weird mood tonight, I’m not sure why. I had a busy and stressful couple of days that involved confronting real life coming back, and generally not having a lot of time to myself, which is never great for my mood. And in the last week or so I’ve been a kick of listening/re-listening to a bunch of political comedy, some I’ve discovered recently and some favourites from years ago. All interspersed with listening to The Bugle almost constantly so that’s gotten deep into my head.

Sometimes I just get into a mode where I feel like it’s very important for me to remember everything that’s ever happened in any part of the world, and exactly what that was like and how it created today, and then I have difficulty unsticking my brain from that place to do sometime like move stuff in my parents’ basement (I realize it sounds like I’m just making excuses to get out of helping my parents with stuff, to be clear I did still help my parents move a bunch of shit today, it’s just that while I did it I felt weirdly out of it and like I was too stuck in the memories of things that have already happened to be entirely present). Maybe I’ll re-watch The Thick of It soon. There’s never a bad time to re-watch The Thick of It.

I was in a comedy club when Trump got elected. I don’t know why but that’s been stuck in my head all day. I mean, I sort of know why. I’m constantly listening to The Bugle, political satire from the era when that happening was a joke, and I can’t help but run everything they say through the lens of they didn’t know what world they were living in. They were living in a world that could elect Donald Trump and they didn’t even know. They were wrong about everything, like everyone was.

Listening to John Oliver talk with what I believe is genuinely, deep-down genuinely, existential despair about the existence and popularity of Sarah Palin. About living in a country and a world in which someone who says the things Sarah Palin said could have thousands and thousands of people hear her and approve. And I remember watching The Daily Show when Sarah Palin was in the spotlight, watching John Oliver and Jon Stewart and Rob Riggle and Wyatt Cenac and Samantha Bee and Aasif Mandvi make fun of Sarah Palin, and then switching on The Colbert Report and watching her get made fun of again. Like it was some sort of anomaly, like we weren’t really this world.

It's now weird for me to remember a world when Sarah Palin was the worst thing that could get near the top of the most powerful country in the world, and Sarah Palin was a joke. I think that might be what’s triggered this mood, just too many episodes in a row of listening to a podcast set in the world and wanting to tell them “None of this right. I mean, you’re saying smart things and they make sense, but you’re starting with some fundamentally incorrect assumptions about what the world is, and you won’t know that for years.”

It's not like I didn’t know bad things existed before Donald Trump. I knew there were racists. I knew there were misogynists. I knew there were sexual predators – long before Donald Trump ran for president, I’d encountered a few of them. A couple who’d done things that would be considered comparatively minimal, and one who did a bunch of things, some in that “comparatively minimal” category and some not fucking minimal, over a number of years. And those were just the ones who’d targeted me personally. I had friends who’d been targeted by lots of other sexual predators, and many of those predators were well respected people in our community and social circles. I knew that.

But it was still somehow Earth-shatteringly shocking to me that one of them could go as far as President of the United States. And not because of that one person, but because of the number of votes needed to win. He didn’t get the popular vote, but that’s not the point. He got enough votes to win. Millions and millions of people heard everything he said and knew everything he’d done and said “Yeah, I think that’s who should be in charge.” The next day, I remember walking down the sidewalk and looking at everyone I saw with suspicion. I’m not even American! But people are people, made of the same stuff no matter where you go. I kept looking at people on Canadian streets, and wondering… are you one of the huge numbers of people in the world who hears all that awful stuff and thinks that person should rule the world? Are you looking at me the way Trump looks at women, the way millions of Americans presumably look at women if they’re willing to vote for a man who thinks that way? Would you be happy to deport any of the Muslim immigrants I know or bar their families from their home countries from visiting here?

I was in a comedy club when Donald Trump got elected. My brother had booked a headlining gig the night of the election, and my best friend and I decided it would be fun to “op out” of following results during that night. We bought tickets to my brother’s show (bought them, I was almost always offered comped tickets to my brother’s shows and only accepted about… about 60% of the time, rejecting them the other 40% because my conscience would get to me about supporting local comedy clubs, and the night of the US election was in that 40%), and decided to spend the night there instead of constantly watching the different news channels all say the same thing. Watch comedy all night, come out at the end of the show, by which time they should have called the election, and go up to the bar above the comedy club and celebrate the first female American president.

I learned it wasn’t going to work out from some random audience member a few tables away from me at the comedy show. Obviously all the comedians referenced the election throughout the night, and between the second and third sets, the host asked the audience how we felt about being close to getting the results. He said he actually didn’t know how it was going, and asked if any of us knew. I think he made a joke about how we shouldn’t know, because you’re not supposed to have your phone out during a comedy show, but he’d offer amnesty to anyone who wanted to admit to that by giving us an election update.

Someone a few tables away just called out, “It really bad.” The room went silent. The host went silent. Looking back, I don’t know what was going on with him. He seemed genuinely shocked. He must have really been sure Hillary was winning, and made the request for updates because he thought the update would be that the first female American president was well ahead, and then the crowd would get excited and he could build on that. He was clearly not prepared for the possibility that the answer would be the other way. Why not? He’d just been backstage during the previous set, with his phone, and with a bunch of other comedians who also had phones. I guess none of them had checked their phones.

After hearing it was “really bad”, the host immediately abandoned that line of comedy, and awkwardly switched to some of his own material. It all went downhill from there. The next act, and the one that followed to finish the night – my brother – got a comparatively subdued reaction from the crowd. When it was over, my best friend and I went upstairs to the bar, which was running the election on all its TVs as though it were the NHL playoffs. One look at the TVs told me the woman at that nearby table had been right about it being “really” bad. We ordered shots of whiskey. Half an hour later, having finished hanging out with the other comics or whatever else he was doing, my brother joined us. My best friend, my brother, and I spent the rest of election night sitting at the bar, drinking as much hard alcohol as we could, occasionally stealing horrified glances at the TVs, and then immediately drinking more.

Just after that they announced that Leonard Cohen died, but that he’d been dead for a few days, and I felt relieved that he hadn’t lived to see Donald Trump get elected. I had to go somewhere that day, and I played Leonard Cohen on my iPod. You Want it Darker and Democracy fucked me up emotionally due to the combination of Cohen’s death with the very recent election, but it was Everybody Knows that caused me to actually start crying at a bus stop.

One of the big things I remember holding onto in that initial week after the election was the one Last Week Tonight episode. Last Week Tonight did its second last episode of the season the week before the election, and I’m sure John Oliver was pleased about the idea that he could end his third season on an episode that celebrated the defeat of Donald Trump and all he represented, and the crowning of the first female American president. Well that didn’t work out. They had one episode – just one episode – to say what they had to say about the election, before their season ended and they went on break until the next year. That is not enough episodes.

What I really remember was John Oliver repeating that he wants us to remember this is not normal. Like he was already looking past any specific things Trump might do, and into the larger ways in which it would change the world and its outlook. How living in a culture in which Trump was allowed to be president was very different from living in a culture in which that was not the case. The massive shift in the Overton window. The erosion of the free press. The change in norms about public trust in accountable institutions being replaced with disinformation and misinformation. I remember John Oliver addressing that, and I remember feeling relieved because he was the first person who’d said all those things I’d been thinking. That this wasn’t just a shock in the moment, this was a fundamental shift.

I remember him saying please, try not to normalize this, even if it comes from the president, even if it lasts years, even though we tend to think of anything fitting those criteria as “normal”, don’t do that with Trump. Try to remember that this is not normal and hold on to that no matter what he does. I remember hearing John Oliver say that and thinking it was the most sensible thing I’d heard on the subject. Surely that’s the most important thing, not letting it become normal even as the years go by.

Well, it’s 2022 now. Years have gone by. Shit became normal. Normal changed again and again and again in a few years. It’s just left me with a really particular type of nostalgia for anything from back when normal was a more stable concept, and Sarah Palin was a joke. A fucking funny joke, too. A joke made by a John Oliver who had not yet had to beg a country not to normalize an admitted sex predator and overt racist in charge of the most powerful country on Earth. They’re having so much fun on The Bugle in 2009. It’s all fun and games until an admitted sex predator and overt racist gets in charge of the most powerful country on Earth.

Anyway, I don’t think I’ve ever =re-watched the finale of season 3 of Last Week Tonight, which aired a few days after the 2016 American election. I watched it when it first aired and I think that’s been it. I’m going to re-watch it. I’ve put it up on my Google Drive in case anyone else wants to do the same. I’m curious to see how the actual episode compares to my memory of it.

[alpacaparkaseok]

Mine

13. Agust D

Genre: Min Yoongi x oc

Warnings: none

Word Count: 4.2k

I have a surprise for you guys in this chapter!!! 😊😊 Aaaaand we’re all set up and ready to go for the finale! 

2 Months Later

Anacortes, Washington, USA

The distant sound of a bell pulls me back to reality, and I turn to face the wind. Waves are pushing their way onto the shore, the choppy water fighting for my attention.

I watch as the ferry grows ever closer before putting my earbuds into my ears to answer my incoming phone call.

“Funny, I was just thinking about you,” I smile as I close my eyes.

“Really? What a coincidence. What are you up to right now?”

“Just about to board the ferry. You?”

“I’m going to head to bed soon.”

“Wow, so early. You’ve become so disciplined!”

Yoongi’s breathy laugh fills my ears and I can almost picture him rolling his eyes if I close my eyes tightly enough. “I’m assuming you’re not available to facetime?”

Frowning, I shake my head even though he can’t see me. “No, too many people around. You’ll just have to deal with the beautiful sound of my voice.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

It’s been two months since I last saw Yoongi outside of Bong-cha’s apartment. The chill that comes with currently residing in the northwestern United States is almost the same as I felt that morning when we said goodbye.

‘Young Rising’ came out just over a month ago, and it’s received a lot of success. Thankfully it was just enough to help me land a role that is already receiving speculation for possibly being a critically acclaimed role.

It wasn’t the one I originally wanted, that role went to Bryce Dallas Howard. I suppose I’ll have to try for a 1700’s romance some other time. This time around I get to play the daughter of one of the first lighthouse keepers in the United States and all the crazy events that unfold. It’s fun, and getting to take the ferry out to the San Juan islands here in the state of Washington is an added bonus.

My favorite part of the role? Every morning I get to sit here and watch the ocean and talk to Yoongi.

“Rude, but I’m not surprised. Isn’t it barely midnight there? You really are heading off to bed early.”

“Yeah, it’s midnight. What can I say? It was a long day and I’m exhausted.”

Now that I listen closer, I notice the hint of tiredness in his tone. “Why? What happened today?”

Yoongi sighs as I get up to board the ferry. Another great thing about being here in Washington? It’s cold and rainy enough that nobody bats an eye at me. I’m decked out in my raincoat and my beanie is pulled down low. During this time of year there aren’t many tourists either, so most mornings it’s just the ferryman and I. Today there are a couple of small groups milling about, though.

All the better. It gives me an excuse to not facetime Yoongi and have him laugh at my bundled up state. Which, for the record, he finds hilarious.

“Promise not to laugh?”

“Promise.”

There’s a second hesitation before he speaks up again. “I miss you.”

It’s a blow straight to the heart, and I cling to the railing so as to not fall overboard. We try not to dwell on our current state too much, things are complicated enough. Still, it’s nice to know that I’m not the only one struggling with this.

“Why would I laugh at that?”

“I don’t know, you like making fun of me and how weirdly sentimental I can get-”

“Soft. That’s the word you’re looking for.”

“...right. How could I forget.”

“I miss you too, Yoongs. A lot.”

It’s silent on the other end of the phone for a little while, so I just lean up against the railing and watch as the ferry begins to edge out to sea. Once again I close my eyes against the crashing waves and try to convince myself that I’m sitting in the genius lab or making a mess of things in the kitchen.

How could a span of less than a week affect me so much? It’s a question that I’ve come back to many times over the past couple of weeks. Occasionally I get a moment of understanding. Sometimes that understanding comes late at night as I cuddle up in bed, propping my phone up to chat with Yoongi as he sits at his desk in the genius lab and tells me about what he’s working on.

Just watching him mumble incoherent things under his breath and seeing his eyes flit back to his phone to check that I’m still there makes me realize that there’s so much going on here. So much going on whilst being so far apart.

At least the media frenzy has died down a bit. Sure, there’s still a lot of theories tumbling around, but the mobs of heartbroken fans seems to have lessened significantly.

“Are you sure that’s everything, though? What else have you got going on?”

“What, me missing you is not enough?”

I chuckle into the phone. “Nope.”

“Fine, you caught me. We’re finishing up the final touches on the mixtape and I always just get really stressed before a release, you know? Like you did the night before ‘Young Rising’ premiered?”

Shuddering at the memory I groan. “Ugh, don’t remind me. But what is it exactly about this mixtape that has you so nervous? I mean, this isn’t the first time you’ve released one. Maybe whatever helped you de-stress last time will help you this time around, too.”

There’s a long pause but I wait patiently for him to speak. The island is just coming into view now, I’ve probably got about fifteen more minutes before I’m officially on the clock and have to hang up.

I hate that part.

“I’m not so sure...it’s different this time around.”

I frown. “What’s so different? You’re even more loved?”

A wry laugh on his part. “No, not that. It’s just...this mixtape, these songs...they’re even more personal this time around. Sure, I’ve talked about some pretty personal things on my previous mixtapes, but this time around the entire mixtape is personal.”

That’s news to me. Ever since Yoongi changed the concept of the album he’s kept everything under lock and key. He told me he kept most of the tracks, ‘My First Mistake’ obviously being one of them. Other than that, though, I have no idea what to expect.

“Yoongs...I think that will make this mixtape your best one yet. Really. People will be able to relate to it, and they’ll love you even more for it. Just, get some sleep tonight. You’ve worked your hardest - don’t try to brush it all off, you’ve nearly worked yourself to the ground over this mixtape! - and that’s all you can do. I’m absolutely positive it’ll be great.”

“Thanks, Car. So what scenes are you doing today?”

We get lost in the conversation for the remainder of the ferry ride before suddenly the ferry is coming to a stop. I hurry off the boat, the tell-tale change of tone tipping Yoongi off to what I need to do.

“Talk to you later?”

“Yeah, sounds great. Get some sleep!”

Yoongi chuckles. “Will do. Have a great day.”

I sign off the phone and roll my shoulders. One of the producers, Melissa, is waiting for me in a little golf cart.

“Hey Cara, ready for the day?”

Grinning at her, I jump into the passenger seat. “Definitely.”

🌙

It’s the middle of the night when I’m awoken from my slumber, and I groan as I contemplate just turning my phone off. It was a late night, I’ve probably only been asleep for a couple of hours at this point.

When I see who’s calling, though, I pick up.

“Bong-cha?” I ask blearily. “What’s up?”

“Have you listened to it yet?!”

I hiss as Bong-cha screams into my ear. “What are you talking about? Did you and Jimin finally kiss or something?”

“No, you idiot. Yoongi’s mixtape!”

My eyes widen and suddenly I’m completely awake. “His mixtape? I-it’s out? When?”

“It just dropped like an hour ago! Didn’t he tell you? I mean, I get that he wanted to surprise everybody, but I thought he’d at least tell you.”

I’m already on my music app, searching for Agust D. When I finally hit search, I scream involuntarily.

“That little punk! He didn’t even tell me!”

“Wait, Cara!”

“What?”

“Just, listen to it.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do, weirdo.”

“No, but really listen to it. I mean, it’s about you.”

My chest stops rising as my air gets cut off. “What do you mean it’s about me? We already knew about ‘My First Mistake’-”

“No, not just that track. I mean it’s all about you. Just look at the name of it! Isn’t it a little weird that he didn’t stick to his m.o. and title it ‘D-3’?”

I was in such a rush to click on his profile that I didn’t even bother to look at the title. When I do, I come gasping up for air.

Mine.

Written there in big, bold letters is the word mine.

“That doesn’t mean any-”

“Nuh-uh, you listen to the mixtape and then we’ll hash out the details. Got it?”

“Fine. Call you in the morning?”

“Isn’t it already morning for you?”

“Yeah, 4!”

“Right. Yeah, call me later.”

Clicking off the call, I take a deep breath to steel myself before clicking on the album. 8 tracks stare back up at me, most of them I recognize from that first night in the genius lab. The leading track is ‘My First Mistake’, which makes me smile. When my eyes trail down to the final song, I can’t help but click on it.

My Last Mistake. Turning the volume up, I sit back against my headboard and listen. And then, note by note, I fall under his spell.

Yoongi’s heartbroken voice talks about details of his life, how he goes by many names. The world knows him by Suga. His true fans know his other name, August D. Min Yoongi controls the strings of those two personas. A heavy beat pounds out the words alongside him.

Then the music slows, becomes calmer. Clearer.

In the most tormented voice he can manage, Yoongi talks about a girl that called him Yoongs. He talks about a girl driving under the stars that called him Yoongs and how in that moment, he decided that none of the other names mattered anymore, just so long as he could hear her say it one more time.

As the song falls from its crescendo, Yoongi brings up his last mistake.

“What’s your last mistake, Yoongs?” I whisper, hoping for an answer.

He answers it a moment later, the same melody from ‘My First Mistake’ being played out, only this time it’s on the guitar rather than the piano.

He’s reminded of his last mistake every time a plane flies overhead and he can’t run fast enough to catch it.

🌙

The entire mixtape is hauntingly beautiful.

As I finish listening to “Naksan”, a song set Naksan park, and what I assume to be the gazebo that overlooked Seoul, I lean my head back and sigh.

There is so much we don’t say. There is so much that Yoongi has never said, but now I’m beginning to realize why he was so nervous about this mixtape.

Here, crammed into these eight songs that talk about everything from t-shirts to being oceans apart, Yoongi says everything he never could before. It’s obvious, painfully so. He didn’t try to cover anything up.

I am so dead.

Yet, I can’t find it in myself to care. The only thing I wish I could do right now is show up at his apartment and sit down on his couch. Maybe eat some food, and watch as he fumbles for an explanation to this mixtape that is no longer a mixtape but more a cry out into the void.

And of course, don’t even get me started on the title track. The song that the album is named after, “Mine”.

In it Yoongi recalls his dreams of having a big car and house, and how he gets to call all those things his now. He has it all, essentially. And yet, the one thing he wants more than anything is far from him.

‘I have it all, I hear them say it. I have it all, they chant over again. When will they realize that it means nothing to me, if I can’t call you mine?’

Dragging myself to check Twitter, I see what the number one trending topic is right now.

#Mine

And in second place?

#CaraisMine

Somehow, I can never quite make it to first place. How disappointing.

Groaning as I realize that the sun is about to come up, I linger over Yoongi’s contact information.

One call. That’s all it would take. A single phone call, and maybe everything would change. But what would I even say?

Hi, it’s the girl that’s ridiculously in love with you. Do you feel the same way? Great! Let’s end our careers and live in Fiji!

As enticing as that sounds as I watch the rain pouring down, I know that it’s unrealistic. I’m here, caught up in some strange, long-distance relationship that’s technically not a relationship.

And Yoongi’s there, hopefully receiving all the praise he deserves for coming out with yet another great mixtape.

So I just let the dim light from my phone fade out before slipping back down under the covers. I know what Yoong is thinking now.

Ball’s in my court. But how on earth do I return it?

🌙

Seoul, South Korea

“And she still hasn’t said anything about it?”

Yoongi knows that Taehyung is trying really hard to understand his current predicament, but if he asks him if he’s heard from Cara one more time, he’s going to lose his mind.

“No.”

“Have you reached out to her?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Sighing, Yoongi rubs his hands over his face. “First, because it’s only 8 o’clock in the morning over there. Second, I basically just told the world about my feelings for her, I think I can give her a little space to breathe before jumping on her.”

Taehyung plops down beside Yoongi, his eyes wide. “You’re really stressed, aren’t you?”

Somehow the question makes Yoongi laugh. “You think?” He feels restless; he has for the past two months. He thought releasing the mixtape would diminish that feeling, but instead it’s been heightened to the point that he can’t hardly sit still anymore.

Which is saying a lot, because Yoongi loves sitting still.

“Hyung?”

“Hm.”

“I think you should borrow my car and go for a drive or something. Just get out for a while. You’ve been cooped up in this studio for weeks; it’s messing with your head.”

Sometimes Yoongi forgets how much everyone cares about him. It’s in times like these that he remembers. Without saying much else he takes Taehyung’s keys that he extends to him and heads out.

When he gets into the car, he doesn’t know where he’s going. His mind is filled with worry and doubts and worst of all, regret. Was he too blind in his feelings that he overlooked Cara’s? After all, maybe she’s listening to the mixtape right this very moment and wondering why he would write something like this.

Maybe she hasn’t called him yet because she’s trying to come up with a way to let him down easy.

Yoongi drives and drives, turning up the music so as to drown out the thoughts in his head. He drives on and on, clueless to the fact that it’s the middle of the night and he should really be heading back to the apartment now.

When he parks before a lit path that leads up, Yoongi realizes that his body knew this entire time where he was going.

Without questioning it further, he hops out of the car and shrugs on his coat and mask. It’s late enough that hopefully most people will have had the sense to go home.

As Yoongi climbs up the path he only passes a couple of people; a couple that are too tangled up in each other’s embrace to even notice him. The path continues ever upward until he’s panting, but he’s grateful for the burn in his lungs. For a brief moment, his mind isn’t consumed by the what ifs of his current situation.

As Yoongi clears the final steps, his gaze immediately turns to the gazebo just down a ways. It’s the same as before, the night a similar one to that night when he watched Cara from afar before mustering up the courage to go talk to her.

Tonight there is one major difference. As Yoongi edges closer, there’s a tightness in his chest. There’s some part of him that half-expects Cara to appear, leaning up against one of the pillars and looking out at the city.

As Yoongi steps into the gazebo, that wish vanishes into thin air.

It’s empty.

Cara is not here. Yoongi is, though. Which has proved to be the most miserable thing in the world over the past two months. Cara is gone, but somehow Yoongi is still here and seeing her everywhere he goes.

The songwriting and production process is enough to make anyone go a little insane. Usually, once the project is finished, Yoongi feels like he can finally breathe again. He’s able to enjoy the fruits of his labors.

Not tonight.

At first he laughed at himself, back when he’d first started learning about Cara from Bong-cha and curiosity overcame him. He thought it was silly of him to want to learn everything about her and what it was that made her tick. There was just something about her that made Yoongi dive right in.

Of course, the boys had noticed. Even Bong-cha, who hadn’t known him for very long, had noticed the difference Cara had made. That was before they even met. Before any of this had even started.

Yoongi knows his place. His place as one of the most famous stars in the world, his place in the group’s dynamic, his place among his family. His place among ARMY. Yet, when he met Cara, it was like the ground disappeared under his feet and he’s been falling ever since.

He used to come to Naksan park often and just think. He’s not one for hiking around outdoors, but something about the view and the beautiful architecture of the gazebo and old city walls that line the path have helped him think.

He used to stand where Cara stood, and think about everything. However there was one topic that he tried to avoid at all costs: love. It wasn’t because he didn’t believe in love or didn't want it; if he’s learned anything from his time with ARMY he’s learned about love. But there was always this giant, impenetrable wall that stood between him and love.

Yoongi knows his place, and because of that clear role he has also always known that him falling in love with someone other than his fans was off the table.

That night when he came to meet Cara, he was coming to tell her just that. He was coming to tell her that he was a horrible human being that was dangerously close to breaking that unspoken rule, and he needed to mark a clear line in the sand. Friends, he had thought We can still be friends.

Yet, as he’d watched Cara head to the same spot; the same pillar he had frequented so many times, his words had gotten caught in his throat. She’d looked out over the city and Yoongi would have given anything to know what she was thinking.

Instead, he’d just asked for what so many people had been unable to give him throughout his career.

Just someone to sit in silence with.

No demands, no questions, just be together.

And as Yoongi sat swimming in his feelings, Cara’s head resting on his shoulder, he learned something about himself.

Yoongi had avoided the topic of love for so long not because he didn’t think it was appropriate for his lifestyle, but because he’d known deep down that the chances of him finding someone he was willing give everything up for were nearly nonexistent.

Cara’s hand was wrapped up in his, sharing his pocket. Quiet breathing, feeling warm despite the oppressing chill. No demanding answers, just sitting together.

He had realized that while he was looking for someone to convince him to leave everything behind, he was sitting beside someone that already understood. Someone that would never tell him to abandon it all just to be together.

He was sitting beside someone that might just be open to the possibility of being together, and would be open to the chaos that would ensue. There was no need to change everything to be together, but there would be the need to fight for that privilege of calling Cara his.

As Yoongi now steps into the gazebo and rests on the bench opposite from where they had sat, he remembers when it all started.

The night after he’d watched ‘Under Nine’, he’d felt restless and wandered up here. It was the first time in over a year that he’d come here. He knew why he didn’t bother to anymore; he didn’t feel inspired anymore when he looked out over the city.

Yoongi had seen the world, and he’d fallen out of love with it.

It was a horrible, lying, cheating thing. He’d seen too much suffering, fought so hard against it just to see evil rise up again and again.

Yet when he came up here that night after watching Cara on screen and seeing that humanity can be beautiful even in all its flaws, something amazing had happened.  

He looked out over the city, and a little spark had jumped up in his heart. That night, Yoongi looked out over the world, and began to fall in love again.

Yoongi has never been very confrontational. Some may think he is simply due to his status as a rapper, but that’s never been the case. However, he is known for his undeniable work ethic. For his unending effort to obtain what he thinks he deserves.

When Yoongi placed a letter into the mail a few days ago, he was reminded of why he was going to do everything in his power to make this work.

When he looked at Cara, he thought that she deserved a chance at love, too.

Giving one last look out at the city, Yoongi gets up and stretches. There are a lot of uncertainties swirling about right now, but there is one thing he is completely certain of.

He is going to do everything in his power to give him and Cara a chance.

🌙

Anacortes, Washington, USA

I have mail.

It’s the first time in a long time that I’ve gotten mail, but I can’t fight the feeling of dread as I wonder if the awkward pleas from fans are about to start up again. There’s a single envelope addressed to me sitting on the ground in front of my hotel door, which I scoop up before heading back inside.

No work today; we’ll be taking a two week break to wait out the rainy season before picking things back up again. I’m grateful for the small reprieve, I would much rather stay cuddled up in my blankets today while I try to wrap my mind around everything.

I haven’t reached out to Yoongi yet. Granted, it’s only 10 am, but I still feel a little guilty. I just want to make sure I have my thoughts in order before I freak out, you know? After all, there’s still a chance the mixtape being about me is just a coincidence...right?

Stacey, my PR rep, just got off the phone with me. Nobody really knows where I am right now, which is good. There are perks to being holed up in a small town in the northwestern United States.

She gave me an earful on how many calls she’s received over the course of the last few hours from various magazines and gossip collectors. When she asked me if there was a statement she would like for me to relay, I blanked. Stacey just laughed and said she’d come up with some vague for the time being.

My attention returns to the item in my hand. Cautiously opening up the letter, my brows furrow as I take out a small slip of paper and a piece of thick cardstock.

Cara,

Hopefully this gets to you when it’s supposed to. I thought of just sending you an email but that seemed to detract from what I was going for. You understand, don’t you? When you told me about your break from work, I managed to pull some strings. Follow the directions on the back of this letter, I’ll be waiting for you. And no, I can’t do this over the phone. It’s an ‘in-person’ kind of thing.

Yours,

Yoongs

Flipping the letter over I frown when the directions are in French. Then, scrambling for the cardstock, my mouth drops open as I see just what Yoongi is talking about.

One boarding ticket for tomorrow morning, leaving at 10am.

Destination?

Paris.

Previous - Next

only one chapter left! 💛💛

taglist: @eusticenatalie @agustneeds​ @prdshobi​ @oceandeep​ @taylorroe3​ @dreamcatcherjiah​

[distinguished-slacker]

Theory: Who will unite the Shinoa squad?

(Because I am bored~)

Many people must know by now that the whole Shinoa squad is dysfunctional and the members cannot lead themselves to a single goal. They call themselves family but in the end all of them have their own problems and priorities that prevents the members from staying united in difficult situations.

Yuu was the driving force of the squad but now his mentality reversed to one of a child (as a defence mechanism to cope with his traumas) to the point that even Kimizuki and Yoīchi cannot deal with him. On top of that, even if he calls everyone ‘family’, he wanted to commit suicide when Mika died even if it meant leaving the other squad members behind.

Shinoa is the official squad leader but in my opinion I feel that she failed at doing her job properly ever since Nagoya arc finished. Also, she has to deal with being the vessel for Shikama Doji and her newfound feelings for Yuu so she cannot take care of everyone equally in the squad.

Kimizuki is the ‘big brother’ and voice of the reason in the squad but Yuu never listens to him which adds to his own exhaustion. On top of that, even if he expressed his desire of letting go of his responsibilities recently, he still wants to prioritise Mirai over anyone else in the squad.

Yoīchi is the one who takes the role of calming things down. However, he is hiding his dark side from the squad which sets a barrier between him and the others, and he always chooses to follow Kimizuki and help him. Yoīchi also has the pending goal of torturing and killing Lacus. Moreover, he is unable to take initiative and ends up being dragged by the others such as when he changed his mind and decided to drink like the girls did (probably to cope with the recent stressful events).

This all makes me come to the idea of what if this is Mitsuba’s time to shine? When Shinoa got possessed by Shikama Doji and Yuu offered himself as a lab rat, Kimizuki went to where his little sister was with the idea of taking her and running away from everything even if meant leaving Yuu and Shinoa behind. Yoīchi and Makoto immediately decided to tag along with Kimizuki. On the other hand, Mitsuba stayed because she got concerned when she saw what Yuu was about to be injected with and when the Hyakuya Sect member took Yuu, Mitsuba turned around to tell everyone just to realise that they were gone the betrayal. Everyone has a specific person as a priority while Mitsuba’s goal has always been the same since the beginning: to maintain formation.

She doesn’t have a specific person she wants to protect nor any hidden side of her so far. Even if she doesn’t have a black demon unlike the others, she is still a member of the main squad of the series and it’s so intriguing why Kagami left her the last when it comes to showing her demon and the inside of her heart. By referring to the importance of the demons in the Shinoa squad, Shinoa’s demon should have been saved for the last but interestingly this was not the case.

In chapter 45, called ‘The Sangū sisters’, when Crowley attacked Mitsuba she caught his foot while expressing her low self-esteem because she felt she was holding her squad back the same way she felt as a hindrance with her previous squad. This could have been a great chance to show even just a few panels of Tenjiryū addressing Mitsuba’s inferiority complex. But Kagami didn’t take this chance, and even if the chapter title referred to Aoi and Mitsuba, they barely had any protagonism in here which makes the choice of the title awkward. However, I heard that Kagami-sensei said that the real story begins now which makes me wonder if Kagami purposely did things in a half-assed way so he could come to this point to turn the tables.

Although it is likely that Mitsuba’s demon will be revealed to be more important than initially established because of the meaning behind their name ‘Heavenly-shaped dragon’, which contradicts their demon nature, I am not essentially saying that Mitsuba will be like Shinoa and turn out to be special. In hindsight, what the squad needs the most right now is not more powerful people but someone who can maintain the structure of the squad. Recently Kagami-sensei has given us moments of every squad members’ thoughts about the current situation but only Mitsuba has been weirdly quiet.

Now Mitsuba must be feeling lost. She started out as the most promising member of the squad, the elite soldier with battle experience since the age of 13, but now all the other four ‘rookies’ turned out to be powerful genetically engineered humans while she stayed as the normal and weakest one what a punch in the gut. This makes me wonder if Kagami waited this much to develop the strength of the other four to worsen Mitsuba’s inferiority complex enough so she can now have her time to fight her own insecurities and grow as a character. Before Mitsuba felt inferior to the others for a reason her mind created on her own due to her past traumas but now she has an actual, visible reason to feel inferior.

Mitsuba initially was angry at the fact Guren chose Shinoa as the squad leader and eventually settled with the role of second in command. The advantage that Mitsuba has over Shinoa and the other three members when it comes to the current situation is that she is not directly affected by it. The actions of Shikama Doji, Guren, Mahiru and other masterminds had influenced the other members a lot like the genetic composition of Yuu and Shinoa, and the lives of the sisters of Kimizuki and Yoīchi. This would mean that Mitsuba is the character with the most availability to take this vacant role. Even if we consider Mika and Makoto as part of the squad, neither Mika nor Makoto have a special emotional attachment to the squad so I doubt they want to lead them. Moreover, Mika’s current situation takes him out of the question and Poseidon has disappeared since like 20 chapters ago💔

I know many people are not interested in Mitsuba’s character🤧 I was one of them but after being continuously disappointed on how Kagami handled the character development of the main characters, I started focusing on the characters that still didn’t get any development and realised their potential in the manga. That’s why I really hope she will not become another victim of Kagami’s poor depiction of female characters.

P.S. Or maybe it’s just me and I am being delusional after so much OnS angst and I would probably need to lower my expectations a bit😭🤧

[willowbird]

Twinyards - Hello ( Daemons AU)

Okay so here is going to be my one and only entry for @twinyardsappreciationweek -- not because I didn't want to!! I just.. life happened and so I only actually got the first one done and then I went back and forth about posting it for several days because my anxiety is off the charts this week (huh I wonder why??)

So ANYWAY! This is my "Hellos", a first meeting between Aaron and Andrew in an AU that takes what I like about His Dark Materials and ignores what I've forgotten about it because I honestly haven't read the books in 15 years. Please forgive me for making up the rules as I go along. You do not need to be familiar with The Golden Compass/Northern Lights/His Dark Materials in order to understand or enjoy this AU because.. well, like I just said, I kinda kept the "soul animal" bit and decided to make up the rules for the rest as I went along. Feel free to ping me in messages or send me an ask if you have any questions.

------

“You’re biting your nails all the way down again.” Stella’s voice was quiet in Aaron’s ear. She was currently balanced on his shoulder where she could see the whole room while also being well out of trampling-range of larger daemons and their people.

“No I’m not,” he grumbled, but snatched his fingers away from his mouth because yes - he was. “And don’t hedgehogs have terrible eyesight? How would you even know?”

Stella huffed, and the small snap of her breath tickled his ear, making him twitch. “I don’t know where you heard that, but I can see just fine, thank you very much.”

“If you say so,” Aaron relented -- not because he actually believed her but because he was too distracted to engage in their usual bickering. There was nothing interesting about the room they were sitting in. It was empty of anyone besides him and his uncle and their daemons, neither of which were very large, and was painted a pale blue offset by a dark gray shallow carpet that made Aaron feel like he was sitting in the waiting room of a dentist’s office rather than a juvenile detention center. Still, despite the general blandness of their surroundings, Aaron’s mind was busy.

After all, today he was going to be meeting his brother. His long-lost brother. His long-lost twin brother.

Yeah, mindfuck right?

Twice already his uncle had shot him a look for the way his knee kept bouncing with jittery nerves, but it’s not like he could help it. It just wasn’t every day that you found out that you had a long-lost twin. That you got to meet that long-lost twin, especially after they’d initially told you to piss off.

Well, more or less.

Andrew’s letter back to him had been more like, Aaron, back the fuck off. Stay far the fuck away until you hear from me. I’m fucking serious. -- A.

No, really. That’s exactly what it said. Aaron had read it so many times that he’d memorized it, first because he couldn’t believe that he’d gotten a letter back, then because he couldn’t believe his brother was such an unrepentant asshole, and then because he couldn’t help but notice that they both wrote their lower-case ‘a’s the exact same way.

That was almost two months ago. Mom had absolutely freaked out and moved them across the damn country within a couple of weeks of the whole ‘Andrew Situation’ coming to light, and if it had been up to her Aaron definitely wouldn’t be here now. Except Uncle Luther, for all that he was a gigantic flaming dickhead, wasn’t quite as willing to let it go. Then, last week, he’d gotten a letter back from Andrew. All it had was an address to a juvenile detention center.

And so here he was, ready to meet his twin brother, and he felt so many things about it that he didn’t even know how he was really feeling.

“Luther Hemmick and Aaron Minyard?”

Aaron jumped at the voice and looked over at the stout man who had just entered the room. He wore a white coat like some kind of doctor and looked weirdly buff for also being old and balding.

Beside him, his uncle stood up, his pomeranian daemon trotting out from where she’d been curled under his chair. Aaron scooped Stella off his shoulder and returned her to her preferred nest inside the pocket of his hoodie as he joined his uncle. He tried to mimic his uncle’s superior sort of calm as he trailed after the two men, passing through the security door and down the narrow tiled hallway into what looked like some kind of common room.

Aaron had expected it to look like the rooms inmates talked to their families on tv, with two-way glass and phones so that you could talk to the person on the other side. He’d expected a lot of cold steel and white stone walls, with all the kids in matching gray jumpsuits or something.

Instead, they were in what looked like a giant living room. There were several couches and tables, a television with a few different video game systems, and a tall shelving unit filled with board games. There were teenagers lounging on the couches or at the tables, one or two of them apparently also visiting with family. Aaron didn’t spend all that much time scoping out the other kids, though, because on his first scan of the room his gaze settled on a blond boy sitting in the bay window with a fucking lion stretched out on the floor beside him, a living, breathing, tooth-filled barrier between him and the rest of the room.

Andrew.

Their little party had stopped just inside the door and Aaron was distantly aware of the warden or the principal or the doctor or whatever the fuck he was telling Uncle Luther about the facility. He couldn’t focus on them enough to actually retain the specifics though, not when he saw Andrew.

It was so… so fucking weird. He was there. Right fucking there. His brother, and they were identical. Okay, so, not completely identical. Andrew’s hair was longer than his own, and since the kids here were apparently allowed to wear street clothes he was wearing black jeans and a black long-sleeved shirt (which was neither a gray jumpsuit nor anything that Aaron would typically wear -- he preferred normal jeans and band t-shirts, thanks). There was also something… colder about him that Aaron didn’t know how to feel about but definitely seemed to match the two brief letters he’d gotten from him.

The lion lifted her head and looked right at him, fixing him with an eerie amber stare he felt both trapped and analyzed by. It was not comfortable and it took all of his willpower not to squirm. As it were, he ended up fully flinching when their guide called out a bit too loudly from a bit too close to him.

"Andrew! Come say hello, your family is here to see you."

Andrew, who up until this point had been reading a book like he hadn't known they were there at all, just… continued to read. He didn't look up, didn't even seem like he'd heard him at all.

The man sighed and gave them an apologetic look. "Sorry, he's, well. He's a bit antisocial."

"Hm." The disapproving sound from Uncle Luther had Aaron glancing over at him and he didn't really like the calculating look on his face. It would be utter bullshit if he finally got a brother only for his uncle to make it so he ended up getting shipped off to military school or something.

Rather than wait around for the adults to come up with some stupid way to attempt to make Andrew bow to their will, Aaron rubbed his thumb reassuringly over Stella's head where she was huddled in his pocket and strode forward with far more confidence than he actually felt. He stopped several feet in front of the lioness and tried not to be intimidated by her. Logically he knew that she wasn't a fully grown lion yet, that she was an adolescent to match her human's age, but Aaron had always been uneasy around daemons who had settled into big predators. Maybe it was because his own daemon was so small and he was protective of her -- or maybe it was some deeper instinct he wasn't ready or able to interpret yet. Either way, he ended up having to keep both hands in his pockets to hide their shaking. He couldn't steady both them and his voice at the same time, and he needed his voice to be steady.

"Hey,” he said -- and yes, his voice for that whole one word was very steady. Maybe even casual. Fuck yeah.

The lion, who had watched him throughout his entire approach, flicked her ears -- but he had no idea what emotion that was supposed to be.

For a moment, Aaron thought that was all he was going to get. Then he saw Andrew sigh and resolutely dog-ear the page he was on before closing the book and setting it down on the windowsill. He looked over at him, just with a flick of his eyes at first and then by turning his head. Aaron kept perfectly still and had the distinct impression he was being judged or evaluated somehow. It was really uncomfortable and also kind of annoying, but the hard stare of the other boy matched that of the lioness a bit too closely for Aaron to be willing to call him out on it just yet.

Instead, he waited, and he used the opportunity to look at his brother too. He wasn’t really looking for anything in particular, he just wanted to know him. He wanted to know what his life had been like and his favorite music. He wanted to know if he and his daemon had played the same sort of ‘what if’ games that he and Stella had growing up. He wanted to know if Andrew had always wished for a brother too, and if he’d grown up feeling like something was missing only to feel all the pieces click into place the second he found out that he had a twin. None of these were things he’d be able to learn just by looking at him, but looking was a start -- and it could tell him other things.

For one thing, he could tell that Andrew liked to read, right? There was the book he’d been reading -- it had been a thick one and he’d seemed really into reading it. He clearly didn’t like adults, since he’d ignored the big guy when he’d called out to him (though really, Aaron figured anyone in juvie probably didn’t like adults). He liked the color black..?

Look, it was a start.

Somehow, Aaron got the feeling that Andrew was able to read more on him than he was able to read on Andrew; or maybe that was just his own frustration at being able to pick out so little. Either way, it was irritating when Andrew nodded a few moments later like he’d made some sort of decision or something. Andrew looked past him then to where Uncle Luther was still speaking with the guy in charge and the casual coolness hardened into something icy with disdain.

Aaron frowned and looked over his shoulder to follow his gaze, but didn’t see anything weird. He looked back at Andrew and said, “So, I’m Aaron…”

Andrew looked at him again, his expression a blank mask. “Clearly.”

Aaron’s temper arrived unannounced and uninvited, but that wasn’t altogether that strange. “I thought you wanted me to come. Isn’t that why you sent the address? If you’re just going to be a big dick about it you could have saved us both the trouble.” He snapped the words out without repent, lifting his chin and glaring down at his brother before he remembered there was a lion between them with sharp teeth and man-shredding claws.

Neither Andrew nor his lioness daemon seemed offended by his little outburst, though. If anything, Andrew looked amused. His mouth quirked a little on the side, almost like a smile -- or like, maybe he had an itch or something.

“Where’s your daemon?” he asked then, familiar-but-not hazel eyes scanning the immediate area then glancing backward toward the window. Most buildings were designed for the ease of use for both humans and their daemons, but some larger daemons preferred to stay outside but close-by rather than squeezing into tighter quarters. Larger daemons also tended to have a larger range away from their person, as well. Aaron wasn’t sure how far he could get from Stella. He honestly didn’t like the idea of her not being physically on him most of the time, so he was glad she was small enough to do so.

Aaron cupped his hand in his pocket and she cuddled into it so he could pull her out.

Andrew looked at her, then to him. “She’s cute.”

From most people, that would probably be some kind of an insult, but Aaron got the very weird sense that Andrew was being genuine. It threw him off enough that he just blinked stupidly for a moment before saying, “Uh… thanks. Yeah, she is.”

Instead of responding, Andrew stood up and strode past him. Aaron quickly stepped out of the way as the lioness rose fluidly to move with him.

“And where do you think you’re going, Andrew?” the big guy who’d showed them in said with a false lightness.

“Outside.” He looked over his shoulder then, and Aaron realized a half a second before Andrew continued speaking that he was being invited along. “My brother and I have about fourteen years of catching up to do.”

Aaron’s heart did a traitorous little leap in his chest. He looked down at where he was still holding Stella up in an open palm. She gave him an encouraging nuzzle and Aaron hid a grin as he hurried to follow his brother. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen from here on out -- but he was suddenly sure that no matter what, he and Stella wouldn’t be alone anymore.

[aperrywilliams]

Letters to me (Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader)

(Not my gif!)

Masterlist

———————

Summary: What happens when Reader received some love letters?

Word Count: 7436

Rating: All Audiences. I would say “Fluff” enough.

Warnings: Some curses, that’s all.

A/N: Anderson deserved better :)

——————–

If I said my life is boring working at the BAU I would be outright lying. What more exciting than chasing serial killers across the country? For real, I’ve seen many horrendous things thanks to this work, but good overcomes the bad one and at the end of the day you realize something good you are doing in this world and it gives a different taste in life.

Even though much of the time is about work, there are things even more important in this place: my friends whom are my family too. When I joined the team 5 years ago I couldn't be more grateful to the people who received me with open arms. In those years Hotch was the unit’s chief. With his always appropriate posture he was warm enough to make you feel welcome immediately. As well as JJ, García, Morgan, Rossi and the good Dr. Reid. All of them had known each other for many years, so I was the “new” one and, therefore, the team's reason for concern from then on. Despite my 27 years old they felt urge to take care of me like a little girl. It didn't bother me much, I knew it was genuine concern, but sometimes it was frustrating. I must admit it. Perhaps the only one who understood how I felt was Spencer. Sure, for many years he was the BAU's baby. Until I arrived, in fact. When we talked about it, he told me several times I was destined to be the protégé until someone new and younger arrived, he even joked about felt somewhat displaced since I came to the team.

Thanks to hours we spent working late, traveling on the jet and the hallway conversations I came to love them all as if they were my own family. I cried a lot when Hotch left the BAU, as well as when Morgan made the decision to leave as well. Of course we all understood. But feeling that nothing is forever began to provoke anxiety. It made me wonder where I really wanted to lead my life. I never doubted about  my job, of course not, but I did doubt about my personal life. I needed more things in my life and I felt like I suspended this needs because I believed the BAU was everything for me.

One day in lunch time, I told Spencer about my fears. I wasn't expecting to be very exhaustive and I wasn't expecting very elaborate advice, maybe some statistics on how people change as they get older, but just that.

“It is very common for people turned 30 to feel doubts about the decisions they make in life. There are studies that point out people who have stressful jobs delay these questions for a couple of years due to daily pressure, but it happens anyway. Even so, this type of situation is much more common in women than in men, given their state of reproductive maturity…”. This was the analysis Spencer shared with me after telling her how I felt.

"Spencer, my problem is not my reproductive maturity, if it's what you are suggesting...". I said laughing and trying to relieve the atmosphere I had caused with my questions.

"No. I didn't say that. I only said the 30-year crisis could be more acute in women given their hormonal status… ” he replied very seriously.

"So is it true I'm in the 30-year crisis?... Hell, it wasn't what I wanted to hear, but you may be right. Did this happen to you when you turned 30?" I asked to him.

"Ehhh, yeah. I think so. Back then my conflict was about the things I had accomplished at time. It is true, I had many doubts too, so I think the theory of 30s crisis is correct” he confessed.

I like talking to Spencer. Over the years we managed to establish a very close friendship. Perhaps because we are the closest in age within the team. I don't know. And even though sometimes his impulse to have data for everything despair me, his genuine concern for those around him make Spencer adorable and an impossible not to love. What I like the most is over time he also trusted me enough to speak open about himself. Sure, it doesn't something he do spontaneously, but whenever I asked him how he is or how he feel, he answers with complete sincerity. Spencer even listen to my advices and take it seriously, which I don't even do with myself, I must confess.

"And what is exactly disturbs you? What your doubts are about?" Spencer asked me. The truth I didn’t expect to development more this subject, so his question took me by surprise.

"Ehh... well, what I was saying. I don't know if I'm doing things right... or if I should make changes in my life...". Sure, but I had already said that and it was nothing specific. He knew it.

"Ok, but… what do you think you need to change (Y/N)? What do you think is missing in your life?" he asked without losing sight of my gaze. I knew the answer. But at that point I felt a little vulnerable and I didn't know if I was willing to be more detailed on the subject. And of course, it's not I didn't trust him, it's just this topic was more uncomfortable to talk about during lunch time. But… it was Spencer, my friend. Why not trust him?

"Ok. Truthfully?... Although it sounds strange, I feel I lack emotion. I mean, it's exciting to go after serial killers and all that stuff. But it’s my job. In other aspects, I feel my life is quite 'simple'…”. Spencer studied my body language closely and tried to assimilate my words. I tried to help him by digging deeper into my thoughts. “For example, my love life. It is quite simple. I've had some relationships, but I can't say I've ever fallen in love and felt reciprocated in a special way. In other hand, I know men are simple, no offence, but I’d like to find someone who is really interested in me. I don't know, having romance, something exciting, something different from the relationships I've had before…”. Spencer looked at me weirdly.

"Like… in the movies…? I didn’t think you are the type of women who like romantics fantasies..." he told me with curious eyes even after my explanation.

"No, it's not I like romantics fantasies per se... but... I don't know. It's just sometimes I don't feel wanted, do you get it? And I don't speak about sexual side. I'm talking about love, feelings, whatever that means after all…”. Spencer nodded as if he understood what I was talking about. Frankly, I don't know if he understood, but I was already feeling uncomfortable talking about this, so I didn't want to continue my explanation. I decided the topic ended there and started talking about something else for the rest of the lunch.

The weeks passed and due to the amount of cases we had, I suspended my questions and doubts for a while. We just returned from Alabama. It's was already night and I just wanted to go to my place and sleep. I was exhausted. We got to the 6th floor to collect our things. At that time there was no one left in the BAU. Just dragging my feet I managed to get to my desk site.

When I looked over my desk I saw something different: there was an envelope with my name in handwritten. I took it and opened it. Inside was a piece of paper, also handwritten, with meticulous calligraphy. That is the first thing surprised me, because I never was able to write like this. I didn't be able to do it even in school.

"Dear (Y/N). After all these years, I finally gathered the courage to send you this letter. I must first apologize myself for this boldness of mine. I do not mean to bother you but I can’t just not express how I feel about you. It’s impossible for me not to put into words what my heart is feeling at the moment. The first time I saw you, I felt like I was out of breath. Your natural beauty stunned me from the first day. Look at you walking by hallways of the FBI makes my heart pounds faster and I think every day I fall more in love with you. Yours. Anon"

My first thought was this was a joke. I gazed everywhere and only saw my colleagues with whom I had just arrived from Alabama . No one was looking at me. I felt my cheeks redden and there was nothing I could do about it. A secret admirer in the FBI?... a secret lover? I scrutinized the envelope again for any indication of the sender. Nothing. I had been working here for 5 years and something like this had never happened to me. I was speechless and didn't know what to think either. I wanted to stick with the idea it was a prank. But who would want to do me something like that? Spencer noticed my shock and asked me what was going on. I was not able to tell him what I had just seen and read. I just said "Nothing, I'm fine. Just a bad joke. Good night Spencer”. I took my belongings and left the BAU towards my apartment. That night I fell asleep thinking it must be a joke and I would have to find out who is ruthless enough to do something like this.

When I got to work the next day I immediately glanced my desk. Everything was as I left the night before. I tried to relax and even dismissed my initial idea of chasing after the person responsible for the prank of day before. I went to take my usual morning coffee and started working. It was not until after we returned from lunch when I looking over my desk and saw another envelope with my name written on it. My heart stopped and I think I stopped breathing too. Emily and JJ noticed my stupor because they immediately asked me if I was okay. I just nodded and took the envelope opening it and taking out its contents: again, a piece of paper written with perfect calligraphy.

"Dear (Y/N). I dare to send you a new letter. You should know every day passes I fall more in love with you. It's only fair I declare this because my heart would explode if I couldn't. Oddly enough, looking into your eyes I feel as I can see your soul, your beautiful soul. The one that deserves to be loved utterly, the one that deserves to be treated with all the veneration and grace in the world . If I had the courage to approach you and if you let me love you, believe me I would never could let you down. Yours. Anon"

"What the fuck ...?". It was the only thing I could say as Emily took the piece of paper in my hand and began to read it. Then she passed it to JJ to do the same. Both of them didn’t know whether to laugh or not, but when they saw my daze they chose to debrief me.

"Since when do you have a secret lover in the FBI?" J.J. asked.

"Not just any secret lover, is a lover who ‘can see her soul through her eyes’" Prentiss teased looking at J.J.

"It must be someone's prank...". I tried to reason with them.

"Why a joke? It is perfectly possible you have captivated the heart of an agent on these sides..." argued J.J.

“But in these 5 years , nothing like this has ever happened to me!” I said with stupor.

"There is always a first time..." Emily said with a shrug.

"It must be someone new..." J.J. reflected

"I don't think so, the first letter makes me think it has been here for a while...". I said as I took the first letter out of my purse and handed it to them to read.

"Years... eh?... this is new. I think someone is burning inside of love for you (Y/N)”. Emily said laughing.

For the rest of afternoon I couldn't focus on any of my tasks. All the time I was thinking about the possible men who could have written these letters. Maybe letters was not too sophisticated but to think someone from the bureau was in love with me, and for so long, did nothing but widen my heart... and my ego, by the way. I was pondering on that when Spencer peeked around my desk.

“You cannot tell me nothing is wrong with you, because you have hardly worked today (Y/N). You've been contemplating the nothingness for hours”. Again Spencer took me by surprise.

"It's just... I’m... I don't know how to say it… I’m surprised?". And without saying anything else, I handed him the two letters I received. He quickly read them and frowned.

"What really mean this about ‘looking into your eyes I feel as I can see your soul'? That is physically impossible..." he stated in a seriously tone.

"Spencer, it's a metaphor. You are a genius, I think you know what a metaphor is…”. I said with a bit of annoyance. Of course, Spencer wasn't seeing the same as I in the letters.

"Ok. Metaphor or not... it doesn't seem very sophisticated to me". Yes, he had a point. These aren't great love letters, but for me the effort could balance the lack poetry talent of my secret lover.

"Ok. Maybe he isn’t a poet after all, but I think I like it..." I said a little embarrassed to admit I was flattered. Spencer smiled.

"Maybe you really have more action in your life after all..." he told me, giving me the letters before he returned to his desk.

Two days later I got another letter. This time I saw it over the desk just arriving to the office in the morning. After grabbing my morning coffee I proceeded to read it.

"Dear (Y/N). When I saw you yesterday I felt like talking to you, but I didn't dare. I have to admit that I am too shy to approach you. I always have been, but when I fall in love is when my shyness plays against me the most. Maybe I shouldn't tell you these things, but I also want you to know me more, even if it's through these letters. In the depths of my heart I have the hope that perhaps one day we could be together, and one day I could kiss those beautiful lips. Did I say to kiss?. And what is a kiss, specifically? A pledge properly sealed, a promise seasoned to taste, a vow stamped with the immediacy of a lip, a rosy circle drawn around the verb 'to love.' A kiss is a message too intimate for the ear, infinity captured in the bee's brief visit to a flower, secular communication with an aftertaste of heaven, the pulse rising from the heart to utter its name on a lover's lip: 'Forever'. Yours. Anon".

Dammit! The bastard just quoted one of my favorite plays? Shit!. Maybe he isn’t illiterate after all. Another thing I noticed: in this letter he dared to reveal a little more about himself. Something I could not see in the previous two. Would this be more than platonic?. Throughout the day, as I walked through the corridors of the FBI, I couldn't stop looking at all the men I came across. Some of them didn't even look at me while others looked at me and some even smiled at me. I hadn't realized how many people I passed through the corridors of the FBI on a daily basis. "You work doing profiles, how can you not make a profile of your secret lover?". I told myself. Well, this was already an intellectual challenge, but I needed help. That afternoon, as we were in the jet on the way to a case in Houston, I approached Emily and J.J. showing them the third letter and asking them to help me discover who it was. They were more fascinated with the challenge than I was.

With the little evidence we had, all we could say he is an agent, who works for the FBI since at least a few years, probably suffered more than one love sorrows, and this is the first time he dared to do anything like write a love letter. And of course, he knew one of my favorite plays was Cyrano of Bergerac, or at least he suspected it. So it had to be someone I talked to more than once or knew something about my life and my past. It couldn't be someone I only crossed in the hallways. His calligraphy indicated dedication, organization and emotions contained.

"I think this profile outlines 50% of the bureau officers, except for the calligraphy and the play (Y/N) likes..." Prentiss said huffing.

"Ok. And in this 50%, how many of them have spoken with (Y/N) in these years enough to know things about her? Assuming he is not someone who takes risks…” added JJ. I just shrugged and started making a list of agents I remembered having spoken more than one word in these years and who were still on the bureau. I was surprised myself how friendly am I. The list was not short.

I kept receiving letters from my secret lover. In all of them he let a little piece of his heart escape, not only screaming his love for me, but his doubts about himself. That broke my heart. Was he so afraid to talk to me? Days later I received the last letter.

"Dear (Y/N). You may have noticed my early letters were more fearful. I was afraid you would be intimidated by my boldness. Now I feel a little more confident about you at least read my letters and motivates me to write more. I never thought I was going to confess my love to a woman in this way. And it's not I have fallen in love many times before in my life. To be honest, I think very few times indeed, and to be honest, never with someone like you. You’re a very special woman (Y/N). When you started at the BAU you immediately radiated all your energy to those around you. Always gentle, with a smile on your lips. Willing to help and do your job in the best way possible. You are so understanding, you care about the rest and this quality makes any man can fall madly in love with you, like me now. Always yours. Anon"

Wait… what?!, have I known this man for 5 years? I mean, he was here when I started working in the BAU. This fact shortened my initial list a lot. I told Emily and J.J. about my new findings.

"So... who is on this short list?" Emily asked.

"Well... according to my evaluation this leaves us: Stevens, Rogers, Martinez and Anderson". I said, going through my list. And I wasn't considering just the singles mans.

"I don't think be Stevens, he's a narcissist. He's not the type to send letters. He would just come up to you and to invite you out…”. Emily said, dismissing the first suspect.

"Rogers is a shy guy. But I think hopefully he read an entire book in his life. He is more RPGs type and that kind of nerdy stuff. The writing style doesn't reveal that kind of man…” said J.J. , rejecting the second suspect.

“Martinez is recently married. I know it doesn't mean anything, but according to they said around here, he was dating his girlfriend for four years until she said yes to the question, so it would be premature to think he is thinking in another woman…”. With this statement Emily dismissed the third suspect.

"And Anderson... well, Anderson got divorced a year ago. We never knew very well what happened. I once heard Morgan to say he married her because she was his high school girlfriend, but he was never very in love with her…”. J.J. explained.

“He is a very sweet man, without a doubt. Is shy. I always see him with books walking for the hallways, it seems he likes to read… it could be someone who can write letters…”. Emily indicated.

"Maybe love letters... yes... it is possible" added J.J. Both looked at each other as if they had discovered the Holy Grail. "It's Anderson!" they exclaimed at the same time.

"Fuck..." was the only thing I could say, also noticing and reviewing all my interactions with Anderson in the past years.

It’s true what Emily and J.J. said, Anderson is a very sweet man. Always considerate, giving you a smile. Very shy, no doubt, but sweetly shy. Of course he wasn't my type. I had never seen Anderson with different eyes. And to be honest, I had rarely seen other agents with different eyes. Of course, my job is more important. I tried to go over things I've talked to him in the past, and of course, except for some social meetings in Rossi’s house, our interactions had been quite limited. But it was a fact we saw each other regularly on the BAU. And surely he had found out things about me. It had to be him.

I didn't know much what to do with this information. Well, if it was him, what I’m going to do now? Confront the poor man? I wouldn't dare. Besides, what I could to tell him? I couldn't be in love with him, however to much romantic his letters were. My heart has already an owner even if I wanted to deny it to myself. And although many times I shouted to the four winds I was looking for the love of my life, the truth is I had already found it. The problem is this love would never be corresponded. Of course, the good Dr. Reid was just my friend and I chose this before doing a stupidity and showing other feelings towards him and ruining our friendship. I was pondering about this while we were on our way to the jet for another case out of town. The same voice Spencer pulled me from my thoughts.

"Still thinking about your secret lover?" he asked sarcastically. I didn't like his tone, especially after what I was reflecting.

"Yeah. And so what if it were?". I replied abruptly.

"Nothing. It's okay. You don't have to be mad at me” he said, noticing my defensive tone.

“You men are incredible. To be honest. How a man can be so blind, so clumsy, so shy when he shouldn't and so bold when nobody asks to. A real disaster!”. I exclaimed with my arms up.

"Hey, I didn't do anything to you...". Spencer protested. I just shook my head and kept walking towards the jet.

"Well, at least now I know who is he". I mumbled dryly before boarding the jet without waiting for any response, not even hoping Spencer had heard what I said.

*******************************************

Was it true what she said before boarding the jet? Did she know who was sending her the letters? Is the reason why she was mad at me? But how can I be so stupid?, how I didn’t think she might find out at the end? Sure, I could defend myself, saying it was a joke. But it was it? I mean, at first, when the idea appeared to me it was just because I wanted to cheer her up a bit. (Y/N) looked so confused and sad. I never liked seeing her like that. Of course, my genius neurons sometimes doesn’t work in the way I would like. I thought writing her a letter and making her think she had a secret lover could get (Y/N) out of the lethargy in which she was sinking with her doubts and anxieties.

Apparently it had worked. After first letter, it was evident her mind began to wander and that cheered her up a bit. I didn't think it was a bad thing, but of course, she thought it was some kind of prank. Of course, she didn’t think someone in the FBI could fall in love with her. Why not? How about a second letter to make it clear to her? A little more bold than first one. And surprisingly to me, it seemed it was easier for me to put words on paper for her than I had thought myself. The goal was accomplished: she no longer believed it was a joke, but I had forgotten how obtuse and obsessive (Y/N) could be at times.

When I savored the pleasure of just write about my feelings for her, I started to do it with more enthusiasm. In several letters I let myself go enough to show how truly I see her. And yes, even if I had been tortured, I would have denied it to death. I wasn't going to admit I was hopelessly in love with (Y/N). Why should I? We are friends. Very good friends. She trusts me and I trust her. Why ruin our friendship for something I knew was never going to happen?. It wasn't even worth the try. After 5 years everyone assumed, and so did I, that we were meant to be friends forever, and just that, friends.

And now, after a series of letters I wrote to her, this friendship was about to break. I’m a real idiot. But before taking my responsibility in this disaster, I needed to find out more about what (Y/N) knew, because maybe only she assumed things. No one says she actually knew who was sending her these letters.

Cautiously I sat in one of the seats of the jet and began to scrutinize how (Y/N) was speaking with Emily and J.J. , all over the trip. (Y/N) looked annoyed. Damn it! Precisely that was not my idea! Just the opposite. She almost never made eye contact with me. And the time she did, her eyes revealed more annoyance. So apparently my suspicions were accurate. At moment I saw (Y/N) get up with Prentiss and go to talk to Tara and Luke. I had to find out what was going on, so I went to sit in front of J.J. to try to dig a bit about it.

"What's it Spence?" J.J. asked me once I sat and looked at her with my hands crossed on the table in front of us.

"I wanted to ask you about (Y/N)... is something wrong with her?". I asked in the most innocent way I could. She, however, raised an eyebrow and looked at me curiously.

"Why do you say something is wrong with (Y/N)?" She asked.

"Ehh, well... when we were boarding the jet she looked annoyed and she didn't want to tell me what was happening... then ...". I said trying not to stutter.

"You are worried" she interrupted. I nodded immediately.

"Is it all because of her secret lover?". I dared to ask.

"Do you know about that?" J.J. asked me. She not quite sure what I knew or didn't know.

" Yes, well... she showed me the letters...". I lied, of course.

"Well, I think we found out who he is...". I felt like I was having a hard time swallowing and some air was missing from my lungs.

"Ahhh, yeah?... wow... that's... interesting...". She nodded. "And... who is it?". I asked with fear of the answer.

"Anderson" she said confidently.

"What?, Anderson?... no way!...". I couldn't help but say it out loud. J.J. looked at me with 'shut up, they'll listen to you' eyes. (Y/N) believed Anderson sent the letters to her. I didn't know whether to feel relieved or defeated. "And how does she know it's him?"

“We discarded all the suspects from our list and we got to him. It has to be Anderson” she concluded. I swallowed harder than before and I could see she was analyzing my reaction. I tried to stay calm so as not to create suspicions.

"And... what is she going to do about it?" I asked, trying to keep my composure.

“That is what confuses her. I guess she is pondering what to do about this. So don't bother her, Spence. The poor girl is a mess of nerves” suggested JJ. I just nodded, got up from the seat and went where I was previously.

My head started to spin. (Y/N) thinks Anderson is her secret lover, and they have hardly spoken in all these years! Was I even on her list? Despite being partially relieved, my heart broke a little more. But it’s ok, it was confirmation of I already knew: 'ours' could never be a reality. Maybe it was better she thinks it was him.

*******************************************

The case was being quite demanding to get me out of my thoughts. But I still felt upset. Not with poor Anderson, not even Spencer anymore. With me. This matter was killing more of my neurons and nerves than it should. And, what would I do? Nothing, there was nothing I could do. I would just let time pass and if he didn't get close to me, I wouldn't. That would stopping letters at some point. I decided passivity would be the best strategy and I would let everything cool down.

And so I ceased thinking about it too. It was our third day in Texas and we had managed to locate our unsub. With part of the team we went to make the arrest: Luke, Emily, Spencer and me. When we arrived at the place, we noticed something strange was happening. There was no electricity in the house where our unsub was supposed to be. We had to get in, so we made pairs to cover two entrances. Prentiss and Spencer took the front door and Luke and I the back door . We got in with our lamps and scanned the place, there were no traces of our target. I noticed there was a door leading to some kind of basement, I motioned for Luke to come down with me. I was up front and he covered my back. What didn’t expecting was when I was in the middle of the stairs a hand took my foot making me fall down. Obviously I dropped my gun and the flashlight I was holding. Luke started down and before he got to where I was, I felt a strong blow to the head. After that I don't remember anything else.

*******************************************

With Prentiss we heard (Y/N) yelled from the back of the house, as well as Luke's voice shouting at someone to stop. We both ran to a door that led to a basement, we heard Luke fighting a man under the stairs. Emily immediately went downstairs to help Luke reduce the unsub, who was already badly hit so it wasn't difficult. I looked with my flashlight where it was (Y/N). Suddenly I saw her lying on the floor, unconscious. Luke yelled at me "call for an ambulance, this motherfucker hit her in the head". I froze for a second. I ran outside to alert paramedics who came to the aid of (Y/N) who was still on the floor and was not reacting. I panicked. They took her to the ambulance. In the already lit street I could see how her head was bleeding profusely. They put her in the ambulance and without thinking I got in with them. I wasn't going to leave her alone now. I held her hand. There was no reaction yet. Arriving at the hospital, I could only come with her to the emergency room entrance. From there she disappeared along with a whole medical team monitoring her vital signs. She was alive, but no one knew the severity of her injuries.

Sitting on one of the benches in the waiting room, panic didn’t leave me. True be told, it was not the first time (Y/N) had been injured during a case. But this was the first time I felt real fear for her health condition. More knowing we were not on good terms and she was possibly mad with me. I hated that feeling. I hated the feeling of knowing after all this mess my emotions were finally coming out stronger than before and maybe I wasn't even going to have a chance to open up to her about it.

I was deep in thought when Emily arrived with the entire team. They looked at me asking if there was any news. I just shook my head. Nothing was known about her yet. We all remained silent, waiting.

After what seemed like an eternity, a doctor came to talk to us.

"Family of (Y/N) (Y/L/N)?". We all stand up and approached to him. Emily spoke first seeing his visible confusion.

"We are her coworkers. How is she?" Prentiss asked.

“The hit to the head was quite strong. Fortunately, there is no major damage, except for an ugly bruise. But with painkillers and rest, she should get better with the days”. I felt my chest release from the tension. I was really relieved. We all were, really.

"Can we see her?" J.J. asked

"Yeah right. She is wake up. Follow me if you want” doctor said to JJ, but she didn’t move and on the contrary, looked directly at me.

"Spence, you should go first". I looked at her confused. She approached me and whispered in my ear: "I think it would be good if you saw her first, so you can explain to her about the letters...". I froze. How…?. I stared at her in a stun, trying for the millionth time to pretend I didn't know what she was talking about. “Don't ask me how, but I know. It's you. Don't torment her anymore, or torture yourself more with this” she said to me and went to sit where the rest was. In silence, I followed the doctor to the room where was (Y/N).

*******************************************

I love painkillers. They give you a feeling of relief and you think everything is fine, even though you know you are hurt and eventually you’ll feel as if a truck has hit you. But I didn’t care in that moment. Now I just enjoyed not feeling pain in my body. When I woke up in the hospital, I had a hard time remembering what had happened. With an intense white light blinding my eyes, I could only feel the beep of the machines and an intense pain dissipating as medicines were injected to me. There I realized what had happened. The entrance to the basement, the fall down the stairs, the knock to the head. ‘Damn bastard’ was all I thought.

In my medicinal lethargy, I had my eyes closed. My senses were lost in a parallel dimension where I could hear things around me, but without the need to be alert. That situation suddenly changed when I felt someone took my hand. I opened my eyes and saw Spencer looking at me very closely. You could tell he was inspecting my wounds. Hell, I bet I looked horrible.

"Hey ..." said Spencer when he saw I opened my eyes and was looking at him. I couldn't say anything, I just returned a smile. The truth is I was glad to see him. Plus his concerned face made him look more adorable than usual. "How do you feel?" he asked.

“At the moment… I don't feel any pain. But I know it’s going to hurt tomorrow". I said with a grimace.

"We were worried ... I was worried ..." he said muttering but in a level I could hear.

"I’m sorry it was not my intention…". I said.

"It's okay. It's not your fault. It is good to know that… you are ok”. His words were cautious. Apparently I did give them a hard time, I could guess. I also felt bad. I was aware I had treated Spencer harshly throughout these days. I had barely spoken to him, and that was unusual for us. I know he felt it too.

"Spencer... I’m sorry, ok?". He looked at me curiously.

"Why do you say that?"

"It’s I have treated you awful these days. Even before we got on the jet. Sorry, I didn't want to be mad at you"

"I’m the one who should apologize... I’ve been insensitive to you in this whole letters issue. I haven’t behaved like you needed"

"Hey, don't be so hard on yourself. I don't want to talk much about it, really. But it's not your fault…"

"Yes, it is…" he said with his usual stubbornness.

"Are we really going to argue over this?... no, stop it. Look. Furthermore, the matter is resolved. I know it’s Anderson who sends me the letters. And while I find it adorable, there's nothing I could do about it. I feel sorry for him, but it's not enough to… ”

"Falling in love with him...?" Spencer interrupted me.

"I was going to say it was not enough to tell him about this... but yes, I suppose there is implicitly the fact I’ll not fall in love with him". I said laughing. But my words didn't find any resonance in Spencer. On the contrary, he just stared at the floor. That was odd.

"But did you like the letters...?”. He asked in an almost inaudible voice.

“Yes, I liked them, they were very flattering, indeed. Yes, my ego went up. Yes, I found it exciting. But that’s it. I don't know if I can say much more about it. Is something wrong with you?". I saw how his hands trembled. What was wrong with him? I had never seen him like this before, at least in front of me.

 "And... what if I told you... isn’t Anderson who sent you those letters?..." he said, again in an almost imperceptible tone.

"But I know it was him... with Emily and J.J. we realized it after analyzing...". I was not able to finish the sentence, because I could see how Spencer's glassed eyes looked at me even more cautiously. He exhaled and began to speak again.

"And what is a kiss, specifically? A pledge properly sealed, a promise seasoned to taste, a vow stamped with the immediacy of a lip, a rosy circle drawn around the verb 'to love.' A kiss is a message too intimate for the ear, infinity captured in the bee's brief visit to a flower, secular communication with an aftertaste of heaven, the pulse rising from the heart to utter its name on a lover's lip: 'Forever'…” he recited almost without blinking or breathing. I recognized those words immediately. And no, it wasn't from any of the letters I showed him at the beginning, so he couldn't have memorized it... unless... fuck!

"It was you... it was you all this time...". I wasn't asking but I needed confirmation. He said nothing, just nodded. "But ... but why? What kind of prank was that Spencer?". The bastard had mocked me all this time!

"No! It was not for that. Wasn't a joke" he hastened to reply.

"No?... come on!... You wanted me to believe I had a secret lover on the FBI! It's not fair what you did. You played with my feelings and that's not fair…”

"It’s true you have a secret lover in the FBI!" he interrupted me, raising his broken voice.

"What?... now what are you going to fabricate this time...?". I said tiredly. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"Me. I'm your secret lover. I’m the one who loves you (Y/N). I love you. All the things I wrote, I wrote them thinking of you…” he said with a sigh of relief, as if a weight had been lifted from him. Sure, a weight that now fell on me.

"You what ...?". My head started to spin. Was Spencer Reid declaring his love for me in a hospital room?

"Yes, I must to recognize letters started because of the conversation we had one day where you told me you felt your life lacked emotion. I wanted to cheer you up a little, get you out of the routine. But... it finally became an excuse to me for tell you how I feel about you. Those I have felt for so long and I have never dared to say. And it's ok. I don't expect you to feel the same way about me. And if this means losing you as a friend, I'd rather never have. I can't bear to see you mad at me. I couldn't bear you to get away from me because of my stupidity… it doesn't make sense for me… I'm so sorry…” . By now I was sitting on the hospital bed, struggling if I got up to go to the bathroom or run out of there. It was a lot to process in that minute. Was I angry?. Was I excited?. Was I confused?. I think everything at once. I felt a knot in my stomach that made me nauseous. My eyes began to accumulate tears. My jaw began to hurt from clenching it too much.

"So... what is written on these letters... is it true?... is it what you feel?" I dared to ask, since I wasn't sure if I was understanding everything correctly. He nodded.

"Yes. I think the only thing I doubt so far was if I really can see your soul through your eyes… but that was the only metaphor that came to my mind the first time…” he said with a shy smile. I just laughed. He is an adorable dork. A dork I love with all my heart. If this is the chance, then... ok. I needed to take it. From the edge of the bed where I was sitting covered in my hospital gown, I reached out my hand to reach his. Spencer trembled a little when he felt my touch, but he relaxed when I managed to held his hand. I gently pulled him closer to me.

"I think we are both lousy profilers when it comes to ourselves, don't you think?". I said with a smile. Spencer snorted.

"Hey... precisely speaking you were the one who failed...". I shook my head.

"You still don't understand it? Do you? ... You also failed. Miserably. I can't believe you still don't realize I'm crazy about you. For so long that I can't even remember it”. I said as I kept stroking his hand. Spencer opened his eyes in real amazement, validating my theory of how bad we were by applying our profiler skills to each other.

"(Y/N)... so... are you...?". I nodded as I pulled him closer to me. I raised my head to find those beautiful eyes that ruined to me since the first time I saw them.

"I’m… lost, stupidly, grandiosely, incredibly… in love with you”. I said wrapping his torso with my arms. He returned my embrace pressing me against his chest.

"Though this confirms your theory, I am thrilled..." he proclaimed. We both laugh. Breaking the embrace, he stared at me and with his hands cupped my face, leaning enough to get us face-to-face. I just closed my eyes. It wasn't more a second until I felt his lips on mine. A long soft kiss. A kiss I had waited for so long. I’d have paid to stay like this forever, despite the discomfort of the hospital room. It was better than I even imagined. And although it happened as a result of our own missteps, it felt so good. As if fate really existed and was good for both of us. When we broke the kiss, we both smiled to each other like fools.

"Spencer ...?" I asked. He looked at me with the 'What?' implicit in his eyes. "Can I request you two things?" He nodded. "First one, could continue writing me letters like those occasionally?... Of course, now you must signed them properly". Spencer couldn't help but laugh.

"Ok. I think I can do that time to time. ¿And the second?". Spencer asked as he gently stroked my face with both of his hands.

"The second one: please don't let Anderson find out about this..."

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